First Athol Dickson posted on Novel Rocket giving his opinion on how tough it is to market his novels to Christian readers. After that Mike Duran asked if Christian readers are dumbed down.

Mike clarified that he doesn’t think Christians are dumber than general market readers, but he thinks “readers who are accustomed to looking for a particular message in their stories are less likely to be good readers.”

Is it that Christian book readers aren’t good readers?

When I disagree with the message I don’t like the book

I don’t think I’m looking in novels for a “clear moral, message, or doctrinal statement,” as Mike and Athol suggest Christian readers are doing. The problem I have with some novels is not in the lack of a clear moral message, but in the grinding of the author’s theology against my own.

Preach no message if you like. But if you start preaching, be aware that you’re going to offend the readers who don’t agree with you. Why should we expect anything else?

Athol thinks he’s offending Christian readers by giving no answers, and he may be right. Sometimes the refusal to give answers, though, gives a message that there are no answers, and that, obviously, is going to bug those of us who think there are plenty of answers and man’s problem is not that he doesn’t know the answers, but that he doesn’t want to obey what he knows.

But if Athol is offending readers by withholding answers, he’s OK with that. He’s writing the books he wants to write and he’s not worried about having big sales.

This is as it should be.

Except….

Maybe we just need to find the right fish tank to swim in

I think if Athol is not meeting with wild commercial success that doesn’t necessarily mean Christian readers are poor readers and I’m certain it doesn’t mean he’s a poor writer (I’ve only read one of his books, but that was enough to show me that he’s an excellent writer). Maybe it means he’s aiming at the wrong audience. If he really is writing books with no answers then maybe he should be aiming at the Blue Like Jazz audience. Isn’t that audience more comfortable with questions than answers? They revere art, too, I think.

I’m not saying I think Athol’s view of God is lacking in any way. I haven’t read enough of his stuff to form an opinion on that (and I’ve never read anything by Donald Miller—so I’m not remarking on his spirituality, either). I’m simply saying that Athol may be better suited for the “I’m on a journey and don’t have many answers, but I know social issues are important” crowd, rather than for the “typical CBA fiction reader” crowd. Would that be the Blue Like Jazz crowd? I don’t know. I’m just saying…there must be an audience that will appreciate his stuff.

We’re just people, after all

In the end, I don’t know about Christian readers as a group, but I tend to think that Christian readers are no different from feminist readers or eco-friendly readers or pro-homosexual marriage readers or any other group of readers. Some are good readers and have thought carefully about the issues and others want their ears tickled and don’t want to have to think through issues at all.

Besides, radical feminist readers are disappointed when they are expecting a radical feminist read and they get something less, as are homosexual readers and every other kind of reader. Expectations matter. But that’s a post for another day.

I put up my first post today over at Novel Rocket. I’ll be posting there on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month. Stop on over there and say “hi” if you’ve got time. This week I posted on YA Warriors—kick-ass heroines and feminism in YA books.

What set me off on thinking about kick-ass heroines to begin with was Sarah Sawyer, talking about speculative novels and movies. She thinks superhero stories are on the rise, in part because:

They appeal to a desire to be a unique individual capable of offering something significant to the world. For the time that you experience the story, you get to cheer on someone gifted with special abilities–whether inherent, genetically added, given by a special device, or acquired by some other means–and watch them change their world. In reality, as [Christian] believers, we are ordinary individuals infused with the extraordinary…and superhero tales offer a glimpse into what that might mean on an epic scale.

I think she’s right in saying that superheros appeal to our desire for significance. When I was young, I often fantasized about doing great things and winning the admiration of the world. Like James Hunter (James at Fifteen), I dreamed about being important. Children aren’t the only ones who feel this way. I’d guess that most adults have something of Walter Mitty in them.

In the children’s publishing world, it is a truth universally acknowledged that powerless children in possession of a good library must be in want of powerful protagonists. We are always hearing that children’s books should empower readers.

Maybe, but I think maybe we only want power because power is a way for us to have significance.

What do you think? Are children looking for power or significance? How do we empower them and how do we convince them that they are significant?

There is a difference between message-driven fiction, and fiction that leads readers to discover a message. One drives and the other…well…leads. Which would you prefer: having someone stand behind you, poking you with a cattle prod, or having someone stand in front of you, holding out a carrot big bowl of ice cream?

Both will get you moving in the right direction, but they aren’t equally good ways to motivate people. The prodding sets up a situation where life becomes unbearable and you have to move forward to get away from the irritant. The ice cream allows you to stay where you are if you really want to, but it offers you a tasty reward if you’ll do a little work.

I, being  a mother, see benefits in both of these motivational methods. Sometimes a lazy child will not move no matter how wonderful the reward, so you must needs make his life miserable. As an author, though, I think prodding is never the right way to go. Is a reader going to choose a book that prods him with a lecture or a book that offers him the tasty reward of discovering some great truth for himself?

On Monday, Sarah Sawyer posted Faith in Fantasy: Part 2, in which she discussed the differences between Tolkien and Lewis. Both believed that “fantasy lent itself to the expression of spiritual truth,” Sawyer tells us. But Lewis depicted ”more distinct, overt Christian elements” than Tolkien did.

Then Mike Duran gave us The Problem with “Message-Driven” Fiction, on Tuesday.

So this stuff—the “message in fiction” deal—is once again on my mind, and I thought I’d post on it, because this is important for Christian writers but it’s also important for children’s writers.

Children’s writers, like Christian writers, seem to fall into two camps—those that want to put in blatant messages and those that don’t think we should ever deliver answers, rather we should only ask questions and let the readers find their own answers.

I have discussed Katherine Paterson’s excellent mode of preaching in fiction at length here and here. In that second post—Lessons (L)earned—the point I made six years ago is one I still believe. We can push any agenda as long as the answers are “earned” by the characters, rather than given to them by a heavy-handed author.

The problem with “message-driven” fiction is not that there is a message. Fiction needs a message unless you are trying to write mindless drivel that is on the shelf and off again in two weeks. Message is fine. The problem comes when the message drives the characters rather than letting the characters find it and decide to follow it of their own free will.

In my comment on Sarah’s site, I said:

Preaching is OK with me if it’s done well. I think if you want to preach, the characters must be looking for answers and finding those answers as the result of much labor and hardship on their part. Then when they grasp the truth the reader grasps it with them and it all feels earned. It feels like the prize at the end of a tough race.

What happens in too many Christian books, unfortunately, is that we have one surly, angry-at-God character and someone lectures him on how he needs to be saved by the blood of Christ and low and behold the surly character sees the light and is saved. Hallelujah, Amen! That kind of story doesn’t allow the reader to participate with the character in his struggle and growth.

This kind of stuff doesn’t happen in children’s books too much, because the overtly didactic books aren’t published. But if you’ve read many self-pubbed chidlren’s books or done much critiquing, you’ll know that this is a huge temptation for those who want to write and publish children’s books. Based on the manuscripts I’ve read over the years, I’d guess that for many of us, our first inclination is to write books in which an adult, or a know-it-all child tells the hero what he needs to learn.

That’s no good.

Don’t do that.

What do you think? How can we lead readers to discover the lessons we want them to learn, without making them feel like we’re jolting them with a cattle prod to make them go a certain direction?

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This post was featured in the August 2011 Carnival of Children’s Literature hosted at Great Kid Books.

(No wise cracks from the atheists about how Christianity is based on a book of fantasy. We’ve all heard that one before. Come up with some fresh material.)

If you are a Christian writer, and perhaps if you belong to some other religious group, you’re probably heard people say things like, “Why write fiction? It’s a waste of time. It’s all lies.” Or maybe, “Fiction encourages people to retreat from the real world and hide in a fantasy world.”

Some Christian readers like fiction, but they don’t want anything to do with the fantasy genre. They believe that anything that mentions schools of witchcraft and wizardry, for instance, must be evil.

We can’t live our lives in accordance with what every self-proclaimed Christian has to say, or we’ll all end up picketing funerals with the arrogant, mean, and bizarre Fred Phelps. But we do have a responsibility to listen to our friends and consider when they give us warnings. Christians are called to “submit to one another, insofar as you able,” and we are to rebuke and encourage one another. So when someone rebukes me for writing fiction and encourages me to give it up, I feel a need to stop and consider their arguments.

Many of us did that a long time ago and settled the issue for ourselves, but the conversation continues because there are new writers jumping into the crowded “wannabe published” end of the pool every day. And inevitably the question crops up: “What do you say to family and friends who think writing fiction is sinful because it’s making money by telling lies?”

You can say one of two things, I think: “I don’t care what you think, so leave me alone,” or, “Let’s discuss this.” (A third option, of course would be, “Making money? People make money writing fiction?” But we won’t go there in this post.)

If you go for the second option, I have found a couple of wonderful little videos to help you out. I found these over at Movieology, thanks to Glenda from Ascribelog.

Check them out:

What is the Biblical View of Fantasy Movies: Part 1, in which Michael Minkoff asks if the fantasy genre is the worthy product of the imagination or the rotten fruit of vain speculation. (heh heh, you gotta love this guy.)

What is the Biblical View of Fantasy Movies: Part 2, in which the same Michael Minkoff starts with a recap of part 1, telling us about how poor little Fiction, on his way to the movies, was accosted by Well-meaning Christian and his condemnation machine.

The second video is a bit more involved and I’m not sure I agree with him completely on the Pharisiees and how they understood and rejected the parables, but the entire video is worth considering. (Not surprisingly, there’s a comment on that video, dated August 13, where someone asks Minkoff to clarify what he means when he says the Bible contains much fiction. I’m not sure how anyone could watch the videos and read the comments and not understand what Minkoff believes about whether the Bible is true or what he believes “much fiction” means. Okay, sorry, that was a little mini-rant.)

When Minkoff speaks of fiction as being a Trojan Horse, he’s right on. It’s not that Christians sneak religion into novels. All good novelists want to express something meaningful, I think. It’s why we use fresh metaphors instead of clichés. We want our readers to hear us, instead of yawning because they’ve heard it all before. Sometimes we use short metaphors to describe a small element in the story, and sometimes the whole story is a metaphor.

This Trojan Horse idea is also what Laurel Snyder was doing when she wrote about her happy lesbian couple in her book, Penny Dreadful.  It’s what Jonathan Rogers talks about in How Stories Do Their Work on Us. And it’s what CS Lewis spoke of in God in the Dock when he said:

What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects — with their Christianity latent. You can see this most easily if you look at it the other way round. Our faith is not likely to be shaken by any book on Hinduism. But, if whenever we read an elementary book on geology, botany, politics, or astronomy, we found that its implications were Hindu, that would shake us. It is not the books written in direct defense of materialism that make the modern man a materialist; it is the materialistic assumptions in all the other books. (For an interesting discussion see the comments that played off this post about opinionated novelists, written by Mike Duran at the Wordserve Water Cooler.)

I say we should all put what we believe to be Truth into our fiction, painting it with fresh pictures or slipping it into the background as “Truth that is universally accepted” and then let the best man win the reader over. We need to read critically, and teach our children to do the same, we need to interact with the stories we read instead of just letting them do their work on us, and we need to write books that cause others to stop and think, “Hmm, is this true?”

That’s what I think, anyway. How about you? Are you purposely trying to put into you book something that is important to you? Homosexual rights? Environmental issues? The power of forgiveness? Do you start with a theme, make a theme stronger after you write the book and figure out what you think the theme is, or ignore theme altogether?
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This post was included in the Christian Carnival, hosted at Inspiks this month. Click over to read more great Christian articles on a variety of topics. If you want to join the carnival, get the schedule here.

When I read Tony Woodlief’s article, which suggested that I might not be a mature Christian because I like bad/happy art, I was offended.

I’m not against Christians writing about gritty reality. I don’t shy away from grime. But I don’t want to live there. And I’d for sure rather have a painting by Thomas Kinkade hanging on my wall than one that depicts the chaos and sin and horror of a broken creation that groans as it longs for redemption.

We all know what the fallen world looks like. We’ve all had people we love die. We’ve all suffered loss and pain and poverty and betrayal. When I look at a painting or read a book, I want to be reminded that Jesus has overcome. Sometimes I want to weep. Sometimes I want art to fill me with pain. But the art I love most—the books and movies I can’t wait to share with my family and friends—are the stories that remind me of Christ’s redeeming sacrifice.

Mr. Woodlief’s tastes are not like mine. He seems to take more comfort in questions than answers. He suggests that life is a difficult journey, and he wants his art to reflect that, having profanity, sensuality, critical questions and all:

In short, if Christian novels and movies and blogs and speeches must be stripped of profanity and sensuality and critical questions, all for the sake of sparing us scandal, then we have to wonder what has happened that such a wide swath of Christendom has failed to graduate from milk to meat.

And if we remember that theology is the knowing of God, we have to ask in turn why so many Christians know God so weakly that they need such wholesomeness in order for their faith to be preserved.

Ouch!

People who don’t read (or write) books that are gritty and/or angsty, aren’t necessarily shallow Christians ignorant of the pain and anguish and sin that pervades the real world. They may be people who have found that God is trustworthy in the dark times and they don’t have a need to question him. Maybe they don’t need to put him on trial and see if he’s an ogre. Many of them realize that they are finite beings and they are not fit to judge the Almighty Creator of the universe. They might be so busy keeping their eyes on Jesus that they can’t find a lot of time to mutter about the human condition.

Woodlief is right to say that if our art must be stripped of real world ugliness for the sake of sparing us a scandal then there’s something wrong. That’s a mighty big if, though. Who cares if we create a scandal? Most of the Christian writers I know aren’t afraid of scandal, and they don’t have to strip their manuscripts and blogs of profanity. They don’t put profanity in, in the first place, because they have no need to be profane. Most of the Christian readers I know, read plenty of books with profanity, but they’d like to find more books with Christian characters they can relate to.

Woodlief is right again when he says if someone needs wholesomeness in order for his faith to be preserved something is not right. But who does this? Are there really “so many Christians” who know God so weakly? I don’t think I know one Christian with faith so weak that it will evaporate if it stumbles upon sensuality in a book.

I go to R-rated movies, but I don’t believe I can prove from scripture that John Piper, who doesn’t go to R-rated movies (I think he doesn’t go to movies at all), is my weaker brother. Yikes! What a joke. I don’t think scripture indicates that Mr. Piper doesn’t know God well and is some kind of pansy with a faith that will crumble if he opens his eyes to the real world. If you listen to the man preach, you know he is well acquainted with the ravages of sin.

I don’t have a problem with Christians saying, “I want more grit, I hate these Utopian stories that don’t paint the world as I experience it.” I don’t mind if they say, “I want all my bad boys converted by the end of the book, because I believe God is powerful to save bad boys.” But I wish we could make our pleas for what we like and what we find spiritually helpful without resorting to judging others to be lesser Christians than we are.