Timothy's Thoughts

B y now you have probably heard that the largest Christian publisher has been bought by Kohlberg & Company. This transaction raises questions about the future of Christian publishing. I don’t know that anyone has the answers, but it’s still worthwhile to look at this transaction to gain a better understanding of how the publishing industry works. One of the first things to look at is the purchasing company. Kohlberg & Company is a private equity firm. In other words, they make money by buying and selling companies. According to their website, they focus on “middle market” companies with values between $100 and $500 million. They make money by implementing changes that increase revenue and cash flow, giving the company more value in the eyes of investors, and selling the company, either to another company or in the form of stock. They aren’t publishing experts by any stretch of the imagination, so it should come as no surprise that Michael Hyatt is still at the helm of Thomas Ne...

P op quiz: The Bible says that every knew shall bow and every tongue confess that____________________. If you answered “Jesus Christ is Lord” then congratulations on passing. Now, if you’ve recently listened to the song “Love Has Come” by Mark Schultz you might have answered “that God is love and love has come to us all.” I don’t intend to pick on Mark too much here because I suppose there is a remote possibility that everyone will confess that God is love. As far as I know, the Bible doesn’t say they won’t, but that’s not what the Bible says either. There is a huge difference between confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord and confessing that God is love. In talking about the background of “Love Has Come,” Mark Schultz references Philippians 2:5-11 as his source. This passage is clearly where he got the words “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess,” but it says we’ll confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, not that God is love. As I said, it is possible that Mark is right, so I’m not...

A ll readers open a book with preconceived notions. This became very evident to me when I read Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. I can hardly mention the book without someone saying how much they loved the book. It is still showing up on best selling lists, which is impressive considering the book is nearly twenty years old. I read the book as I was completing For the Love of a Devil , a novel I very literally hung from the outline of Hosea’s story as it is detailed in the Bible. Because I had chosen to set the story in the heartland of America in modern times, it required some effort to fit the events on the outline and when I saw that Redeeming Love was a “retelling of the biblical story of Hosea” I purchased a copy so I could see how Francine Rivers had managed the same thing. When I opened the book I was surprised to find that though the author had pulled elements from Hosea’s story, such as God’s instructions to Hosea on whom to marry and buying her out of slavery, the order wa...

T here is a huge difference between a book that will change the reader’s life and one that the reader believes will change the lives of other people. At times, they may be one and the same, but consider the book that changes your life. You read through the book and by the time you reach the end you feel guilty or motivated or you view something differently than you have in the past. If it truly changes your life for the better, you might suggest that your friends read it. And consider the book you believe will change the lives of people you know. You read the book and see similarities between a character and some of your acquaintances. You begin to believe that if these acquaintances would read the book then they would see the error of their ways and make a change in their lives. You get on Amazon.com and send them a copy. It seems to me that a lot of the Christian novels are written with the intent to be the kind of book that people believe will change the lives of other people. I thi...

Too often, aspiring writers try to reinvent the hovercraft when it comes to crafting totally unique phrases, and the writing doesn't come across as effortlessly as it needs to in order to keep the reader engaged with the story. – Nathan Bransford, Literary Agent A re you one of those people who try to “reinvent the hovercraft?” One of the things that really irritates me about some writers is their tenacity to come up with new phrases. It isn’t just aspiring writers, I’ve seen published books with some of these phrases as well. Though this doesn’t come from writing, a prime example is the phrase “been there, done that and bought the T-shirt.” Now the phrase “been there, done that” is a perfectly good phrase, but someone decided to emphasize that by adding the part about the T-shirt. I’m sure it was funny the first time, but anymore it’s like an old joke. Well, for some people, that isn’t enough. So now you might hear people say something along the lines of “been there, done that, bo...

“ B ut at least we agree on the important stuff,” an online acquaintance responded to me the other day. Do we really? She had said something about the church beginning at Pentecost. I quipped that I didn’t agree with that. She asked me to explain why, which I did. She made it clear that she still didn’t agree and then came the comment about agreeing on the important stuff. The Christian writing world is made up of many different authors who attend many different churches. On the surface, we’re a pretty amiable lot, attending conferences together, discussing writing online and whatever else, but there are major differences in doctrine. Let’s face it, there’s a reason why there are so many denominations. The people who began those denominations felt that the differences in doctrine were significant enough to justify splitting. You recall that the reformation was started with Luther nailing his 95 theses on the door of a church. Even before that there were other churches in existence othe...

S tories are about relationships. You recall the seven basic plots: Man vs. Nature Man vs. Man Man vs. Environment Man vs. Machine Man vs. Supernatural Man vs. Self Man vs. God Implied in this view of literature is a relationship. In a book, we may see these relationships many times. A tornado happens on page one, giving us Man vs. Nature . The tornado destroys the character’s house, so he is forced to deal with the insurance company, giving us Man vs. Environment . He becomes angry with God for destroying his house, giving us Man vs. God . In every scene that is worth writing, we are addressing some kind of relationship. The stronger the conflict in that relationship the better. One of the easiest ways to put some emotion into a weak scene is to throw in some relationship conflict, ideally of the Man vs. Man kind. We love to see two characters arguing about something. In some stories, we can’t reveal the name of the antagonist until late in the book, so we have to temper the conflict...