I started blogging in 2011, which means I will hit my 15-year anniversary this year.
(How did that happen? It’s scary how maths works!) It also means I’ve been observing the trends in Christian fiction for a long time as an author, blogger, and reader.
That means I can testify to the truth of Ecclesiastes 1:9 (NIV):
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
One of the big “trends” when I started blogging was crossover fiction: fiction that would entice more than one group of readers. The term usually refers to Young Adult fiction that also attracts an adult audience, but the holy grail in Christian circles was Christian fiction that would attract a general market (aka non Christian) audience.
(This was obviously because Christian authors wanted to reach more readers with the Good News of Jesus. Selling a gazillion books was a welcome but purely unintended outcome.)
Anyway, I recently read a post that suggested Christian writers are still looking for this holy grail: Christian novels that will attract nonchristian readers.
(The post was a little more noble: it referred to using fiction as an indirect method of evangelism, cultural engagement, and teaching Christian ethics.)
In other words, crossover fiction.
I can applaud and support the aim: to draw people to Jesus. But I’m a little leery on the method. It feels a little … covert.
Why?
I have a few reasons:
We write from who we are
As writers, we write the truth as we know and understand it. As Christians we, write about God and faith based on what we know and believe. That may be overt; it may not (and that may depend on what we are writing: business reports are not the place for overt Christian doctrine).
Every story choice you make arises out of who you are, at the deepest levels of your soul; and every story you tell reveals who you are and the way you conceive the world around you.
– Characters and Viewpoint, Orson Scott Card
If we are writing what we believe, our faith will show whether we’re writing fiction or nonfiction, Christian or general market.
We buy books based on genre
We need to know what genre we are writing in, and that starts with understanding whether we are writing for the Christian or the general market. Neither is right or wrong – the answer is that you must write for the market God calls you to write for.
Before you begin writing your novel, you should know what genre you are writing in. The number one mistake of beginning writers in this area is to not consider genre at all.
–Angela Hunt
Knowing what we write is important as it influences where we buy our books. Most bookshops don’t stock Christian books. If they do, they’re shelved in the “Religion” section.
Other bookshops do stock Christian books … and only Christian books (like Koorong).
I know online shopping has changed the way we find and buy books, but some people do still buy paper books from physical bookshops, and some people still read physical books they have borrowed from a building called a library (strange, I know).
The problem with “covert” Christian books is that the Christian bookstores won’t stock them if they’re not Christian enough, and the regular bookstore won’t stock them because they’re too Christian.
(Which drives us all back to the online bookstores!)
Bait and Switch
I’ve read several novels that I thought were going to be an amusing contemporary Christian romance, but turned into diatribes about various topics close to the author’s heart (gun rights, environmental issues, and homeschooling spring to mind). I’ve also read general market romances that turned into vehicles for the author’s own political, religious, or other agenda.
This bait-and-switch annoys readers, especially when the author’s agenda turns to matters of religion:
We should never share our faith directly with the reader. As soon as the reader realizes the author is talking directly to him, the book becomes preachy, and the chance he’ll put it down goes up significantly.
– Writing in Obedience, Terry Burns and Linda Yezak
If Christian readers don’t want to read preachy fiction (and most don’t), imagine how nonchristian readers are going to react when the feelgood romance suddenly switches to evangelism and apologetics.
My view is that if you’re going to write Christian fiction, label it as Christian fiction. Don’t switch genres halfway through the book: Christians won’t read it, and non Christians won’t enjoy it.
What is Christian fiction anyway?
This isn’t an easy question. The best definition I’ve seen is from Francine Rivers:
If you pull out the Christian thread from the plot and the plot unravels, it’s Christian fiction.
(A definition which challenges the definition of most books marketing as Christian fiction.)
A lot of what is sold as Christian fiction is “Christian lite”, in that there may be characters who say they are Christian and even live according to Christian values, but they don’t meet the Francine Rivers test.
They are often great stories with Christian characters, but the faith element is superficial, especially in genres such as romance.
In some genres (e.g. speculative fiction), readers expect a religious element. A Christian author will therefore build a world that includes a religion that Christian readers will identify as being Christian, but other readers will just see a good story.
The most famous example of this is probably CS Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia. As a child raised in a secular home, I didn’t realize Aslan was the Jesus figure. As an adult Christian, it’s hard to miss.
(Australian authors JJ Fischer, Jeanette O’Hagan, and Kristen Young do this well.)
God can move despite us
Years ago, one Canadian Christian author I “met” on Facebook told us about a new family who had just joined their church. The father had read a novel that mentioned Jesus. He’d never heard of Jesus, but the novel ignited his curiosity and he did some research into Jesus, became a Christian, and started taking his family to church as a result.
The novel? The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
No one has ever pretended The Da Vinci Code is a Christian novel or that Dan Brown is a Christian author. Yet God used this book to bring a family to Jesus. This story reminds me that God doesn’t need a Christian novel or even a novel by a Christian author in order to draw a reader closer to Him.
Which means we don’t need to worry about what we write.
If you don’t feel called to write Christian fiction, don’t. Write to your calling.
Trust that God’s light will shine through in whatever you write.
And trust that God will bring your words to the people who need to read them.
You don’t need to be covert. You don’t need a crossover story.
I love this quote! “Every story choice you make arises out of who you are, at the deepest levels of your soul; and every story you tell reveals who you are and the way you conceive the world around you.” – Characters and Viewpoint, Orson Scott Card
And I do get annoyed when I read a book and suddenly figure out the author only wrote it to pursue an agenda of their own. Although, that convicts me in the same breath because I write very strong Christian themes.
I like it when I read a book which challenges my faith in a way that feels natural to the characters I’ve come to love and their stories. Toni Shiloh’s first traditional books did this well. As did Nicole Deese with All that Matters and the sequel to it. That’s what I try and strive for, but it’s a hard balance to get right!
Thanks for this thought-provoking and challenging read.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head: the faith elements need to feel natural for the characters. If we can get that right, the story will be able to challenge the reader without feeling preachy.
Hi Iola, Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
You wrote:
“If you don’t feel called to write Christian fiction, don’t. Write to your calling.
Trust that God’s light will shine through in whatever you write.
And trust that God will bring your words to the people who need to read them.”
Totally agree with your statements. Trusting God with our writing cannot be underestimated. If we’re writing for His glory and seeking His will and following His calling, we don’t need to worry about the other stuff.
Obedience to His will doesn’t track with being covert and deceptive. God cares about the ‘how’ (the means) as well as the ‘why’ (end result). We’re deceived if we think that truth and honesty and integrity doesn’t matter.
Well said 🙂
Man might look only at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. Our motivation matters.
This really resonated with me, especially as I think about code switching in writing.
I don’t think adjusting language, symbols, or tone for different audiences is inherently wrong—we all do that in everyday communication. But there’s a crucial difference between translation and concealment. Writing faithfully from a Christian worldview in a way others can enter is very different from deliberately muting or disguising that worldview so a story can pass as something it isn’t. When code switching becomes covert rather than clarifying, both the writer and the reader end up disoriented.
Your emphasis on calling, honesty, and trust—that God doesn’t need our narrative strategies to accomplish His purposes—feels like exactly the right corrective.
Code switching in writing is an interesting thought. In a way, we code switch every time we write from the point of view of a different character. That can even be deceitful, when those characters exist to mislead the reader. But that’s plot and character misdirection, which readers expect. It’s not disguising the worldview or switching genres, which is what readers rightly dislike.
Thanks for commenting!
I’ve been pondering this very thoughtful blog post for the past week.
Thanks Iola! Love the line “If you don’t feel called to write Christian fiction, don’t. Write to your calling.” I found that very affirming.
After all, he knows what he’s doing, right? 🙂
If God can call someone into his family through The Da Vinci Code, who knows what he can do with the hard wrung words we write from our hearts?
That’s why I can’t judge what other Christians are writing, because I don’t know what God has called them to write.
(Now, if they’ve told me they write X when God has told them to write Y … that’s a different story!)