Choosing an audience

After my last post, I decided to advertise myself as a Christian Fantasy/Science Fiction author, but then I read The Art and Craft of Writing Christian Fiction by Jeff Gerke of Marcher Lord Press and I may be back on the fence.

He said we need to choose our audience. You can either write to the church or those outside the church. However, he acknowledges how difficult it is to write to those outside the church, calling the section in Barnes & Noble entitled "Religious Fiction" "death row," because no one outside the church is going to step anywhere near it. I've been through that row a dozen times too many because all it has are Ted Dekker and some Amish Romance books. Ted Dekker is good, and because I'm not that good, I don't have much hope of being on that shelf. Barnes & Noble isn't going to take a chance on shelf space to anything less.

Next along this journey came a blogpost by Bruce Hannigan , who writes supernatural thrillers from a Christian perspective. Another Christian writer not writing to CBA is John Pazdziora.

All of these resources, combined with a recent brainstorming session where my character arc was choosing between living for money or sacrificing for love, has shown me that I don't have to put Christian in front of my genre in order to glorify Christ; and if I want to get to word one with unbelievers, I should just say I acknowledge the supernatural as well as the battle between good and evil in my fiction. I might even add that I enjoy addressing the battles within our soul for happiness and where the supernatural fits in. To say, "I write Christian fiction," while true, prevents them from allowing the story to speak for itself.

Anyone out there with the same dilemma? Do you seek to write content acceptable by God, but without excluding the rest of the world? I'm a Christian that reads secular fiction more than religious fiction because the quality is so much better and because even I don't like to be preached at in my fiction.

Should I announce my faith in my authorial works?

I'm starting to wonder if I should even label myself a Christian Fantasy or Christian Sci-Fi author. The label is going to keep anyone not Christian from reading it, and if I'm going to be so watered down to keep from preaching to the point where I just have clean (no swearing or nudity) content with a message that coincides with Christianity, but not overtly, then wouldn't it be better to just say I write Fantasy and Science Fiction?

This came to mind as I think about my blog, website, and networking with other authors. When I say I write Christian...people stop listening. Wouldn't it be better to go in through the back door by saying here, I write Fantasy, and when they like it I can talk to them about the message and how it pertains to my life and how God has helped me. Yeah, I want to write for God, and I think I still am, I just want to be tactful in how I use my writing for Him. In other words, I don't go up to random strangers and say, "Hey, do you want to be a Christian?" and that is what I feel I'm doing if I label myself a Christian F/SF writer.

Aspects of the Messiah

I really want to incorporate my faith into my writing, but as I've mentioned before I'd like to do it without barging in the front door. If I do this I'm only going to cause unbelievers to put up defenses that will likely lead to them abandoning my book and any future writings.

I think I may be able to write for a larger audience if I can write characters that symbolize aspects of Christianity and when it comes to a Messiah, he doesn't have to be an exact replica of Christ: firstly because I'm not writing the Bible, and secondly, because I've found it is impossible to create an exact replica without rewriting the same setting as the Bible - which leads to predictability.

As I read 1 Cor. 4:5 "...until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness..." I thought about how I can have a character who comes to reveal the hidden things of darkness and that be a more subtle picture of the Messiah.

New Website under construction

I decided to buy a domain name and will be building a website. I think this blog is ok, but I get the feeling I need a website to be taken seriously as an author. Also, there are more things I can do with a website. My new website will be www.timothycward.com. I'll let you know when it comes up!

My question to you is, what would you be interested in reading so that I can make my website one that has an actual audience?