Faith Kindred

Talk to them. If your characters aren’t real enough to hold a conversation with, they won’t be real to the readers. So ask them questions— ask them how they feel about their life, how they feel about what you make them go through. Ask them what they would change about your story— ask them what they’re afraid of, and why they are afraid. Ask…[Read more]

Don’t worry, @rolena-hatfield, our name gets misspelled and mispronounced just like that ALL THE TIME. 😛 It is a little bit of an odd name. 😉

Yes, I’m loving this topic too. I can’t believe I didn’t introduce this discussion earlier!

As for the Bible question, there are many different ways you could do that correctly. Just base the scene off…[Read more]

Oh no! I knew I should have copied and pasted and not tried to type it! Sorry @kate-flournoy!
And thank you @daeus I often need a lot of fixin’.

I must be off for now… but I shall return to the discussion at hand.

Oh, ay @kate-flournoy. Looks like Rolena tried to tag you but got one letter off. Thought I might as well fix it.

Ho yes. Lots of fun stuff to do with characters. *rubs hands together gleefully*
So, what have you done so far? Do you have the characters and need to develop them, or are we starting from scratch here?
Get down the basics to start out with. Name and/or nicknames. General appearance and personality. Likes and dislikes. That sorta stuff. Finding…[Read more]

@rolena-hatfield (In goofy western slang) I luuuuuuve Bin-Herr!

How I would approach the bible situation is to think how her reading the bible will effect on her in more than one way. The first way is obvious – the words she reads are training her, but there could be an influence entirely outside of the words she reads. Maybe there could be a…[Read more]

I like this discussion. A lot!
@kate-flourney Your points are fantastic and simple. Wonderful observations. It does seem like the writers of classics wrote their books as an overflow of their life as Reagan stated it. (Ben Hur and Little Women are examples of that)
I especially liked your point that The existence of God is a given. If we go into…[Read more]

Well then I forgive you. 😉 😛

And yes @Daeus, Gandalf does have some absolutely fantastic quotes. And I totally know what you mean about Edmond— and that line ‘wait and hope’… oh man, just thinking about it makes me tear up and get shivers. 😛 It was the perfect way to end the story.

And the point is not so much ‘put as much Christian behavior as you can’ as it is ‘write your story inside out with Christianity at the center, and the Christian behavior will follow.’ It will flow naturally and realistically and characteristically into the story if it is the heart of the story.

Exactly. I probably would have worded it better…[Read more]

@Daeus, yes! Gandalf has so many great quotes. My favorite is probably “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” 🙂

@writefury: Great thoughts! Honestly, I forget to pray. A lot. And that’s not how it should be. But a lot of times, that’s the way people are; they need help, and suddenly they remember that…[Read more]

Absolutely @writefury! And the point is not so much ‘put as much Christian behavior as you can’ as it is ‘write your story inside out with Christianity at the center, and the Christian behavior will follow.’ It will flow naturally and realistically and characteristically into the story if it is the heart of the story.

I think it was @reaganramm…[Read more]

Wow. Gone for a day and I get to come back to this beauty. Seriously, we’ve got some great stuff in this topic already, guys. I might have to keep this open as a reference for my WIP. 😛
The realistic prayer thing is really something I watch myself carefully for. It’s never really a “fold your hands, get on your knees and reverently close your…[Read more]

Ah ha! Yep, that’s what I didn’t do. 🙂 Thanks!

I think #3 or #2. They’re the clearest when small.
I think the reason it showed up as a link would be that you didn’t put it in the image box. Here let me try…

Excellent thoughts, @Daeus! And yes @gretald, what you said was completely true. @Daeus covered that a little in his reply— Christianity, and Christian themes and messages, shouldn’t just be slipped or fitted in and hoped to be gotten away with. You shouldn’t say ‘Oh boy I have this really cool story! Oh… yeah, I’d better put some element of…[Read more]

Sorry, I just kind of put all my thoughts out there. 😛

The existence of God is a given. Now this one sounds like an absolute no-brainer, but when you think about it it really isn’t. I mean, how easy would it be to assume the person reading your book is a staunch atheist and just dump all the evidence for God’s existence off on them? Very easy.
The thing is, when a reader picks up a piece of fic…

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@kate-flournoy I agree 100% with all those three points. Incredibly true, incredibly simple. So far, I think I’ve done pretty well with keeping to these three rules, but I could see myself doing the more than one message thing if I’m not careful. Now it is possible for that one lesson to have many repercussions. For instance, if your character is…[Read more]

And here’s a thought that’s a spinoff of that thought. It’s generally better to focus on one message per book. If you’re going to bring an atheist character to salvation, you probably need two books or a series of books. Why? Because if you try to tackle both God’s existence and God’s salvation in the same book, you’re going to end up more than…

[Read more]