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.

Writing Update

I've been learning the struggles of following through on ideas and actually writing the story instead of brainstorming a new idea every week and never really getting any writing done.

The Holly Lisle editing course I'm taking is very helpful, but also very difficult. I'm confident in the way it will help me get published, but fearful that if I don't get moving it won't happen.

My new book idea is actually one that I began with in my 2 Year Novel course through www.fmwriters.com I found a new setting that allowed me not to be preachy, and am rolling with it. Hopefully I will ride the momentum through the inevitable moment where I think the book is worthless and resist the shiny new idea.

I heard a good podcast on writing that said to make 250 words your daily writing goal because you know you can do it, and if you do that every day, you'll have around 365 pages in one year, which is the size of a book. Here's to that goal, starting tonight!

new idea

I've posted a new idea about mirrors as a tool for soul-redemption or worse... on my writing blog http://howlinhusky.blogspot.com/. Instead of crowding this blog with story ideas, I'll post here when I put a new one up on the other blog. Please check it out and let me know what you think :)

Christian Fiction without a Savior?

I'm dying to learn how to make my work Christian, while not preaching the unbelievers off the page.

The book I'm preparing now is set in another world. In this world, a major war has wiped out 90% of the population. In the aftermath, a dying king in a small kingdom chooses Therin for his throne, despite two healthy boys. This upsets the king's two sons, leading one to fail in an attempt to murder Therin, and the other, Cedik, takes enough money to live happily somewhere else.

The first scene I've written has Cedik return. His army marches right in because he bribes Merril to betray Therin by opening up the gates. Therin tells a favored soldier, Saer, to find Rakai and Aris and flee. Therin then surrenders his life.

I could go with Therin being the Savior, and have him raise from the dead. Or I could have Therin be a picture of the Savior. The former leads to much preaching, while the later allows for more subtlety.

The problem with the later is that readers like myself will be wondering the whole time, "Where is God in this story?" and "Do people in this world have hope of going to Heaven?"

These two questions seem to require the former option for Therin. I suppose I could have Therin just be a picture of the Savior that lived and died long ago in this world. Then throughout the book, Saer could just tell people, Therin was God reminding us of our Savior's sacrifice for our sins back before the war began.

After that, their quest becomes delivering a message by Therin to Lionel, a scientist risen to power through a drug that creates happiness, but steals the benefits of pain - turning us to God for help. As it is, the theme of this story is that only God can satisfy our needs. Do my main characters then go throughout this world telling everyone that they are wrong to choose this drug over the happiness that comes from salvation?

Sounds very preachy to me...

Either way, do any other Christian authors come across this same dilemma when creating worlds?