Recorded Books purchased the audio rights to The Amen Sisters earlier this summer. While I was surfing the web, I found this entry for it on their web site. I hope they send me a free copy as it’s bit expensive.
This question has been rolling around in my mind for quite a while now. Just to be clear, the IT is Christian fiction. So, what makes Christian fiction Christian?
I started writing Christian fiction back around 1999. At that time, the books were being sold primarily in CBA (Christian Bookseller Association) bookstores and published by publishers who served those bookstores, called CBA publishers. Yourgeneral bookstores, chain (Border’s, Amazon, etc) or independent (Black Images Book Bazaar in Dallas, Karibou in DC/Maryland), are called ABA (or, BEA) bookstores. You’ll find Christian fiction sections of varying sizes in ABA stores. Industry reports suggest that Christian fiction is one of the fastest growing markets. But I’m getting off track . . .
One of the things that surprised me when I entered CBA publishing was the complaint of some CBA authors (authors I’d read and enjoyed) that CBA publishing guidelines contrained them in their writing and didn’t allow them to tell the stories they really wanted to tell. The authors seemed to feel constrained from telling “real” stories.
That wanting to write real stories about real people refrain is one that is still heard among Christian authors and, to be honest, I’ve said it myself. Only recently have I begun to ask myself exactly what the refrain means. I’ve heard that the characters in some Christian fiction were/are unrealistic because the people were/are too perfect. More recently, there’s the refrain among African-American authors and readers of Christian fiction that CBA Christian fiction does not speak to the reality of their lives. So now we have CBA fiction, where CBA has somehow become code for “white” and gospel fiction, code for “black.” [Okay, Dee, kick me if I’m misusing your term.]
I think the two aforementioned reasons are why we have the real refrain from Christian authors and readers. Unfortunately, the fallout I’m seeing from this is that in some (and I do say “some”) books it’s difficult to distinguish the Christian characters from the non-Christian characters. This is the problem that gets me back to the initial question in this post, What makes IT Christian? What makes Christian fiction Christian?
The conclusion I’ve come to is that “real” Christian fiction doesn’t seek to show how weak Christians are, but rather to show people of faith in situations where they’re challenged to live their faith. Sometimes they’ll meet the challenge and, at others, they won’t. But in the course of the challenges, we see a growing relationship with God through Christ.
I’ve concluded that the challenge of writing Christian fiction is not in showing how far Christians can fall, but in showing, through words and story, what it means to love God, to be in relationship with Him. I think this is reality for Christians.
So how do I show this reality in my stories? How do I write a compelling story about a person who loves God? How do I show a relationship with an invisible God on the very visible pages of a book? Now that’s a challenge.
In next week’s post, I’ll reflect on how I wrote The Amen Sisters as a way of looking more closely at these questions. Please note that I’m not saying that I have the answers, just that I want to explore the questions more.
Okay, those are my thoughts. What do you think?
It’s been a bit longer than I expected for this post, but here I am. My goal is post once a week until life settles down and I can post more frequently. So look for a weekly post. Let’s start with another update, this one with the details that you all requested. If you see some names here, they’re comments to folks who posted under the previous post, Still Alive!
The move. The move is now complete. My old house is on the market in Illinois and I’m a renting a house in Alabama. I ask that you all pray for me that the old house sells fairly soon since it ’s pretty expensive to maintain two households. As for the new house, I’m all settled in, including my office. I like the new place a lot. It’s a bit smaller than my previous house, so I was forced to get rid of stuff. The good news: I needed to get rid of it anyway.
Are any of you pack rats like me? If so, I encourage you to do a bit of cleaning and make a few runs to the Salvation Army to share your unneeded bounty with others. I did, and it was a good feeling. I also got rid of a lot of books. I have to do this ocassionally to make sure there’s room for the new books. I always take my discards to the local library, where they are much appreciated.
Gabrielle, I moved moved back South because my roots are here. Maybe it’s my age. It’s as though the pull became greater for me in these last years to be somewhere that I considered home. This past weekend I drove to Atlanta to see a great-aunt who was visiting from New York. I drove over Saturday and came back home on Sunday. While there, I had a chance to visit with other relatives as well. It’s so nice to be able to do that and it’s something I would not have been able to do had I still been living in Illinois. I’m sure blacksunshine knows all about that since she recently moved from IL back down south. Vyta, who’s also considering a move, may join us in the South. Be sure to let us know what you decide, Vyta.
The new job. I’m settling into the new job. I really like my new colleagues and the general atmosphere of the College. My old work environment was very collegial and I’m pleased to say it’s going to be that way here at the new job as well. I’m teaching two courses this semester and I’m really looking forward to meeting my students. My office is almost together, but not quite. I think it’s going to take a while. To be honest, I’m not really motivated to do a lot since we’re moving to a newly renovated buliding in January.
The eating healthy plan. (Thanks for asking, Patricia. ) I’m happy that some of you reported good success with your health plans. I’m sorry to have to report that I don’t have a good story. I haven’t done a thing–no excerise, no keeping up with the First Place bible study, no Curves, no anything. In fact, I’ve gained a few pounds. YIKES. So I have to get started. My goal for this week is to transfer my Curves membership to a local Curves and to call a woman who’s hosted First Place bible studies to see if they’re planning any others. Those two are pretty easy goals, I know, but I have to start somewhere.
The new book. Don’t ask; pray. It’s good to hear that Xenia’s writing up a storm though. You go, girl, and congrats on the book. Tell us about it or give us a link to your site so we can read about it.
Spam. Thanks to Ty and Dee for the suggestions on getting rid of Spam in the blog. I’m pleased to report that we’ve wrested power away from the spammers! Sigrun, SpamKarma rates the spam factor of each posting and if it’s above a certain number, the post is listed in the possible spam listing and it doesn’t clutter up the list of good postings/comments. So far, I really like it.
Engagements! Hey, there must be something in the water ‘cos y’all are definitely getting engaged up in here! Geigh and blacksunshine (well, sorta) lead the pack. Congrats, sisters! Geigh, give a sister a phone call; we need to chat. Blacksunshine, keep on looking up, sister, you’re moving in the right direction.
Reading. It’s good to hear that many of you (yes, you, Patricia) are reading because I’m not. Sy, I haven’t read your book yet, but I’ll put it on my list. In fact, I haven’t really read much fiction since doing the Bible in 90 Days activity. It doesn’t have the same feel as it once did. I want to blog about that, but now’s not the time; maybe next week. Why don’t some of you tell us what you’re reading? It might give me the needed jump to get started again.
You know, I haven’t read much nonfiction either. My brother is on this “get your finances in order” kick these days so he’s encouraged me to read a couple of books on that. He’s turned into a big budgeter and now he’s trying to turn me into one. According to him and the books he’s reading, the Bible spends more time talking about handling money than it does talking about faith. (I hope I got that right). Anyway, I know I could use some discipline in this area so I’m going to try the books. I’ll have to tell you the titles later. I’ll also make sure I got the percentages right.
E-mail. You won’t be suprised to know that I still have issues with my email. My SPAM problem still exists, but I’ve complicated things by changing to a new email program. I’m using Mozilla Thunderbird now instead of AOL Communicator. I found out that AOL no longer supports the product so I figured I’d better change. Well, the problem is that I haven’t figured out how to import my old mail from Communicator into Thunderbird AND I don’t have the Communicator program running on my new computer. So, if you’ve sent me e-mail during the Summer while I’ve been trying to move, don’t hate me if I haven’t responded; it just means you were lost in switch. I do apologize. I spent some time this past week cathing up on e-mail but I’m sure there are some messages in Communicator that are unanswered. I’ll spend some time this weekend seeing if there is a way to get those messages into Thunderbird.
I guess that it’s for tonight. Have a blessed week. I’ll talk to you soon.
