Re: Writing Biblical Fiction
Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 11:20 pm
I see some folks have a bit of “fear and trembling” about some of Jan’s 7 categories. Maybe people have just had that in the past and will now try out those categories with Jan’s encouragement. Not sure. Obviously, if you write a story in which Jesus is not really God, just a man whose disciples create tales to ascribe deity to him, you’ve crossed the line. But the kinds of things that Jan mentioned are all OK in my opinion, and I don’t know of any Christian publishers that refuse to publish such stories/books.
But I thought I’d mention a couple of writers who do this really well or with interesting wrinkles.
1. Agatha Christie. Yes, THAT Agatha Christie. She only ever did a few, but I love them. Here is a link to the “look inside” feature for her book Star Over Bethlehem (click on the image of the cover). You can use the forward arrow on the right side to move to the beginning of the short story of the same name and read the first 6 pages of it. The book has about three stories in this genre. My favorite is The Island.
2. Randy Singer. Randy is one of my pastors. If you don’t know about him or his writing awards—and to partially plagiarize—his first novel, Directed Verdict, won the Christy award for the best Christian suspense novel. He was also a finalist, along with John Grisham and Michael Connelly, for the inaugural Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.
You can check out his biblical fiction novel here . To the right of the image of the cover, you’ll note the nomination and award for THIS particular book. Then scroll down the page to "Editorial Review[s]." Consider his extreme speculation and NOW remember the award and nomination. This should give you a sense of freedom with biblical fiction.
Now scroll back up to use the “look inside” feature. (As last time, click on the image of the cover. Once inside the book, you can use the right arrow to read the first 4 chapters. HOWEVER, also note the interesting thing Randy does right after the table of contents (where he uses symbols to distinguish between historical characters, fictional characters, and “hybrid” characters. I think that Challengeteers could do something similar in their author’s notes if they otherwise felt uncomfortable with some of Jan’s categories.
But I thought I’d mention a couple of writers who do this really well or with interesting wrinkles.
1. Agatha Christie. Yes, THAT Agatha Christie. She only ever did a few, but I love them. Here is a link to the “look inside” feature for her book Star Over Bethlehem (click on the image of the cover). You can use the forward arrow on the right side to move to the beginning of the short story of the same name and read the first 6 pages of it. The book has about three stories in this genre. My favorite is The Island.
2. Randy Singer. Randy is one of my pastors. If you don’t know about him or his writing awards—and to partially plagiarize—his first novel, Directed Verdict, won the Christy award for the best Christian suspense novel. He was also a finalist, along with John Grisham and Michael Connelly, for the inaugural Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.
You can check out his biblical fiction novel here . To the right of the image of the cover, you’ll note the nomination and award for THIS particular book. Then scroll down the page to "Editorial Review[s]." Consider his extreme speculation and NOW remember the award and nomination. This should give you a sense of freedom with biblical fiction.
Now scroll back up to use the “look inside” feature. (As last time, click on the image of the cover. Once inside the book, you can use the right arrow to read the first 4 chapters. HOWEVER, also note the interesting thing Randy does right after the table of contents (where he uses symbols to distinguish between historical characters, fictional characters, and “hybrid” characters. I think that Challengeteers could do something similar in their author’s notes if they otherwise felt uncomfortable with some of Jan’s categories.