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Today, I’m pleased to feature a guest column by chick-lit and contemporary-romance author Rachel Hauck!

Thanks to Kaye for inviting me to participate in this discussion of inspirational elements in fiction. I’ve known Kaye for a long time and am so happy for her publishing success!

All writers approach the inspirational element differently. My publisher produces novels from a Christian worldview, meaning it’s assumed Christian values and principles are accepted—that God and salvation through Jesus is a given. However, that doesn’t mean I’m bound to any particular way of writing. The inspirational theme, in my mind, must be true to the story and character.

I develop the spiritual theme after the story. It feels more generic to me that way. Some times I change once the story gets going.

In Sweet Caroline, (Thomas Nelson, Feb 200 my heroine Caroline started out a Christian. But as I wrote the story, I decided her journey to Jesus had to come as part of the plot. So, in the beginning, she does not know Jesus.

To avoid sounding preachy, I don’t think authors should start with a strong spiritual position or theme. Don’t bring your soap box to the story. Agent Chip MacGreagor calls it, “agenda fiction.”

In Diva NashVegas, my heroine grew up in a Christian home, but fell away from faith after her parents were killed. When the book opens, she’s a country superstar living with her boyfriend.

While I am not a proponent of premarital sex, I felt for this story Aubrey James would not be virginal. Her moral and spiritual compass is whacked based on her life experience.

However, she does return to Jesus and break up with her boyfriend.

Sometimes as Christian authors, we try to show characters how they should live not how people actually do. So, we write about characters who don’t lie or cheat, have sex outside marriage or steal. But Christians make these mistakes all the time.

What we need to show is our characters being convicted and changing.

I like to show how God engages us in different ways. He’s a supernatural God, creative and unique.

Caroline encounters God when she visits a church one Sunday and out of the blue, the pastor calls out her name and says “Jesus loves you.”

Later in the story, Caroline wakes up in the middle of the night with a heavy fragrance in the room. She realizes God is visiting her and has a profound since of awe and holiness. She surrenders her life to Jesus in that moment.

A story’s inspirational theme should be an extension of the author. The author should be an extension of the Great Author, Jesus.

I pray for my characters. I do. If I’m found in Christ, as the Bible says, and my characters are found in me, then my characters are found in Christ. I pray to know what God wants to communicate through the mouth and actions of my characters.

As an author in CBA (Christian Booksellers Association,) I’m trying to boost my spiritual themes however. Not to preach, but because most CBA readers appreciate a strong spiritual theme.

At first, I wrote with a more subdued theme thinking I wanted my books to appeal to non Christian readers as well as Christian. But, my books are shelved in the Christian fiction section, sold at Christian book stores. Customers are expecting a certain theme and message. While they don’t want a sermon, they want to be encouraged and exhorted spiritually.

So, I changed from trying to be stealth, to being bold with a spiritual theme. However, it still must be true to the character and the story.

For aspiring authors in Christian fiction, I encourage them to develop a deep personal relationship with Jesus. He’s the one we want resonating through our stories, not religious traditions and our personal soap boxes.

Write inspirational elements familiar to you. I’m familiar and comfortable with the supernatural so I can write about it with sincerity.

And spiritual themes go beyond salvation. There’s hope, faith, love, forgiveness, giving, or hospitality. As lovers of Jesus, we should all be familiar with aspects of His personality that we can write about in our characters.

Be an author who is a Christian. Not a Christian author. Know that the fragrance of God is on you, therefore on the words you write whether you mention God or Jesus.

Write a true story. All the pieces will fall into place.

~~~~~~~~~~

Rachel Hauck writes about life, love, and faith. She lives in Florida with her youth-pastor hustand, Tony, applying the truth of her stories to everyday life . . . and getting it right. Rachel has published nine titles including Lambert’s Pride, Lambert’s Code, and Lambert’s Peace for HeartSong Presents and her groundbreaking “redneck” chick lit novels Georgia on Her Mind, Lost in NashVegas, and Diva NashVegas. Her latest release is Sweet Caroline, set in the Carolina low-country.

I have to admit, I’ve been a day ahead of myself all week . . . I almost started posting my Fun Friday topic! But I’m actually glad we have another day this week to explore the Inspirational Element topic. Next week, we’ll captstone the series with a guest column by Rachel Hauck and a wrap-up.

Georgiana posted an interesting comment on yesterday’s post:

God did create a huge diversity for us to enjoy, and yet sometimes I do feel the prickle of guilt for spending time on “secular” things.

This always reminds me of the verse that I had to memorize in junior high, at a small Christian school, when our Bible teacher was trying to convince us to never listen to secular music or watch movies or TV ever again:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. (Philippians 4:8, NAS*)

I think we, as the members of “the Church” have a tendency to give this verse a connotation I’m not sure was actually meant by Paul. Look at the four verses that come before it:

4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!
5 Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near.
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
(Philippians 4:4–7, NAS*)

Just before we’re told to “dwell” on that which is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, of any excellence, or worthy of praise, we’re told to rejoice, to show the gentle spirit God has given us, to be anxious for nothing, to pray openly . . . and if we do all of this, His peace will be with us and will guard our hearts and minds.

I think we have too much of a tendency to just look at verse 8 and interpret it to say that the only things that are “true . . . honorable . . . right . . . pure,” etc., are those things which “the Church” deems are “Christian” and therefore worthy of our time and attention and heaven forbid that we should find any kind of pleasure in that which isn’t sanctioned by whatever branch of “the Church” we attend—because we all know what’s “holy” differs from flavor to flavor even within “the Church” (for example, why it’s okay for Methodists and Episcopalians to dance but Baptists aren’t supposed to).

Certainly, there are so-called secular activities which we are better off avoiding—those things which we know will lead us into sin. This isn’t the same for everyone though. Some may need to choose not to see rated-R movies, while for others, it’s not a stumbling block. For some, listening to “secular” music may draw them further away from God, while for others, music has very little effect on them. And so on.

We are also exhorted:

Watch over your heart with all diligence,
For from it flow the springs of life. (Proverbs 4:23, NAS*)

and:

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2, NAS*)

I think I’m in pretty good company when I say that we can do these things (guard our hearts, be transformed not conformed) even when participating in “secular” activities: reading ABA published books, writing books that don’t have an overt inspirational message, enjoying a movie or TV show, listening to music, viewing art, and so on. It all goes back to the filters, to the worldview, through which we see all of it. Not everything in the world is going to be edifying or useful for us as Christians, but I am totally against the idea that the only things we should find pleasure in are those that are labeled “Christian” or “Inspirational.” Even Jesus enjoyed a good dinner amongst sinners.

If you do not yet own it, there is one book I believe every Christian who is an author (whether writing fiction with an inspirational element or not) is Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water. Not only does she spend quite a bit of time discussing what I’ve been trying to say in a round-about way—finding the Divine in the mundane—but it’s a great refreshment for the soul. I can pick it up, turn to a random page, and come away renewed and ready to write.

In the essay “Novelist and Believer,” short-story scribe Flannery O’Connor wrote “As a novelist, the major part of my task is to make everything, even an ultimate concern, as solid, as concrete, as specific as possible.”

As a Christian, a major part of this task is to make the inspirational element “as solid, as concrete, as specific as possible.” O’Connor believed, and I agree, that this doesn’t mean beating the reader over the head with the Four Spiritual Laws: “The problem of the novelist who wishes to write about a man’s encounter with his God is how he shall make the experience—which is both natural and supernatural—understandable, and credible, to his reader.”

I know of so many people who won’t pick up a “Christian” novel because they don’t want to be preached at. They want a good story. Yes, I do believe that God has appointed some books to have an overt Evangelical message and that these books have had an impact on people’s lives. But for the majority of “everyday Joe” readers, a much more subtle message may reach them even better. I have found myself in the past skipping over large sections of some “Christian” novels because the author turned into a preacher, and what they wrote doesn’t really move the novel along in any meaningful way, except to make one of the characters a Christian through a very standard and, usually, clichéd conversion scene. There have been others, though, that have so deftly woven the inspirational element into their stories that they’ve led me to tears as the character comes to salvation. The difference is believability—credibility.

“But the real novelist,” O’Connor wrote, “The one with an instinct for what he is about, knows that he cannot approach the infinite directly, that he must penetrate the natural human world as it is.” Or as Walker Percy wrote, “The trick of the novelist, as the Psalmist said, is to sing a new song, use new words . . .”

What’s been your experience in reading novels with an inspirational message when the message has overwhelmed the story so much as to make it unbelievable—where it became more about the message and no longer about the story? What books have you read where the author so deftly wove in the inspirational message that it moved you or made you wish you could write like that? What about books without an inspirational message—have they ever helped you come to a better understanding of your relationship with God or your view of the world? In what ways do you find the “Divine” in the secular world, and how do you apply that to your writing?

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

“Reading with worldviews in mind—both one’s own and that projected by the text—allows Christians to engage works in their own terms, while also interacting with the theologically” (Dr. Gene Edward Veith, Jr., “Reading and Writing Worldviews”). My tagline as a writer is: Inspired by Life . . . Molded by God. That is to say that I get my story ideas from the things I see around me, but when I start putting them down on paper, the way it comes out is molded, shaped, influenced by my relationship with God. I have a Christian worldview, therefore my writing does too.

My characters view the world through a certain set of filters, because those are the filters through which I view the world. That is also the worldview that I take with me whenever I read anything. It is this worldview as a Christian that allows me to “engage constructively the whole range of human expression from a Christian perspective.”

But does that mean we have to evangelize? Do we have to “preach” to our readers? Not unless that’s the kind of fiction we’re called to write! In real life, some people are called to be preachers or evangelists and are given a heart for reaching the lost or those who’ve lost their way, while many others of us aren’t. You must listen to your heart as you start writing, be true to yourself when it comes to the inspirational element you include in your stories. As you read from Shelley Adina and MaryLu Tyndall right here on this very blog, there are as many ways to present the inspirational message of a story as there are writers to do it. But while we may be called to write fiction with a certain level of spirituality included in it, I believe our primary goal is to bring delight to our readers—while also representing the Light.

In his essay “‘Words of Delight’: A Hedonistic Defense of Literature,” Leland Ryken wrote, “Through the centuries, the hedonistic defense of literature has had to contend with a utilitarian or functional outlook that belittles anything that is not directly useful in mastering the physical demands of life.” How many times have you been made to feel guilty for reading a “popular fiction” novel? Does it seem frivolous to you sit sit down and read the latest romance or mystery novel from your favorite author? Have you ever been made to feel as if you’re doing something wrong by writing fiction, even if it is from a Christian worldview?

If God had wanted the world to be simply utilitarian, Ryken explained, He wouldn’t have created such diversity in the flora and fauna around us—in the colors of the rainbow, in the variety of trees in the forest. So many passages in the Bible—especially in the Psalms—express pleasure with the physical world around us that God created. He gave us creativity to entertain ourselves and others and to bring pleasure . . . to bring delight.

Pleasure in reading, of course, goes hand in hand with pleasure in writing. If I don’t enjoy writing something, no one is going to enjoy reading it. When I read something that I know the author enjoyed composing, I’m going to at least have vicarious enjoyment in that (especially if it’s someone I know well). Therefore, the pleasure I derive in writing my novels will translate into enjoyment for my (eventual) readers.

“Lifelong readers of literature can attest that many of the most powerful ideas in their lives are ones that they encountered first or most memorably in literature” (Ryken). There’s a line from the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks movie You’ve Got Mail that describes me perfectly: “So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book.” As C.S. Lewis so aptly put it, literature becomes a window to the world. Ryken calls it “a mirror in which we see ourselves and our experiences.”

This is why I write! It’s my window to the world, the mirror in which I can examine myself and what’s happened in my life in a more objective way through creating characters. God gave us the ability to create to delight us and to delight others around us. Think about all of the different forms of art in the world: sculpture, paintings, music, drama, dance, poetry, fiction . . . God gave all of them to us for joy, for pleasure, and so that we could experience the delight of having the spark of His creativity living inside of us and becoming an outward expression so we can share that delight with others.

“Christians are the last people in the world who should feel guilty about the enjoyment of literature,” Ryken wrote.

Amen and amen!

In what ways do you find delight in what you choose to read? In what way do you find delight in what you write?

Today, I’m pleased to feature a guest column by historical-romance author MaryLu Tyndall!

If you have read any of my novels, then you know that I always weave a strong spiritual theme within my plot. This is not happenstance. It is my passion. It is why I write Christian Fiction. I believe every Christian writer has a ministry. For some is may be just to provide a clean story for other Christians to enjoy, for others it may be to reach non-believers with a very mild introduction of the gospel, or provide a positive alternative to the sometimes depressing smut you can find in the secular market. My passion, the desire of my heart, is to wake up Christians who have fallen asleep in their walk, those who are drifting from God, or even people who call themselves Christians but who are not. I want them to see God in a different light, to show that He is alive and powerful and loves them. Through my characters, they see Him working in flawed people’s lives, transforming them, using them for a higher purpose, and giving them the abundant life He promises.

That is why when I begin a story or a series, I always start with a spiritual theme. What is it about God I want to reveal to my readers and how can I best do that? Each of my books so far has been based on a different spiritual theme. In my first novel, The Redemption, the theme was the redemption of a young lady who had an abusive childhood and who was searching for love in a human father’s arms. In book two, The Reliance, the theme revolved around the question: What do we as believers do when God lets us down? In The Restitution, the main theme was forsaking everything you hold dear to follow Christ. In a book I just completed, The Falcon and the Sparrow, the theme is strength in Christ through our weakness. The current series I’m working on follows the lives of three sisters who are examples of the three seeds in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13.

Once I have my spiritual theme, I create characters, typically a hero and a heroine, their friends and companions, and a villain, and then I decide how I’m going to reveal this theme in their lives and circumstances. I create spiritual arcs for most of the main characters. On a chart, I list under each character’s name where they are spiritually at the beginning of the book, then on the other side of the chart, I list where I want them to end up spiritually. In between, I write down my ideas on things that will happen to them that will cause them to change. Out of this chart comes my general plot and the three main disasters that will occur during the story, plus the interrelationships between the characters that will aid in their change.

Another thing I try to do in each story is include a supernatural miracle to demonstrate that God is just as powerful and involved with his creation today as He has always been. While many writers have a character-driven plot or goal-driven plot, I guess you could say I have a spiritual theme driven plot. The setting and time period are secondary and only add elements of adventure and romance to the story.

Each writer whom God calls to write will have a different way of writing and a different goal for their writing ministry. My books may be a turn-off for a non-believer who may feel they are too preachy, but someone else’s books may give the gospel message in such a subtle way that a non-believer might read it. So, my advice to you? Write what God puts on your heart and don’t worry about those that say you are too preachy or you don’t have enough of a spiritual theme in your book. God has a place for your writing and He has already hand-picked certain people to read your books at a certain time in their lives.

Now about “edgy” books. My books are definitely edgy. They contain violence, drinking, taverns brawls, and very wicked villains. Sensitive subjects such as child abuse and rape are addressed, which some Christians may find objectionable. Naturally I don’t want to offend anyone, but I go back to my prior admonition. Write what God puts on your heart. My books aren’t for everybody, but let’s face it, it’s a cruel, wicked world out there and it’s only getting worse. We can stick our heads in the sand and pretend everything is rosy and only deal with issues that fit in with our Christian worldview or we can get out there in the trenches and tell people about Jesus. The people I hope to reach are not the committed strong Christians, but the Christians who are struggling with temptation, the Christians who think the world has more to offer than God. I want to show them that these things do not satisfy and there’s always a price to be paid, that God’s rules do not restrict them but set them free, that following the Lord is far more adventurous than they could ever imagine.

About the Author
MaryLu Tyndall dreamt of pirates and sea-faring adventures during her childhood days on Florida’s Coast. She holds a degree in Math and worked as a software engineer for fifteen years before testing the waters as a writer. Her love of history and passion for story drew her to create the Legacy of the King’s Pirates Series. MaryLu now writes full time and makes her home with her husband, six children, and four cats on California’s coast, where her imagination still surges with the sea. Her passion is to write page-turning, romantic adventures that not only entertain but expose Christians to their full potential in Christ. Her next release will be an adventurous Regency coming out in August 2008. You can visit her on her website at http://www.mltyndall.com or her blog at http://crossandcutlass.blogspot.com/

I swear I didn’t plan to do this series to coincide with the Jane Austen series on PBS. But for the past two weeks, there have been elements of the stories/films that have lent themselves very well to the discussion of the Inspirational Element in fiction.

For those of you who saw Miss Austen Regrets this weekend, or who have read the review I posted yesterday, you are aware that there was quite a bit of discussion of the idea that Jane’s talent for writing was a gift given her by God. Though the movie shows her as having regrets over the proposals of marriage she turned down in her life—mostly because of outside forces making her feel she should have married to ensure financial security for her family—in the end, it has her coming to terms with her life, being content with the life she had because, as she told Cass, she chose freedom. Freedom to write, to put to use the gift God had given her. Did this mean she had to write Christian Fiction—that she must use her gift of writing to write Evangelical fiction? No, of course not. What it meant is that she was given the gift to use in the way God directed her, which in her case was writing Moral romances with just a touch of the Inspirational.

As Christians who write, we are each gifted differently and we are each called to write different types of stories—not just different genres, but with differing levels of Christian/Inspirational content in them. Look at an author like John Grisham. Though his books are gritty, for the most part, they fall under the category of Moral Fiction. His Christian faith has influenced all of his stories—and has begun to push from Moral into Christian Worldview in recent years. Does it mean that his first releases are “less worthy” than his more recent books because the recent stuff has a more obvious inspirational theme? Not at all. How many people who aren’t Christians who love Grisham’s early work will read his more inspirational novels and be influenced by them to find out more about God? Of course, that doesn’t mean that a Christian writer who starts out writing fiction without a spiritual thread must “graduate” to writing Inspirational or even Evangelical fiction. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12, we are each given different gifts by God because not everyone is called to do the same kind of work, though we are all called to be part of the same body in Christ. Some are called to write Evangelical fiction, some are called to write Christian Worldview fiction, some are called to write Inspirational fiction, and some are called to write Moral fiction. And woe be it unto us to say that one is better or more valuable/spiritual than another. “But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” (1 Corinthians 12:24b–26, NIV*)

One of my guiding inspirations for this series is the book The Christian Imagination: The Practice of Faith in Literature and Writing, a compilation of essays on the inclusion of the Christian faith in literature which we used in my undergrad literary criticism class.

In the essay after which the book takes its title, author Janine Langan writes about the importance for us as Christians to use our imaginations. We are created in the IMAGE of God, therefore we have been given the capacity for IMAGING Him. Because He is creative, He has given us IMAGINATIONS through which to create. A couple of important points she makes in her essay are:

“The imagination is not its own end, just as art is not for art’s sake. It is an instrument of encounter, at the service of life—one’s own and that of others.”

“. . . we should help each other to notice beauty . . .”

“Nothing reveals more forcefully one’s true view of God than the quality of one’s imaginings.”

She points out how our culture, by our dependence on TV, movies, magazines, etc., for entertainment has squelched our imaginations. “Whether it wishes to or not, modern information technology tempts us to disconnect the products of our imagination—words, sounds, image—from any objective truth, from any personal responsibility, from any shared project.” Langan believes it is the imagination which draws us toward God and gives us the hunger to know more about Him. Contemporary “imaging” through the mass media/entertainment “no longer hint at the hidden joy, beyond imagining, which this world prefaces. They provide only the pleasure they promise.”

As I read this, I was once again faced with the question of why I write “Christian” fiction. Then I came to a realization: What I write is not “Christian.” What I write is the fruit of my being a Christian. Or to put it in Langan’s words, I write “to reflect faithfully the face of the Beloved.”

In the next essay, “Beauty and the Creative Impulse,” Luci Shaw writes that the act of writing is “an act of Redemption.” It is “bringing order and beauty out of disorder and chaos.” I’d never thought of it this way, but it’s very true. During the times when my (internal) life has been most chaotic—when I dropped out of college at age 21 because of depression, when I was working full time and taking 9 undergraduate hours per semester—was when I was most prolific with my writing. Writing brought me out of my depression fifteen years ago. Writing helped me cope with the stress of the succession of jobs I had and hated when I lived in the D.C. area afterward. Writing gave me focus and clarity when I was trying to figure out where I was supposed to go next and through my move to Nashville in 1996. And writing now helps me work through spiritual issues I may not even realize I’m having until it comes out on the page.

In this same way, Shaw wrote, “if an image shows up, often uninvited, unexpected, I am called to stop everything and pay attention.” Like many other authors before me and many to follow behind me, I have files filled with loose scraps of paper upon which are written words, phrases, names, ideas for plot or conflict . . . A “phrase will come to me, calling out, ‘Write me!’ And I can’t help but obey.” Isn’t it nice to know we’re not the only ones who experience that?

Shaw included in her essay a quote from author/teacher Henri Nouwen:

“Most students…feel that they must first have something to say before they can put it down on paper. For them writing is little more than recording a preexisting thought. But . . . writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals what is alive.” (italics mine)

Through writing, we discover “what lives in us.” When we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, what comes out on paper cannot help but be affected by “what lives in us.”

Finally, Shaw wrote, “To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know. . . . Writing is like giving away the few loaves and fishes one has, in trust that they will multiply in the giving.” It is to this point that I have pursued publication—so that the gift God has given me may be blessed and multiplied as it goes out into the world. I have had to overcome the thought that I was somehow odd or wrong for indulging in writing and learn that it is “a gift of pure grace.” That the creative process “links us with our Creator.”

Tomorrow, we’ll learn from MaryLu Tyndall about her experience with how her writing links her with the Creator.

*Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

I hope you all were as encouraged as I was by Shelley’s column yesterday. It’s always good to see how we can write stories that “stealthily” glorify God and may lead our readers to a better understanding of Him, or even to a first-time relationship with Him.

On Tuesday, Lori Benton posted:

I had originally seen my male MC, Ian, reaching the point where things have gang sae agley that he finally gives up, and puts his life in God’s hands. Circumstances still gang agley for quite some time after that point, but he’s no longer making them worse by trying in his own fleshly wisdom to make them better.

No, I’m sure there is. But what if it’s a downward arc? What if it ends with the MC making a life-altering choice in a moment of spiritual and emotional crisis? A choice that I expect the reader will be not at all pleased about. Does that work in the first book of a series? Is it a reasonable hook for the sequel?

This is a hard set of questions to answer. Most editors will tell you that when they look at a book proposal, even if it’s a sequel/trilogy/series, they want the first book of the set to be plotted in such a way that it could be a stand-alone story. The book publishing business is, first and foremost, a business. For a first-time, unproven author, they’re going to be so much less likely to sign the author to a multi-book contract until they know that the first book is going to sell well, though this is not quite as true in the realm of historical fiction as it is contemporary. Readers almost expect a new historical novel to be the first in a series.

Also, what I have found in a lot of historicals I’ve read is that the spiritual message may be much less obvious than in a contemporary—in other words, they fall more into the Inspirational category.

That said, I would have to tell you that I think it’s okay to end the first book at a point when the main character has been faced with making a choice and doesn’t choose the spiritual route, so long as you give the reader an otherwise satisfying ending. You can’t just leave them completely hanging. And even if the character makes this “wrong” choice, you need to show that there is reason for significant hope that the character will turn around and make the “right” choice in the second book.

In a similar vein, Austin Field asked:
My main character starts out as a Christian & I know what lesson he has to learn by the end of the story. But he has a best friend, a close confidante and advisor, who is a good person but not a Christian…also a point of view character. The best friend is very opposed to the main character’s attempts at witnessing (he’s seen some of the things the Christian character has done in his life and thinks he’s somewhat hypocritical calling himself a Christian). In the action scene at the climax, the best friend dies. A few people who’ve read it have told me that if I want to market it to Christian publishing houses, I need to have him make a dying profession of faith. I don’t want to because it wouldn’t be right for the character or for the continuing story of the main character. Plus I think stories that do that are cop-outs. In real life, people die every day without making that death-bed confession. Have I ruined my chances of selling this book in the Christian market?

After many long years when every character in a CBA-published novel had to be completely redeemed and on the path of sanctification/righteousness by the end of the book, we are finally starting to see fiction reflect real life—not everyone gets saved in Christian Fiction anymore. It is harder when it’s a point-of-view character, but I think it can be done with great success—especially if you find a way to contrast the internal conflicts of the two characters. You have the chance to show hope-in-crisis in the life of the Christian character while the non-Christian character has none. When fear overwhelms, contrast how the two characters deal with it differently. And when you pitch it, make sure to highlight how the loss of his friend, knowing he wasn’t saved, greatly affects your hero’s own spiritual journey (and the guilt that drives him on the revenge-quest) through the rest of the series.

It may come as a surprise, but there are a vast number of books on the market—secular books—that deal with this very theme: one character makes a good, or redemptive, choice while another character makes a bad, or destructive, choice. A lot of YA literature deals with this. The main character sees a childhood friend begin to hang out with the wrong group, making destructive choices, and must decide if they want to go the same route or if they want to make better choices, be a “good” person.

I don’t know if that has sufficiently answered those questions, and I hope my readers will pipe in with their words of wisdom as well. What do the rest of you do when characters in your novels make bad choices or refuse to obey God and make the right choice?

Today, I’m pleased to feature a guest column by award-winning author Shelley Adina!

This is a great discussion and one I have regularly with readers both young and old. I’m writing the All About Us series for FaithWords, featuring a different protagonist in each of six books set in a posh private school in San Francisco. With everything that kids have to deal with today, from metal detectors and ID badges to cliques, classes, and crushes, it’s a challenge to weave in an inspirational element without sounding like a preachy dork.

So I go stealth.

My readers could be regular and hearty churchgoers, with lots of involvement in youth groups and missionary work, or they may not have any spiritual leanings at all. You see, the books won’t be shelved in the inspirational section, they’ll be in with the regular YA books. So figuring out how to approach the faith thread when the audience is so diverse was tricky—but it was also doable. And fun.

My strategy was to locate the books in your Christian Worldview camp, Kaye. Lissa Mansfield and Gillian Chang, two of the characters in the first book, It’s All About Us, are Christians when we meet them—though unfortunately they don’t show it, because the first thing they do is have a massive, screaming fight! The other three of the five main protagonists are not Christians, though two had gone to church with their parents while they were at home. One has hardly any exposure to faith at all. So I cover the spectrum of belief and nonbelief, and part of the over-arching series plot is these characters’ journey from realization of a lack in their lives to acceptance that there’s something out there that’s bigger than they are—and that when they say it’s “all about us,” they mean “me and God.”

The books are not evangelical. I treat faith as something that’s just in your life. My characters talk to God and pray together (and Gillian walks around with Christian music playing on her iPod). The thing that differentiates this series, I think, is that given the same choices and distractions as other popular series with glitzy covers and spinoff TV shows whose titles I won’t mention , the characters in the All About Us books make different choices based on their beliefs and on biblical values. Faced with a decision, they choose a direction after praying about it. This may take them to places they don’t expect, but they grow and learn from it.

Also, in each book, the protagonist learns to find within herself a biblical power. It’s never mentioned or spelled out, but it’s always there as part of the underlying theme. For instances, in It’s All About Us, which comes out in May 2008, Lissa discovers the power of discernment—especially when it comes to boys. In The Fruit of My Lipstick, releasing in August, Gillian learns the power of honesty—with herself. And in next year’s Be Strong and Curvaceous, their friend Carly Aragon finds out that there’s such a thing as being too nice and going with the flow—that sometimes you need the power of courage.

It’s possible to show the Christian life without actually spelling it out—and whether the characters do the wrong thing and make mistakes, or listen to their hearts and work through their challenges and problems, it all makes for a fun read. And that’s my ultimate goal!

Award-winning author Shelley Adina wrote her first teen novel when she was 13. It was rejected by the literary publisher to whom she sent it, but he did say she knew how to tell a story. That was enough to keep her going through the rest of her adolescence, a career, a move to another country, a B.A. in Literature, an M.A. in Writing Popular Fiction, and countless manuscript pages. Shelley is a world traveler and pop culture junkie with an incurable addiction to designer handbags. She knows the value of a relationship with a gracious God and loving Christian friends and loves writing books about fun and faith—with a side of glamour. Between books, Shelley loves traveling, music, making period costumes, and watching all kinds of movies.

Wow, what a fun weekend of discussing the novel that is considered to be one of Jane Austen’s most “Christian” of novels. Mansfield Park—really most of JA’s novels—exemplify the art of writing fiction from a Christian worldview. In MP, we have the most moral, most humble of heroines, and, as in Sense & Sensibility, a hero who has chosen to become a minister. While it was much more of a step outside of the norm, and therefore a more striking choice for Edward as the oldest son and heir, in MP we see Edmund eventually choose his ministry over the flattering attentions of a worldly, beautiful woman. (And for those of you interested in pursuing this topic further, here’s a discussion question: is Edmund the first hero in a romance novel to unsuccessfully try “evangelism dating”?)

One of the reasons Jane Austen’s novels are not typically considered to be “Christian Fiction” is that there is no obvious agenda, no obvious spiritual journey/lesson learned. But we cannot escape the fact that, for the most part, her main characters (i.e., the heroes and heroines) have a Christian lifestyle. In several of her books, MP especially, the characters discuss religion as being an important choice and part of their lives. But the reason why her novels have such a broad appeal to the general reading market is because she wasn’t writing with a spiritual message in mind. She wasn’t trying to evangelize anyone. She was just writing romance novels. Romance novels in which her characters, like she, were church-going, moral people. She just let it happen.

I’ve heard from a few people who are struggling with the inspirational element of their stories. While I will answer as many questions as I can from my experience, I’m really hoping that y’all will add your comments, experience, and advice here, too.

Amy Jane wrote:

I’m beginning to think my current story cannot be adequately told without the spiritual element. There is so much hope-in-the-face-of, and good-decisions-when-it’s-hard, I’m having trouble just “letting it happen.” My discussion of music the other day woke me to it further, when I realized that the majority of songs (in the soundtrack I’ve complied in the last year) were the “Praise You in the Storm” type. . . . It’s intimidating to jump off that cliff that says “this is now ‘inspirational.’”

When I started writing more than twenty years ago, I didn’t set out to write “Christian” or “Inspirational” stories. And even though I’m about to be published in the Christian Fiction market, the irony is that I still don’t consciously think about writing an “Inspirational” novel when I sit down to write. Because my faith is so ingrained in who I am as a person, it naturally follows that it’s a big part of my characters’ lives, which puts me squarely under the Christian Fiction umbrella.

I don’t sit down and figure out what the spiritual theme of my book is going to be—what lesson the characters need to learn. I just start writing a romance novel. Since my characters always come to me first, and since my characters are the driving force of the novel, the spirituality is always there, even if it’s very subtly under the surface. But by the time I arrive at the climax at the end of the novel, the character must make some kind of realization or decision spiritually for the story to come to a happy conclusion . . . and it’s usually something I’m dealing with in my own life at the time, whether it’s forgiveness or trust or letting something go.

Many, many years ago, I tried writing secular romance novels. After all, if Julie Garwood and Jude Deveraux could write steamy romances where the heroines still prayed and believed in God, I could too, right? But when it would come to the point of writing the sensual scenes, I couldn’t do it—and not just because I’m not married and have never experienced it for myself. I couldn’t do it because it wasn’t the right thing for me to do. It wasn’t the direction my writing was supposed to go.

I finally came to understand that the first part of just letting our fiction happen—whether inspirational or not—is letting go. We have to let go of all of our inhibitions about what we’ve been told is “good” or “bad” storytelling. I’m not talking about throwing away the rules, just all of the myths about how to tell stories. We have to let go of everything we’ve been told about what sells and what doesn’t. Yes, it’s good to know the market and to be aware of who’s publishing what, but if we’re ever to find our true voices, if we’re going to tell the best story possible, we cannot necessarily write “to the market”; sometimes we just have to write. And we have to let go of the stereotype of what inspirational fiction is that has so permeated the writing culture, and just allow ourselves to be free to write our stories with—or without—that Christian worldview. We have to let go of the limitation of defining what we write as “inspirational” or “non-inspirational” (or Christian/secular) and just write.

One of the things I always have to do whenever I start a revision is to increase the inspirational element of the story. Because I don’t start out with the spiritual theme in mind, I sometimes don’t even realize what it is until it starts appearing on the page toward the end of the novel. Once I know what it is and how it resolves itself, in the revision process, I can see areas where I can drop in a thought, a prayer, a remembered passage of scripture (usually paraphrased, not quoted) that will make this spiritual journey the character makes realistic instead of something that just happens, even though it doesn’t usually happen that way in real life. In real life, sometimes we do have epiphanies. Why? Because we’re open to Letting It Happen.

How do you Let It Happen? Does the inspirational element of your stories come easily to you? Do you struggle with it—do you have to almost force it to happen? Do you start out knowing what the spiritual theme of your story is before you start writing? Do you struggle when writing with wondering exactly where your story will fit in the publishing world—where you’ll submit it—when you’re finished with it?

Tomorrow, award-winning author Shelley Adina will be our guest blogger, and I know you’re going to be blessed by her words!

Sorry about not posting yesterday—the day just got away from me.

While most reports about the surge in sales of Christian Fiction talk about it as if it’s something new that’s never been seen before, this is about as far from true as possible. But just as Christian Fiction has its roots in antiquity, so does the argument about whether or not Christians should be reading fiction.

In his essay “Christian Poetics, Past and Present,” in the book The Christian Imagination, Donald T. Williams looks at some of the more famous arguments for and against Fiction from a Christian viewpoint:

–Augustine believed that “literature—even pagan literature—conveys truth and is therefore not to be despised.” He also believed that Christians have not only a right but an obligation to “learn and employ the art of rhetoric” to enable us to share Truth with the “pagan” world.

–Moving into the Medieval and Renaissance periods, we see literature become more allegorical in nature (such as Beowulf, Piers Plowman, etc.). Yet there still remained enough tension to cause Chaucer to retract his “human and sympathetic portrait of ‘God’s plenty’” before he died.

–Luther wanted to know why the devil should have all the good music and “noted that literary study equipped people as nothing else does to deal skillfully with Scripture.”

–Calvin brought in classical philosophers such as Plato, Seneca, and Cicero to apply to the critical reading of Scripture.

–Puritans such as Richard Baxter advised “Christian readers to read first the Bible, then books that apply it. If there is any time left, they may turn to history and science.” Novels (i.e., “vain romances, play-books, and false stories”) would “bewitch your fancies and corrupt your hearts.” They were seen as filling the mind with nonsense rather than focusing the mind on holier thoughts. Yet during this time period, the majority of fiction that was being written was at least Moral Fiction if not completely Evangelical Fiction.

–Sir Philip Sidney pointed out literature’s “antiquity, its universality, and its effectiveness as a mnemonic device and as an enticement to and adornment of what his opponents consider more ‘serious’ studies.” He expanded the positive points from Augustine’s tome “distinguishing the right use from the abuse of literary art.” He used the argument that has become the main defense of the art of writing for modern Christian authors: that of pointing out the fact that Jesus told stories, and the Bible includes hundreds of poems (the Psalms, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, etc.). Since, in Sidney’s view, education is supposed to not only provide facts but virtue as well, he argues for the inclusion of literature. The historian is bound by the facts of what happened. The moral philosopher can give the “precept of virtue.” It is the poet/author who can combine both to give role models that can then be translated into real life applications. It is because we were created in God’s image that we have the capacity for creativity, thus creativity expressed in language such as literature, is only showing that we are the image of God.

–John Milton took Sidney’s ideas and ran with them. He wanted to use “concrete images for acquiring both understanding and virtue.” It is through reading Christian literature that we are connected with the mind of the author and, therefore, put into closer contact with God; the author, as the image of God, is sharing the mind of God through his writing. Milton argued against banning secular writings; he saw it as important to expose ourselves to the world’s mindset, or else “What wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear, without the knowledge of evil?”

–Moving toward the modern era, literature was still slow to be accepted by those of good morals and upstanding character. This is quite visible even in Jane Austen’s writings. In Pride and Prejudice, when Mr. Collins is asked to read to the family on his first visit to Longbourne, he is aghast when handed a novel from the circulating library and gives a diatribe on the evils of exposing the minds of young women (especially) to fiction. He chooses to read instead from Fordyce’s Sermons, much to the consternation of the girls.

–Tolkien saw man, the author, as “the refracted Light/Through whom is splintered from a single white/To many hues, and endlessly combined/In living shapes that move from mind to mind.” In fiction, “the secondary” (created/fictional) “world echoes the primary creation in more ways than one.” Or in other words, the basic plot for fiction is that of Salvation.

–Lewis believed that “idolization of culture (including literature) corrupts and destroys culture.” Literature “enlarges our world of experience to include both more of a physical world and things not yet imagined. . . . This makes it possible for literature to strip Christian doctrines of their ‘stained glass’ associations and make them appear in their ‘real potency’” which is seen in the Narnia series. Literature gives us the heroes that can teach us how to face the villains in our real world. Reading outside of our own narrow culture can fortify our faith, which we have inherited in its full strength through the ages in which that literature was written.

–Flannery O’Connor “believed that great literature deals with ultimate concerns that are essentially theological.” She stripped away the “stained-glass associations . . . with practical wisdom on how to embody the anagogical vision in concrete images which can speak to the modern reader.” (quotations from Williams’ essay)

Williams concludes his essay by arguing that we have lost our strong literary tradition from 150 years ago and have become “cheap imitations of Lewis and Tolkien” with “too many saccharine historical romances” for Christian literature to be taken seriously.

So my question is this: what’s the last piece of classic literature you’ve read? Did you see elements of Christian Fiction in it? Was it Moral? Inspirational? Worldview? Evangelical? What can we as writers learn from the content and themes (not necessarily craft) of classic literature?

Christian Fiction. Evangelical Fiction. Fiction with a Christian Worldview. Inspirational Fiction. Moral Fiction.

No matter what it’s called, there’s no denying the power of fiction that has a spiritual theme and strong morals and values. Though most of it (Moral Fiction being an exception at times) falls under the umbrella of Christian Fiction, there is a difference between these categories: how much of a spiritual thread/message is included. While there are no official designations, I’ll try to explain my method of labeling the subgenres to clarify what we’ll be discussing in the next couple of weeks.

“Evangelical Fiction” is fiction that is written with a specific, evangelical message to get across to the reader. The most important part of the plot is to get the character to a point of spiritual awakening, whether it’s coming to salvation or learning a spiritual lesson. Without this, the story cannot end properly. Prayers and quoted Scripture are used liberally throughout, there may be a sermon or two written out, and the entire presentation of the gospel will be given at least once—with at least one character coming to salvation in the course of the book. These are books like This Present Darkness and the Left Behind series.

“Fiction with a Christian Worldview” makes up the majority of what we call Christian fiction today. While the spiritual thread of the story is important, it’s not the driving force of the plot. These are books where Christianity is a normal part of the characters’ lives and defines how they live and make decisions.There will be a spiritual lesson to be learned before the story can come to its conclusion, but the story could have been written without the spiritual element (thus, these are mostly popular genres with standard plot structures). A sermon may be referenced—maybe even a line or two put in as dialogue, but not the whole thing. At least one of the main characters is already a Christian when the story opens, and everything that happens in the course of the story is seen through the lens of Christian beliefs and morals. You will still see prayers spoken or thought out—but much shorter—as well as quoted Scripture sprinkled here and there.

“Inspirational Fiction” straddles the fence between Christian Worldview and Moral fiction. The spiritual message in these stories can be overtly Christian, less obvious by just mentioning God, or allegorical. The spiritual lesson to be learned is usually much more subtle—as are the steps leading up to it. While there might be one or two prayers spoken or thought, usually it is more of a reference to the fact that the character prayed. If scriptures are mentioned, they’re usually paraphrased as part of dialogue. And no sermons here! Allegorical stories fall into this category, as well: fantasy or science fiction stories where the Christian life is implied or illustrated by different cultural references and clues—like the Narnia stories. The lessons learned are more “feel good” or just changing a single aspect of someone’s life (forgiving a particular person, learning that honesty-is-the-best-policy, etc., but because of a spiritual belief).

“Moral Fiction” is good, clean fiction with a morality that isn’t necessarily religious/spiritual. These are good people who might or might not go to church, but their personal spirituality doesn’t play a role in the story. Characters in Moral Fiction will have to learn some kind of message about being a good person, being a good citizen, or any Aesop’s Fable–type lesson—but not because of a religious/spiritual belief, but because it’s “right,” or moral. It’s the good thing to do. It’s the story of the Good Samaritan without the spiritual element. Characters may pray—but it happens off page. They may attend church regularly—but again, it happens off page. If a deity is mentioned at all, it is an amorphous “God” that can be construed as Christian or Jewish or really any “supreme being.” Many of Nicholas Sparks’ novels fall into this category. They’re sweet (no sex-scenes, no swearing), yet more worldly in their outlook than the other types I’ve outlined. All genres of fiction can be found in this category, though they’re the hardest to find, as not a lot of publishers put them out. CenterStreet, an imprint of FaithWords, is a “Moral Fiction” line.

Now that the categories have been defined, where do your stories fall?

Over the course of this series, we’ll be looking at the history of Christian fiction, dissecting the structures of stories that include a spiritual thread, as well as determining how much is too much/too little; how to incorporate Scripture, prayers, and other elements; and how to target your novel toward the appropriate publishers. And be looking for some special guest columnists too!

So post all of your questions about this, and we’ll get the ball rolling.