Magic in Christian Fiction
One of the most controversial questions in Christian storytelling is: can Christians have magic in their stories?
Genres: Theology in Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre that almost needs no introduction in the current cultural mind.
The Speculative Genres
Now that Realistic Fiction has been more or less defined and explored, it’s time to expand storytelling into the more imaginative realm of Speculative Fiction.
Exercise: Writing Realism
Writing realistically can either be a proverbial walk in the park or a surprising intellectual challenge depending on a storyteller’s background.
Historical Fiction vs. Alternate History vs. Fantasy
As with all literary or storytelling genres, there is no cleanly defined line that separates these three…
Genres: Theology in Historical Fiction
The beauty of Historical Fiction is that it can breathe new, storytelling life into Christian heroes, martyrs, and figures from long ago…
Genres: Theology in Mysteries
Whether the mystery involves big, dramatic life-or-death situations, intense bureaucratic or corporate politics, serial murders, theft, or the more mundane mysteries of life, such as secret admirers or missing pies, the genre provides its audience with an intellectual hook to keep them engaged.
What to do About “Those” Scenes…
To be transparent, this article is going to talk about a topic that is often uncomfortable and awkward for the Christian creative: what should we do about romantically (and graphically) intimate scenes in fiction?
Genres: Theology in Romance
While Romance is often relegated to the shallow end of the storytelling pool, it is actually one of the easiest genres for Christian storytellers to incorporate good, Godly, and even theologically deep messages.
Genres: Theology in Contemporary Fiction (Updated)
Contemporary Fiction is delineated by its similarity to the current world, be that in character archetypes, worldbuilding, or plot.
The Two Kingdoms of Fiction: Realistic and Speculative
To steal from biological taxonomy, under the domain of fiction are the two widely accepted kingdoms: Realistic and Speculative, both of which will be covered briefly in this article.
Theology of Storytelling: Season 2 Introduction
For those that are new, Theology of Storytelling is the Brainy Blog’s deep dive into how to tell Christian stories. Everything from overt and covert messaging, character archetypes, literary devices, symbolism, to deeper questions including “does all Christian fiction have to be kid-friendly?” and “are Christian stories even necessary?”. All these are covered in Theology of Storytelling!
Season One Finale…and What’s Next!
This is Ang, the Brainy Blog writer! I wanted to take a moment to say thank you so much for all the love and support you show both Brainy Pixel and its blog! God has provided us with an absolutely amazing community of fans and fellow creatives. Each and every one of you is a blessing and an encouragement to continue in the path that God has laid out before us as both an animation studio and a blog.
Exercises: Let’s Retell Jonah
For this exercise, we will break down one of the more famous Sunday school Bible stories: Jonah and the Big Fish.
Writing Tricks: Retellings
Where the allegory explains a larger religious, philosophical, moral, or ethical idea, a retelling takes a specific story or past event and places it in a different context. Ancient Bible stories recreated in the modern era, or stories from Christian heroes and saints reimagined in a speculative genre (like science fiction or fantasy). The ultimate, overarching goal of a retelling is to break down a story to the audience, removing foreign elements while — crucially for Christian storytelling — retaining the story’s original message.
Exercise: An Allegory and a Symbol Walk Into a Bar…
It is exercise week at Theology of Storytelling, where the focus is on building a practical, writing skill that can then be applied to any storytelling project where it might be useful. While it will be writing-based, the overall concept and way of thinking about story creation can easily be applied elsewhere and in the other mediums. Both symbolism and allegory can be used in any type of story, whether it be word-, picture-, or sound-based. It will be up to you, the storyteller, to adapt these devices for your chosen media, but this article will try to take a more generalized approach to creating allegory and symbolism.
Writing Tricks: Allegories
Symbolism and allegory operate in mostly the same way by using fictional elements, characters, or plot points to obscure or represent something else. They are both incredibly useful for all kinds of Christian storytelling regardless of the message type (covert or overt), format, genre, audience, or any other kind of category. However, where symbolism tends to be confined to just one specific piece of the story, an allegory stretches across the whole of the narrative. It is the story’s message and “bigger picture”, woven throughout the pages or frames of the fiction.
Example: Narnia
It is impossible to have a discussion of symbolism as a Christian literary device without what is arguably the best modern example: C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. A fairytale for the modern Christian, a theological powerhouse of children’s fiction, and a wonderful, multilayered adventure of evil queens, betrayal, eternal winter, sacrifice, and hope, Narnia is a shining example of theologically dense Christian fiction. And, more importantly, it holds some of the most recognizable and easy to interpret forms of Christian symbolism.
Writing Tricks: Symbolism
One of the most powerful tools in the Christian storytellers’ toolbox is symbolism. It allows deep, meaningful messages to be conveyed efficiently and — often times — subtly. It is useful in stories with both overt and covert messaging, although it tends to carry more weight in the latter. What, however, defines “symbolism”? And how can storytellers use it to their best advantage when it comes to the messages in their storytelling?
Example: Star Trek
This was likely not where most of you anticipated a conversation of covert Christian storytelling would end up. An oddly godless utopia, with humanism in abundance, where the theory of evolution is codified into reality and half of the characters toy with hedonism of various kinds. However, there is very good reason to include the incredibly secular Star Trek franchise in a discussion of covert messaging. That is because it does so very, very well.