By Gordon Saunders That is: How High Fidelity Is Your Historical Fiction? Historical fiction is tricky. On the one hand, you must tell a great story. On the other hand, you mustn’t rewrite history. Or mustn’t you? Because if you read lots of biographies and historical commentaries, you can’t find just one history. And if the history is far enough …
How Research Fills the Gaps in a Family Story
By Glynn Young The idea has been in my head for years – a story about my great-grandfather. But I knew only a few facts about him, passed down by my father. Research has filled it in – a little bit. Too young to enlist as a regular soldier, he’d been a messenger boy in the Civil War. He’d lost …
If You’re an Author, You’re Multilingual—Whether You Know it or Not
By Lana Christian How many languages do you speak? I speak English and German. English is my dominant (first) language, but sometimes German pops into my thoughts, dreams, and writing without my bidding. That can be good or bad, depending on how you look at it. My handwritten notes combine English, German, and a personal shorthand—whichever is shorter …
Worthy Words: Creative and Compelling Characters
By Christine Sunderland As I reflect on my next novel, The Music of the Mountain, I return to the importance of creative and compelling characters. In some way my characters must change in the timeline of the plot, and this arc is determined by their own ability to change, their creative ability to learn, turn, confess, repent, and be reborn …
Writer Beware
By Tracy Morgan I counted the days until Christmas break by placing bright red numbered index cards on my bulletin board in my study. In five days, I would be free of all my teaching responsibilities. My mind focused on one mission of finishing my book. I planned the two weeks with charts of writing schedules and what day to …
Embrace the Messy
By E.V. Sparrow It’s easy to suppose as Christian fiction writers we’ve all studied and memorized Bible verses, right? I developed Scripture knowledge later. Therefore, I intentionally create people of fragile faith. Where is God in their mess? It’s delightful weaving in redemption, confession, forgiveness, reconciliation, and mercy into fictional plots. Raised in the Roman Catholic Church, my belief was …
Real Places: Do Them Right or Don’t Do Them
By Gordon Saunders I got kicked out of a novel the other day. Here’s how it happened. I was reading along okay, suspending disbelief and all, sort of getting into the head of the protagonist. She and her friends were ‘vansters,’ that is, they lived in vans and traveled all over the place, the place mostly being southeast England as …
How to Become an Overnight Success
By Ginny L. Yttrup When my debut novel, Words, won the Christy Award for Best First Novel, my agent joked that I’d become an “overnight success.” Before the award, few had read my writing. After the award, Words sold well, and the novel consistently sells well eleven years later. But an overnight success? Not exactly. The road that led to the publication of that first …
Whose Words
By Angela D. Shelton Well Done! I’ve heard it said many times. It’s even crossed my own lips. Perhaps these words have slipped off your tongue as well. If I can help only one person with my writing, it will be worth it. There it is—the ultimate selfless act. We struggle through the outline, the muddle in the middle, the …
Find Your People
By Suzie Waltner “Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you has a part in it.” 1 Corinthians 12:27 We were built for relationships. For community. It’s the structure of the church in 1 Corinthians 12:12-27. Jesus surrounded Himself with twelve men during His earthly ministry. Paul and the other apostles established communities of churches to …