[Part I of II–I don’t want to be long-winded]
I have received an e-letter from “Someone” (WordPress didn’t give me his name) asking me how to become a writer who writes Christian novels (you can read it in yesterday’s comments). I don’t know about other writers, but I always want to hear from readers. So I’ll do the best I can to answer Someone’s questions.
*There is no college course that I ever heard of in how to write a novel. There are college courses which you may find illuminating and make them part of your worldview. I’ll probably never forget my Persian Empire course, taught by Prof. Maksoudian. No one wanted to miss his lectures! It never put a penny in my pocket, though.
**By far the most important, useful, and valuable thing a writer-in-training can do is… read! Find authors you like and devour their work. We learn by imitation–we grow out of it–in fact, it’s very necessary to outgrow it–but all the same, it’s a door through which any aspiring author must pass. Funny: the most telling lesson I learned from C.S. Lewis was to stop trying to imitate C.S. Lewis. But in the meantime I had added to my understanding of how to tell a fantasy story.
I went through periods of imitating Stephen King and J.R.R. Tolkien. What I learned from trying to write like they wrote was more about how I should write. I had to find my own voice. You do that by trying on other voices, one after another. All the time, whether you’re aware of it our not, you’re learning. And eventually you get there.
***Also critically important: Never give up! Never! This is a sore temptation.
When I was young there was no self-publishing, unless you were fabulously wealthy. You were in competition with thousands and thousands, if not millions, of other aspiring writers. And it was acutely depressing when you came across pure dreck that somehow got published when your work didn’t.
It might take you several decades to break into print. Meanwhile, never give up. Never, never, never. You will often feel demoralized. Fight your way through it.
Finally, you can indeed get help and encouragement from established writers who remember their own hard times and can easily sympathize with you. So thank you, T.E.D. Klein, Robert Jordan, Charles Grant, Gary Brandner, and Ramsay Campbell.
[Part II to come]
