Christian Fiction

[Dudeacus97]

Just a little input, I notice Lincoln on your list of past Christian heroes, but he wasn't a Christian.

Oh, I didn't know that. I'm taking him off.

[Rob]

Just a little input, I notice Lincoln on your list of past Christian heroes, but he wasn't a Christian.

There seems to be much dispute about that from what I've read. Some that knew him say he was, some say he wasn't.
How can we be sure? Unless there's something out there I haven't heard yet...

[RickD]

Here's one perspective:http://www.christianitytoday.com/holida ... 3h010.html

[RickD]

And, Wikipedia seems to lean towards the belief that Lincoln was a Christian.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_ ... #section_8
If seems to me, that Lincoln didn't show his faith like prominent pastors of his day did. Lincoln seemed to be very private in his faith. Living his life by his convictions and faith.

Prominent pastors from both sides, during the civil war, were each convinced that God was on their side. Lincoln seemed more concerned, not with if God was on his side, but whether he was on God's side. That seems more Christian than the pastors from the union and confederacy who used God to draw sympathy for their causes.

[Dudeacus97]

I think I'm going to make a seperate thread regarding the book I plan to write. Also, should I make hell similar to the Dantean model, with the Nine Circles, or make up my own model?

[RickD]

Sorry, Dudeacus, I hijacked your thread. No more Honest abe talk. Honest.

[Icthus]

One more Lincoln post, then some actually related stuff.

Not to further derail the thread, but I'm fairly certain that Lincoln was a deist. His father (who he didn't get along with) was a member of the Free Will Baptists, if I recall, and though Lincoln attended Church with his family, he never really accepted the tenets of Christianity. In the early days of his political career, he composed a pamphlet arguing on the subject of infidelity to orthodox religion and seemed to hold to the belief in God as a first cause but not as one to act in the world. His disbelief in Christianity has been noted by several of the more prominent Lincoln scholars of the last century or so and was affirmed by his friend, law partner, and biographer, William Herndon. Rather interestingly, his personal writings from his time in the White House seem to reveal that as the Civil War progressed, he developed an increasing faith that God supported the Northern cause and the end of slavery in the United States, and appeared to have come to accept the existence of a somewhat more personal deity, but as far as I am aware, he never became a Christian, though he knew the Bible pretty well and often quoted from it in his speeches and though he usually put on a Christian face in politics. He certainly believed in something and seemed to hold Christianity in relatively high regard at least as a set of moral teachings, kind of like a lot of other deists, but I don't think he ever crossed the gap over into belief.

Of course, there is still debate. Next to Jesus and Hitler, Lincoln is probably the most fought over figure in American historical circles. Everyone wants him on their side, and the evidence could lead in many different directions if manipulated properly.

Now for some stuff about your book idea.

First off, I have never (obviously) seen any of your literary work and can't, therefore, give targeted suggestions. That said, the project, as you laid it out, sounds very ambitious. It sounds as though your book is intended to have a wide scope, complicated characters, and a bit of philosophizing. That's good, but remember that the more ambitious the project, the more room for something to go wrong. Writing about religion will require a balanced and nuanced approach, one that avoids dropping anvils on the heads of the readers but refrains from long-winded philosophical discourses in the middle of the action. Writing historical characters will require research and will call for a clever but not too out there set of plot devices to get around things like language and stuff like Hitler and Stalin working together. I know it sounds awesome, but those two wouldn't get along together very well. I'm not trying to be discouraging, because I don't know what you're capable of, and you may very well be able to make it work, but I feel obligated to let you know that this will be a lot of work. I am a graduate English student and I've majored in fiction writing so I know a thing or two about the writing process, and I've written, reviewed, edited, and workshopped enough fiction to understand how difficult it can be. That said, I'm here every so often, and I'll be happy to hear any ideas you have, though I probably won't have enough time between projects for any in-depth work.

I hope all goes well.

Oh, and teen fiction is where all the money is (curse you, Stephanie Meyer). Good choice.

[PaulSacramento]

If a person does have an idea for a book, where woudl he go to see if it is something "pitchable" ( is that the term?)

[Icthus]

If a person does have an idea for a book, where woudl he go to see if it is something "pitchable" ( is that the term?)

That's a difficult question to answer. The literary world is kind of like politics--it's often about who you know. Publishers are constantly flooded with far more proposed works than they can handle (everyone thinks their a writer, especially after the rise of "lower" literature like Harry Potter and, gag, Twilight), so even if a writer is very good, they likely won't get very far without some sort of connections. A fairly good strategy would be to find a literary agent or a publishing house that is interested. Of course, not all companies are looking for the same thing, so you should try to specialize. Say you write sort of like John Grisham--you could begin by researching the firms that he has published with and the agents that he has gone through and then sending them manuscripts. Because they've worked with material similar to your own, they'll be more likely (though still unlikely) to want to publish it. It's an extremely difficult process for most, and the majority of writers, even good ones, never reach a point at which it becomes easy enough to publish that they can write for a living, or even make any sort of profit off of a single book. It's not a very nice world (that's why they tell you that majoring in creative writing is a ticket to the poorhouse).

Oh, and stay away from vanity presses.

[Dudeacus97]

Now for some stuff about your book idea.

First off, I have never (obviously) seen any of your literary work and can't, therefore, give targeted suggestions. That said, the project, as you laid it out, sounds very ambitious. It sounds as though your book is intended to have a wide scope, complicated characters, and a bit of philosophizing. That's good, but remember that the more ambitious the project, the more room for something to go wrong. Writing about religion will require a balanced and nuanced approach, one that avoids dropping anvils on the heads of the readers but refrains from long-winded philosophical discourses in the middle of the action. Writing historical characters will require research and will call for a clever but not too out there set of plot devices to get around things like language and stuff like Hitler and Stalin working together. I know it sounds awesome, but those two wouldn't get along together very well. I'm not trying to be discouraging, because I don't know what you're capable of, and you may very well be able to make it work, but I feel obligated to let you know that this will be a lot of work. I am a graduate English student and I've majored in fiction writing so I know a thing or two about the writing process, and I've written, reviewed, edited, and workshopped enough fiction to understand how difficult it can be. That said, I'm here every so often, and I'll be happy to hear any ideas you have, though I probably won't have enough time between projects for any in-depth work.

I hope all goes well.

Oh, and teen fiction is where all the money is (curse you, Stephanie Meyer). Good choice.

The entire point of the book was to make an exciting Christian novel to counter the majorly pagan and occult literature that is avalible for young adults. As for writing about religion, it is very, very hard to even bring up the subject without it resulting in an author tract and anvil dropping. Do you think I could write a book with kids fighting demons using holy weapons that isn't anvillicious? The only philosophical lecture I could think of would be Constantine the Great on Christian Apologetics (he got more knowledge on the subject when he was the guardian angel of a scholar), and I can always remove that. The main issue I was facing when writing this book was creating characters. I was never very good at creating characters unless the work is supposed to be humorous.

As for the plot holes involving the abominables, here are my ideas so far:
-Hitler and Stalin working together: Hitler and Stalin are fighting each other and got destroyed early on because of how powerful they are. Also works for the controversey, seeing that they would probably be the most controversial. People of recent memory such as Osama Bin Laden, Saloth Sar, and Kim-Il-Sung would not be used a lot because people still remember them.
-Everybody speaking the same language: Demons, abominables, and angels speak in a language that sounds like their native tongue to them.
-For the morality of angels/abominables, see previous page.

As for what I am capable of, I have tried to write a book before and it was largely a comedy parodying urban fantasy. It was about a talking, foul-mouthed, barely sentient, telekinetic alligator that breathed fire and shot lasers out of his eyes on a mission from God (who he thinks is Morgan Freeman) to find the Secret of the Universe. Some of the obstacles he faces on the way are Canadian Ultranationalists, mind-controlling tapeworms, creepy little girls, aliens, manatees, and other dangers. It's supposed to be the dumbest thing you ever heard. I showed it to one of my friends and he thought it was pretty good and funny. Now, in my spare time, I write scripts for a TV show with the same characters. I was going to post them here if you guys wanted, but it's very politcally incorrect at many parts and I'm afraid if I post it up here, then somebody would take it and make it into an actual show. Some of the people that read it said that it was so good it could be made into one. I think I'm going to work on that considering that humor and comedy are my strong suits.

I also write for teens because I am a teenager myself. I also have autism, which explains a lot of my... strange ideas.

[Icthus]

If you can make it work, that's all that matters.

[narnia4]

My father has around 60 books on Lincoln, one of his hobbies. He seems pretty convinced that he was a Christian giving a lot of the contemporary writings by Lincoln and others.

Not to throw things off topic further.

[Icthus]

My father has around 60 books on Lincoln, one of his hobbies. He seems pretty convinced that he was a Christian giving a lot of the contemporary writings by Lincoln and others.

Not to throw things off topic further.

Not to throw things off even further, but that's pretty interesting. My opinion could very well have been affected by the university I attended (not Christian friendly) and my professor (a secular humanist who thinks he knows a lot about religion because he's read Elaine Pagels and owns a concordance but doesn't know that the concept of immaculate conception isn't the same as the virgin birth). Anyway, there are a ton of books about Lincoln, and you can find just about any theory written about him. It's a huge field so I won't pretend to know for sure one way or another, but I feel that if he was ever a Christian, it was only rather briefly.

Back to the topic.

[Dudeacus97]

I think I realized that my novel idea would not be a very good way to spread a Cristian message, and I also had a lot of trouble making characters (not one of my strong suits) because I had to make them like teenagers (the demographic) without resulting to cliches (Jock, Nerd, Everyman, Psychopath, etc.) There were several reasons why:

First of all, as C.S. Lewis said, the Gospel differed from pagan mythology because there wasn't a lot of artistry. Now, kids are learning to associate pagan religion with entertainment and Christianity with whatever their parent's beliefs are. If I write a big-name Christian novel, then people might associate Christianity with violent sword fights, terrifying demons, massive cosmic battles, pagan mythologies, and guardian angels instead of apologetics, salvation, and spiritual guidance.

Second of all, there are conversions in the book, but many of them come from direct revelation. Since the book takes place close to Judgement Day, demons are being very desperate in attacking Christians. The main Character's family gets bombed, his love interest (an atheist) gets dragged into hell to be used as a hostage, and many of his friends get attacked. Christian demons don't work like that. They try to tempt and keep you away from God, not try to kill you. If they did, then people would turn right to God to make the demon attacks sop. Faith in God doesn't come from seeing "HOLY **** A GIANT CRAB JUST TRIED TO EAT ME" (I just thought of that, the demons in the book are actually a lot... weirder) and freaking out. It comes from an inner sense of knowledge, evidence, and personal faith. (Of course, maybe if they survive, they put a spell on them that makes them think it was a dream, I could get away with it.)

Finally, the great Christian novels of the past (Narnia, Lord of the Rings*) were very subtle, at least in the sense that you have to think about them for more than a second before you realize it. If I randomly put this out, people will think it's a way to make money off of Christianity, anti-Christian (somehow), or a cheap evangealism tool ("If you become a Christian, then Richard the Lionheart will come down, give you a badass holy weapon, and you can kill demons together! Don't you want to become a Christian?") Even though it isn't for evangealism at all, just so people will have a Christian urban fantasy novel instead of the typically atheistic (Golden Compass, I am suspecting that Skulduggery Pleasant might also fall under this considering the villains are religious fundamentalists) or pagan literature (I don't mind pagan books like Percy Jackson & The Kane Chronicles, but not when they openly mock Christianity.) But there's always Harry Potter (I always thought it was Christian) and Narnia.

So that's why I stopped. Actually, I never even started due to me having trouble making characters. This is a bad habit of mine. I go and blab about a novel I plan on writing on a forum, then I never get around to WRITING it. I think I'm going to try to revive an old novel I tried to write. It was about a talking, swearing, cajun, fire-breathing, eye-laser shooting, telekinetic, non-anthropomorphic alligator on a mission from God with his black sidekick to find the secret of the universe. It's supposed to sound like the dumbest thing you've ever heard. I already know about all of the characters from the show that I write (same ones), and it is in comedy, my field of "expertise." Plus, it's a little Christian, with God (who the hero thinks is Morgan Freeman) and a very incompetent Satan (who the hero thinks is Al Pacino). But most of it is just plain weird. I was also thinking of writing a science fiction novel set on a lawless jungle planet about a former pirate who became a priest after he converted. On previously mentioned jungle planet, he became a priest/humanitarian/vigilante and decided to devote his life to helping the local population. When a local military dictator starts to do *INSERT PLOT HERE*, the priest guy (I'm not good with names either) sets out to stop him. It would be a science fiction novel where religion (more specifically, Christianity) is positively depicted because it made a man who was so evil turn into a man who beame so good.

*I haven't read it, but I heard it had Christian undertones from an article.

[Icthus]

*I haven't read it, but I heard it had Christian undertones from an article.

You mean the Lord of the Rings? Tolkien was somewhat similar to Lewis in that he was abundantly well-informed about myths and legends. Tolkien was, I believe, Catholic, and his works certainly do carry a certain strong influence from his religion. However, I'd say that Tolkien is a bit more subtle. The world he created has definite Christian undertones, especially in its concept of creation and the creation's rebellion against the Lord, but it mixes in quite a few different traditions as well. One can sense the rather potent influence of paganism, especially of Norse mythology and a more Germanic sort of nature based religion in some places. One might say that the difference between Lewis and Tolkien is that the former produced Christian allegory in the form of a number of rather mythical books while the latter worked towards creating his own mythology from his vast knowledge of existing traditions. Both are quite good, though, personally, I tend to prefer Tolkien's fiction over Lewis'. Lewis in his nonfiction, however, especially when he is at his most pithy in some of his short essays, is really hard to match. See my signature for another great mind on the subject of Christianity.