Writing In Obedience

A Primer for Christian Fiction Writers

Terry Burns, Linda W. Yezak

• Publisher: Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781941103135
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Proprietà intellettuale

This book is for the new Christian writer or the writer looking to decide how God wants them to incorporate their faith into their writing. How do we know what the Lord wants us to do? Are we being called to write or do we want to write for Him as an offering? What is required of the author using their writing for the Lord and how do they go about it? What do we really want to achieve with our writing, and how do we define success?

Part Two

Specifficaly For The Beginning Christian Writer

Or a refresher for the more advanced Christian writer

Newbie Enthusiasm

Linda:

Terry and I have been honored to see a variety of manuscripts written by newbies with high hopes of changing the world and bringing it into submission to God. Between the two of us, we can come up with some suggestions of things to avoid, both with your writing, and when submitting your manuscript to agents and editors. (If you recognize yourself in any of the examples, it’s entirely coincidental. These little gems are universal, and aren’t based on any one person.)

God gave me this!

Terry:

I hate it when I get pitched this way. “God gave me this and He wants it published.”

I don’t want to make light of anyone’s faith, nor do I wish to doubt the strength of how strongly God is motivating anyone’s writing. But having said that, the last time I am aware of God directly writing something on Earth, it was either the Ten Commandments or the message on the wall in Daniel 5:25.

God works through people, and while He may very strongly direct the content and concept of a project, I believe He expects the author to know how to write it or get the help they need to make it the best it can be. The King James Version of the Bible was written by a large number of scribes all working independently of each other, yet they came up with the same interpretation and concepts. The original authors of the Bible were writing God’s words as they were being given to them, but He expected them to do the writing. Clearly in both cases, they were being led by the Lord.

Edits and critiques are an important part of the writing process, no matter if the work was directly motivated by the Lord or not. I know one agent who likes to say “Maybe God did give you this and wants it published, but He forgot to tell me.” Making a joke? Not really. God may motivate the writer to do the writing, but if He really wants it published, He will motive the agent to represent it or the editor to want to publish it.

I love to hear writers tell me how strongly they felt the Lord’s leading in writing their project. But I have to admit I don’t much like it when the author implies retribution coming down on me if I fail to take their project. That’s what the sort of statement I began with suggests, and I think most agents and editors don’t much like it either.

This attitude often affects the writing, too. Writers who feel they are being given the exact words for something are generally not open to change or revision. Knowing how I believe God works, I think this prevents them working the project up into the best work they can do. They stick with the first words they put down, and I just don’t know any authors who can produce their best work with the first words they put down without revision.

Great writing is not as much about the writing as it is about good revision and editing, painstakingly massaging the words into the best form or format they can be. Can it be that an author genuinely trying to follow the leading of the Lord is failing to produce the quality God expects? Sadly, I think that is sometimes the case. God knows we are imperfect creatures, and He understands it is going to take work to get something right that we are trying to do for Him.

But He is faithful. He will be with us in receiving the content . . . and He will lead us in the revision and editing to produce exactly what He wants.

Writing a crossover book

Terry:

I get submissions all the time from people who say they have written a “crossover book.” In light of what we have discussed, I don’t believe this is true. Since they have to be written so differently to appeal to Christians or to reach out to people who are not Christians, I believe it is very rare that a book can be aimed at both, if not impossible. If we look at the books that have been bestsellers in both markets, they are clearly aimed at one market or the other.

So how did they become crossover books?

A crossover book is not one that spans both markets, but as the name implies, is able to cross over the fence separating the two markets to sell on the other side. I believe it is more about marketing and promotion, and even being able to generate some sort of controversy or something that causes it to go viral that makes this happen.

The first contemporary Christian fiction novel to cross over and become a bestseller in both markets was This Present Darkness, Frank Peretti’s hair-raising 1986 novel about the struggle between Bible-believing Christians and New Age cultists who battle each other and assorted supernatural forces for control of their once quiet town. It was definitely aimed at the Christian market but generated a lot of interest and crossed over to the mainstream market.

That spine-tingling novel paved the way for a growth spurt in Christian fiction that continued with Left Behind the end-times novel by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins that appeared nine years later. Left Behind unleashed an unprecedented publishing tsunami of adult novels with sales of 30 million copies, the last I heard. More than a dozen related titles have sold over 20 million copies.

At the same time the Left Behind books claimed top spots on fiction bestseller lists, Bruce Wilkinson’s inspirational The Prayer of Jabez took up a lengthy residence on the major nonfiction lists. In fact, the trade magazine Publishers Weekly said in 2001 that Jabez and the Left Behind series were the publishing industry’s best-selling nonfiction and fiction books in that year. “This is the first time that two Christian titles have headed our annual charts.”

There was another little event that contributed to this, and that is 9/11 and the need people felt right after the event to find some sort of meaning in their lives. That event was the perfect springboard for the Left Behind Series, Prayer of Jabez, and The Purpose Driven Life. And, of course, Mel Gibson came out with the Passion of the Christ amidst all sorts of controversy and the dogged refusal of Hollywood to be involved.

The fervor after 9/11 faded pretty quickly, but the Christian genre didn’t fade with it. It has continued much stronger than before. In fact, recently, the Queen of the Damned author, Anne Rice, abandoned her vampire tales to write a book about the childhood of Jesus. That caused some controversy and huge publicity.

I believe it is clear, we have to pick a horse, then once we are riding him, get him to jump that fence.

Just one more theme . . .

Linda:

A story’s overall structure dictates the time it’s supposed to be “over.” For Romance, it’s the happily-ever-after. For Mystery, it’s when the mystery is solved. When the story’s conflict is resolved, the reader expects the story to end.

But sometimes, an enthusiastic writer wants to conquer every possible Christian theme within the confines of one manuscript. More often than not, all those themes don’t fit into the plot, so when the story is over, the author continues writing to present whatever was left out—and the reader is left thinking, “Will this ever end?”

Simplest solution? Search for the main theme within the confines of the story, not the manuscript, and focus on it, plump it up. Omit the others. Chances are good God’s going to let you write more than one book. You can introduce other themes in other books.

Showing every angle

Linda:

Authors who present this little jewel usually have a single event—a monumental event—portrayed, and they want to illustrate how the event personally affected everyone involved. They usually have several characters involved, and they want to show how God worked through their characters’ lives to help them cope, or how they turned to Him because of the event. When done right, this can make for one powerful story. But unless an...