Call of the Creator: Fantasy Writing from a Christian Worldview

I will be the first to admit--from the moment I first spied the luminescent grass and the gorgeous musculature beneath the black shire's coat in the Brave teaser trailer that came out last year, I have been dying to see this movie. The gorgeous visuals set my limbs trembling, as good animation always does. I waited with impatient mouse clicks of checking and re-checking for a full-length trailer, and when that day came feasted with even more savor over the beauty Pixar had in store. We bought tickets in advance for Friday's showing. I prepped my kids that it was going to be a great treat Friday morning to go see the movie together on one of my rare weekdays off. So, in the blazing heat of June 22nd, we hoofed across the parking lot of the newest theater in town and took our seats twenty-five minutes early so we could be in the high-center of the theater, my preferred place for seeing a film for the sake of both visual and sound experience. And from a visual and sound ...

I am a huge fan of David Farland's Daily Kick in the Pants, a column of writing tips he sends out now and again. Today he was talking about how you can't expect every one who reads to be a rocket scientist, but sometimes, it can be astounding how completely...well...numbskulled people can be when they comment or complain about books. Here's just a part of what he had to say about one such reader... Yet sometimes a reader will be so obnoxiously asinine, so resplendently stupid, that you just have to sit back in awe. For example, I got a review on Amazon.com from a young person who just found that the Runelords had too many unintentionally comic images. Mainly he objected to the word “ponies,” which only came up once in the novel. Ponies, of course, are breeds of horses often derived from populations found in mountain ranges. They tend to be heavy-bodied, small-hooved, large-chested, and have great endurance. When you ride one through thick brush or trees, you’re less l...

As writers, we all have the ginormous job of learning the craft of writing. Just like you wouldn't try to build a house and expect it to stand without first learning something about carpentry and architecture, you can't expect to just sit down and punch out a story with the expectation it won't stink unless you get a sense of what rules exist and why. When I was in junior high and high school, we spent a lot of time focusing on eliminating passive voice from our writing. Though I may have cursed the Downingtown Area School District's secondary English department while I learned under their tutelage, I am immensely grateful for the way they taught me good mechanics back in the day. Now, when I say passive voice, I mean the classic, grammatical definition, which is:  "the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the verb is the recipient (not the source) of the action denoted by the verb." It is a very specific construction rule...not a nebulous...

We writers, especially Christian writers, are a small, tight-knit group.  That group gets even smaller and tighter when you narrow it to Christian Speculative Fiction writers. I am deeply grateful for the good friends I have made, if only virtually, in this writing journey I am on. It was a lot easier, though, when we were all pre-published. At that phase of the game, we were exchanging critiques, delivering the hard truth to one another on our manuscripts, because we all wanted to see these embryonic books grow to maturity and find homes in the publishing world. We could say what needed to be said back then, because we could all see the goal--we all needed iron to sharpen iron so our work would be as honed as we could possibly get it before it went out a-courtin'. I'm finding myself in a new, much more difficult spot, now that I'm reading published books, written by friends, whose manuscripts I never saw during the iron-sharpening-iron phase. For those of you who have...

I've had this niggling little idea in the back of my head for a while now that I keep pushing away like I would a cat that's trying to rub on my chin while I'm reading. But, like that metaphorical cat, the idea is persistent, so I may just have to think about it in a more serious way to quiet the noise in my mind. What is this notion? It has to do with the way those of us who write speculative fiction mourn the fact that at Christian writers conferences, we always feel like the red-headed step child. We don't quite fit with Amish fiction authors, romance writers, and the mom-lit crowd. In an effort to remind ourselves we're not alone in our freakishness, we band together. We like our zombies, our swords, and our dirigibles. We don't even ask that you understand. But I can't help but feel like it's high time we speculative fiction authors stop fighting the current for recognition and respect. Don't get me wrong--I am very glad for the strides the ...

As I read about people submitting their books for consideration for awards like the Nebula or the ACFW's Carol, I have come to realize something. I don't take myself very seriously as a writer. This is clearly going to be a stumbling block for me, because being a new author is almost as much about self-promotion as it is about writing, or so it seems. When your reach is in its developing stages, like mine is, you have to constantly remain on the lookout for new connections you can make. That becomes incredibly hard when you look at your work and question whether anyone would actually like it. Now, there are people out there who are probably stamping their foot at me and saying "Don't be a ninny! You have two novellas out there and a novel under contract. Doesn't that tell you at least SOMETHING?" The trouble is, I've been very good at ignoring real evidence for a very long time. For example, as a child, I lived life cringing in fear, fear that stem...

Artists. That may seem like weird advice coming from me, the writer, animator, illustrator, choir member, ex-trombonist. But honestly. my husband and I talk about this every day. He teaches theater (among other things) and his personal dictum has always been to avoid encouraging young thespians to aspire after acting as a profession. We firmly believe, if there is anything else you can do-- anything --you should choose that. There's a reason the cliche "starving artist" exists. The performing, visual, and literary arts live in the realm of feast or famine, and sadly, the famine is far more widespread than the feast. Now, please understand me that I'm not saying this to rant or be negative or whatever other un-plasticChristian thing I shouldn't do. The core of what I'm saying here is that every person should pursue what they are passionate about, and if you aren't passionate enough about the arts to take it on the chin emotionally a lot of the time, t...

One of my significant life lessons going on right now has to do with how to figuring out how to insist on high quality product without being the person people see emails from and say "Ugh, I can't deal with that right now." In terms of things I care about, "good enough" has never been an option for me. I'm not saying this to toot my own horn--trust me, it's more often a curse than a blessing. The trouble with never being able to reach that point of "good enough," is that I constantly doubt. Every time I submit something, whether it's a drawing for a project, or an editing pass of a manuscript, or even put a meal on the table, I worry that I have not outdone myself enough for the creation to pass muster. After all, I could have done another layer of hard pencil tone over the grain of the drawing to make it just that much more satiny. I could have combed again for sentences that were less than artfully constructed. The enchiladas might ha...

Much to my surprise, I hit the editing deadline I had hoped to conquer this month.  Last night, with enough time to sit down afterward and pop in Russel Crowe's Robin Hood for an hour or so, I applied the final line edit to my novel. (And for the sake of calling it something and not just 'my novel,' let's go with Curse Bearer for now. It may prove to be a working title like Sword of the Patron did, but it's closer to pleasing my publisher as titles go, I think.) Anyway, this first pass of publisher-requested edits has been a lesson in what makes a person an author instead of a hobbyist. Editing is hard work. It has its fun points, as you see the exfoliation of all the padding, redundancy, and just plain author self-indulgence, but there are also points where its a war. Self-doubt, vision, publisher expectations, artistic debates, and just plain fatigue all face off in a new Battle of the Five Armies. It's no wonder I'm relieved to get to the first milest...

There are none so righteous as the newly converted... I thought C.S. Lewis had said this, but as I dug around, I was hard pressed to locate an attribution for the quote. But it certainly holds true no matter who the quote belongs to. For those who are freshly educated in the use of language, the brand of righteousness these folks exhibit is irksome to fiction writers. While not as pervasive as the one-star reasons I've talked about in the first three posts in this series, a refrain I am finding in one-star reviews (and also two-star, incidentally) is grammarphilia. People who stand on the premise that impeccable grammar is far more important than style. Fragments give these people heart palpitations. Prepositions at the ends of sentences are like scarlet letters of the literary world. No self-respecting paragraph would ever have just one sentence. Now, I am completely on the grammarphiles' side in their assertions that writers should know how to make their nouns and verbs...

As I continue my quest to squeeze as much wisdom as possible out of one-star reviews of generally respected fantasy books, I came across an issue that a commenter on the last post about this topic touched upon: visible religious content in the narrative. More specifically, overt parallels to Christianity seem to have a distinct talent for drawing the ire of the one-star reviewer. Some of these reviewers have railed against feeling as though books have snuck up on them under the guise of fantasy stories and then somewhere in the middle, pulled a "bait and switch." Some have even suggested that if authors intend to have Christian content in their stories, that they should preface the book with a warning. Something like a allergen label, I guess: Processed in a facility that may leave trace amounts of stuff that sounds and feels like the Bible. Or perhaps:  Caution: Contains characters that bear an undeniable resemblance to Jesus or other biblical figures F...

In this publishing revolution we're all encountering, I am excited about a lot of things--mainly, the ability of authors who would may never see print due to the fact that they write in too tight a niche to be considered a good risk for a big publisher to now get their work into the marketplace. Whether it's better to go micro-publisher or to self publish in this instance still remains to be seen, but I think over the next few years, we're going to see some interesting statistics emerge about sales connected to both. This is a work in progress to become part of a book cover What I'm not so excited about in the self and micro publishing realms is hokey/cheesy/hackish cover art. Now, not all self or micro published books suffer this malady, but so many do that it's painful. What's even more painful is when an author posts this cover art in the world of social media, and so many of the author's friends say "How exciting! Hooray! Very cool," when...

An Interview with a Fellow Author In case you don't spend time around my facebook page, here is a link to my latest author interview. I wanted to specifically thank Kat Heckenbach, author of Finding Angel, for her great questions and willingness to host me. I hope you enjoy the interview, and that you'll stop back this coming Sunday for an interview I did with Kat. Thanks for all your support in this first week of The Windrider's availability to the public. Also, comment if you're interested: I am willing to create three original sketches of Vinyanel or scenes from Divine Summons for three lucky people who contact me and post an Amazon review of the book. The first three I hear from are the lucky bunch. :)

Publishing Updates...a Lot Going on 'Round These Parts New Authors Fellowship post for Sunday, September 18th Hello Fantasy fans. Once again, I'm just calling your attention to my activity over on New Authors Fellowship in the time I still remain on the "unpublished" side of the fence over there. Amazingly, it's not going to be long before I no longer wear that mantle. While I'm here, I'll give you the update on where things stand with my work that's inching toward release. Diminished Media Group has had the first compilation of Windrider stories in their hands for a about a month now, making final tweaks to make then clean and shiny for release during October in ebook formats. We're also in the process of securing a top-notch illustrator for the cover, and I couldn't be more excited about her potential work for this set of stories. When that's all finalized, I'll let you know who this amazing artist is, and maybe even give ...