Into the Fire

I’ve been in the reading mode for awhile now. Lots of novels in the last month. Various authors. Two authors I’ve read before and others I’d never read.

Recently I got a little testy with a young intellectual on another blog who sought to blanket-criticize Christian fiction based on a short story anthology, one that, in spite of the acclaimed writer who put it together and contributed to it, was less than satisfying to other Christians who’d read it which I had not. Short stories are not my thing (said the writer of sagas with her head tilted to the ground). Anyway, he was just another case of someone who loves to criticize what they perceive Christian fiction to be—based on what? I have no idea. Because it was obvious he hadn’t read any current novels from the CBA.

However, I will grudgingly give him credit for one observation—even though all he used to back up his assertion was the short story collection. He accused the genre of “playing-it-safe in terms of style”, claiming it (Christian fiction) isn’t “stylistically innovative” which he went on to define as lacking “adventurous sentences and diction”, “not playing with Point Of View”, and not having much “originality of voice” or interesting “story structuring”.

I would disagree with his “originality of voice” complaint for the most part.

I’m going to make my own assertion here and welcome constructive criticism to the contrary. I think the general consensus for putting together the novel is in a 21st century state of mind which I believe is too restrictive and lends itself to producing formulaic novels. Before you jump on me too quickly and too hard, let me explain why. The average size Christian novel, and for the sake of argument, let’s put it between 300-350 pages (80-100,000 words) in a trim size of 51/4 x 81/4 inches, is fairly strictly structured. It adheres to a standard which is in many ways geared to fulfilling the demands of Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel—which is not in any way a bad standard. However, think about it. If everyone writes to the same standard, it’s fairly easy to figure out how a book is going to read, when and what is going to happen, and after a number of them, they’re all going to feel the same. Even when the story is completely different. Even when the voice is clearly an author’s own. All the “fresh new voices” in the world aren’t going to change a recognizable structure, format, plot placement.

Deception by Randy Alcorn and In High Places by Tom Morrisey both used poignant quotations from specific books as headers for their chapters and wrote from the first person POV. These were two exceptional offerings, too. Unique stories, timelines, backstories, very honest characters with a few quirky additions and plot twists.

Two of the other novels I read recently were interesting and entertaining but had the formulaic feel to them. The other one had not even one likable character—there was a reason for this—and, although an unusual story with a metaphorical message, still adhered to the formula pretty tightly.

Considering the tight structures of the majority of these novels, I would offer this is the trend for Christian novels of our era. Exceptions do appear (Deception being one of them), but this is what publishers generally want to see—at least by the evidence on the bookshelves.

We hear religiously proclaimed the virtues of “tight” writing, and trolling for just the right words, for sticking to the story at all costs, and several other tired instructions about showing not telling, action over passive verbs, etc., but I think it has to be mentioned that the lack of variety in these formats and requirements even with new and innovative story material can produce a kind of monotony because with the same structures and same types of diction, the novels “feel” the “same” when you read them. No one has to take my word for it and certainly others might feel totally opposite of how I do about the “average” Christian novel today, but I am a consumer besides being a writer, and I read a lot of fiction. I’m not a completely ignorant observer.

All of this is not to criticize anyone—not authors, not editors, not publishers. These are today’s trends. These are what the powers-that-be have determined make their houses money—it is a business after all. How often have we heard that statement? What it boils down to is my opinion of the trend is irrelevant. I’m not going to quit reading Christian fiction, but I might be less inclined to buy more of the same. Neither am I going to quit writing sagas unless the Lord gives me a shorter novel to write.

Briefly I’ll touch on production prices. It’s not cheap. That’s a given. From start to finish it’s expensive to produce a novel—good, bad, or indifferent. Cover design, editing, typesetting, printing—all of it just to make the book happen before the dubious task of marketing comes into play—it is a pricey endeavor. I don’t see a lot of experimental risk taking place in Christian fiction. I don’t see a great amount of variety within the different categories. What I do see are some very talented authors and editors working their tails off to box their books effectively into the accepted and “publishable” format and insisting the stories are better off for it. I guess I’m just not so sure about that.

Father, thank you for all the different kinds of literature. Thank you for the stories you’ve given me to write. Thank you for the privilege of putting words, thoughts, feelings, emotions, and passion to pages. Thank you for the wonder of writing. Please help me to be faithful to what you have for me because that’s all that really matters in my life. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.