Sparseness: yet another disturbing trend with Christian speculative fiction
Cover scan of Planet Comics, No. 53, Fiction House, March 1948. Cover art by Joe Doolin. Doolin, Matt Baker, George Evans, and Maurice Whitman art. Cited in Seduction of the Innocent. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’ve read several Christian fantasies lately, especially those supposedly for children, which have been written in a style which severely hurts the quality of the books. Now, I’m not advocating the type of story seen in the comic cover to the left. But it is certainly better than some of the dry Christian speculative fiction books with impeccable writing and editing I’ve read recently. No, I’m not going to point fingers or mention names. If the Holy Spirit convicts you, fix the problem!
If you eliminate all adverbs and descriptions,
you’re normally left with nothing worth reading
I see all the writing advice: no passive verbs, minimal adverbs, no unnecessary descriptions, tight, concise, and boring. Someone needs to tell the current crop of Christian self-published authors that until they gain a lot of writing experience, all of these things are probably necessary for their story. People who have been sold this bill of goods probably look down their noses at Lord of the Rings, Narnia, The Warrior Kind, and most of the rest of the really good speculative fiction.
Speculative fiction requires immersion into a world
As a reader I need to experience and understand the smells, sounds, sights, culture, landscape, and weather of your world. Is it good to have tight, concise writing? Yes. But it is not nearly as important as telling the tale in enough depth to develop true reader immersion into that world you so painstakingly created. Guy Stanton’s books will drive editing snobs crazy—but the worlds created and the stories told are the best I’ve ever read. If you haven’t read his books yet, shame on you! How many times do I have to tell you, these are wonderful stories.
Yes, you should write as well as you know how. If you can afford a good editor, by all means hire one.
But don’t let these concerns ruin your story!
Tell your tale well, read a lot, and your books will become better written as you develop as a writer. But, it takes practice—and several books, in most cases.
This is a plague in pretty much every kind of fiction right now. MFA and college-level writing programs stress stark, spare fiction, and that trickles down to local writing groups. My own agent was highlighting things in my book saying, “You don’t need this description” and “BORING!” when it’s just immersive stuff. Oh, and, “Take out ten thousand words” because that way the book is cheaper to print. (“Which words? What part feels wordy?” “Oh, it’s all tight, but you should still get it down to 80K.”
Thank you, Jane.
I agree. I think a lot of it is due to the requirement often put out there by traditional publishers to make many shorter books. I’ve written before about the blight of books arbitrarily broken up into a trilogy. In many cases it would have been better to just release it as one great book instead of three much lesser books which frustrate the reader.
Plus, for fiction at this point, huge amounts of our sales are ebooks. No cost for extra size except for maybe a small download charge at Amazon.
BTW: my second novel is a Christian technothriller which comes in at 220K called Daniel’s Mighty Men. It’s still for sale at $2.99.
If you want a review copy, let me know.