Just this last week I read another report of a writer friend who is considering no longer doing speculative fiction. To be accurate, the word “speculative” wasn’t part of the equation, but since that’s what he writes, that’s a given.

He’s not alone. In a comment to his post, another writer said they were considering the same thing.

In a group of speculative writers, more than one have “sung their swan song,” expressed their frustration at low sales and much work, and have decided to hang it up.

This is not exactly new. I know of a speculative writer who wrote in obscurity for years. Eventually he got a contract with a traditional publisher who put out his fantasy trilogy and received . . . dismal sales. So he decided, enough.

Then there’s the middle grade writer who had a similar experience. Not the “writing in obscurity” part exactly. He’d written nonfiction and work for hire for years. In other words he’d paid his writing dues, honed his skill, then when the opportunity came, . . . sales were not there.

Some of these writers I’m talking about primarily are self-published. Some have been contracted by a traditional press.

At the other end of the spectrum are writers who self-publish and do quite well or writers who started out with contracts from small presses and now have contracts with major traditional publishers. Yes, these too are speculative writers.

What are we to conclude from these circumstances?

1) Some people have no clue how to market and no will to do so. Apparently they have no desire to learn, either, or to bring someone on board who can help with that end of the writing and publishing experience.

2) Some people are publishing prematurely. They, much as I did when I was new to writing fiction, think they’re ready when they aren’t ready. They apparently haven’t put their work in front of anyone who will give them knowledgeable feedback. Are there plot holes? Are these characters realistic? Is there tension, clarity, conflict, resolution? And on and on. Too many “beta readers” make their evaluation based on the fact that they like this person and they want them to be happy, so they give a story a thumbs up when it really needs much more work.

I see what I can only assume to be novels that have received this kind of approval which then end up in contests. They hold no chance against the novels from authors who have learned the craft, received the critiquing, editing, proofing from an established team of professionals.

But remember, good writing doesn’t mean good promotion.

3) Some people write what they like and are unaware what the majority of readers want. I kind of think that’s the case when it comes to “Christian horror.” Yes, I do know some people are firmly in the corner of this genre. They believe in it. But from what I’ve seen, readers who embrace horror aren’t particularly interested in a “Christian” aspect, and Christians aren’t particularly eager to read the horror aspect.

Of course there is the factor that many in Christian leadership still do not understand the pretend element of speculative fiction. Just this week I heard a pastor mention dark elements such as vampires as a thing to avoid. Are they wrong? Not categorically, but neither are they right. There is perhaps more evil displayed in “realistic fiction” that never gets thrown into the classification of “dark.” Yet it belongs there more than any pretend monster story.

There is one more issue connected with writing Christian fiction—some writers believe speculative fiction needs to tell the truth about God and spiritual forces. I’ve read some books that do a remarkable job showing demons and angels in the same way the Bible does, for instance. On the other hand I’ve read books that have humans traveling to hell and back, demon hunters battling evil by means that can only be referred to as superstition, angels getting trapped on earth and unable to return to heaven.

The question is, if someone is writing Christian fiction, what do Christians want to read? My guess is, they’d choose to read books that do not distort or twist facts about the supernatural that God has shown us.

But what about Christians writing fiction that isn’t telling any spiritual truth? Their stories are just intended to be good stories.

Yes, I’ve heard over and over that their Christian worldview will inevitably leak into their story, but is that attractive or off-putting to the general market? I know of one writer who wanted to make a difference among young adult readers by creating a “clean” story. Yet in the end, their characters entered into relationships that were no different from someone writing from a different worldview. Apparently that’s what the story demanded, and holding on to a “puritanical” approach would have been off-putting to the general market readership.

Will writers who hold to Christian values in their stories also hold their readers? Or find their readers? Must they write to Christians only?

I happen to think that the world desperately needs to hear what Christians have to say. The world needs hope and healing from sin, but the truth is there is only false hope in “looking for the power within,” or the “man is good, you just need to show him empathy” approach to life.

So where does that leave Christians and speculative fiction? I guess the key is to take a hard look at the books that are “making it,” the books in the general market and in the Christian market and those that are self-published and selling well. What do they have that the others do not?

I’d be interested in your ideas. Do you know any books that are doing well—selling in the thousands—whether self-published, traditionally published (by small or large, Christian or general market, publishers)? What do they do that allows readers to find them and want to read them?

An event has happened to me is leading me to comment on accidents that happen to produce art. Examples, a brief explanation, and an application to the universe as we know it, follow below.

Note the new series I just launched is on hold for this week, because Travis Chapman and I are discussing joining forces and combining his ideas and mine concerning a guide to warfare into one book. (Perhaps if we do work together, we ought to call ourselves “Travis Squared” 🙂 )

But on the topic of accidents in art, I found a quotation on this topic from Leonardo da Vinci, in which he advised budding artists with creative block to leave behind a blank canvas and stare at the stains on walls: ‘If you look upon an old wall covered with dirt, or the odd appearance of some streaked stones, you may discover several things like landscapes, battles, clouds, uncommon attitudes, humorous faces, draperies, etc. Out of this confused mass of objects, the mind will be furnished with an abundance of designs and subjects perfectly new.” (I found this quote from an edition of Tate online, which has a very interesting article on this subject.)

A specific example of this kind of thing is found in ink blot art, as in the work by Justinus Kerner in 1890. Kerner added faces to random inkblots, making them into bizarre little fairies–or tiny demonic figures.

An example I like better is in Victor Hugo’s “Octupus With the Initials V.” Hugo took a piece of paper that he’d written on by hand, with an ink pen of his day, and looked at the back of the page. In some places, ink had soaked into the page from the front enough that it was visible in traces in the back. Hugo saw a pattern in the blotches and created a octopus figure out of it–and octopus with one of its tentacles shaped in the form of a letter V (from “V”ictor Hugo’s own name, it seems).

You might think perhaps Hugo only created a rather interesting doodle out of this. But in fact, both this octopus and Kerner’s work and many other examples of this kind of thing are considered serious art. (It seems Surrealists in particular were impressed with Hugo’s work.)

My own example of accidental creation came from a pair of book covers. One was for the book Mythic Orbits 2016 (a book I’ve published at Bear Publications), in which a real photo taken from the International Space Station formed the backdrop. On the front cover, the reflection of a castle in space is visible in an astronaut’s visor, but on the back, a robotic camera with an arm is present.

For the front of Mythic Orbits Volume 2 (Amazon site linked here) I asked Arpit Mehta (his Facebook page “Visuals by Arpit” is linked here) to continue the story of the astronaut by having him turn back, revealing the reflection of a dragon in his visor. (I plan to continue the story through future Mythic Orbits covers, the astronaut trying to escape the dragon, then riding it, taking it to the castle in space, etc.)

I had the original idea that the astronaut would not necessarily be turned 180 degrees backwards and that the robot would still be there somewhere, but unimportant and therefore off camera because the dragon would fly up through space to where the astronaut was. What actually happened was that Arpit picked an image of the dragon that occupies roughly the same shape and position as the robot. He didn’t do that on purpose.

So when I looked at the two covers, side by side, I realized what had happened. The backstory for the creation of the covers I’d imagined changed in my mind, so that the dragon didn’t replace the robot–the robot transformed into a dragon!

Being who I am, I wasn’t content to just go, “That’s cool!” and move on with my life. No, I had to think about what this means, what it implies about the nature not only of creation, but of the Creation, the universe itself.

You see, there are many people in the world who with straight faces regard the creation of the universe as what would in effect be a piece of self-generating artwork. They would say that serendipity does in fact happen at times–that beauty at times emerges out of chaos–and that given enough time and the right circumstances, the random churning of the universe creates occasional useful order out of chaos. Which happened to make you and me and everything else of value, they would say.

To this point of view I agree that randomness (or apparent randomness) can produce unexpected beauty or unexpected usefulness at times–but notice that Kerner and Hugo took a piece of randomness, saw a pattern in it, and made artwork. Their minds, their ability to see a pattern and make something out of it, was an essential part of the process.

And I created a story in my mind, which I modified when I noticed an unexpected commonality between two images.

But without any mind at all, there would be no recognition of art, no transformation of randomness into images or in my case, into a plot twist. In fact, without mind, there’s no art at all.

Are we really supposed to believe that creation–what I could call here, “useful art”–came first? And then minds who could appreciate the useful art which generated them came later? Isn’t it so much more straightforward to say that Mind (as in the Divine Mind) appeared first and the artwork came second? Artist first, then art?

But to return to the original topic after having made that point–since this post is going out to a group that includes many writers: What examples do you have of the unexpected events, accidents, which transformed your stories? And have you had examples of this sort of thing happen in other situations other than your stories?

Against my better judgment, I recently saw the Jason Statham vs. giant shark brawl The Meg in theaters. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it was plenty awful. If you’re looking for a cheesy popcorn movie to fill a late summer afternoon, go for it. I must say that I was pretty impressed with the Megalodon special effects (entirely CGI, unlike monster movies of yore that used animatronics and people in rubber suits). CGI can be less scary than real-life effects, but that’s neither here nor there. What got me thinking was: where have all the monsters gone?

Everyone knows that the world used to be the stomping ground for terrifying behemoths. Fossils fill our museums and imaginations (and movie screens) with monstrous creatures that make today’s largest animals seem cute. No one can deny the fascination of dinosaurs – in my early teens, I became practically obsessed after seeing Jurassic Park on the big screen when I was 11 years old. And while the land dwellers get most of the attention, just Google “prehistoric sea monsters” and you’ll find a horde of monstrosities big enough to gobble a T. Rex in just a few bites. The Megalodon is probably the most famous, with a length equal to a school bus and a mouth large enough to swallow a great white shark in one gulp. Jaws is just a guppy compared to this bad boy.

Thankfully, our world today is free from these mega-predators and jungle-stompers. Cryptozoologists relentlessly pursue the possibility that creatures such as the Loch Ness monster (a plesiosaur) or Mokele Mbembe (an apatosaur) still lurk in our lakes and forests. and for those of us who prefer to keep our monsters fictional, our entertainment is stuffed to the gills with giants who seem to have a grudge against our biggest cities. I know my opinion is unpopular, but I hated Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim and I thoroughly enjoyed Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla. During the ads before The Meg, the next Godzilla film was previewed and it looks to be the most monstrous film of the 21st century.

Why aren’t dinosaurs roaming the earth today or giant sharks eating fishing boats whole? I’m no paleontologist, but I do believe in a literal Genesis creation account and a literal worldwide flood. I believe that the dinosaurs were created right alongside kittens and monkeys, and they would have been nearly wiped out in the flood, aside from the pairs that Noah brought inside the ark. So what made them die out while other species thrived? Many books from a creationist perspective have been written on the subject, and the prevailing theory is that the post-flood world just wasn’t suitable for their kind anymore. It does stand to reason that in a flooded world, food would have been scarce, and big animals need a lot of food. The biggest land animals today are a fraction of the size of the dinosaur skeletons that have been unearthed. I’ve read news stories of rampaging elephants in Africa and India; can you imagine the damage an irritated Brachiosaurus would cause?

Many people point to the descriptions of the behemoth and leviathan in the book of Job as evidence that dinosaurs still existed after the flood. Job is the oldest book of the Bible, predating Moses, and even though a post-flood world would have been inhospitable to dinosaurs, they wouldn’t have just died off right away. We may never know what animals God was referring to in that book, but I can say that I am glad they’re not traipsing around today (unless you hold to the laughable theories that a behemoth and leviathan are a hippopotamus and an alligator, respectively).

I admit that I have less insights into why these oceans aren’t still teeming with monsters, though as movies like The Meg point out, there is still so much in our oceans that we don’t know about. It is obvious that prehistoric monsters aren’t swimming around in droves, and this is a good thing. The fact that our world is largely free of giant-sized predators is very fortunate, and very likely ordained by God. Seeing as how creation groans and struggles against itself, the presence of massive predators would create enormous problems for the human race. We’ve caused a lot of problems ourselves, but unlike the animals, we are made in God’s image, and we are the first priority. Personally, I’m glad the dinosaurs are extinct.

…Or are they?

It’s been months since I sat down to watch Thanos wield Infinity Stones in Avengers: Infinity War.

[Editor’s note: Beware spoilers, starting in the very next sentence.]

And it’s taken me nearly as long to fully wrap my brain around Gamora’s death. It was meant to be disturbing and heartbreaking, yet there was something much deeper at work than the evil of Thanos.

In true Isaac and Abraham fashion, Gamora followed her adopted father, Thanos, the film’s antagonist, to the top of a mountain to serve as a human sacrifice. Yet unlike Isaac, Gamora’s life was not spared. In order to obtain the infinity stone and fulfill his plan to rid the universe of half its population, Thanos had to sacrifice someone he loved.

Before the plan is revealed, Gamora has a few stinging words for the man who raised her:

“The universe has judged you. You asked it for a prize and it told you, ‘No.’ You failed. And do you wanna know why? Because you love nothing. No one!”

When Gamora finally realized Thanos meant to kill her to obtain the infinity stone, she said, “No. This isn’t love.” She then attempted suicide to keep her father from the stone that will kill billions of people. Yet, her dagger turned to bubbles in her hand. Thanos proceeded to throw Gamora off a cliff, and the stone became his.

At first I thought this was a plot hole. How can one kill someone they love for their own selfish gain? It’s impossible, and the infinity stone should have been impossible to obtain at all—a trick for those selfish enough to seek it.

Instead, it’s a deep misunderstanding of what love is. Love is not affection, it’s self-sacrifice for the good of another. This is the gospel of Christ who laid down his life for undeserving sinners. We also see this in the famous love chapter in 1 Corinthians 13:5: “[love] does not insist on its own way.” Affection is what I feel for my dog. It was affection, not love, is what Thanos felt for his “favorite” daughter.

And yet, one could argue that what he felt for her was even less than affection. It was a kind of twisted parental pride that uses a child for their own gain—to shape them into image bearers of the parent rather than God.

Only Gamora exhibits real love when she attempted to take her own life. She was doing everything she could to keep Thanos from murdering so many. The “love” Thanos thought he had for Gamora wasn’t real love. Gamora says this repeatedly. The audience knows it isn’t love. The filmmakers know it isn’t love. Yet, Thanos ended up with the stone nonetheless. Why? Besides the fact that the ending was dependant on his collecting all the stones, why make it possible to obtain one like this?

This summer, Timothy Keller spoke at the Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast in the Houses of Parliament in London. The topic of his speech was, “What Can Christianity Offer Our Society in the 21st Century?” Keller explains how Christianity has been the historical meat of moral goodness, and that without a divine source of virtue and self-sacrificial love, society will not be able to bear up under the weight of its moral ideals.

“Can we form people anymore in our society who can support those ideals because those ideals take self-sacrifice…. We tell people, especially our young people, we say, ‘You’ve gotta be true to yourself. You’ve gotta follow your own inner light. You can’t let anybody tell you what is right or wrong for you. And not only do you have to be true to yourself, you have to be true to yourself no matter what your family says, no matter what your community says, no matter what your society says. You don’t sacrifice for them. You make them adjust to you.’ But then we say to them, ‘But then you actually have to work for justice. You have to work to alleviate hunger.’ Which of course takes sacrifice. … So how are they gonna do that?”

The people who made Avengers: Infinity War have these same high ideals that Keller is talking about. They know killing your daughter isn’t love, but they don’t understand it deeply enough. Had they understood what Christianity does, Thanos would have left the mountaintop either without the stone or with Gamora alive. Without that divine source of virtue, their ideals are shaky at best. They appear like plot holes in our lives and in our stories.

Keller goes on to read an atheist review of the book, Sources of the Self by Charles Taylor:

“Perseverance and virtue will require self-sacrifice, and self-sacrifice seems to require some transcendental justification or motivation in which the most common, perhaps the most logical, is belief in God…. Since modern freedom entails the rejection of all transcendence, modern virtue is wholly contingent. Can we be good for long without God?”

But despite the moral relativism that is overtaking our culture, people continue to tell stories in which the hero does value others before themselves. And why is that when the modern mantra to be true to yourself regardless of others is so prolific? It’s due only to common grace: the blessings and knowledge that God bestows on all mankind. On a deep, innate level, we understand that there is something truly beautiful about a hero laying down their life for others. Like Christ on the cross, self-sacrifice is the very best kind of story.

Without Christ, our stories are full of holes. They are warped images of half-truths. With Christ, we have the capability to love others like he loved us: sacrificially.

C. S. Lewis has many quotable quotes, and among them is one that capsulizes the point and purpose of fantasy,

When he was a boy, Lewis grew to love mythology. Years later, when he was struggling as an atheist against Christianity, he came to realize that the gospel is the “true myth,” the story of the real hero, the One who rescues us.

In addition he came to a place he called “joy” in his autobiography, a place that surprised him, because it was unplanned and unexpected; a place that filled him with deep satisfaction but at the same time with a thirst, a longing that the experience could continue.

In Mere Christianity, he elaborated on this place. This is the world for which we were actually created:

The Christian says, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.

As it turns out, author V.E. Schwab, in her talk, “In Search of Doors” given at the 2018 J.R.R. Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature at Pembroke College, Oxford, echoed Lewis’s thoughts, though she likely hasn’t read them. After all, she began her talk by saying she had not read Tolkien. Rather, her gateway into fantasy was Harry Potter. I imagine generations of writers will hereafter point to J. K. Rowling as the great influence for their love of fantasy. But that’s beside the point.

Schwab, in her talk, expressed the same concept of desire for something which can’t be satisfied in this world:

I was the kind of child who scoured the piled stone hills behind my grandmother’s house in Tahoe, looking for cracks shaped like doorways, grooves shaped like keyholes. I would run my hands over the rocky surface and try to remember a magic I’d never known. A password I convinced myself I’d simply forgotten. I told myself that if I could just remember the right word, the door would open, and I would find that other world I was so convinced was there. That was my youth—spent looking for doors. Not because I was unhappy—I had the kind of loving upbringing that registers in your memory as a painting instead of a film, a still life. My mother is a dreamer, and my father is a diabetic, and aside from her occasional outbursts and his occasional episodes, it was a perfectly stable, if rather solitary, childhood.

I searched for ways out not because I was miserable, or lost, but because I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more. That the world was bigger and stranger and more magical than the one I could see. I suppose, in some ways, it was my version of faith. A belief in something you cannot see, cannot prove. But you search for it all the same. (“In Search of Doors,” as reproduced at Tor.com)

As Lewis so astutely said all those years ago, we have these desires that can’t be fulfilled in this world because we were made for the more that Schwab describes. Lewis, however also cautioned that we should not set our affections on the copy, on the pretend country of Narnia, instead of on the real country to which Narnia points.

We as readers and writers can, and should, look for more. Part of the wonder of fantasy is discovering a world like Hogwarts or Middle Earth that transports us. But those are sign posts, not the real thing. And that is the caution we should always keep in front of us. Because Lewis was right about our desires and what surprises us and what we are so often tempted to do with our longings.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “trope” as “a common or overused theme or device: cliché.”

Tropes are everywhere, establishing themselves into our cultures and stories over time, and they aren’t necessarily bad. Although we might get tired of certain recurring story elements, as Ecclesiastes 1:9 states, “There is no new thing under the sun.”

This week we feature S. E. M. Ishida and her novel Nick Newton is Not a Genius in Lorehaven Book Clubs. Stop by the flagship book club on Facebook to learn more about this story.

Subscribe to Lorehaven Magazine for free to download our new summer 2018 issue.

And as one of my writing professors remarked, readers want the same—but different.

Tropes can be useful, like story shorthand. If I see a book cover with a lady in a dress and a bonnet surrounded by flowers, I’m going to guess it’s romance. If I see a book cover with an armored figure facing a dragon, I’m going to guess it’s high fantasy. We expect the lead characters to fall in love by the end of a romance, and we accept the existence of mythical creatures in a fantasy novel.

Tropes also go beyond just giving us a means of categorizing existing stories. Tropes can be springboards for discovering new adventures. After all, tropes can be broken. My story, Nick Newton Is Not a Genius, works in part because we already have so many stories about child geniuses. I think that the prevalence of the child genius trope helps boost the appeal of a character like Nick.

However, tropes have a more dangerous counterpart. When traits are repeatedly applied to characters or real people, whether or not these groups actually have those traits, we get stereotypes.

Stories have the power to impact our perceptions about people’s gender, ethnicity, and more. In Jesus’ parable in Luke 10, he goes against the grain of a prevalent stereotype from his own culture. He features a Samaritan in a positive light, and the expression “good Samaritan” still resonates with us today.

The Scripture narrative includes other accounts in which God acts contrary to human expectations. Paul writes:

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.¹

Moses says, “I am not eloquent…I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue” (Exodus 4:10). I find it particularly amusing that Moses says this after God performs two miracles before his own eyes. And yet, Moses was the same man who “stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided” (Exodus 14:21).

When going to find the new king, Samuel looks at seven of Jesse’s sons, but the Lord hasn’t chosen any of them. Rather, he chose David, the youngest, who was away taking care of the sheep. God says, “Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature … for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart” (I Samuel 16:7).

Jesus himself didn’t even match people’s expectations. When he rode into Jerusalem, his audience cried, “Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord” (John 12:13). Jesus saved the world—but not in a way that even his closest followers had anticipated.

Present-day Christian culture comes with its own tropes and stereotypes, and speculative fiction isn’t always expected, understood, or embraced in Christian social circles. But I am thankful that we don’t serve a God who demands cookie cutter characters or predictable plots. If you ever feel like a freak, maybe, by our culture’s standards, you are. But just remember—you’re in good company. “Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord” (Psalm 31:24).

Subscribe to Lorehaven

“Children and grown-ups alike will be charmed by this gentle, creative tale.”
— Lorehaven Magazine

Explore S. E. M. Ishida’s novel Nick Newton is Not a Genius in the Lorehaven Library.

Read our full review exclusively from the summer 2018 issue of Lorehaven Magazine!

Today I’m launching a new series. (Or maybe I ought to say, “I’m harnessing my regular writing slot for Speculative Faith to motivate myself to write a book that’s been on my mind for years.” 🙂 ) My goal is to make a comprehensive guide to warfare, from beginning to end, from fantasy war based in the legendary past, to futuristic science fiction conflict. And we’ll start at the beginning–reasons. Why does anybody go to war in the first place? What causes conflict? And how do you use that knowledge to write a better story?

When discussing causes of human behavior in general, you’ll find that there’s much speculation and disagreement–and the subject of war is no exception to that. It’s not even universally agreed upon if war is natural to human beings. For almost all known societies over the entire world throughout all of known human history, at least on occasion wars are fought and at least a little formal training for warfare exists. Though it is also true that human beings in general show signs of having a natural aversion to killing one another–if we did not have such an aversion, training warriors to fight would not be necessary.

In terms of why wars begin, the Wikipedia article on war fairly represents the topic when it lists seven major categories of theories of reasons wars begin (Psychoanalytic, Evolutionary, Economic, Marxist, Demographic, Rationalist, and Political Science), many of which have sub-categories. In other words, there’s a lot of disagreement about this topic.

This Writer’s Guide for Speculative Fiction authors (which is focused on science fiction and fantasy) takes the view that warfare among human beings stems from aspects of human nature that are common to all human societies, but which require certain societal elements to exist before they can be expressed in warfare. In spite of occasional allegations of completely peaceful societies, there has never been a human society which has no concept of crime in general and murder in particular.  Murder–in which one human being kills another for reasons the society does not see as valid–is very rare in some societies, but exists everywhere human beings live. Likewise, even in societies that practice sharing of resources, it still happens that people disagree over who gets what at what time on occasion, leading to conflict. Even in tribal societies that are very egalitarian, at times there is disagreement or even conflict about who will be in charge of a particular action. And even in tribal societies without a formal law code, it’s true that sometimes fighting occurs within the group over perceived injustice–usually relating to issues of crime, yes, but fighting can also erupt when a group of human beings cannot agree about what is and is not just or fair or right.

Murder, fighting over resources, fighting over position in a society, and disagreement over the rules can each be phrased in terms of a human trait that is the primary cause of each of these actions. While hatred is not be the only cause of murder, it’s a major one. While it may be possible to fight over resources without greed or envy, feelings of at least envy usually accompany such a fight. Seeking prominence over others is usually (fairly) associated with pride, and disagreement over the rules appeals to the innate human sense of justice. Hatred, envy (or greed), pride, and justice–all human societies express these traits to some degree or other. Note that the first three of these traits are generally seen as vices–and justice itself can be a vice, if misapplied.

Though not all human societies go to war, even if all societies have the traits that cause war. But even societies that don’t go to war, if they were invaded by others, would be able to define what’s happening based on the principles they already know. That’s true even if they are shocked by the level of brutality involved. For example: “Those people are murdering us to take our water!”

In speculative fiction contexts, it may be that fantasy races or alien species literally would have no concept of war and wouldn’t have any conflict within their societies either. Such people probably would not even realize they should run away when attacked, not immediately anyway. But in discussing warfare, let’s start with the baseline reasons of what is known about human beings first and then afterwards adapt that to non-human societies.

So if the reasons behind human conflict are found in all human societies, why is it that not all societies actually go to war?

The societies that don’t go to war fall into two groups: 1) tribal societies that occupy a niche in which war is unlikely 2) deliberately pacifist societies that come out of warlike societies and which consciously reject war.

The number 2 societies probably require the least explanation. They usually are part of a religious order that teaches that all human being are valuable, so killing any of them is wrong (think Amish or Mennonites or groups like them, or various monastic orders, or Jainists)–or on occasion are non-religious organizations that have high intellectual ideals that include rejection of violence (like some Israeli Kibbutzim). People raised in these societies who are taught to believe war is wrong usually live up to their beliefs and refuse to go to war.

Number 1 societies include tribes that are so geographically isolated that it’s very hard for them to make contact with other groups, let alone fight them. It also includes groups that occupy an ecological niche that other groups are not interested in. Example for both: Imagine a tribe living in a small oasis in a desert which is surrounded by well-watered lands–it may be that other tribes prefer to fight one another over the well-watered lands rather than cross the desert, leaving the oasis tribe to live in peace.

Note the existence of isolated groups that do not engage in warfare at all is the reason some anthropologists argue war is not natural to human beings. They imagine that the original state of the human race consisted of this type of isolated tribes that did not ever fight each other–only later when, say, agriculture was developed, could a society have surplus food to pay people to train for warfare full-time.

While it is true that desperately poor societies cannot afford to pay for a warrior caste, some tribal groups have existed in which everyone (or in most cases, every male) in the tribe was a warrior. That has been especially true for groups that live in areas that make for easy travelling and which have resources which are easily stolen (think the animals that pastoral nomads keep). These groups are usually the among the most warlike of all human beings.

So it seems there’s an element of necessity in who is and who is not warlike. Those who are vulnerable to attack are more likely to be aggressive (in self-defense) but the issue of resources also raises its head here.

Fighting over resources, whether water or food or even gold for societies that use precious metals, seems to be the primary reason for people to go to war. To either take or defend what they perceive they need. Humans also seem show a preference for not fighting over resources if they don’t have to–that is, societies which are vulnerable to loss of resources organize themselves to defend those resources, but ones who can obtain what they want or need “for free,” are much more peaceful–which is where the natural aversion to killing others seems to come into play. It does seem to be true that while some individuals may chose to kill (in the criminal sense) in any society, only societies who perceive they need train themselves in warfare actually do so. And that perceived need is mainly based on access to resources–though again note that almost all humans, historically speaking, have perceived a need to organize to protect resources, so this isn’t anything unusual. A pacifistic society is much more exceptional than a warlike one.

Note that while hatred of others may cause one person to kill another within a tribe and relates to a reason for warfare, it’s actually not usually the main cause of a war–but it can be an important catalyst. Especially because human beings are very quick to define other humans in terms of those who are part of our “in-group” and those who are part of an “out-group” (quotations are there because these are standard terms, though not necessarily ones I prefer). Humans find it much easier to hate someone who is not part of the in-group. When humans start thinking of the out-group as being less than human, which may not be limited to but certainly involves hating them, it becomes easier to go to war against them. Hating another human being to the degree that they are thought of as less than human, or another group of human beings, helps overcome the natural aversion to killing them.

Some people would elevate the fact humans divide into groups easily as a major cause of warfare. This tribalism in modern form can bleed over into racism and extreme nationalism, which certainly have been involved in many wars.  While I agree that tribalism is important, that’s because we humans find it easier to hate those outside the tribe than those in it–tribalism itself is not the issue as much as hatred is. Without hatred and the willingness to kill empowered by hatred, tribalism or nationalism is mostly harmless–they amount to trivial things like which flag you wave at the Olympics.

Note that envy over resources in an environment in which conditions are harsh can easily become greed, in which one or both sides of a fight actually have enough to survive, but are striving for more anyway, hoarding gold like legendary dragons. Greed is a major cause of warfare–one nation or tribe seeking to take from another something it may not really need, but definitely wants. Think of Cortez’s conquest of the Aztecs, or even more so, Pizarro and the Inca, in which lust for gold, land, and women drove the Spanish conquest forward.

Pride (or prestige) as a motivation for warfare is a bit more complex. Societies that develop a warrior class usually laud praise on their warriors–and rightly so under many circumstances. They are, after all, protecting the in-group, and providing for resources people either need to survive or don’t need but want anyway.

There’s quite a bit to be gained in being a successful warrior in terms of how well others treat you. Certainly Cortez and Pizarro not only were greedy for gold, they knew in the warlike society of Spain, they would be admired as conquerors. They’d be given prestigious titles–they’d be seen as heroes (and they were then, though not anymore). Those who like to put things in evolutionary terms say the prestige successful warriors gain gives them the opportunity to produce more children, which they see as a basic drive. While it is certainly true that the prestige warriors have heaped upon them may help them marry and reproduce, the historic warriors who have reproduced the most did not have women flock to them because of their prestige as much as they took the women they wanted because of their desire to have them (greed/lust)–think Genghis Khan.

While it is sometimes true that a warrior caste will seek to go to war because of the prestige or honor involved (honor is how they’d put it), going to war simply because they can (like Klingon warriors) is actually not as common as fighting over resources. But having a warrior caste with intrinsic reasons to fight can certainly be a catalyst for a war.

Fighting for justice is not often listed as a reason for warfare by experts on the topic, but should be. When we think of wars of religion, weren’t people fighting because they think their religion is right (just) and the other religion (or lack of religion) is unjust? When revolutions happen, such as the French or American Revolutions, wasn’t part of the fighting taking place over perceived injustices and abuses? Like taxation without representation? Or anger at the abuses caused by the so-called divine right of a monarch?

Note that a sense of justice can be a catalyst for warfare in a different way that other traits listed here. People want to think of themselves as being in the right and it is much easier to defend violence that is perceived to be honorable than to do so for other reasons. Please recognize that’s true even if you assume there is such a thing as just war (and I believe there is). The existence of just war does not mean that every single appeal to justice is actually fair or true.

Often nations have a stated reason for war that’s different from their actual reason. The stated reason for the Crusades was that they were about justice–Muslims were heaping abuses on Christians in the Holy Land and furthermore had no right to be there as far as the Crusaders were concerned. Yet the actual reasons had a lot to do with overpopulated European territories, looking for lands (and resources) elsewhere, a warrior caste in Europe itching to go war (for the prestige involved), and the fact it was easy to see the Muslims as an “out-group,” not only because they were perceived as racially different, but more importantly because they did not share the Crusaders’ religion.

The “real” causes of the Crusades has been debated widely and will continue to be debated. Even if we grant that the Crusades really were about perceived injustice (a.k.a. a war of religion), it’s ridiculous to think Cortes and Pizarro invaded the Aztec and Inca Empires in order to right the wrongs those empires perpetuated, including their perceived errors of religion. Yes, the consquistadores probably felt better about themselves bringing priests along to justify some of their actions in the rhetoric of spreading their faith (which they would see as undoing injustice)–but their greed for gold, land, and women is well-documented as their primary motivation.

To leap to a much more recent example, did the United States really enter World War I “to make the world safe for democracy” (as US President Wilson stated)? Well, partially–the motives were to protect American shipping and businesses, but also there was a sense of justice involved, especially over widely-reported German abuses in Belgium (called in the press at the time, “the Rape of Belgium“). And also important was a wave of anti-German hysteria that swept through America–hatred of the other, the Germans, our enemies, the “Huns” as seen in the classic poster. (Note the imagery of the “Hun” is of a savage, barbaric invader from the East.)

You’d find if you dug into details that there were layers of motivations for the entire country, the basic causes interacting in a complex way. And also that the motives for going to war for a single soldier varied a great deal from soldier to soldier in that conflict–which would be likewise true for almost every war. Motives probably even varied for the same individual soldier at different moments.

And while the reasons for a nation going to war are more complicated than those of a single soldier in that nations often primarily seek to gain what they want by negotiation and only go to war when negotiations break down (as reflected in the war theorist Carl von Clauswitz saying, “war is the continuation of politics by other means”), the same basic reasons apply to all wars, even when political factors not named in this post are also involved (such as a nation overestimating its ability to win a war).

I’d say there are four basic causes of wars, listed in order of actual importance for most conflicts (though the order does in fact vary from war to war and person to person as mentioned above):

1. Resources (or as a vice, greed/envy)
2. Tribalism (as a vice, hatred of other groups)
3. Prestige (pride)
4. Justice (as a vice, false justice or religious extremism)

In order of stated importance, publicly declared importance, reasons for war are usually:

1. Justice (nations usually proclaim themselves to be right–and only on occasion actually are)
2. Prestige (calls to service and self-sacrifice are common, especially in modern wars)
3. Tribalism–hating the other (though some wars have used so much propaganda against enemies that hateful tribalism or nationalism is openly more important than number three)
4. Resources/greed (most societies talk least about their actual reasons, which are usually-but-not-always about possession of territory or other material things)

As you apply these principles to stories, think about how these motivations play out for the individual human beings involved, which may or may not be the same as collective national or tribal reasons to fight. Note that stated reasons for war are often different from actual reasons. Writing a complex mix of motivations for a war makes for a more realistic and more interesting story.

To briefly mention how to apply these principles to races or species who are not human, while it might be interesting to attempt to invent reasons for warfare that have no connection to how human beings behave, it’s probably best to simply change the order/priority of war reasons that also apply to humans. It will seem more realistic (to human readers anyway 😉 ) but can still provide some interesting twists.

What if, for example, other species always stated their actual reasons for war openly? Or if a fantasy race had a much stronger sense of justice than human beings have so they don’t ever care in the slightest about resources they could gain? Or if a race had no tendency to be tribal, but still fought for other reasons? Or if they had no actual aversion to warfare in the first place? Or on the other hand, what if a non-human society were naturally non-violent because of an inability to hate others (which is not necessarily the same thing as being good and pure in every way), yet learned over time it was necessary to defend themselves, taking much more time to process what war is than humans require?

Please excuse the length of this post, I’ll strive to keep future ones shorter, but I hope you’ve found it informative. With so many academic opinions on this subject, I don’t imagine for a moment that everyone will agree with what I’ve listed here. So what are your thoughts on the reasons why people go to war?

For pretty much my entire life, I have been fascinated by fairy tales, folklore, and mythology from cultures that have long since ceased to exist on this Earth.

Even after my childhood, I continued to dream and muse about prehistoric worlds, the civilizations that left us with little more than speculation on how they raised their great architectural structures, and their legends that have survived the ages.

As I grew older, and more involved in church activities, however, the more I received the message that holding an interest in such things as fantasy and speculative fiction was not an acceptable way for Christians to expend their energy.

This week we feature Daley Downing and her novel Masters and Beginners in Lorehaven Book Clubs. Stop by the flagship book club on Facebook to learn more about this story.

Subscribe to Lorehaven Magazine for free to download our new summer 2018 issue.

Frankly, this frame of mind puzzled me. What was so wrong, I wondered, with spending a few enjoyable hours a week reading about unicorns and mermaids and dragons? I know very well that epic fantasy worlds like Middle Earth and Narnia aren’t real. (Though, if we’re being perfectly honest, I sometimes wish they were.)

And, actually, why is this such a bad wish? Aren’t we told in the New Testament that Earth is merely our temporary habitat, and our true, forever home is in Heaven? And that this realm is something we can merely imagine while in our terrestrial bodies and minds?

So why would it be wrong for someone who’s looking forward to eternity with Jesus the Messiah to dream of worlds not yet seen?

Numerous passages in the Bible describe events and beings that many modern humans consider ridiculous and impossible.

• The parting of the Red Sea so that the ancient Hebrews could cross to safety, escaping slavery in Egypt.
• A land inhabited by giants fifty feet tall, with massive trees and plants growing enormous fruits.
• Prophecies that warn of fire and brimstone raining down from the skies … and later this occurs.
• Flaming chariots sweeping mortals off the ground to their eternal rest.
• Healing miracles performed by the mere laying on of hands.
• Angels descending through the clouds to rescue people from certain doom.

The Church thinks nothing of asking us to believe that all of these incredible things actually happened. But, somehow, it’s not all right to contemplate talking animals, fairies, or long-forgotten creatures hiding on the edges of our towns and cities?

One of the biggest sticking points for modern Christians and the majority opinion of fantasy fiction (that it’s “bad”) seems to be the word “magic.” This word has gotten a reputation of being the source of some very sinful actions and trains of thought in the past few centuries. It’s true that we are commanded to stay away from witchcraft and sorcery (and we should).

But there is also another, healthier way to refer to and think of “magic.”

Ancient cultures saw magic in everything from the rising and setting of the sun, to the falling of rain and snow, the change of seasons, and the growth, decline, and rebirth of life all across the planet. They viewed the continuation of these cycles as completely divine. They didn’t dismiss the wonders of every day as “merely scientific” or “coincidence” or “superstition.”

When I read about angels swooping in to rescue people from certain doom, the apostles driving out fatal illnesses with a mere touch of their hands, the Red Sea parting against all its natural wiring, I feel that we’re witnessing some of God’s magic.

Jesus of Nazareth walking on water, casting demons into swine, turning water into wine, and raising the dead are all miraculous, divine, and, yes, magical things. But these were no illusions, like the sorcerers in Pharaoh’s court (Exodus 7: 10–13). Moses, Christ and his disciples, and the angels carried out their amazing works through the divine power of Jehovah.

To me, that makes miracles, prophecies, and visions or dreams that cross into another plane of existence, far less fantastical or improbable, but just as worthy of awe and reverence.

Do we ruminate on dragons and unicorns and fairies because they were—like dinosaurs and the dodo—once real? Has God left an imprint on our hearts for a world that once was and perhaps will be again?

My unicorn-and-Jesus-loving soul hopes so.

Subscribe to Lorehaven

“Diverse elements are skillfully woven into a convincing world, leavened with magical quirkiness and textured with political maneuverings.”
— Lorehaven Magazine

Explore Daley Downing’s novel Masters and Beginners in the Lorehaven Library.

Read our full review exclusively from the summer 2018 issue of Lorehaven Magazine!