Last week’s article link featured author Brian Neumeier making the case that Christian fiction shouldn’t be overly preachy, shouldn’t be just a Christian version of something else. (Kind of hard with porn. Heh.) While I linked to his website I first saw the article on Bleeding Fool, where it was crossposted.
That leads to this week’s article link, from fellow Bleeding Fool contributor A.H. Lloyd, in an article titled “Counterpoint: Christian Writers Should Write Whatever They Want”, where he shares Neumeier’s sentiment, but makes the case that Christian fiction can indeed be good. Neumeier himself offered a response before this post went live.
For my two cents, Proverbs & Parables up there is a collection of adaptations of tales from the Book Of Proverbs as well as the Parables used by Jesus to preach to the masses. In my review I stated that even if you aren’t a Christian it’s worth checking out for the different art styles used in the book, some of which are really good or at least really fun and still comes with a high recommendation from me. I guess the point is knowing what your target audience is and what you want to do. If you want to write something for Christians that boosts their faith, or something that reaches out to others, go for it. You may reach some people that way. Other people would have to be drawn in with something more broad, like Neumeier suggests, or at least would entertain without coming off as the same preachiness of so many “SJW/woke” stories.
Basically, both are an option, so long as story comes first and any message is properly worked into the themes of the story. Create believable people and have them act like believable people, or at least people believable in that world, in that situation, whether they would exist in the real world or not. Lloyd is right in that you should write the story you want, but Neumeier is right in that you have to put some thought into it.
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