Writing is a mission field
This is week eight of the Writing School, so well over half way now. The last two weeks our focus has been on fiction writing. Our guest speaker gave us a lot of great technical details about characterization, plot storyboarding and navigating the publishing industry. However, for me, the most valuable insight they gave was to highlight that writing fiction is a mission field.
There’s a book genre called Christian Fiction, which contains strong Christian themes, such as being born again, miracles, prayer, the holy spirit and Jesus. The audience are Christians who love to read faith based books and want to be encouraged in their walk. Christian Fiction is absolutely a mission field as it also reaches readers who may be nominally Christian and have yet to experience the full power of the gospel.
The flipside of the Christian Fiction genre is that very few non-Christians will read it. To reach those, we need to write for what is called the General Market, or those readers that primarily read books to be entertained. I believe Christian writers have an opportunity to attain a level of their craft where they can write stories for the General Market that are able to reach millions of readers.
Stories that are infused with strong messages of hope, redemption, forgiveness and value. Books that both entertain and plant seeds of the character of God. And for me, especially, I have a desire to write books for middle grade children, aged between 9-12.
It’s an age where children are about to embark on an often lonely and misunderstood journey into adolescence—a tenuous stage of life where even a single book can assure them of their great value. They can be given tools for standing against the strong forces that seek to smother the hope they have within them for a life of meaning and purpose.
It is my great hope that not just myself, but a significant number of other Christian authors will answer this call. A call that finds itself rooted in Jesus, and yet fully engaged in the traditional publishing industry. An industry that has enormous sway in distilling culture, ethics, and values in a hurting world.
I'm not attending writing school just to improve as a hobbyist or casual writer. No. I’m fully committed to do everything I can to become a published author and have a seat at the table in the publishing industry.
You can read more about my writing journey in my post Why I must write. Stay tuned as well for an update on our next steps after the writing school finishes in a few short weeks.