Are You Hooked?

Not long ago, I discussed the “It Factor,” that intangible something that sets a work of fiction apart and gets people to notice and talk and read. One thing most writing instructors agree on is that a novel opening needs to hook readers into the story.
— Rebecca LuElla Miller in September 2011 —

‘Harry Potter’ and How We Learn To Discern

Whether you enjoy ‘Harry Potter,’ or believe it’s dangerous witchcraft, or try to find Christian parallels in the stories … 14 questions to ask.
— E. Stephen Burnett in September 2011 —

Human Nature 1: On The Enemies List

No good story is complete without some evil, and storytellers like to draw from at least ten common bad-guy standbys. But how do they try to throw in “surprise twist” enemies? And what enemy isn’t on the list of usual suspects?
— E. Stephen Burnett in September 2011 —

Mythopoeia Or … It’s Opposite

Mythopoeia, according to Wikipedia, is “a narrative genre … where a fictional mythology is created … The authors in this genre integrate traditional mythological themes and archetypes into fiction.” When I first heard the term, I was confounded. Which is it, I wondered, the creation of a myth or the integration of traditional myth into a new story?
— Rebecca LuElla Miller in September 2011 —

The Encouragement Of Story

The superhero film “Thor” encouraged me, a friend of mine said. How should great stories encourage us? What stories have encouraged you by echoing to you God, or our nature and response to Him, or the beauty of God’s world, or all three?
— E. Stephen Burnett in September 2011 —

Speculative Love, Part 1: No Greater Love

When I introduced this series last week, Galadriel made what I thought was a rather perceptive comment: “I don’t understand the point of a ‘speculative love ‘ story…” Indeed. What’s speculative about love? Nothing.
— Fred Warren in September 2011 —

Speculative Love: An Introduction

No, this is not a manual for exobiological reproduction, alien mating rituals, or human-vampire hybridization. My apologies if that is what you expected when you arrived here. Given that the name of this blog is Speculative Faith, on which topic we spend […]
— Fred Warren in September 2011 —

The Place Of Hope In Speculative Fiction

I find Chesterton’s perception of “modern fiction” — stories written in a realistic style nearly a hundred years ago — eerily similar to stories written in a realistic style today. When the imagination is separated from spiritual reality, it seems to stall on the bleak and the horrible.
— Rebecca LuElla Miller in September 2011 —

The Narnia Secret

If the title Planet Narnia makes you cringe, you’re not alone. And if the title The Narnia Code makes you think “Lewis would have hated this,” well, me too (although upon reflection, I realized it was Tolkien who would have […]
— E. Stephen Burnett in August 2011 —

What’s In Yours?

Summer is over, and many readers used a part of their vacation time to kick back and enjoy a good book. But every day authors announce new releases, and the fall line up seems full of a wealth of new books. Then there are the classics — the books everyone else talks about that we’ve never picked up ourselves, though we’ve been meaning to. For writers, there are also books of friends and colleagues. So, what’s in your to-be-read pile?
— Rebecca LuElla Miller in August 2011 —

Stories For Christians 1: The New ‘watchful Dragons’

C.S. Lewis wrote about “watchful dragons” on guard against religious trappings that seem incompatible with enjoyment. But many Christians today employ different Churchian Dragons, who tolerate fiction (if they do) mainly if it plays well on their own moralist pragmatic grounds.
— E. Stephen Burnett in August 2011 —

Short Story Long

We spend a lot of time talking about novels here at Speculative Faith, but I’d like to make a quick pitch for short stories today and list a few places you can find well-written, short spec-fic written from a Christian worldview or at least non-hostile to a Christian worldview, for free or cheap.
— Fred Warren in August 2011 —

The Good And Bad Of The Reading Experience

If fiction is a model for life which readers create in collaboration with writers, then it seems to me readers are being transformed by writers into whatever writers believe to be true.
— Rebecca LuElla Miller in August 2011 —

Harry Potter, Bob The Tomato, and Genre

At one little Baptist church in 1997, no one had heard of Harry Potter. But “VeggieTales” was all the rage, and was proposed for the church’s VBS — until Vera (not quite her real name) spoke up. “I won’t have this at my church,” she said firmly. “It’s fantasy.”
— Zach Bartels in August 2011 —
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