Writing Fantasy as a Christian — my journey and some challenges!

hey all it is nikki welcome back to the channel and today i kind of want to go deep talk a little bit about why i write fiction or fantasy as a christian some of the scariest parts of it and why i think it's still worth it [Music] [Music] so to clarify right off the bat i am a christian first and a writer second those are the priorities and that's how i want it to stay forever i don't think that necessarily means that i have to write christian fiction or christian fantasy i don't read a lot of christian fiction personally so i can't really speak to that genre what i can speak to however is what it's like being a writer and a christian who wants to glorify god with what i write even if it's not through explicitly biblical stories if i'm being perfectly honest and like i hope this is okay to say but it's true i don't write because i'm a christian being a christian has changed the way i write and the way i think about writing and my goals for writing but i write because i absolutely love doing it my first novel length story it was a mermaid story called ivory's tale get it tail like story tail like tail 10 year old nikki so clever it wasn't really christian it was just sort of neutral like an innocent clean story about a mermaid who was different from all the other mermaids it was super fun and that project showed me a couple things for one it showed me that i had been doing that and telling myself stories for like as long as i could remember and just sort of noticed when i started writing one down and for another that this was something i really wanted to do like that i could see myself doing in the long term and that's when i knew it was time to bring my faith into it i don't know if you can hear reggie by the way she's like eating it kong right now so she could be really loud apologies if she is i've always known that i wanted jesus to be number one top priority in my life so as soon as i started thinking that this was like a dream that i wanted for my life and something that i wanted to pursue i knew that it was time to bring that to jesus think seriously about how i could use that to honor him and obviously the solution was staring me right in the face right for him right stuff to glorify christ that is the goal that has always been the goal the goal is unchanged however my understanding of what that goal looks like has changed a little since the beginning let me explain after ivory's tale as quality as it was not i started working on something else actually i think that i was probably working on it before i finished ivory's tale because i remember being like just super excited to get through this mermaid story so that i could start this next one that i was really excited about and that one was a little more biblical it was a fantasy kind of medieval fantasy based on the story of moses the account of moses as found in the old testament of the bible moses being my favorite old testament character of all time shout out to my favorite cartoon musical of all time the prince of egypt guys sometimes i just listen to that soundtrack and just like want to cry because it's just so good anyway though fantasy story moses pretty straightforward it's not anything that like hasn't been done before thank you to chuck black for being my inspiration it worked and didn't really work at the same time it's hard for me to explain like what about it didn't work because for a long time i didn't really see a problem with it it made it super super difficult to plan a series because i had all these ideas for this story but every time i had an idea i kept bumping up against the biblical account in the old testament and having to try and like squish these ideas into that sort of rigid strict existing framework which was frustrating and it like required some finagling to sort of get it to work and then frieders got too hung up on the moses aspect then it would frustrate them because they couldn't like see the connection between the story and moses anymore so it was just it was sort of messy it didn't fully work and i don't know when exactly i like made the choice that this is not going to be a biblical retelling anymore i'm not sure that there was like a moment when that happened i think it just sort of naturally happened as i grew as a writer and as i grew as a christian and realized that glorifying christ through writing doesn't necessarily mean just dressing up a bible story in new clothes but like to be fair to myself back then my only sort of precedent and model was like chuck black's kingdom series which essentially is that like it's bible stories dressed up in a new awesome way by the way if you've never read those totally worth a read i love those books sometimes when i think about this i worry that people might think like oh my goodness she's like compromising her faith to write the story she wants to write instead of sticking to the bible and like to that i say that's just not true for one thing like that story didn't die like it still exists and the moses vibes didn't go away a lot of the early planning i did from the series was based on that desire to sort of stick to the moses story so there are a lot of like tributes to the old testament account that are still there that i don't even notice anymore but like they live on in the series plan but also i'm not sure that i was doing like much justice to the biblical account by trying to just squish it and my story together in a way that didn't really work i'd rather focus on the spiritual messaging and getting that right even if it's not in an explicitly biblical retelling instead of just focusing on getting all the biblical details right or writing something that i'm not really happy with like i said though it took a long time to get to that point like it took seeing and appreciating what christian writers do with christian fantasy cool creative stuff that isn't just biblical retellings but still is aligned with scripture and aligned with truth and still glorifies god but also took reading some mainstream fantasy which is kind of more what i'm into reading and seeing the profound spiritual messages that you can pack into a story that isn't allegorical or explicitly a biblical retelling or features chapters that all begin with a verse those to be clear are all awesome things and they can be done so well i just felt like in my story i was trying to force something that wasn't working so it didn't really work for my particular story but at the time i thought that that was my only option like i thought that if i wanted to glorify jesus through writing that was the kind of story i had to write and it took me a while to figure out that that is not the case and that i don't have to write an allegory to glorify christ through a story not that that's not intimidating because it is and i feel like i could really freak myself out if i think too much about the pressure of trying to glorify god as just like a feeble little writer with something that little old me wrote without having that safety net of it's based on a bible story so as long as i stick to that i can't really go wrong i can go wrong it's not a biblical retelling anymore i ask god for inspiration regularly and i'm always asking him to just take this story in the direction you want it to go guide it make sure that i'm always on the right track but again it's not like i'm just sitting on my computer typing out what god dictates in a voice from the clouds it's still me going by the ideas in my head i'm just hoping and trusting that those ideas are in response to my prayer for inspiration and i'm trying to be discerning to sort of weed out any ideas that aren't from him it's hard it's a little scary honestly because my number one priority is to glorify jesus in this and so the ultimate effect the net effect of the story has to be to point to him and to be spiritually uplifting and spiritually helpful even if my characters go through ups and downs where they're not the best examples i want the overall effect to be that to be something that shows light shining through darkness and that is honestly sort of how i deal with that pressure it's sort of how i have to think about it in order to get things back into perspective it's a light versus darkness story i know how to do that i'm familiar with that story i can do that but there's still a lot of intimidation that goes into writing a story like that at least for me because i feel like there's lots of wiggle room and sort of disagreement between writers and between christians on how you go about writing a good versus evil story lots of people would disagree over how much darkness you can have or how dark things can get before they get light again lots of people have different ideas and convictions about the kind of things that should absolutely not be in a story myself included but this is for my christian writer friends or writer christian friends out there who are doing your best to glorify god with your story you're doing your best to be discerning with your ideas and you're just scared of stepping on someone's toes or upsetting someone or putting something into your story that somebody in your life is not going to like it is important to be sensitive to other people's convictions that is super biblical it comes up all the time and that i think is generally better even though it comes with its own problems i think it's generally better to be sensitive and aware of the convictions of people around us instead of just being sort of indifferent to it and going well that's not my conviction so who cares like being sensitive and kind and respectful of those convictions is super important and super biblical however if you are doing your best to glorify god to be discerning to try and keep your story on track with scriptures and with truth and you're writing this story to hopefully publish for a wider readership than just like your friends and family i don't think you have to like remove dragons from your story because aunt sue thinks they're bad like that is a totally valid conviction of hers and be respectful of it and you know love no judgment unity all very important but she's probably not your target audience i can get really hung up on that thinking like oh maybe i shouldn't do that because what if people don't like this or what if this person doesn't like this but at the end of the day those people probably aren't going to read my story if it ever gets published and like that's fine it's not for everyone no book is for everyone something that i found it helpful to remind myself of recently is that like if this ever does get published the people that are going to read it are going to be predominantly fantasy readers like people who are experienced with this genre and are going to get what i'm trying to do but what does that mean for me it means asking god for guidance and inspiration at every turn asking christians in my life for advice especially christians who are familiar with fantasy and sort of understand how it works and doing my best to be discerning and write a story that is founded on truth points to christ and does not contradict the scriptures i may see things differently than other readers or other writers or even other christians but that kind of is to be expected like what one person likes in a book another person might not like for me the only thing and the best thing that i can do is my best deepen my relationship with god so i'm more in tune with like his will and how i should understand the scriptures and just trying to feel as solid as i can about my story that it is ultimately achieving what i want it to achieve and that's pointing to christ in a way that aligns with my convictions and my understanding of the bible and of god for help in this area if you're like not sure about an idea or you're kind of worried that something might be like off color or like not suitable or something i think it's good to bring christians into the equation that you can bounce ideas off of preferably ones that are familiar with fantasy so people that are christian but also fantasy watchers or readers so they'll understand kind of both ends of the coin and they'll understand how those two things can go together i recently asked somebody to be my theological consultant i don't have really any kind of background in theology but this person does and so my hope is that he can help me to sort of catch any sort of theological holes that i might have in my story or areas maybe where the theology of my fantasy world might sort of go off kilter from the theology of the real world and of god as we understand him i want to make sure that everything i do in the story points back to truth and doesn't contradict anything important and since i don't have that background i thought it was a good idea to bring someone in who might catch some of those things that i miss it's a little nerve-wracking because i probably did miss something or misinterpret something might have to make some changes or do some overhauling which you know it's never something that i look forward to per se but i think it's valuable and i think that that's a way that i can do my part and do my best to make sure that the story is doing what it's supposed to do and not sort of going rogue or going off on its own so that is all for today thank you guys so much for watching this video i hope you enjoyed it and that if you're sort of in the same position as me that you could glean something from it if not now you just have a better idea of what the writing adventure looks like from inside the head of a christian and writer at least this one in particular feel free to like and subscribe and comment below with a fantasy story that you think achieved like a good versus evil story really effectively in a way that's uplifting and preferably clean and i will take christian or mainstream recommendations and of course as always do not forget to spend some time in the clouds today [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Niki Florica

Views: 15,149

Keywords: writes, writers, writing, writing video, writing channel, authortube, authortubers, writing vlog, christian writers, christian fiction, christian fantasy, writing fantasy, writing a book, writing a novel

Id: sQi11S810_c

Length: 12min 23sec (743 seconds)

Published: Wed May 11 2022