Why I Write Christian Fiction

by Elva Cobb Martin

The beginning of a new year is a good time to remind myself that I am above all a Christian writer, endeavoring to write Christian fiction. Two opposite worldviews drive fiction today.


Jesus in John 10:10 gives a succinct description of the two "drivers" behind fiction (and life itself).

            "The thief comes not but to steal, kill and destroy. 
          I am come that they may have life and have it more abundantly."

Our son Tim and grandson Samuel, both readers.

I am not writing fiction just to get books published, sold, and give readers an exciting read. A deep desire burns in my heart to also see readers and generations to come, be able find some truth that enlightens, some kernel of God's abundant life that helps them on their way.

This is not the main goal of secular fiction. Christian fiction and secular fiction are divided by two vastly different worldviews. Many believe America has lost her moral compass, so it is more vital than ever that I do everything I can to turn this tide around in my writing (as well as in my lifestyle).

Someone has said worldview can be determined by the answers to three questions:

• How did we get here and who are we?
• What went wrong?
• What can fix it?                                                                                                

The Christian world view short answers would be:  

1. God created the world and made mankind in His image to have dominion.
2. Adam and Eve sinned and brought condemnation and Satanic rule upon      mankind.   
3. Sin must be punished but God loved mankind so much He sent Jesus Christ as our substitute to defeat Satan and take our punishment so we could be forgiven and restored to God's original plan.                         

A naturalist worldview would have quite different answers to these questions and secular novels, movies and TV reflect this. This kind of story can steal one's peace and faith in God, tempt into sin, and leave one with a cynical outlook on life and the future. And it's all part of the enemy's deception to keep people in bondage. Truly, two different spirits are inspiring writers today!

In my writing I want to expose the lies and tricks of the devil and show that good does conquer evil, that God's great drama will prevail and believers can confidently look forward to a happy ever after. I want to increase hope, faith and peace in my readers. Otherwise, I'm just not interested in all the hard work it takes to write novels. 

Prayer over my writing is a vital component. I am convinced Father God is interested in getting Christian writing, including fiction, out where it can do some good. So I study, write and rewrite and rewrite some more. ( :

I believe there will always be a great market for Christian fiction because the world is looking for hope.

I think that's a big part of Downton Abbey's success. It is now touted as the best selling series in British TV history. (Sorry, Agatha, Jane Austen and Sherlock.)

Writer Julian Fellowes was asked what he thought has made the series so popular. Here's his answer: "Most of the characters are just decent people trying to do their best with the cards they've been dealt. They are just trying to live a decent life."

Christian writers have much more hope to give for those cards life may deal our characters.

Why do you write fiction? Do you believe God loves good stories that illuminate life more abundantly? Do you think America needs us to keep at it?

Thanks for stopping by and do join the conversation.

Elva Cobb Martin

                                                                                                  

Downton Abbey's Success Model

By Elva Cobb Martin

Who hasn't enjoyed five seasons of Downton and isn't deliciously awaiting Season Six and the series finale? I certainly am. If we had the new streaming type TV (which is on my Santa wish list) I could ALREADY be enjoying the last of this great series. It has already shown in England.

Today I listened to a Downton Special to get America ready for the finale coming in January on PBS. I made some notes from the remarks of the producer, Gareth Neame, and the writer of the series, Julian Fellowes, that I think you are going to LOVE. I believe they shared major SECRETS of the success of this series that can work for our novels, too!

Julian Fellowes: The spice of the series is love. There's not doubt about that.  All the characters are given an opportunity to feel love, to turn love down, to love the wrong person, to make a mess of it, to make a good thing of it. But, I think, on the whole, love is a very key ingredient to all our lies, even if or because we haven't got any.

How's that for a plot outline for your romance characters?

Downton Writer Julian Fellowes and Producer Gareth Neame

Gareth Neame: This show is about a time when relationships are much more straightforward. There's no strange texting going on. I think audiences have loved the simplicity of the relationships. The fact that they are not really about sexual love, but romantic love, and deeply unfashionable for TV producers to be doing--and yet it seems to be a formula that is working around the world.

Don't you love that statement?  Gives new impetus to our writing of inspirational novels versus various shades of gray!

"Lord Grantham" who was the spokesman for the special, had some great stuff to say about love. He said: Love is all around Downton Abbey. Upstairs and downstairs. There's the seasoned love of Robert and Cora.
The scandalous and passionate love of Lady Sybil and Branson.
The long-simmering love of the butler Carson and the housekeeper Mrs. Hughes.
 But perhaps the truest, noblest love at Downton is Anna's for Mr. Bates. But their quest for simple love and happiness is plagued by misfortune.

Julian Fellowes on Anna and Mr. Bates:
By creating a happy, contented couple but where there is always a grenade with its pin half out in the pocket of one of them--you don't ever have to search for the tension you need.

He's got that right!

Producer Gareth Neame on Anna and Mr. Bates:
Unlike the other love relationships which are plagued with difficulties, what Anna and Bates have is this extraordinary relationship of the heart, this incredible bond. They are the couple that all of us know somewhere in our lives, that have this amazing partnership and it's the only way they can deal with all the hurdles that are put in front of them.

Don't you love this guy's thoughts? No wonder he is the producer of an award-winning series like Downton.

I will close with a description of the butler Carson and his pursuit of love from Producer Gareth.  "He (Carson) moves slowly like the speed of a glacier."

Have you watched Downton Abbey?  Please share your thoughts and any gleanings you've found that can help us write winning stories.

Thanks for stopping by.
Elva

A Love Story That Trumps Downton Abbey

I have tuned in to all four seasons of Downton Abbey and have my TV set to record Season Five. You bet.

However, it being January, I have restarted my January Bible Readthrough using the Amplified Bible and once again, I am enthralled, shocked and amazed at the love story of Jacob, Leah and Rachel (and in that order) found in Genesis 29-30.

I mean here is a good-looking hunk named Jacob (which means supplanter and that should warn you) who has tricked his brother out of his birthright and has to flee from home before his brother kills him.

On the way Jacob has an out of body, dreamy experience, a confrontation with God and angels, that starts a big change in his spiritual life. He names the place Bethel (the house of God) and promises to tithe from that moment on.

I can't say it took that kind of experience to get me to start tithing, but it would have been nice, ladder and all.

After this experience, Genesis 29:1 in the Amplified Bible begins: "Then Jacob went (briskly and cheerfully) on his way (400 miles) and came to the land of the people of the East." --So we have a concrete idea what kind of energy experiences like Jacob's can give a person on a quest. Bring them on!

Of course, Jacob is looking for his Uncle Laban's family and after the 400 miles he has a piece of luck at a well. He discovers Uncle Laban's lovely daughter Rachel coming to water her father's sheep. He helps her and afterwards, the Bible says so succinctly: "Then Jacob kissed Rachel and he wept aloud." Talk about love at first sight! This sentence brings tears to my eyes. Maybe part of it is for the 400 miles and finding a well of water.

You know this story. Jacob agrees to work seven years for Rachel and the Bible stays "they seemed to him a few days." Does ANY body love like this today? Including Matthew and all the many loves of Mary and everyone upstairs and downstairs at the Abbey?

On Jacob's and Rachel's supposed wedding night (after heavy drinking most surely) weak-eyed older sister Leah is slipped into the marriage bed instead of Rachel by their father Laban. (Doesn't this scene far surpass the scene in Downton Abbey when the Turk slips into Mary's bed???)

Right now I want to tell you, I am on Leah's side. It's kind of like for the first 25 years of my adult life I was on Scarlet's side every time I watched Gone with the Wind. But, finally, I realized the kind of skunk Scarlet really was and I started being on Melody's side (and I will always be on Rhett's side, OF COURSE).

Jacob finally gets Rachel but God takes note of dear Leah who has had no choice in this matter (but I know she LOVES that hunk Jacob and he must feel something for her . . . . I mean, a bunch of sons keep coming.

Here they are and their names heartsick but forever positive Leah gives them:

1. Reuben which means "See, a son."  Are you looking, Jacob?
2. Simeon: God hears. "The Lord heard that I am despised."
3. Levi: Companion. "Now my husband will be a companion to me for I have borne him three sons."
4. Judah: Praise. "Now I will praise the Lord."       

Then more shocking things happen. Both Rachel and Leah give their MAIDS to Jacob and ASK him to sleep with them (what kind of man is he??) As far as that goes, what kind of women are they?

So both the maids deliver babies supposedly on the knees of Rachel and Leah so they can count them as their own. Double Wow! What an easy way to get a child is all I can say. My son took 12 hours off my life at the gate of death birthing him.

This story goes on and on for several seasons of Jacob's life and Leah's and Rachel's but I want to jump you to the surprising end and a question that might plague the casual reader of this true story.

Do you wonder if Jacob ever came to really love and appreciate dear Leah? Well, I've got a definite clue for you.

WHICH woman, Rachel or Leah, did he request to be buried beside?

Here are some of Jacob's last words on his death bed in Egypt, his instructions to Joseph about death and burial. (Genesis 49:29-31)

"He charged them and said to them, I am to be gathered to my people, bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite . . . and there I buried Leah."

There you go.

Downton Abbey is good, but this true story is better and a lot more inspiring.

What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by. Please do leave a comment and, if you have time, share this by clicking on the Twitter or FB button below.

Happy, Blessed New Year and Onward!
Elva Cobb Martin

Downton Abbey - Hoorah for Marriage But Oh Me for Ardor

I've watched and have taped all the PBS Downton Abbey series and I  love them. For the most part.

What a great quote on marriage came from Season Four's January 19 program. Lord Grantham is trying to console his valet whose wife has pulled away from him (the valet) due to a rape she's kept secret. The valet is hurting. He has no idea what has happened. Here is Lord Grantham's wonderful counsel.

"There's no such thing as a marriage between two intelligent people that does not at sometime have to negotiate thin ice. You must wait until things clear and they will. The damage cannot be irrepable when two people love each other as much as you two do." 

 HOORAH! So true, so true, if my 40-plus years of marriage experience counts for anything.

But...I have to admit as a southern USA born and raised romance writer, I've found a lack of ardor in the English gentlemen heroes! After all, I have to compare them to our American romantic heroes like Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, or Tyrone Power, to mention a few. Now I've aged myself!

For example, get this scene also in the January 19, 2014, Season Four movie. 

 Mary, emerging from her year-long widowhood, has attracted a new handsome, rich beau who has fallen head over his polished heels for her. She seemed to be responding to him on a couple of outings. Now they are out on a walk alone on the grounds of Downton Abbey.  He asks her to marry him, even if he has to wait a year or two for her to be ready. They are standing about a foot or two apart and looking into each other's faces. He tells her poetically that she totally fills his mind. 

Mary replies, "But that's just it, Matthew still fills my mind and I don't want to lose him."

The next thing just blew my warm, southern romantic mind. This lily-livered English gentlemen, STILL a foot or two away, then ASKS her if he can kiss her, in order to have at least one great memory to carry with him.

Can you, my American friends, in your wildest imagination, ever dream of Clark Cable asking Scarlet, "May I kiss you, my dear? I want at least one good memory to take with me."



 Rhett Butler to Scarlett O'Hara: "What you need is kissing and plenty of it by someone who knows how."

Can you imagine pirates Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power asking ANY heroine they are in love with this kind of question when what the antsy heroine needs is to be clasped in the hero's arms and given an unforgetable kiss that will make her knees buckle and blot all thoughts of any other man clear out of her mind? Don't you just long for Mary to receive such a kiss? As wonderful as Matthew was, it is TIME to move on. He's been deceased over a year.

Now, that I've expressed my romance-writer, woman-married-to a warm-Southern-hero mind, what is your opinion? Would you like to join with me in sending the writer of the series, Julian Fellowes, a message?

Something like: "Hey, why don't you bring a warm-blooded, AMERICAN Navy Seal or cowboy or law officer or any type of Carolinian CHRISTIAN hero into the story to really sweep Mary off her stilted boots?"

And it wouldn't hurt if he looks a little like Peter Facinelli... 

 

And it would be WONDERFUL if he has the Christian integrity, strength and fervor of Tim Tebow.

What do you think? I would love to know your thoughts. Do you think this "American hero" also needs to be wealthy?  Leave a comment and even a photo of someone you recommend for this part!

Thanks for stopping by!

Elva Cobb Martin 

Elva Cobb Martin is a freelance writer, Bible teacher and grandmother. She is president of the American Christian Fiction Writers new South Carolina Chapter. She has been published in Decision, Charisma, and Home Life and is currently working on an inspirational romance novel. Elva lives in Anderson, South Carolina, with her husband and high school sweetheart, Dwayne. You can connect with her through her web site at www.elvamartin.com , on Face Book and Twitter @Elvacobbmartin. Or leave a comment below on this blog!