Activity

@eden-anderson Though I’d love to hear from other Christian writers who have tried it, the way my faith is woven in is definitely in a very different way from other novels.

As anthropomorphized as they are, they’re still animals and I agree that it’d be odd to have organized religion in an animal story (-sighs pointedly at Warrior Cats-) but animals are still Creation, and under bondage. They experience death particularly acutely and my protagonist’s arc involves a jarring face-to-face encounter with it, shocking her out of much of her naiveté. A dying character mentions death being constant, until the “world is made new”. Death is portrayed as both natural and unnatural, a integral reality and yet a strange enemy. They have hope for the renewing of the world and for death being wiped away. Though it’s not addressed very directly, fate and destiny and things “happening for a reason” also quietly play a role in the background. Nothing is by accident and, though not everything makes sense, there is a strange order to the dance of life and death. Even the prey is a gift, and neither plenty nor starvation is an accident (Psalm 104:21). There’s no rituals or direct mention of God (it’s more Esther-like) and even the morality is a little different from humans (there’s nothing taboo about killing non-pack members – killing intruders is justified, for example, but it’s not necessarily right either) and even the aforementioned allusions are just that: allusions. They are quiet realities playing out behind the scenes and barely acknowledged, but certainly there. There’s also themes of true love, self-sacrifice and redemption that are cornerstones to the story. I believe that animal fiction in its basic form is a unique way to display God’s glory – kind of like those Psalms that mostly talk about animals and God’s creation – and show the wonders of the natural world that it’s hidden in. Of course, through the characters and whatnot there’s many other things that can be revealed, including a surprising amount of truths about people (especially in animal-centric stories where humans play little to no part).

Woah, that was a little longer than expected ^_^