How can I include Christ in my writing?
The biggest struggle of my writing career so far has centered around the topics of spirituality and faith. How can I best portray them in the context of a work of fiction?
When I first started writing, I struggled to express my faith in the context of what my characters believed and said, and did on the pages of my manuscript. I didn’t want to preach. I’m not a fan of preachy stories, myself, but–without a spiritual dimension to my characters, I felt that they were flat and misshapen. I wanted them to be so much more!
Not all of my characters practice the same faith. In this particular book, the main character, Bjorn Horsa, adheres to the Christian faith as taught by ‘The Church;’ in his world, an amalgam of Catholic, Orthodoxy and Anglicanism…reintegrated into one church again, instead of many.
But there are also dissenting groups of Christians. Some of his men belong to others of these traditions, which will come out in future sequels and prequels.
The other peoples of Astarkand also have their beliefs and faith, but they have mostly been taught to revile God, and to fear one of the “Perfect” instead. I don’t want to say too much more about this, because I don’t want to give any spoilers away.
By including Christ in my writing I hope that my books become worth more spiritually as well as offering great entertainment value.