by Jason Joyner | May 1, 2007 | Blog, CFBA, comics, fiction
This week’s CFBA tour is for Tribulation House by the talented Chris Well. I’ve known about Chris before his first novel, Tribulation House later this week, as well as continuing my discussion about the Christian Marketplace.
1. You write “laugh-out loud crime thrillers” with gangsters and some rougher elements. How do you deal with the CBA market informal guidelines and realistically portraying these characters? Any problems with dealing with the issue of hardened criminals and the use of cursing?
Frankly, I don’t *want* to write novels that are vulgar: There is enough ugliness in the world without my *adding* to it. Yes, my stories do involve a lot of broken people making a lot of bad choices (and doing a lot of bad things), but a creative writer should be able to leave something to the imagination of the reader.
2. TH is your 3rd book. Was it harder to write your first novel, or iskeeping up with deadlines with your full-time work more challenging?
Each novel is a new journey of discovery for me — so while some elements of the process are getting easier, each time out I am still trying to stretch for something new. If I’m not flying without a net, I am certainly playing close to the edge of the net. As such, I hope each novel is a better read — and I hope I never become so complacent that I stop pushing to that “next place.” And, yes, it is tough doing all this with a day job. But I like what I do, so that is not going to change anytime soon. (Plug: Sign up at http://www.myccm.org!/)
3. What process do you use to keep a handle on your characters and their always interesting quirks?
With these Harvest House books, I got locked into an “ensemble” format, the hardest part of which is coordinating all the different crazy people doing all the separate stories (that still have to criss-cross throughout the novel).
So … it usually means I have to stop every 1/3 of the way or so and re-read everything before I go on. And do a lot of revising as I go. And then eventually make some sort of chart or graph or timeline, and then I write all these bullet points down on index cards …
Let’s just say that at some crucial juncture with all three –FORGIVING SOLOMON LONG, DELIVER US FROM EVELYN, and TRIBULATION HOUSE– there was finally a point where I literally sat down with scissors and a printout and cut up all the different scenes and made everything fit in the right order. So I think you can understand why the projects I’m working on right now are limited to the single-person perspective. (And they are going WAY faster!)
4. What is your favorite comic book story arc? What is Charlie’s?
Wow. Um, off the top of my head: “Unthinkable,” FANTASTIC FOUR Vol. 3, #67-71 (2003), by Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo. Plus KINGDOM COME, ASTONISHING X-MEN, WATCHMEN, COMMON GROUNDS, THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, BATMAN: STRANGE APPARITIONS, X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST …
I like a lot of comics. (And so does Charlie.)
by Jason Joyner | Apr 30, 2007 | Biblical worldview, Blog, fiction, writing craft
Ever since the last fantasy book tour, I’ve been thinking about the paradox that is the “Christian Marketplace”. Never heard of it? Me neither – in that form. There’s no real term for what I’m going to discuss today. In Christian fiction we use the term “CBA” which stands for the Christian Booksellers Association. This is the group that is the gatekeeper for Christian publishing, as opposed to the American Booksellers Association (ABA), which is where secular publishing occurs (although the ABA is not exclusive against Christian authors, while the CBA is). The problem with my discussion today is that it goes beyond fiction, thus the term Christian Marketplace.
To me the Christian Marketplace is the sub-culture that has been created for (mainly) Evangelical Christians in entertainment – encompassing music and fiction primarily, but can include movies, TV, video games, and other mediums. I don’t know the history on how Christian fiction became segregated, but I have some understanding regarding contemporary Christian music (CCM).
CCM came about after the Jesus People movement in the late 60’s/early 70’s, when hippies were getting saved, and doing what came natural to them: playing rock and roll. At first artists were on record labels along with regular artists of the day. Unfortunately, these pioneers were in between a rock and a hard place (no pun intended). Their music was too religious for the mainstream labels, but too loud for the general church audience (and a lot different from the black gospel/southern gospel forms that had been around all along).
Specific music labels were created to be a showcase for these artists. Soon there was Christian radio to play this music, with Christian rock festivals, and Christian music magazines. Soon it became a self-sustaining phenomenon, and it the process turned the word Christian into an artificial genre description rather than what the intent of the term may be.
This has been going on for thirty some-odd years for CCM. Like I said, I don’t know when Christian fiction became a sub-category (after C.S. Lewis’ time, thankfully). But I do know it was mainly known for prarie romances and historical fiction until Frank Peretti came along in the late 80’s with his This Present Darkness and subsequent books. This has triggered a slowly burgeoning fiction landscape that has a pretty diverse selection of books at this point.
Whoa, didn’t know this would start with a history lesson. Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, the CSFF tour from 2 weeks ago. What really got me thinking was a review of Karen Hancock’s book The Light of Eidon on Amazon that was mentioned on Rebecca Grabill’s blog. Check out that review, and I’ll discuss what instigated all of this tomorrow.
by Jason Joyner | Apr 30, 2007 | Biblical worldview, Blog, fiction, writing craft
Ever since the last fantasy book tour, I’ve been thinking about the paradox that is the “Christian Marketplace”. Never heard of it? Me neither – in that form. There’s no real term for what I’m going to discuss today. In Christian fiction we use the term “CBA” which stands for the Christian Booksellers Association. This is the group that is the gatekeeper for Christian publishing, as opposed to the American Booksellers Association (ABA), which is where secular publishing occurs (although the ABA is not exclusive against Christian authors, while the CBA is). The problem with my discussion today is that it goes beyond fiction, thus the term Christian Marketplace.
To me the Christian Marketplace is the sub-culture that has been created for (mainly) Evangelical Christians in entertainment – encompassing music and fiction primarily, but can include movies, TV, video games, and other mediums. I don’t know the history on how Christian fiction became segregated, but I have some understanding regarding contemporary Christian music (CCM).
CCM came about after the Jesus People movement in the late 60’s/early 70’s, when hippies were getting saved, and doing what came natural to them: playing rock and roll. At first artists were on record labels along with regular artists of the day. Unfortunately, these pioneers were in between a rock and a hard place (no pun intended). Their music was too religious for the mainstream labels, but too loud for the general church audience (and a lot different from the black gospel/southern gospel forms that had been around all along).
Specific music labels were created to be a showcase for these artists. Soon there was Christian radio to play this music, with Christian rock festivals, and Christian music magazines. Soon it became a self-sustaining phenomenon, and it the process turned the word Christian into an artificial genre description rather than what the intent of the term may be.
This has been going on for thirty some-odd years for CCM. Like I said, I don’t know when Christian fiction became a sub-category (after C.S. Lewis’ time, thankfully). But I do know it was mainly known for prarie romances and historical fiction until Frank Peretti came along in the late 80’s with his This Present Darkness and subsequent books. This has triggered a slowly burgeoning fiction landscape that has a pretty diverse selection of books at this point.
Whoa, didn’t know this would start with a history lesson. Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, the CSFF tour from 2 weeks ago. What really got me thinking was a review of Karen Hancock’s book The Light of Eidon on Amazon that was mentioned on Rebecca Grabill’s blog. Check out that review, and I’ll discuss what instigated all of this tomorrow.
by Jason Joyner | Apr 30, 2007 | Blog, goofiness
A fun little diversion that I picked up on thanks to Mir. Actually somewhat accurate concerning me. I haven’t done blog tagging before, but I would love to see what Becky, Chris, and Matt came up with on this – consider yourselves tagged!
by Jason Joyner | Apr 30, 2007 | Blog, goofiness
A fun little diversion that I picked up on thanks to Mir. Actually somewhat accurate concerning me. I haven’t done blog tagging before, but I would love to see what Becky, Chris, and Matt came up with on this – consider yourselves tagged!
