Into the Fire

Don’t you just love it when things come together in your mind bringing you satisfaction for a season and resolution to an understanding that was just beyond your grasp lurking in the neverland of your questionable brain power? Now that’s a question for ya.

Professional author. What does that term mean to you? To most of us it means the writer makes a living off the books he/she writes. It usually means they are “accepted” in the publishing industry because of their work, sales, and, because of those, their “name”. In the simplest of definitions, it means they get paid to write. Or it could mean they write books and have been published but might not yet make a living off their writing.

But I have just today discovered it also means that for the most part, they play by the rules. Whatever those rules are. Since this site primarily addresses Christian fiction writing, that is what I’m discussing (with myself). The current rules state almost didactically to grab a reader within the first 5 pages and hold him tight for the first 20 and then wrap it up one way or another in 80-100,000 words. Now that word count doesn’t apply to all writers or books or publishing houses, but these are your basic rules. Another is “Show, don’t tell.” Others are “active over passive” verbs, few adverbs, tension/conflict on every page, don’t identify the speaker with descriptive words (usually adverbs), etc. You get the drift. If you can do all that within a good story and get a contract/published, you will be a professional author.

So . . . what do you do when you write differently, don’t play by the rules, and have a struggle with the formula for successful novels?

It depends on your convictions. Play by the rules and make sure your writing is technically good, write a compelling story within a desired genre and go for it. If you can. Because, more than likely, if you are a good writer and willing to modify that story to fit the rules where you might’ve veered away from them a bit, you will be published. Subjective business as it is, if you enter this game with talent and are willing to work at adhering to the basic demands, chances are you’ll succeed in getting a contract. Predicting sales is another thing altogether.

Obviously if you can’t play by the rules, chances are you won’t be allowed in the game. That makes sense. And let me just say this: there is absolutely nothing wrong with these rules. They’re sensible, in most cases desirable, and realistic, too. Nothing wrong per se with the rules. Or those who support them. Or those who abide by them. Or those who are successful with them. Or those who are trained to govern them.

However, some of us can’t play by them. Not because we don’t want to or disapprove of them but rather because creatively we are stifled by them. Frustrated with them. Twisted up inside because of them. Unsatisfied when we read so many of them. Those are the reasons.

When a person works hard at his craft in order to honor the Lord, when he writes those stories given specifically to him in a different way than what is considered the norm, he will either continue to write his “passion” and establish his voice because it is the best he can produce, or he will abandon his passion and write to satisfy the rules, valuing the “professional” adjective before “author” as the ultimate goal. Or he will do both. Or he will do neither.

This is all probably very obvious to most of you, but it finally clicked for me today. I mean, I knew I broke all or at least most of the rules at times with my novels, but now I understand that I write this way because this is what I like to read the most and only occasionally find. As a writer, the end product has to satisfy . . . me. (After, and above all, the Lord, which means He gives me the story and expects me to write it in obedience to Him.)

Maybe it’s so plain, it’s pathetic to discuss it, or perhaps you look at this drivel and wonder what the heck is she talkin’ about, but, hey, it’s a pretty big deal to me. Another revelation in my ongoing struggle to define my writing. An addition to the epiphany of discovering I write sagas. A necessary piece to my complicated puzzle. All this after prayer and soul searching. That’s why it matters in my little writing world. It had to make sense to me—I had to understand it.

And, as with most things, there are exceptions. I’ve given you the basic rules which I’ve encountered along the journey. The recommended rules, if you will. And, yes, I’ve seen them broken but not that often and usually not by a first-time author. These are the rules to play by if you want to submit a manuscript to gain a publishing contract. I know, why else would you bother? Well, a lot of people (myself included in the beginning) enter into the game without any understanding of “the rules”, so to have even a basic understanding of them helps. That way you can determine for yourself how much you need to modify or revise or rewrite your concept of trying to get published.

A writer has to be who he is. Ultimately, he has to decide if the rules will make him better or will simply make him publishable, or both. The rules, although valuable and beneficial, will not be the end-all cure-all definition of a good or decent writer, but the satisfaction of those rules will more than likely lead to a publishing contract for a talented writer willing to abide by them under the current trend in Christian publishing.

Father, all I can do is be thankful to you for making me who I am, to be so grateful that you don’t give up on me in any area of my life, that you are always urging me forward, to draw closer to you, to increase my obedience to your desire for my life. If I delight in you and your ways, I will receive the desires of my heart—which keep pointing to more, more, more and swifter obedience to you. Help me always, Lord. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.