The Way Christian Fiction Oughta Be....

...including Catholic fiction, too, for that matter.
You want to know how to write good old-fashioned story, from the viewpoint of faith? Then look up Rochelle Krich--or as she's known on some earlier books, Rochelle Majer Krich. If that name doesn't sound like a typical Germanic-WASP-Amish storyteller's name...congratulations.

The girl is Jewish.
Orthodox Jew, in fact, if she is writing heroines who are like herself (as most of us do).
So how is this the way Christian fiction oughta be, if the person writing it is Jewish?

Let me backtrack a bit.

Recently, I dipped into a book that was highly touted in Christian circles. It's not a new book, by any means, but it was and has been raved about for years...by an author who basically "owns" one of the major Christian publishing houses. If I said her name, and you know Christian fiction, you'd recognize it.

I avoided this woman's work--I admit it. I avoided it partially because of the perverse notion I have that if everyone is raving too much about someone's work, I suspect that either they're all her friends or they all wanna be...and partially because, by nature, I'm a contrarian. You can bet that out of all the bestselling authors in the world, I'll like one or two, be bored by another bunch, and despise one or two at the other end of the spectrum.

And it must also be said that when it comes to bestsellers--especially Christian bestsellers--I am not impressed by the overall body of work. There are a handful of exceptions; I so wanted this gal's work to be one of the handful. I wanted to be proven wrong. And, for an immensely pleasurable time in the book, I was.

For a long ways into the story, it was exceptional. It was full of flawed people who sinned all over the place; it was full of dark murky things people had to "get over" and people who couldn't get past some of those dark murky things. It had fearful people as well as faithful people--sometimes in the same skin. So far, so good...until the last couple of chapters.

At that point, God was reaching into these characters' lives in some very real ways, they were coming closer to Him, and so they had a lot of questions to ask. And they started asking them of the central "Christian" godly woman character in the piece. And she sat down and started answering them.

What followed was something like a dozen pages (I don't know exactly how many; I gave up!) of what we Catholics would have called "Catechism class." Three major women characters in the book sat and talked theology. They sat and talked why God allowed certain things to happen. Why their lives had been the way they had been for the previous, oh, 300 pages or so. The beauty of Jesus' redemption of them all. Whether they could trust God or not. What would happen if they did. Did they need God's help? How could God love them? Was it all for real?

They became talking heads, spouting obligatory Bible truths, and the story stopped dead.
I realized it some distance into the discussion--about three pages or so--when I suddenly looked up from the page and said, "Wait a minute. Has anyone moved from a chair? Has anything happened in these last three pages besides three talking heads having Sunday school? And for whose benefit is this?"

Well, dear reader, the clear answer to that is...it's for your benefit. Yes, in case you hadn't gotten the message that God Loves You No Matter What, Yes, Even You, Yes, No Matter Where Or Who You Are, Yes, Just Trust Him--a message you definitely would have gotten by the way the characters' lives had interacted previous to this, especially the main "saved" character and her frequent spoutings of mini-Bible truths--the author decided to Lay It All Out Here And Show You How Marvelous This Christian Faith Is, By Golly.

But if you would rather the story have kept its intention and let you see that played out the rest of the way in the characters' lives....
Tough.

The author and editors of this fell right into the all-too-common trap of, apparently, believing that for Christian fiction to be really Christian, by golly, you'd better have That Gospel Truth Spelled Out In Plain English So That Your Reader Can Get Saved Reading Your Book...Even If You Have To Stop The Book Dead To Do It, Because It's Too Important To Let Slide, And God Knows We Can't Trust People To Be Intelligent Enough To "Get" That From Our Storyline Alone.

So they took a compelling, absorbing read and turned it into pap.
Just that fast.

This happens so often in Christian fiction that it's become a cliche in itself. And don't even get me started about most Catholic fiction--with a few notable exceptions, it's even worse. Not with the Gospel presentation, so to speak--"conversion scenes" as a rule aren't our stumbling blocks. But if the Catholic is actually writing from the POV of being faithful to the Magisterium--rare enough in itself--all too often, the book is little more than a treatise on Fatima and/or the End Times prophecies and how This World Has Already Gone To Hell, So Get Out That Holy Water And That Rosary OR ELSE.

Like I said...from potentially intelligent story to pap, in one easy and unfortunate step.

Enter the second book from my library bag that week: Rochelle Krich's BLUES IN THE NIGHT.

As a matter of fact, you should do that precise thing: enter the book. As in go to the library, check it out, and enter the world of Molly Blume and Rochelle Krich as her creator. Especially if you're a mystery buff at all--or a crime-solving buff at all. And who isn't, between Law & Order and CSI and all their spinoffs?

Because Molly Blume isn't just any ordinary mystery heroine. She's a published author of true crime stories...and an observant Orthodox Jew...who finds herself embroiled in solving real-life crimes as well. She says regular daily prayers, keeps kosher, and stops her work and ordinary everyday activities for Shabbat. She is very human--which means she's at times flawed, insecure, snarky, scared, and vulnerable...and also sweet, considerate, compassionate, and principled.

But most of all, she's a woman of faith, a faith as integral to her character as her hair color and height and personal baggage. In other words, she's a real woman, and a real Jew--unlike the Pollyanna Christians, Amish bonnet-babes, and/or wild-eyed borderline-personality Catholics we often encounter in so much of what attempts to be "faith-based" fiction. Yes, she's different. Yes, she's countercultural. But she isn't written that way so a reader will get A Message through the story. It's simply who she is, and the stories unfold in the ways they do because of the inevitability that a woman of faith--this particular faith--will have certain approaches to life that will make her story turn out in a different way from one in which there is no faith element present.

It's interesting to note that Ms. Krich's books aren't categorized as "religious fiction." That's because they're not. They're books peopled with Orthodox Jewish folks, they give you a fascinating glimpse into a life and a people many of us know almost nothing about...but make no mistake. They're not tracts. They're stories. And danged good ones, to boot. As in not-put-downable.

Which is a heck of a lot better than I can say for 99% of Christian fiction, past or present.

What we're talking about is special stuff, people: story, first, last, and always...with faith as an integral, inseparable, and sometimes determinant element--and with no need whatsoever to preach.
It's what we as Christians writing fiction ought to be doing.
Unfortunately, we still don't get that.
So I'd recommend we get to know Molly Blume, and see how to do it right.


Thoughts?
Janny

Weary of It All

I feel a little lonely and more than a little tired this particular morning, as a Catholic Christian writer. 
This feeling comes and goes, depending on the cultural currents around us. But two recent incidents made it come to the fore in especially vivid relief. 

 The first one came when I was reading my way through a novel called Any Bitter Thing by Monica Wood. The book has a promising setup: a woman recovering from a serious accident begins to discover stuff about her life that will change her forever. 

I love stories where stuff gets revealed, secrets are told, and people’s lives change as a result. So it sounded like it’d be a horking good read. 

What was even more promising was that one of the major protagonists in this book was a Catholic priest, a man who took custody of the heroine as a child, when she was in need of someone to step into her life and provide stability. 

He was written wonderfully…for awhile. Unfortunately, the author then took the cheap, easy, and all-too-predictable path. (I guess she couldn’t hold out forever.) 

She had a character talking with Fr. Mike ask, “Father, do I have to obey all the Church laws? Even the stupid ones?”

 

 Well, you know what the “stupid ones” are, don’t you? 

 Yeah. Anything to do with sex. The contraception prohibition, among them. And, of course, a contemporary author wouldn’t be worth her salt if she didn’t hint that stuff like not letting women be priests and/or not letting priests marry (this space for violins), among other things, are just so terminally backward that they also fall under the “stupid” category of Church law.

Now, this was disappointing enough. But when this character gets done having her say, what does Fr. Mike do?

 

He could have used this as a wonderful teaching moment. Heck, he could have even just fallen back on “we’re not called to know all the answers, we’re just called to obey,” which is not only perfectly Catholic and perfectly Christian, but a perfectly okay response even in many secular situations. (Think military and/or medical settings, if nothing else.) 

He could have talked about faith. About God giving strength to people to do things on faith that, on the surface, may not make sense in human terms. 

So how did he answer her? He commiserated, chuckled, and finally confided, “Actually, you know what? Don’t tell anybody, but…I agree with you.” 

And I tossed the book across the room. 

 Frankly, I've gotten to the point where I’d just about sell my soul—figuratively, at least—for someone, anyone, to write and publish some faithful Catholic characters for a change. 

Not the overly-pious end-times crazies that pop up in some of the apocalyptic literature—that’s just as bad as going the other way. But a few ordinary, everyday, next-door-neighbor types wouldn’t come amiss. 

Failing that, I’d be willing to take characters who were at least neutral. Who were willing to say something like, “Well, there’s a lot I don’t understand, but since I’m in this Church, I do the best I can to be faithful to her.” 

Or if they’re not in the Church, to say something like, “Well, I don’t believe that way, but a lot of people grew up with those beliefs and they turned out all right…so it probably isn’t all that bad.”  

That may be damning with faint praise, but even that is better than the endless nudge-nudge, snicker-snicker, isn’t-this-just-like-those-stupid-reactionary-Papists stuff. 

Especially when it comes from characters who are supposed to be on our side. 

Where are all the characters who aren’t chafing against “stupid rules,” who aren’t badmouthing the Church when things get a little challenging, who aren’t kicking against the goad? 

Where are the priests willing to stand up for Mother Church? 

In real life, they’re out there. They’re some of the most wonderful people you’ll ever meet. They’re perfectly normal, too, amazingly enough—reasonably intelligent, informed on current events, participatory in their modern worlds, with healthy senses of humor and healthy senses of realism. It’s not like they’re all living in caves. So why don’t they ever show up in stories?

 

One might be tempted to assume that one didn’t show up this time because this book is secular literature, but the problem goes deeper than just secular versus “spiritual.” Some so-called spiritual writers offend equally, and sometimes in more egregious ways yet. 

The plain fact of the matter is that in our culture, it’s considered not opinion, but fact, that “Catholic Church rules are stupid.” And, like any propaganda does, that skewed perspective has had the effect of convincing many people that the idea behind Catholicism is “Just be nice, the rest doesn’t count;” or that the Catholic Gospel is less concerned with conversion than with liberating people from oppression, saving trees, or turning a blind eye to lawbreaking in the name of “loving Jesus.” 

None of this is true. 

None of this is authentic Catholicism. 

It’s not even good Christianity, for that matter. 

But it persists, and the more even fictional characters reinforce these predictable, ignorant bigotries, the narrower the field gets for all of us.

I experienced this narrowing in the second incident that set me apart.

I found a new Christian publishing house starting up, got along famously with the editorial people I contacted there, and asked them if they were willing to do reprints. Turns out they are, so I submitted From the Ashes to them…which, as you might expect, is Christian fiction from a Catholic viewpoint.

Now, the last time I looked, Catholicism was still based in Jesus Christ. Which, by definition, makes it Christian. But I was told very nicely by the editor in charge that if I wanted to have that book reprinted by her house, I’d need to remove the “Romanism” from it, because she is aiming at a broader reader base that is more heavily Protestant.

On the surface, this sounds like an innocent enough request. After all, she knows her potential market, right?

But is it really all that innocent? 

Or is it rather a matter of a huge number of Protestants buying into a picture of Catholicism that they've been fed by secular media as “what Catholicism is about,” and dismissing us and/or being offended accordingly?

That’s wrong. It’s a mistake. And the worst part of all is, it’s a huge blind spot that may come back to bite us when there are bigger battles to fight.

Our culture is literally racing toward dismissing anything pure, moral, and decent in favor of the impure, the immoral, and the indecent. If we needed any more evidence of that, the following piece of tripe I encountered in PW (Publishers Weekly) spells it out in rather chilling terms.

It’s an excerpt from a review in the June 11, 2007, issue. The publication in question is a comic book/graphic book called Misery Loves Comedy, by a certain Ivan Brunetti. Apparently, boys and girls, comic books ain't what they used to be. Not if you can believe a review that says, in part:

“Brunetti constantly offers up the worst possible image of himself alongside his portraits of a despised society. His festival of self-loathing, sexual depravity and brutal cynicism, is, however, amazingly clever and incisive. Whether from the point of view of a miserable comics artist and workaday hack, a nihilistic Jesus Christ or a raging ‘feminazi,’ these rants are fascinatingly convincing, readable and smart.”

We have already reached a phase in our culture where “self-loathing, sexual depravity and brutal cynicism” are considered “clever and incisive.” And yet, here I am with a clean, wholesome book to sell, submitted to where ideally it should fit right in...yet it is somehow not quite “right” for a “Christian” fiction market. Its Catholic identity makes it somehow...flawed. Risky. Possibly even dangerous.

Words fail me.

Note to my Christian publishing sisters: As erotic depravity takes over romance fiction, and comic book writers get praise for the kinds of things cited above...Catholics ain’t the ones you ought to be worried about.

We have bigger fish to fry. But it’s going to get real lonely in that frying pan pretty soon if we don’t have the sense to start frying them together.

Thoughts?
Janny