Writing Wednesday—Why do you write Christian fiction?
30 September 2009
I assure you, it was not planned.
For one thing, I wasn’t even aware it existed. When I realized it did, I picked up a few Christian YA books that shall remain nameless and … let’s just say I knew I wouldn’t fit in. I felt I wrote more like a general market author. But as I toyed with writing for the general market, I felt very strongly like I needed to write for the Christian market instead. That I was meant to.
You might ask, “Why do you have to choose?” The thing is, it’s all about where bookstores shelve you. It’s the same reason why every book is assigned a genre—romance, mystery, young adult, speculative. If you’re looking for a Christian YA book, you want to be able to walk to the Christian YA shelf. If you’re not, you don’t want to accidentally buy one.
But what really pushed me toward writing for the Christian market was being around other Christian writers. My first writers’ conference was a “regular” one, and I didn’t make a single friend. I know this isn’t an absolute truth (I eventually did find community in a general market group called Teen Lit Authors that was started by author Alyssa Day) but at the general market conference, I felt like the other writers were my competitors. We were all competing for the same agents, the same editors, the same release slots.
Not so when I attended the Florida Christian Writers Conference. It’s hard to feel competitive when you gather in a room every morning and worship God together. I felt a sense of community, and that continued when I joined American Christian Fiction Writers.
And thankfully I found Revell, a Christian publisher who accepts the realities I talk about in my books (roofies, teen pregnancy, falling in love as a teen) alongside the message of hope we have as Christians. Zondervan is another excellent house. They actually have plans to create what we call “cross-over” books that are clean enough to fit in the guidelines of the Christian market, but don’t’ have the religious-speak that would keep them off general market shelves. Very exciting stuff.
Happy Wednesday everyone.
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