Timothy's Thoughts

We’ve reached the end of 2008 at last. This has been a really strange year for me. So much has happened this year that I didn’t expect. At the beginning of the year, I expected to publish three or four books this year. I published two and one of them isn’t even mine. I did finish one of the books I had planned and I have made it more than halfway through writing another book, but not one of the ones I planned. I at this time in time in 2007 I never would have expected that I would be carrying around an Elite status frequent flyer card now. I really didn’t expect to spend thirteen weeks flying back and forth between Fort Worth and Atlanta. Looking back at it, I kind of enjoyed it, but it isn’t something I expected to happen. There are things that I wish would have happened this year that didn’t. I’m not complaining. That fact is that the Lord has blessed me far better this year than I deserve, but I don’t think there’s been a year that I was as happy to see disappear as this one. It ha...

I watched an old Columbo episode the other day. As always, the episode begins with the focus on the killer, but in this case it was especially interesting because it begins with silence—five minutes of silence. There are the normal sounds, like water running and footsteps, but no one speaks for the first five minutes of the show. I found myself wondering if I had muted the television or something. Five minutes, in television, is a very long time to go without saying anything. We would normally expect that the first five minutes of a television show would take five pages of a script, but it is possible that the first five minutes of the show required less than one page. That tells us something about silence and the writing. They don’t mix very well and yet there is something about silence that can make a scene especially poignant. The writer may have said something like, “INTERIOR, DAWN: man removes power charge from shell casing and replaces with four strips of C4, while sweating prof...

In all art forms there is a line between method and content. It isn’t always easy to discern, but it is always there. A couple of days ago I showed you a stained glass window I have done. If you look, there are mistakes I made that wouldn’t be there if I had spent more time perfecting my technique, but the image you see, the Bible with the earth and the sun, is what makes it unique. With writing it is a little more difficult to separate method from content. Some people are complaining that writing workshops and writer’s conferences are creating writers who are producing manuscripts that are too similar rather than standing out as being unique. Part of the reason for this may be that they are crossing the line between teaching writers how to improve their methods and telling them what content to choose. People may choose to ignore the mistakes I made with the stained glass window. Others may be more critical, but all people will include the image as part of their basis for liking or dis...

Yesterday, was Christmas. If you read my blog, you may have noticed that I didn’t use the word Christmas —not one time. You may have been offended because I chose to say Happy Holidays rather than Merry Christmas . You might be upset with me for taking Christ out of Christmas, but what you can’t do is say that my blog post wasn’t Christ centered. It is probably the most Christ centered post I have had in a while. I say all that to make a point. For the past few years, I have seen many Christians who are upset about people saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas . A few years ago no one cared, but now people are upset about it. The irony is that people are ready to get up in arms about a lost man saying Happy Holidays or telling his employees to say Happy Holidays , but many of these people won’t say a word about this man’s need for salvation. The issue of Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays isn’t really about taking Christ out of Christmas. It is really about change. People...

December twenty-fifth is the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Happy Holidays! (More on that later.) Somehow, it isn’t what it used to be. When I was a child all I worried about was what new gifts I would be getting. Now I spend more time worried out how I’m going to find the time to buy gifts for everyone else and hoping they won’t be too upset with whatever I give them. Next year, I think I’ll just tell everyone that we can just exchange cash. I’ll hand someone a twenty dollar bill and they can hand it back. Even with all the stress that’s associated with it, I’m glad we have this day to celebrate the birth of our Savior. If that day had never taken place I would not have the opportunity to celebrate an even more special day, August 7, 1983, the day I accepted Jesus as my Savior. I hope that everyone reading this has a similar date that they can go back to and celebrate. We talk about the meaning of the season, but without having a day when you met Jesus there is no reason ...

A good review is always nice, it gives me a chance to brag a little. (I promise I won’t brag too much.) For the Love of a Devil received what I would call high praise in review published in the December 3, 2008 edition of the Baptist Trumpet . The editor, Diane Spriggs, wrote “Although it has been compared to Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers (which I have read), For the Love of a Devil , by Timothy Fish, is written in a modern setting that I could more readily understand and takes a decidedly different approach to this Old Testament love story. I enjoyed both books.” Mrs. Spriggs continues her review by writing about how she felt as she began reading the book, saying that she felt “a little uncomfortable” at first, but it made her think of her personal relationship with God. As she ends her review she states that “more than anything, when I finished the book I felt loved and pursued—not because of who I am, but because of who He is!” I am grateful to Mrs. Spriggs for publishing this...

I’ve heard many people talk about writers block. I think the most likely cause is stress. Writer’s block is a little like what a speaker might experience if he goes to a meeting and someone asks him to get up and say a few words. I remember one of my high school English teachers talking about how to overcome writer’s block. The suggestions weren’t all that satisfying. The one I remember is to use brainstorming to come up with some ideas. We had brainstorming exercises we had to do. I hated that. I think the best thing a person can do when she can’t come up with anything to write is to just relax. That’s hard to do when you have to have something written within the next day or hour or whatever, but all good ideas come from thinking about other things than our need to write something. Simply put, writer’s block occurs when the writer is trying too hard.

Our church is building a new gym. We decided to put a three foot stained glass window on the front of the building. I have a small amount of experience with stained glass and I do mean small, so I had the opportunity to design and build the window. The result of my efforts is show here. I went with this design because it reflects the primary mission of our church. our mission is to carry the word of God to our world. Now that it's done, maybe I can go back to trying to finish some of the other things that I need to finish.

Time is a funny thing in fiction. I can speed it up, slow it down, bring it to a dead stop, jump forward or back, even have multiple times simultaneously. The only thing I can’t do with time is eliminate it, for it is a constant companion. Consider a story about a time traveler. Even as he is going through the process of moving from one time to the next, we may describe what he sees. In television they like to use tube like things to show people are moving through time, but there is a passage of time relative to the character. In all forms of fiction, to end time is to have nothing. We think of time as measured by clocks, the sun or the moon, but time is about moving from one event to the next. In out daily lives there are many events that don’t matter much, but as we move through them they help us keep track of time. In fiction we ignore the insignificant events, so the storyteller tells us how much time has passed, if it is important. Sometimes the storyteller leaves the listener to ...

The following is an example of infodumping : For ten years the two planets had been at war. Thousands had died in battles to control the trade routes between the stars. The following is an example of incluing : “Just how old is this?” the Starship Captain asked, biting into the ration. “At least ten years. I had it before we went to war.” “You would think one of these cargo ships we’re protecting would carry some decent food.” In info dumping we quickly get to the point and give the reader the information she needs. In incluing we take that same information and spread it out across several pages or even chapters with the goal of giving the reader the information without telling the reader we’re giving him background information. Both approaches have their place, but incluing is typically a better approach. Readers tend to skip infodumps unless they are very short and they don’t take the time to remember the details we would like for them to remember. The reader is much more likely t...

In medias res is a Latin term meaning “into the middle of things.” As a literary device it refers to beginning a story somewhere in the middle rather than beginning at the beginning and following the sequence of events in order. An author might begin with a battle scene and then later in the book include scenes that lead up to the battle. A romance novelist could begin with the obligatory fight between the two characters and then begin to explain what happened before. The reason we might want to use in medias res is because it quickly gives the reader something interesting. The idea is that we throw the reader into the heart of the story and then he’ll stick around long enough to figure out why people are shooting at him or whatever. The author tells the reader these things through flashbacks or dialogue. This frequently gives the timeline a horseshoe bend with the story is moving forward and backward at the same time. Revealing history in reverse chronological order makes it easier...

Part of the author’s task is to pick the right subject. Actually, the author gets to create the right subject. Since all the good plots are predefined and the theme is probably whatever bee the author has in her bonnet, the creation of the subject is the author’s opportunity to stand out. Look at the stories of Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee . They both have the same plot. They both have the same theme. But they are very clearly different. The difference is in the subject. In Mary Poppins , the children are fairly good and the only real problem is their father works too hard. The nanny is attractive, “practically perfect in every way,” and gives the children medicine with a spoonful of sugar. In Nanny McPhee , the children are terrible and their father is grieving the loss of his wife. The nanny is ugly, gives the children what they deserve and no amount of sugar would make the medicine she gives them taste good. The decisions an author makes about the subject determines what events ca...

Artists, such as painters, often produce several pieces of art that are very similar, so much so that experts can guess the artist without looking at the signature. In publishing, this might be called the artist’s brand, but if we look closely, what we see are subject and theme . A painter’s theme, for example, might be common flowers. One painting might be of a rose, another of a tulip, another of a daffodil, but they all follow the theme of flowers you might see in your own yard. The subject is the specific flower the painter chose. If he paints a red rose one day and a tulip the next, then his subject is different, even though he has stayed with the theme. In writing, we see a similar phenomenon. One of the most common themes is romance. There are hundreds of authors writing nothing but romance novels. You might think that readers would grow tired of the same theme, but the subject is different. The characters are cowboys and farmers and business owners. Some are young. Some are ol...

There is a term, Theological Fiction , that doesn’t seem to heavily used, but it’s used to describe a subset of Christian Fiction. We can think of theological fiction as being similar to science fiction , but where science fiction is centered around scientific theory, theological fiction is centered around theology. As with science fiction , theological fiction tends to fit within the realm of speculative fiction . Randy Brandt says that “[ theological fiction ] seeks to teach us something about God and Christianity, not just about people who are influenced by Christianity in some way.” I’m not sure that his definition sufficient, but it works for now. Much of the Christian Fantasy that is hitting the shelves is Theological Fiction . Compare something like The Shack with a pure work of Fantasy like Inkheart . Young has a clear agenda to change the reader’s view of God. He spends a high percentage of his book having “God” explain what is wrong with traditional Christianity. Of co...

I talked before about character based writers ignoring the advice of plot based writers and vice versa. Now let’s consider when they should apply advice from the other side. Once a character based writer finishes a first draft, she goes back and reads her work. Maybe the plot isn’t as interesting as she thought it was while she was writing. Maybe it drags in the middle. Now’s the time to push aside the books by characterists and pick up a good book by a plotter. Plotters develop a framework to hang their story from. If they have done a good job, when they begin writing they don’t have to worry about sagging middles and other plot structure problems. With the first draft done, we have access to the whole plot and we can make changes that make it work better. The main reason why the character based writer didn’t do this in the first place is because she couldn’t see the whole plot, but after the first draft is done she doesn’t have that problem. People who develop the plot first may have...

If I had my way, Christian Fantasy would lose its fixation on Spiritual Warfare. A book has angels or demons in it, so it must be about spiritual warfare. A book has knights on horseback who take up swords to fight the enemy. This too must be an allegory for spiritual warfare. Someone steps in a mud puddle and it must have something to do with spiritual warfare. While there is nothing wrong with writing about spiritual warfare, if it is handled in the right way, do we really need so much of it? Fantasy is an excellent place to talk about a wide variety of subjects, but at some point we have to question whether every sword must represent the Bible and whether we really need to talk so much about demonic forces when its real flesh and blood people that we need to be concerned about. Christian Fantasy needs more pure fantasy in which a sword is just a sword and the evil king is just the enemy. I would like to see more Christian Fantasy that is written for no other reason than the enjoymen...

What’s the purpose of thorns in the Bible? They are first mentioned Genesis 3:18 after Adam sinned. There were no thorns before that. You will recall that Paul had a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble. In Hosea 2:5, 6 we see a reference to thorns and a wall that were to prevent the harlot from going after her lovers. It seems similar to the reference to Saul kicking against the pricks on the road to Damascus. Many times in the Bible we see a parallel between thorns and the chastisement of God. Thorns and snares are in the way of the forward: he that doth keep his soul shall be far from them. – Proverbs 22:5 When we are following a trail and run into thorns, we know we’re off the path. While suffering is never pleasant, we can think of thorns as a gift that God uses to keep us on the right path. In a practical sense, thorns take many forms. The contempt of a co-worker may be a thorn that causes us to reconsider how we treat people at work. A traffic ticket may be a torn that encoura...

We don’t always get to choose how the Lord blesses us. In fact, many times we pray asking for something and never receive what we ask, but when we sit back and let him choose, it can be fun to watch him work. A few days ago, I donated some money to Lifeword through our church. I won’t tell you how much, but it had a couple of zeros in it. I wrote the check, kind of figured they needed the money more than I did and sent it on its way. I never expected to get it back, but a few days after I wrote that check my employer gave me a bonus for some work I had done earlier in the year. The bonus was the exact amount that I gave to Lifeword. Sometimes the Lord blesses us and we don’t see it so clearly, but it’s nice when he shows us in such an obvious way. I could have gone years without missing that money. I didn’t need the bonus, though it isn’t unwelcome. I have been doubly blessed. I was blessed by being able to support an organization like Lifeword and I was blessed by God handing the mone...

This week’s theme has been theme. In fiction, theme is where we make our claim that we want to prove or disprove, but it isn’t the same as with non-fiction. Going back to the tithing theme of earlier in the week, if I were to write a non-fiction piece in support of tithing, I would probably state my claim then back it up with Bible verses and real life examples. In fiction, we must be much more subtle. We don’t want this: “I don’t believe in tithing,” he told his pastor. “Then you’re robbing God,” the old preacher said. “Malachi 3:8 says, Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed Me! But ye say, ‘Wherein have we robbed Thee?’ In tithes and offerings. ” It gets the point across and it may even sound like a real life conversation, but it comes across as corny fiction. It doesn’t help that a novel is probably not the best place to talk about tithing, but if we wanted to do so we should craft a story that leads the reader to draw the conclusion that we ought to tithe rather than picking up ...

Robert Liparulo’s House of Dark Shadows is the story of a family that moves from L.A. to a small town. They move into a house that just isn’t right. Sounds don’t always come from the right places. People enter one room and come out another. The linen closet connects to locker 119 at school. Doorways in a hidden hallway lead to exciting adventures in far-off places in different time periods. The target reading level for this book appears to be fifth or sixth grade. Let’s start with the good stuff. The premise is great, obviously, and provides an example of what Christian Fantasy should be aiming for. What kid wouldn’t want to live in a house where the linen closest transports him to school, and then to have the ability to travel through time? Excellent! The theme for the book is something along the lines of tell the truth or face the consequences . We see this in that the father lies to his family to get them to move to the strange house and the boys are secretive about exploring the h...

One of the common complaints about Christian novels is that they tend to be didactic or preachy. The critics are somewhat justified in making this statement, since there are plenty of examples, even among the more popular Christian authors. Someone is bound to say, “they haven’t read Christian fiction recently.” That may be true, but it is a problem that we should try to avoid. I would say that the solution is to “show, don’t tell”, but that phrase is overused. Didactic writing happens when we try to convince people of a theme without providing the required supporting evidence. Usually, this happens with themes other than the main theme. If we feel obligated to put the plan of salvation in every book, it is likely to come across as preachy unless it is the main theme. No matter how important a theme is, if we don’t have room to handle it properly, it should be left out. The author of one of my favorite books included some chapters that I wish she had left out and I often skip over them...

Some authors don’t know the theme of their novel until after they have finished writing it. It can be helpful to know the theme as you write because it will guide you through the writing process. Scenes that don’t support or oppose the theme in some way can usually be eliminated without hurting the novel and doing so often helps. If we know the theme, early in the novel we need to state the theme. We don’t do something as blatant as saying, “My theme is good conquers evil.” Instead, we do something offhand. We don’t even have our protagonist state the theme. In a classic hero/villain story, we wouldn’t want to have the hero tell the villain, “you can’t win because good conquers evil.” Instead we might have a friend of the hero talking about a mean person at work. “No matter how badly she treats me, I going to treat her good, because good overcomes bad.” Then in the rest of the book we will go about proving that statement, mostly through the interaction between the hero and villain, rat...

I’ve talked about theme before. Yesterday, I listed many different Christian themes. We can think of those as Super-themes rather than an actual theme you will find in a novel. A theme in a novel is like a statement that we have set out to prove. In Christian fiction, we must approach it with a Christian world view, but that has more to do with the conclusion than what it does with the theme. Our theme statement can be either a statement in support of a Christian world view or the converse. Picking one of the themes from yesterday, let’s look at an example. Tithing. There’s a topic we don’t see much in Christian novels (probably for a good reason). What kind of theme statement might we have in support of tithing? Pulling a line from many sermons on the subject, we could say, “The Lord blesses those who tithe.” The converse is something like, “There’s no reason for Christians to tithe.” Creating the theme statement is the easy part. The difficult part is how we cover the topic in a no...

Christian Literature is often defined as writing that deals with Christian Themes and incorporates a Christian World View. So what are the Christian Themes? I came up with 101 of them. There are bound to be more and there is much disagreement, even among Christians, about what the Bible teaches about many of these. 1. Salvation 2. End Times 3. Marriage 4. True Love 5. Redemption 6. Return and Forgiveness 7. Stewardship 8. Obedience 9. Faith 10. Reap What You Sow 11. Wasteful Living 12. Husband Love Wife 13. Wives Submit 14. Church and Government 15. Prayer 16. Sin 17. The New Christian 18. Temptation 19. Lust 20. Church Attendance 21. Christian Service 22. Respect of Persons 23. Racism 24. Good Over Evil 25. Church Perpetuity 26. False Religion 27. Angels 28. Suffering 29. Dating 30. Tithing 31. Bible Study 32. The Workplace 33. Spiritual Warfare 34. Abortion 35. Love Thy Neighbor 36. The Bride of Christ 37. Church Discipline 38. Discipleship 39. Church Fights 40. Prophecy 41. Worship ...