Tag: Christian fantasy

Work-In-Progress Wednesdays #39

Featured Ariel Paiement

So those of you who follow me on social media know that I’ve been talking about my newest WIP a bit more now that it’s in full swing. I’m really excited about it! So, if you didn’t hear about it on social media, I’ll explain here.

The piece I’m working on for ONC (Wattpad’s Open Novella Contest) is the most sci-fi style piece I’ve done. It’s also the most unique in terms of its magic system and world. I did a live video on Facebook about the book’s behind-the-scenes last week on Thursday, and you guys can watch it here if you didn’t see it live.

At any rate, since it’s the only longer piece I’m working on right now (and will be until I finish and edit it before the end of April–I think that’s the length of the contest?), that’s what I’ll be sharing from for today!

~~~

SEBASTIAN STEPPED OFF the lift with a weary groan. The faces around him all held placid smiles, perfect images of the poise and tolerance society loved so much these days. Not that he had anything against it, per se, but the lengths some people went to… Well, there just ought to be a limit. He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes to make it to his mother’s. Ten minutes for something to go abominably wrong, knowing his luck. But, if he just avoided any situations that might require the use of his button, all would be well. As long as the button didn’t have to get involved, life was generally not too bad. Good, even, on occasion.

He shoved through the crowd, ignoring the sidelong glances people gave him. Seriously, didn’t any of them have more productive things to do besides standing in the way and glaring at anyone who wasn’t equally keen on that? Union workers. He shook his head with a snort and rushed out the door onto the bustling city streets of Winchester. Nine minutes now. Good thing McGayen Inc was located on the city outskirts. If he ran, he could make it to the family estate, maybe even on time for once.

“Seb?”

He sighed and turned back toward the building’s entrance. Scratch that. He’d be late, and this time he couldn’t blame it on a mishap with the button. Well, Mother liked Viv, so it would be forgiven if he was late.

“Good thing I caught you. Where are you going? Weren’t you going to leave work with me to meet Dane at the station?”

He frowned. Was he?

“Did you forget already?”

“Uh… No, no. Not exactly.” He wracked his brain and came up blank. “Okay… I guess I did.” He rubbed the back of his neck, careful to avoid the cold metal lump under his ear where his button resided.

She snorted and put her hands on her hips, an oddly petulant stance for Vivian McGayen, an accomplished business woman whose own reputation was only exceeded by her father’s. “You’re always forgetting things. Drinks after work. You promised, remember? We were going to head over to Featherweight, that new bar in town. The one with the specialty drinks?”

Oh, right. How had he managed to forget? Would his mother mind two extra people for dinner? He couldn’t cancel on either of them, so he’d have to find a solution. Fortunately, Mother would probably be thrilled to make room for Dane and Viv. She always cooked too much anyway. Just in case, she said. “Well, I guess we can still do it. But my mother scheduled dinner for tonight, and I can’t bail on her. Not after what happened with Dad last month, you know?”

Viv nodded and pursed her lips. “We could move the night out to tomorrow if you wanted.”

“No, no. We’ve already done the planning. Not your fault I forgot. How about we head out after dinner at my mother’s? You two are welcome to join. It’d save me the chewing out for being late. Again.”

Viv laughed and played with an auburn curl. “Wouldn’t that be intruding, Seb? I don’t want to get in the way or stress your mother out. She’s got enough on her plate with your Dad running off like he did.”

“It wouldn’t be intruding. Having you there might actually cheer her up.”

“Then tell you what.” Viv smoothed her hands over her pencil skirt. “I’ll give Dane a call and tell him to meet us over there. Then we can just go together. It’ll be quicker than walking if I take you.”

He glanced at her button, easily visible just under her left ear. Easier, yes. But also so very humiliating. She had a working button that was useful, but he was stuck with the dud because some idiot bureaucrat screwed up his paperwork and someone else installed a reject instead of the real deal. Maybe he should be glad his worked at all, since it wasn’t supposed to, but considering the fact that using it only worked out maybe once in a hundred presses, he didn’t feel too bad about his irritation. And every time someone used theirs with no mishap, that irritation grew until he wanted to punch something or slink off into a hole to die of shame. At least no one pointed and laughed anymore. Openly, at least. “I can walk.”

She rolled her eyes. “Seb, grow up, would you? Accepting my offer to teleport both of us doesn’t make you a lesser man.”

“That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is? If your button has the better transportation method, we can use that.”

“That’s a low blow, Viv.” He turned his back on her. “You know it doesn’t. It doesn’t do anything right, and you know how I feel about others using their buttons out of pity for me. I’ll walk.”

She grabbed his arm and dragged him off to the side. People stared, but a short glare from him sent them scurrying, appalled and judgmental stares marring their lukewarm smiles. So much for tolerance of whatever anyone else did. Clearly, the motto “You do you” only applied when they were the ones being judged. Not a surprise. He’d seen it growing up, and it was no better now.

Viv squeezed his shoulders and brought his attention back to her. “The button—”

“Doesn’t define me?” He sighed and shrugged her off. “I know that. Never said it did. But it would be nice if I knew what I’d get when I pressed it. It would be nice if, for once, I had somewhere to fit in instead of being the freak show at every gathering.”

Viv grinned. “You know what you’ll get.”

Despite his restless, irritable mood, he smiled at that too. “Yeah, guess so. But knowing it’ll be random every time isn’t exactly the same as knowing what I’ll get.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and resumed his fast pace with a glance at his watch. Three minutes. Great. “Call your brother while you walk, then. Showing up with you only gains me five extra minutes to get there.”

“More like seven. Your mother adores me for some reason.” She pulled her phone out of her purse. “But you wouldn’t be late if—”

He raised a brow at her. “We discussed my feelings on charity.”

“More like you talked and I pretended to listen.”

He put a hand over his heart with an exaggerated wince. “That hurts my feelings.”

“Too bad.”

“How intolerant of you.” He wrinkled his nose. “I can’t believe you would be so inconsiderate of my feelings and my opinion.”

She threw her head back and laughed her rich, throaty laugh. Been a while since he’d heard it. It brought a warm feeling inside that partially chased off the bad feelings. This time, she didn’t even grace him with a response to his inanity. Both of them had a healthy respect for one another’s views on society’s belief in tolerance and social relevance. Neither of them really liked the way things were headed there, and that drew them together.

“Well, typical of you. You going to keep making fun of me? I’m still going to walk, so you can either join or go on ahead.”

“And tell your mother what?” She scoffed. “Your son invited me over, but he’s ten minutes away because he couldn’t get over his pride long enough to join me?”

“If you want.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and held back a laugh. “I don’t care what you tell her. You’ll come up with something, and I’ll see you in five minutes.”

“Suit yourself, then. I’ll try to spare you her wrath.” She gave him a saucy grin and wiggled her fingers in farewell before she disappeared, leaving him alone among the crowds on the sidewalk.

~~~

Hope you all enjoyed the opening scene of the book! This is in the raw since I haven’t done extensive editing on it yet, but I don’t expect the beginning to change too much unless I run into major issues with it later on.

Idi & The Oracle’s Quest: Characterization and Voice

Featured Ariel Paiement

Introduction

This was the newest book on my list of books read. So far, it’s the only one I’ve finished this year. I’m off to such a great start on that sixty-books-read-this-year goal, aren’t I? Yeah, not really… Anyway, I finished this sometime mid-January but am only just getting to the review for the blog now. As usual, my reader’s review is the same as the one I post to the usual reviewing sites like Amazon, Goodreads, and Bookbub. If you are interested in learning more about the craft in the book, skip the reader’s review and go straight to the writer’s review. Or feel free to read both. I don’t really mind.

Reader’s Review

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It could have gone through another edit. There were a lot of little errors and problems that a strong editor could have ironed out of the book, and as an editor, those issues were abundantly clear to me. However, I found the story itself to be entertaining enough, and I don’t feel those problems would keep a reader looking for a quick read from enjoying. Unless you’re the type to be a grammar Nazi, a writer who’s picky about stuff being just right in every way, or a freelance editor like myself, you’re probably not going to notice the issues most of the time.

The characterization was pretty strong with several characters having particularly unique voices, which I appreciated. The variety in character, personality, and voice was refreshing, and I liked the struggles they all went through between choosing right or wrong in the entirety of the story.

That’s another thing. Right and wrong were clearly defined in the book with consequences for doing either clearly outlined too. It’s hard to find books that keep that line from becoming blurred, particularly in fantasy, so I liked that Traynor did this well. If you’re looking for that in your fantasy books, then this book has that going for it, for sure!

I would recommend this story. It’s a good choice for younger kids (pre-teens and up), I would say. There wasn’t anything terribly inappropriate, in my opinion, and the book doesn’t use any foul language. Kids who like adventure books with magic and wizards mixed in will enjoy this, and it’s easily accessible for even reluctant readers.

Writer’s Review

Now the fun part, right? We’re going to pick apart the craft for this book and talk about what could be better as well as what was well done. To begin with, let’s talk about the good things that we can all learn from. I’m going to focus mainly on voice and characterization since I noticed these two elements stood out as being nicely done in this book.

Voice

To begin with, voice was excellent here. When I say voice, I’m specifically referring to the different voices and flavors of speech that characters had. Some authors do very well with this while others don’t. Traynor did well with it. You could tell the difference between characters by the dialogue alone in most cases. The way they phrased things, what they said, and the word choices they used were unique with each character. Some were, of course, more similar than others, but they were all, in my opinion, different enough to allow readers to tell the difference. This can be pretty tough to do, so if you choose to read Idi & The Oracle’s Quest, pay special attention to the different ways Traynor differentiates between characters in dialogue. I think you’ll be surprised at how many ways it can happen with everything from sentence structure to the individual words themselves. It’s often more subtle than you’d think, though in some characters, such as the dwarves that one of the main characters stays with, have more unique voices than others.

Characterization

In many ways, voice is simply a subset of characterization. After all, the way a character speaks says a lot about who they are. However, voice wasn’t the only part of characterization Traynor executed well. Her characters in general feel as if they could be real people thanks to their little quirks, oddities, and practices. No two are alike, however similar they may be at times. Their uniqueness sets them apart from one another and goes a long way toward making the story believable. For me, the characterization was one of the main reasons I kept reading the book. I started it after picking it up in a Facebook review exchange group I’d joined, and we were only obligated to review if we felt we could give the book a good rating (anything above three stars). At first, I wasn’t positive if I could or not because of what the book didn’t do well, but the characterization combined with an overall interesting story-line saved this book from receiving no review or a shelving on the not-finished shelf on Goodreads from me. This just goes to show that many times, even if a reader isn’t fond of your plot or something else in the book, they’ll keep reading anyway if you can invest them in the characters.

A lot of what brought the characters to life was the humanity in them all. Idi started out with a petulant, rude streak but grew into a decent, kind human being. He went through struggles we can all understand (to one degree or another, at least), and I wanted to root for him. I wanted to know what happened to him. His mentor Marcus was also well-rounded. He was a kind old man who sometimes lacked patience but generally was very loving in spite of his insecurities and frustrations surrounding his apprentice. These are only two examples out of many in the book, but they’re good places to start if the area of characterization is something you struggle with.

What the Book Didn’t Do Well

Okay, so this is more a cautionary tale than anything. I know editing is expensive, or at least seems so when you’re a broke author struggling to make it in the highly competitive market, but it’s important. Now, I could tell some effort had been applied to this book, but it fell far short of professional in many places because of missing or misplaced commas, poor sentence structure, or lagging flow in the story. These are all things that, by themselves, wouldn’t necessarily cause a reader to stop reading for pleasure, but they’re certainly going to stand out to one degree or another.

We don’t notice what isn’t there. Unless it should be there, that is. Likewise, we often don’t notice what is there until it isn’t when it needed to be. This book is a good example of that. Mostly, its issues weren’t ones that an average reader would catch every time. They might notice a confusing sentence, a slow paragraph, or even a missing comma here and there. But for avid readers, it’s going to be a stumbling block. And here’s the thing. The avid readers are, many times, the ones who will share your books with all their friends and read them a million times if they really liked them. If they can’t point to a book and tell you it was a good piece of writing, they’re not going to recommend it. The average reader is going to read it, might mention it to one or two people (if they think of it or someone asks), and move on. Maybe they read the next book. Maybe not. If they’re not big readers but really found your book appealing, you may get a bit more exposure from word-of-mouth. Avid readers though are much more likely to become enthusiastic fans. I can say that honestly as an avid reader myself. I’d recommend my favorite authors in a heartbeat, and chances are that I’ll review them, share them, and talk about them too. At the least, I’ll be talking about them, even if I wasn’t directly asked. (Maybe a little too much sometimes).

All that to say that editing matters. It pays off. I know it feels expensive and it’s easier to do it yourself, but unless you’ve got some background in editing or have done a lot of research on it to learn how, it’s only easier because you don’t see all the problems with your manuscript. No one likes to admit it, but that’s the way things are. Even for me, as someone who edits for clients, I find that I don’t catch everything in my work without multiple edits (probably four or five as opposed to the thorough, once-through or twice-through edit I can do for a client), and not even then sometimes. Why? Pretty simple. I wrote it. I know what I was thinking. No one else does unless I communicated it well, and if I didn’t, well, I’m not going to catch on to that little problem unless it’s so obvious that even I don’t understand what I was trying to say. (Then I know there’s really a problem. Probably something along the lines of “I wrote this when I was three-fourths of the way asleep, and I need to rewrite this whole section” kind of problem.) That’s going to be at least equally true of anyone with little to no experience editing.

There’s no shame in that.

But you do need to address it if you want your book to stand out from every other self-published title on Amazon that some beginning writer threw together in hopes of making a quick buck on it. We all know a good cover sells books, but you’re not going to sell more than a few copies if everyone drawn in by the cover wants to leave five pages in because your work is so full of problems it’s impossible to get through.

To be clear, Idi & The Oracle’s Quest was not that bad. It wasn’t bad enough that I couldn’t understand it or wanted to bang my head against a brick wall. It was just bad enough to frustrate me a lot at the beginning and to continue to needle me here and there once I was invested in the characters. But, since we’re trying to learn from what went right and what went wrong with these book reviews, I didn’t want to overlook this important point. Get an editor if you don’t know how to edit. Even if you have to ask a friend who’s good at it to do it in exchange for something else (like a free copy of the book or a really nice dinner out), get an editor. If you can edit proficiently, then find beta-readers. Get input from your intended audience members so that you know what you missed! You will not catch it all because you are hardwired to understand what you are trying to communicate. No one else in the world is. Make sure you know what areas you need to clarify before you go publishing things.

Conclusion

I hope this has been helpful to you all! If you want a copy of Idi & The Oracle’s Quest, you can pick it up in ebook or paperback formats on Amazon. In closing, I would like to point out that this book did have an excellent message. It’s clear that the book has Christian influences to it, so if you’re looking for a good juvenile or YA Christian fantasy, this would be a good choice. It isn’t as clearly Christian or allegorical as Joanna White’s or Allen Steadham’s stuff, but it’s still good. I’d say it’s more like what I tend to write in that it has clear Christian influences, but it isn’t necessarily meant to be expressly Christian through clear salvation themes or Bible verses woven into the text. The influences are there if you’re a Christian or know anything about Christian beliefs, but you won’t be hit over the head with it everywhere you turn either if you’re more in the mood to read a book without serious philosophical undertones.

Shifter – A Lesson In Story Building

Ariel Paiement

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done a review on here. In fact, I haven’t done one since the first one I did for Hunter by Joanna White. (If you haven’t read that yet, you can read it here.)

As with the review of Hunter, I’m going to split my review into two sections. The first is intended for my readers who simply want a new book to read. If you’re not interested in spoilers or seeing the craft in the book picked apart to learn from it, then this first review is for you! However, if you’re interested as a writer trying to learn what works well in writing (or what doesn’t in some cases with books), the second review is for you.

Let’s get started!

Reader’s Review

As a reader, I’ll be honest in saying that I enjoyed Hunter more. That said, I did eventually get into Shifter, and I really enjoyed it once I did. It just took me a bit. Part of the problem for me, personally, was that I was so attached to Jared and Averella from Hunter that I wasn’t really ready for a move to a new set of characters or a new ship. That said, I believe that Joanna has since published a short story, Sightless, that helps to give a bit more final ending to Jared and Averella’s story, at least for the time being. Had I read this before Shifter, I may have had an easier time transitioning. 

That said, I did enjoy the book. It made me smile, laugh, and cry. I’m not a big crier usually, so the fact that the book could make me cry is a good indication that it really got me invested in the characters. The struggles the characters went through really resonated with me, and I was rooting for them the whole way. I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, but I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed the action scenes, the entire premise of different kinds of shifters, and the way she moved through the book. The plot took a variety of twists and turns that I didn’t expect, and the end was definitely no exception.

The end wasn’t my favorite. Be warned ahead of time that it’s a bit bittersweet. It definitely made me sad. I wouldn’t say it spoiled the book for me because there was clear evidence that it was only the beginning of a bigger story, but it took a while for me to accept how it ended. Then again, if a book can pull at your heartstrings enough to make you feel pain, joy, or anger, the author has done their job well. Assuming they’ve elicited the emotional response they were going for, that is! I feel the author knew what she was doing and wrote the ending the way she did intentionally, so I don’t feel it really took away from the book.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this to people who enjoyed Hunter or who are just looking for clean fantasy to read. As a bonus for those who are Christian, the book does have strong Christian ethical themes and a morally solid message. If you’re looking for that, this won’t disappoint there. Even if you aren’t, the story is still an enjoyable read.

Writer’s Review

**Spoiler Alert: If you want to read this book before you pick it apart to learn how to improve your own writing or if you just want to read the book for sheer enjoyment, do not read any further! Read the book first and then read this or just don’t read this at all. That said, if you aren’t intending to read the book, already have, or don’t care about spoilers, welcome to the section for those of you looking to learn more about the craft!**

So, Shifter had some interesting things in it that never showed up in Hunter. I wasn’t really expecting them, to be honest. I’d read other stuff by Joanna, but apparently, I hadn’t read anything that had these elements prior to reading Shifter. So, I have a few interesting points to pick out for you all today!

Languages

The first really big thing I noticed in Shifter that wasn’t present in Hunter was the use of another language. In Shifter, Joanna builds her own language for the Shifter clans (mostly for the dragon Shifters). This was entirely unexpected, frankly. She’s put awesome bits of world-building into her work before, but, as I said, there were elements I hadn’t seen before, and this was one of them.

This one was a bit of both positive and negative for me. On the positive side, I absolutely loved the level of realism it lent to the story. I mean, we have multiple languages in real life, so why not in fantasy on another planet? I appreciated that Joanna took the time to create a very consistent-sounding language to incorporate. She gave the words life and meaning, and she used similar or common sounds to help make the words feel like they could be part of a real language. This is a technique that I noted was useful in my post on building languages on Saturday Setups.

But here’s the negative side of it. The words’ sounds weren’t intuitive. This made it difficult to decide how a name or a word ought to be pronounced. Now, I know that as writers, we have to give our readers some creative license. We have to understand that readers won’t pronounce things like we do all the time. But the hope is they can get close. For Shifter, it took me over half the book to even get close to remember how different letter combinations should sound.

In Joanna’s favor, though, was the fact that she did have a main character who didn’t know the language. So, the male lead, Beroan, had to explain how things were pronounced and tell Nsi, our female lead, how to say words or what those words meant. This helped alleviate some of the frustration of not knowing how to pronounce the sometimes odd combinations of letters. I did appreciate that.

On the whole, I would say that this technique is one to use carefully. As you can see, Joanna’s use of it had some downsides but also some upsides. I don’t think she made a poor choice to include it, but when she built it, she might have, in hindsight, wanted to make the words a little more reader-friendly.

So that’s something all of us should keep in mind if we choose to create languages to become a part of the world-building. Use combinations of sounds that the reader can at least guess at. Use pronunciations that readers can get close to by looking at the word.

And if you aren’t going to do that, provide a glossary in the back with the foreign-sounding words and their meanings so that readers who might be bugged by this can have a guide to look at. (Trust me… As a reader who can get frustrated by an inability to figure out a pronunciation, a pronunciation and meaning guide is something I greatly appreciate.)

Ending With a Bang

Okay, so I understand why Joanna wrote the ending the way she did, but as a reader, the ending she used in Shifter didn’t really leave me satisfied initially. As a writer, I understand that it was a structurally sound ending, but emotionally, that didn’t really compute. What Joanna did with Shifter was to end it with Beroan, the dragon-shifter male lead, dying in the final boss fight. This, of course, broke Nsi’s heart. Mine too, frankly.

I was not expecting this ending at all! I mean, I expected injuries. Even severe injuries. But not this. An ending like this could majorly backfire because readers get attached to your main characters. Beroan, in particular, was a very likeable character. So this is another technique that I advise using with caution. You don’t want your reader to see the ending coming, but you may not want to go to these extremes. In some cases, such as Joanna’s, there’s a good reason and one that’s called for. But if you don’t have that good reason, don’t go here.

Here’s why. A reader who sees this ending and is upset can still look back through Shifter and recognize the signs that this was the ending. They didn’t see them while reading, but they see them now. If those reasons are not good, clear, and strong, the reader is going to feel cheated, not just upset. As writers, it’s our job to deliver an ending that sticks with the reader in some way. But if it’s a sad or bad ending, we have an extra responsibility to give the reader justification for that. Joanna has, I feel, done this in Shifter, but it could easily have gone the other way too. Make sure you think carefully before utilizing this technique!

Conclusion

Shifter was a great novel in my opinion. I would highly recommend reading it for anyone who likes clean fiction with Biblical themes and morally upright principles. You can find Shifter here or follow Joanna White on Amazon here.

Bane of Ashkarith Blog Tour – The System of Deities

Ariel Paiement

I know this has been a subject of particular interest for several Christian authors who are friends of mine. The biggest question has been, how do you handle God and deities in your books since you’re a Christian? That’s then followed up with where I draw lines with it since I am a Christian. So, we’re going to talk about the system of deities for Bane of Ashkarith as well as a little about how I usually handle the idea of other gods in my writing.

Deities in Alcardia and Bane of Ashkarith

To begin with, Bane of Ashkarith is not a Christian fantasy novel. It is written with Christian values embedded into it in many ways because no writer ever separates their beliefs entirely from their writing. My Christian worldview definitely shapes and constrains my writing differently than other worldviews would have.

But because it isn’t a Christian fantasy novel, I ran into a decision. What did I do with the idea of deities and gods in the world. After all, fantasy often involves some sort of pantheon or belief system. I could’ve left it out, but this would’ve made the world of Alcardia seem less realistic because what people group doesn’t have beliefs?

So, I chose to create religions and gods for them to worship. However, Alcardia is a bit different from the norm when it comes to its gods. Many of them never existed. People created them to explain natural phenomena, much like people have in Earth’s past when they worshiped the god of the Nile or the sun god. It allowed them a way to explain what they otherwise couldn’t.

For those that did exist, they weren’t actually gods in the first place. The lore surrounding them got started because these other beings were far more powerful than anyone could conceive of, so it was assumed they were gods. In that way, then, Alcardia really doesn’t have any gods at all. Not ones that exist or still live, anyway.

That’s how I’ve chosen to handle the situation of other gods in the various Alcardia novels. There is a One God that some of the people on Alcardia do worship, but since the planet was populated by a woman who believed she was a god, the information the people have on that god is minimal at best. This God is meant to represent the God of the Bible but isn’t referred to often because so few believe in Him or even know about Him.

General Rules of Thumb for Fantasy

But what about other novels and answering the question of dealing with pantheons when I’m a Christian? For me, I usually follow a few simple rules.

First, if the planet is entirely unconnected to Earth with Earth not even being an existing thing for the universe, I’m okay with the creation of deities. There’s no reason that this other universe wouldn’t have its own beliefs and even a creator because things don’t just start from nothing.

The second rule I follow is for those worlds that connect with Earth. If that’s the case, again, creation of a pantheon is okay, but here I don’t ever show interference or confirmation of those pantheon members’ existence. Basically, they’re just religious fabrications or people who were given more status than they should’ve been.

If there is a deity that actually interferes, then there will only be one, and that deity is meant to represent God. He may go by a different name in the world if it isn’t Earth, but it will be clear that it’s the Christian God being represented.

Usually, though, I just choose to go with bringing deities in as little as possible. They’re there to give a sense of realism and life to the world and to provide interesting cultural references or curses if needed. They may also be woven into the culture, but I never give reason to believe they’re real, as I mentioned earlier.

The final rule is for stories that take place solely on Earth. For these, I don’t create deities. First of all, there’s not much reason to because we have plenty of them to choose from already. Second, if it’s based on Earth mainly and that’s where the people are from, the only deity I’m going to show as being truly a god is the Christian God. That’s just how I do things because I’m a Christian.

Honestly, though, I haven’t really run into this one much because I rarely write fantasy that takes place on Earth. Earth may be a feature, but it usually isn’t the main setting, so the books all fall into either the first or second category.

Conclusion

So, that’s how I deal with the creation of gods and goddesses both in general and in the Alcardian universe. I’m happy to discuss this with people further if anyone has more specific questions. This is, as I mentioned earlier, just how I do things. I read a lot of fantasy that doesn’t adhere to these rules, but I prefer to keep things black and white morally and religiously in these ways so that no one can get confused about my worldview or what I believe.

I feel it’s the fairest representation of myself and the fairest way to be honest with readers. The goal is that no one has to wonder what the worldview or message is of the book.

I’m not trying to shove any of my beliefs down a reader’s throat, and I’m also not going to try to hide it in the story so that people swallow it without realizing they did. It is what it is, and my hope is that it’s clear and un-hidden while still allowing for the reader to enjoy the story.

At the end of the day, my goal is to write something that can be enjoyed by lovers of fantasy everywhere regardless of their beliefs. I know I can’t be all things to everyone, but I want to craft something that many people can enjoy, not just a narrow band of people.