By Jodi Clark
“It was a great story, but it got so preachy that I had to put it down.”
This complaint is the bane of what would otherwise be incredible Christian fiction. I have put down seemingly fascinating Christian novels once I realized that the story I was promised in the book description was not actually going to happen in favor of a sermon taking over the plot of the novel instead.
So, what exactly does preachiness look like? And what can you do to avoid it in your story? Here, I’m going to dive into a few examples of how stories can reach peak preachiness, in order to show you what to avoid and how to avoid it.
But before we dive into the content of this article, I want to issue a little disclaimer: if you want to write fiction that has more of the “preachy” content that I discuss below, that is totally up to you to decide. Some of these things can actually be included in an effective way in a story, depending on how they are written and what kind of story they are in.
With that in mind, let’s move on to the article!
Don’t Write Long Sermons
Has your attention ever drifted while you sat in church, listening to a pastor’s sermon? Not because you weren’t interested in knowing more about the Bible, but because the way they were preaching wasn’t connecting with you and the struggles of your everyday life?
This can happen in fiction as well, when the story and the plot get put aside in favor of including a long, sermon-like passage that doesn’t fit with the struggles of the main character. These long sermons don’t only have to be related to Christian themes, either—they can be about any aspect of the story you are writing, whether that is a theme, or the moral, or any part of the story that is given excessive attention and begins to read like a non-fiction textbook on the subject being discussed.
As the well-known Christian author C.S. Lewis said, “Work whose Christianity is latent may do quite as much good and may reach some whom the more obvious religious work would scare away. The first business of a story is to be a good story…Don’t try to ‘bring in’ specifically Christian bits: if God wants you to serve Him in that way (He may not: there are different vocations) you will find it coming in of its own accord.”
If you are writing Christian fiction, or you include subtler Christian themes in your work, it is important to remember that the reader is very smart. They will catch on to your subtle cues and conversational hints throughout the story, as long as you do it consistently and in a way that feels relatable.
So, make sure that your characters are actually struggling with real problems where God’s love and grace can set them free, and make sure that however you include your Christian themes, they always relate to the main character’s struggle instead of only being there to prove a point in the story.
How should you go about including the Christian content you want to include, then? I would direct you to the old “show versus tell” rule. If you want the Christian themes in your story to be apparent without being preachy, try to show the reader through the actions of your characters, not just their dialogue or inner narrative, how those characters are living out Christian themes.
If the theme is forgiveness, for example, show your character learning to forgive in small ways leading up to the final moment where they will have to demonstrate all that they have learned about forgiveness in their most challenging confrontation with their enemy. Showing your character changing like this over time would be much more impactful to your reader than having no change occur along the way throughout the story.
If the character didn’t change at all throughout the whole story and then had someone preach to them about the meaning of forgiveness right before their final confrontation with their enemy, the character’s demonstration of forgiveness would feel hollow because they have just been told about what to do. They haven’t shown throughout the whole story that they are learning what forgiveness is about on their own.
Preaching can take the power away from characters’ experiences and puts all of that growth into one long section of dialogue or narrative, which is ultimately disappointing for readers who want to read about a character’s realistic struggles.
Don’t Have A Character’s Life Become Suddenly Perfect
That leads me to my second point: don’t make everything perfect for your character the minute they decide to do the right thing and pursue the Christian path. By perfect, I mean by having the Christian character suddenly know how to navigate every obstacle and have no trouble with any challenge that comes their way.
Gif Credit: Giphy
Christian characters that face no struggles once they are Christian feel unrealistic and preachy because the reader can’t relate to their new, perfect lives. None of us lead perfect lives, and there are things that we all struggle with. Sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we fail. If we were all perfect, all of us without sin, what need would there be for us to be forgiven by God?
Consider this quote from The Bible:
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (English Standard Version, Romans 5:6-8)
If there is no reason for your characters to need God’s forgiveness, they likely won’t feel compelled to seek it out. Imperfect characters who struggle with trials at every stage of their faith will feel real and relatable to your readers because none of us are perfect.
Your character might fail and cause a huge problem that they have to fix and seek forgiveness for. Your character might be struggling with something internal, like a flaw in their personality, or with something external, like losing a relationship they have been trying with all their might to keep. Discovering love, forgiveness, and redemption through things big and small, like the enduring love in a friendship or an encounter with God Himself, can all help your character feel real and relatable to your reader.
In C.J. Darlington’s Christian Suspense novel, Bound by Guilt, there is a great example of an imperfect character interacting with a Christian theme. Roxi Gold, the main character, has turned to thievery to please her new guardian, though she struggles greatly with the resulting guilt as well as the fear of being abandoned by those she loves most. Through her relationship with a kindly Christian woman who takes her in when Roxi has lost everything, Roxi begins to understand forgiveness and love and grows as a person as the Christian theme of the story--forgiveness--directly relates to her struggles with guilt.
Take a look at the Christian theme or themes in your story. Now, search for the relationships your main character has with the other characters in the story, and start to figure out ways that these relationships could naturally reflect your Christian theme. Search for the choices your character has to make throughout the story and see whether these choices make your character face the theme or flee from it. In what ways, big and small, can you bring your character to gradually start seeing the truth in your story’s Christian theme?
Don’t Include Excessive Deus Ex Machina
What is deus ex machina? The translated meaning of the term is “a god from a machine.” Back in the olden days, when ancient Greeks were still putting on plays, deus ex machina was what would happen at the end of a story, when everything was a huge mess, and the hero was going to have to do something to fix the problems of the story. Suddenly, a Greek god would swoop in (lowered by a crane) and resolve the whole conflict. The end. In more modern terms, deus ex machina became about how a problem that seemed unsolvable would suddenly be solved at the end of the story by a very unlikely event.
I’ve read my fair share of Christian novels, and if you’re reading this article, I’m sure you have as well. Sometimes, at the end of some Christian stories (and even secular ones as well!), it can feel as though the hero had a great conflict that they were going to face, but are then robbed of facing that conflict by a revelation from the Christian (or secular) theme of the story.
In a secular story, this might look like the hero being about to slay a dragon after the dragon has killed some of their friends and destroyed their village. Suddenly, the hero remembers something that his wise old mentor once told him: dragons aren’t real. Immediately, the hero closes his eyes, thinks to himself that the dragon isn’t real, and when he opens his eyes, the dragon is gone, despite all the damage it caused and the injuries it inflicted.
And the dragon isn’t just gone. All the damage it caused is gone as well: the village is restored magically without any effort being required to rebuild it, the hero’s friends are all magically alive again, and the hero himself is magically without any injury.
The story ends without the hero having to find a clever way to defeat the dragon, without the villagers needing to rebuild, and without the hero recognizing the consequences of the dragon’s evil in the deaths of his friends. This magical, dragon-isn’t-real ending feels too easy, doesn’t it?
It is too easy. It lets the main character off the hook. They don’t actually have to face the obstacle and learn something from their encounter with it, and they don’t have to struggle like most people would when faced with a deadly dragon. They can simply close their eyes, remember the moral of the story, and suddenly, have no problems.
It doesn’t feel relatable, and it can feel a bit disappointing to a reader that has been waiting the entire novel to see how the hero defeats the unkillable dragon. How much would you have enjoyed the final confrontation with Smaug in The Hobbit if this scenario had occurred in the story?
Gif Credit: Giphy
In a Christian novel, this can happen when the hero is faced with a complex issue or even the final battle, depending on the genre of the story. The hero will be required to make a difficult choice, faced with an impossible situation, when all of a sudden, their enemy gives up after hearing the hero evangelize to them.
Or, the hero will face the issue, but for some reason, everything works out perfectly in the end and they have to face no consequences from their final confrontation with their enemy. Stories that end too perfectly can feel unrealistic and they can all sound the same after a while, leaving a reader without much emotion since the hero didn’t actually have to sacrifice much or stay strong in the face of danger if there was no danger to face.
Now, of course, deus ex machina could be used to some extent in Christian novels, and it could even work well, depending on the type of Christian book you are writing. I suggest using it carefully, or your reader may feel like they are being preached at by having the moral of the story become the ultimate solution that solves all the hero’s problems and saves the hero from having to face any consequences from the events in the story.
So, to wrap all this up, some rules to avoid writing a preachy novel include:
1. Not writing extremely long sermons. Weave the theme/moral of the story throughout the whole book instead of dropping it onto the reader in long sections of evangelizing dialogue or narrative.
2. Not having a character’s life become suddenly perfect once they decide to become a Christian. Everyone will face trials, within and without, since we are imperfect humans living in an imperfect world. Make sure to keep your hero’s evolution realistic by continuing to have them overcome obstacles in themselves and in the world around them.
3. Not including excessive deus ex machina. It will feel unrealistic to your reader if the hero is suddenly saved by an unlikely event--especially one related to preaching the theme of the story--that erases all consequences and difficulties from the hero’s life.
Your story can be a beautiful message to your readers about how people can find the faith to overcome the impossible odds that surround them. In the writing of a Christian novel, you will be sharing a glimpse of how real, difficult, everyday life looks while living with faith. You will be reminding readers of the truth in Psalm 23:4 (ESV): “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” Your heroes will still walk through this valley, but they will learn to fear no evil, because in a Christian story, the hero is never alone.
I hope this has helped as you prepare to write your Christian novel, or even as you prepare to revise one that you have already finished writing!
Have you ever read a Christian story that felt preachy? What about it felt preachy to you, and what would you do to change it now that you know how to avoid writing a preachy novel?
Jodi Clark
Jodi Clark is a writer and college student from Central Oregon, where she has lived for fifteen years. At college, she is studying for her BA in English along with a minor in history.
She has worked with many authors to revise their manuscripts through her job on Fiverr while working on her own various projects. Aside from writing, her hobbies include hiking, photography, and other outdoors activities.
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The Christian novels I’ve read didn’t seem too preachy, but that’s probably because there was a lot of action in them…..
Hi Keilah! There are some great Christian novels out there. Including lots of action along with Christian themes can definitely help to balance out slower sections with lots of dialogue or characters’ internal thoughts.
I absolutely LOVE this post!!! The advice in here is pure gold! Fantastic job, Jodi!
Thank you so much, Gracie!
Thank you SO much!! I keep hearing terms like “being too preachy” but I wasn’t exactly sure what it was or how to avoid it. Thank you so much!!!
You’re so welcome, Daisy! I’m so glad my article was helpful to you.
This is awesome, Jodi!
Thank you, Sandrina!
So many great points! Especially the Deus Ex Machina point, and how it can be used by both Christian and secular authors, and that it weakens stories’ messages. So true and really insightful, but it’s also one of the more overlooked points, so I’m so glad you talked about it! Such a great article Jodi! Thank you for sharing your insight and knowledge!
Thank you so much, Kathleen! I’m so glad I was able to write about this topic, since this is something I have been thinking about for a long time.
I was literally just talking with my sister about deus ex machina in Christian fiction this morning! Thank you for explaining my thoughts on this subject far better than I was doing. XD This was a wonderful article, thanks for sharing it!
Solid advice