(warning: post may be rambly. Proceed with caution).
Welcome to part two in my blog posts about my journey through getting my WIP, Dust of the Arena, published! Thank you for sticking around and hello to the new people in the audience joining us for the first time. You do not have to read my previous article, but I would recommend it in order to more coherently follow along.
Today’s post is going to be a little disjointed and I apologize in advance, but that’s because it’s dealing with a lot of very… confusing subjects. Confusing in the fact that they often confuse me, and they confuse other people. Sometimes it’s because they’re complex and just hard to understand, or they’re very broad. And sometimes they’re just… confusing.
One of the things that gets shoved at writers a lot is this very vague topic of “marketing”. Building a brand, selling books, all that nonsense. And of course, to make money, an author must participate in this marketing, which some view as a joy and others a necessary evil. And some don’t know how to do it at all and just throw it out the window all together.
Under this “marketing” umbrella, there is a spoke called “audience”, which I touched on briefly in my last article. Finding your audience is quite important, and also very difficult. Everything about building a platform is building bridges between you and your audience. Sometimes, you have preset bridges that you can use, by way of social media, Substack, etc.
But my issue is, I don’t feel like a lot of those bridges are safe, or fit right. I tried Substack Notes, and while the people there are very sweet, the audience didn’t fit me. It’s very much a former homeschooler, MG and younger YA fantasy crowd. A lot of authors from Enclave end up there too. Which, as someone who writes an eclectic mix of stories that are usually “too dark” for general Christian fiction… isn’t good for me.
A lot of my writer friends have recommended that I plug myself into Instagram, and the indie author instagram world (which has been appealing in the fact that these people are some of the sweetest souls I have met here on earth). My decisions to cut Instagram out are a long story, but in short, that bridge isn’t safe for me– or the potential subscribers I might take with me.
So I’m back to square one. Just a website, an email list, and a pinterest.
Lovely.
I wish I could say that I have some advice for this, but honestly… I don’t. I’m tired of chasing algorithms, shouting into a void, feeling like I’m letting down people every time I don’t post on time…
Content creation is exhausting.
However, I did hear something interesting the other day that kind of reset my focus.
It said something else (I was listening to the Gospel of John and the Lorehaven podcast the same day, so I have no idea which of these it came from) but in my mind it ended up translating to this: “love the audience you already have, not the audience you want.”
Oh.
Oh.
And therein lies where I had fallen. In chasing the audience I wanted, I had, in small ways, neglected the audience I already had.
And for that, I’m deeply, deeply sorry. My priority in my marketing has always been to serve and bless the people I meet– whether an author friend whose book I shout out in a blog post, or the very faithful readers who have followed me here since May 11, 2023.
Thank you guys, so much, for sticking around through all of this <3.
So that was the first revelation I had. And then, I dove into a much messier topic (ironically, because… most of this genre is super clean).
CHRISTIAN FICTION
Ah, Christian Fiction. Some Christians love to read it. Some Christians love to hate it. And some writers have no idea which camp they fell into.
I’ve always had a dilemma with Christian fiction in that, in Christian fiction, there seems to be two camps. The Christian fiction books where literally the plot would not exist without the Christian themes, and the Christian fiction that is merely “morals”. I see equal amounts of people complaining about both.
Which leaves me in an interesting dilemma. I often write topics that I feel like need Jesus in them, but I don’t want to be the cliche Christian author using Jesus as a cop-out for quality. I perused a Christian Youtuber giving a satirical rant against some of the most highly prized Christian movies in recent years (God’s Not Dead, Overcomer, Unplanned, etc) and I’m over here with no knowledge that these movies were even that “bad”.
Thus I went into a bit of a journey, trying to figure out where the lines were. What should Christian fiction writers strive for? How could they strive for this middle ground?
And was all the hate for Christian fiction and storytelling warranted, or is it semantics?
I don’t know why I felt like reading the Gospel of John was the answer for me. Probably because I enjoy John’s more personal recollections of details (especially his parentheses notes). And between podcasts and the Bible, I came to a conclusion on six points. Now, these are just my opinion and I still think I have more to figure out, but you can give me your thoughts.
1) Condemn the sin, not the sinner. The stories that require more “nuance” are not the ones that call the sin wrong— it’s the ones that portray the sinner as cardboard villains. Nuance is needed in the characters, not the sin. I bring this up because the main complaint I see Christian stories having is that they need more “nuance”. But in this day and age, we have an issue with “soft” gospel. I saw a lot of people complaining about the Unplanned movie, saying it needed more “nuance”. I still haven’t watched the movie, but I read the book. Considering that this is a woman’s personal memoir, I don’t think it needs more “nuance”. Could the film have done better in its representation of the characters? Probably (also… why is it R-rated? The content of the book, if put in film , is PG-13 at most. Drastic rating overkill.). But the memoir itself does not need more nuance in the fact that it is ONE woman stating her story about a particular situation. It’s a testimony, not a journalist’s article.
2) On the topic of explicit Christian Fiction vs Christian moral fiction: I don’t know why this stuck out to me, but the verses about the rocks crying out and creation declaring the glory of God even if people don’t. Maybe some books are the children declaring the glory of God, while others are the rocks. It’s a bad comparison because people and rocks are obviously very different, but bear with me. Some books will openly voice Christ, and are thus the “children” calling out. Some books though, are just meant to point to a creator. The process it takes to create a rock is still very complex and points to a designer. They may not speak of God, but they point to him. I still believe that the “good” Christian books shouldn’t just be in one camp or another: I would love to see some more explicitly Christian fiction books that aren’t necessarily the “Christian” genre (more on my thoughts on the Christian genre below).
3) I agree with the sentiment “if you want to write a sermon, write a sermon, not a sermon disguised as a novel”. Jesus often taught in parables, but he also gave sermons. He used both to teach truth, but the parables were often used to prepare the listener’s heart for the sermon— it’s the same thing as using a personal anecdote in an essay or article. Using relatable concepts helps grasp the subject better. We are not all called to be Paul or Peter writers, arguing for truth and giving long sermons directly to people.
I feel like the role of fiction, as mentioned above, is to prepare a nonbeliever’s heart. Not by preaching at them, but to soften their heart to preaching. A little bit like John the Baptist (although I suppose he did prophesy and preach too, but he’s the best example I got at the moment, so bear with me). Like Jesus used parables to explain complex concepts and prepare his listeners’ hearts for the sermon, fiction is used to prepare a reader’s heart to investigate more about Jesus, or to encourage other believers in various concepts. I feel like where Christian fiction goes WRONG is when the author tries to make their book the key to saving their readers’ soul. Yes, go into all the world and preach the gospel… but in the medium that is fiction writing, you can’t press any agenda into it. You start to get on a soapbox, regardless of the soapbox, and readers stiffen up. Fiction should be the parables, softening the heart for the sermon— not the sermon itself. We should make our nonbelieving readers hungry to learn more about Jesus, not pushing them away because they dislike our idea of Jesus.
5) Okay this one is interesting… I was watching Good Night Kevin’s review of God’s Not Dead after he did an interview with Lorehaven podcast. Now, I don’t agree with all his sentiments on the film (although I do understand that he’s tearing it apart in a humorous context), but one of the Youtube comments on the review caught my eye. They pointed out the part of the film where Michael Tate of Newsboys compliments Josh (I can’t remember if the actor is named Josh or the character is named Josh, forgive me) for “taking up the gauntlet to defend God’s honor”. This line had never sat poorly with me until I read the comment, which goes something like this.
“Newsboys guy really said, “To the young man who took up the gauntlet to defend God’s honor…” It just hit me, but why do they talk about God like He’s a fair maiden from medieval times? Defending His honor? Defending Him in court because He can’t defend Himself? Like God doesn’t really have glory until our government and population all acknowledge Him. Last I read Scripture, that’s not really how God works lol.”
While there are some semantics over how much I agree with everything about this… the heart of it did hit me. God is… God. He doesn’t need anyone to ”save” him– especially not the petty humans Jesus died to save.. There’s a difference between standing in truth and defending it. The truth will defend itself in the end. It’s the truth. But we still need people to stand in truth and for the truth. An ambassador’s role is not defense, but bridge— he represents his country. So I feel like we need to break out of this mindset of “defending” God, and start leaning more towards representing God. When we’re on the defensive all the time, we get aggressive, and I think that’s the issue of some franchises like God’s Not Dead: they get a little too aggressive with the message. It feeds into a dangerous “us against them” mentality. We’re against darkness and the powers of darkness— not the souls trapped in it. Hate the sin, not the sinner. Are we supposed to stand up for our beliefs? Yes. Are we supposed to fight for the weak and those without voices? Yes. But… are we supposed to do it in an “us vs them” mentality? No.
6) The label “Christian fiction”. UGH. it’s a genre, I get it… so why do all these people who write Christian films and movies WRITE as if it’s going to be seen by unbelievers, when the entire structuring of their marketing is only going to attract believers? A nonbeliever has zero investment to see a Christian film or read a Christian book UNLESS they hear the story is good. Why are we writing conversion scenes and preacher books… when we’re preaching to the choir?
Hello?
WHY?
This is not to say that conversion scenes are bad… but like, why do we have characters whose ONLY purpose is to get saved and fulfill the sermon of the story? It’s like they wrote a devotional and then decided to write a story off of that devotional, but without any effort being put into plot and characters. There’s so many BAD movies that people just watch “because they’re Christian”.
WHY,
If you’re going to write for nonbelievers, you CANNOT market your book as being in the Christian genre. Why? Because unbelieving readers are not going to go to the Christian genre section to look for your book– and that is where your book will be put.
This isn’t to say that Christian fiction is “bad”… but in a day of keywords and search engine optimization, you have to be careful what keywords you associate your book with. Hot take: you can have an explicitly Christian book… and NOT label it as being in the Christian genre. Why? Because genres are meant to organize books to make them easier for your audience to find. Marketing it as being in the Christian genre will lead to the consequence of only getting Christian readers. And maybe that’s your goal! But if you want to reach out to the unbelieving audience, you cannot press all of your marketing hopes and dreams on the sole fact that you are a Christian author and thus Christians everywhere will be lining up to read your book.
“But not mentioning the christianity will give me bad reviews/it’s dishonest/I don’t wanna hide my faith!”
I’m not saying to hide you’re a Christian. I’m very blatantly a Christian and I’m very blatant about my beliefs. I would not be here right now without Jesus and I ain’t afraid to say it. But you label your book as “Christian fiction” and it turns away EVERYONE who isn’t a Christian. Again, this isn’t a problem if you’re just planning on marketing TO Christians… but I’d like my book to reach more than that. I would like to represent issues like trafficking and sexual abuse in explicitly Christian fiction without hammering a reader over the head with a sermon they didn’t ask for. I want nonbelievers to be intrigued to learn more about him. And I don’t think I can do that if I make my books Christian genre.
Thank you for coming to my TedTalk…
There’s one last issue I’d like to address before we wrap things up, and this is a culmination of the last two.
Christian writers blasting other Christian writers and stories as part of their marketing campaign.
…
Okay, I am admittedly guilty of this. It’s the classic brand building scheme, isn’t it? Give an example of a problem, and show how your product is the solution to that problem.
But sometimes I feel like Christians go a little… overboard in critiques.
Are some Christian films poorly made?… Yes. Would I like some Christian films that are not just historical fiction, spiritual warfare sci fi, inspirational contemporary, or sports movies?… yes. Very much so.
But I also feel like we have a tendency in our culture to get into rant echo chambers. It can be about anything from parents to politics… and Christians love to get into rant echo chambers about Christian media tropes.
I believe we need to question more often how healthy these rants are. Regardless of our opinions of these movies, if they don’t directly contain harmful theology (which, some books definitely do, don’t get me wrong), I think sometimes we need to take a step back and recognize how much work goes into this. Do all the Kendrick Brothers or Pureflix films have the best acting?… No. I fell asleep BOTH times I watched Love on the Rocks. The plausibility of some of the court cases (why ARE there so many court cases in Christian films) is… sketchy. But regardless, God still used these movies and He still uses “cringey” Christian books. And these people might also still be growing in their creative skill. So I feel like we need to break out of the echo chamber more, and instead of saying all the “don’ts” , train young creatives in writing Christian stories. Not all explicitly Christian (with theme, plot, and characters all steeped in Christianity) fiction is cringey. And it’s not bad if a Christian story only has Christian morals. We do need more middle ground books, but neither extreme is necessarily “Bad”.
All in all, I’m still figuring out where I stand on a lot of stuff, and I’m still navigating what I’m going to write in my own fiction. I feel like God might be directing me to be more bold with the fact that my characters are Christians in DOTA, but I’m going to pray on it more and wait and see.
I hope some of my rambles were somewhat helpful to you guys nontheless. Feel free to start some conversations in the comments! I’d especially like to hear your thoughts on Christian fiction, marketing, etc.