If you are unfamiliar with Christian fiction, you may have some preconceptions about these kind of novels and short stories that may be inaccurate. This was brought home to me when my college-age niece read the short story that kicked off my Rae Riley Mysteries, “A Rose from the Ashes”. She wasn’t expecting a story about a girl looking for her father because her late mother wasn’t sure of his identity. So here are a three points about what Christian fiction isn’t.
Christian fiction isn’t disguised sermons
At least, it shouldn’t be. If a work of fiction comes across as a sermon, then the author should really have written a nonfiction book. In Christian fiction, like in the secular market, the story is king. All the elements the author puts into a story should serve the goal of the story.
For me, that’s a mystery. If I put in a faith element that doesn’t mesh with the mystery, I have to take it out. Since my main character Rae Riley is a Christian, it’s easy for me to incorporate her faith as she solves a mystery because her behavior is based on her faith. But I still have to weave her code of conduct into the overall goal of solving a mystery.
Christian fiction isn’t only about pleasant topics
A lot of Christian fiction tackles a lot of serious topics. What hard topics a writer includes depends on the audience he or she is writing for. I write cozy mysteries. Those readers don’t like violence or sex dealt with in a graphic way, either in the Christian or secular market. I also write for teens, who have parents, and have to keep that audience in mind as I write.
In A Storm of Doubts, Rae’s father, Sheriff Malinowski, discovers a body that’s been in the woods a few days in the summer. When he tells the closest relation that he has to get fingerprints to verify it’s the person he suspects it is, I don’t go into detail about why fingerprints are necessary. And that makes sense for the sheriff not to go into detail either because he’s being sensitive to the feelings of the closest relation. So he just says the body had been damaged because it’s been exposed to the elements. Readers can fill in the gaps in their imagination without me filling in grisly details they don’t like.
Christian fiction isn’t only about a salvation storyline
Even readers of Christian fiction, if they haven’t read very widely in the genre, think there always has to be a character who moves from unbelief to belief. The Christian faith covers all life experiences, and any one of those can be used as the basis for a plot or growth of a character.
I’ve written three novels, and no character has a salvation arc in them. In my latest one, Rae and her family deal with different kinds of fear. Fear is a huge part of life, and my characters confront it based on their beliefs.
So now that I’ve told you some of the things Chrisitian fiction isn’t, if you read Christian fiction, what do you think are the common denominators in the genre?
Here are more posts on writing Christian fiction.