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@mlbolangerauthor I had one thought about your last post your thoughts on what to label your stories.

Someone… I think it was @Josiah wrote a really good article on that not too long ago. But basically, there are two kinds of stories (in general) that Christians write.

There is the overt Christian fiction that is meant for Christians. The target audience is Christians and the idea is to help them learn and move forward in their faith.  But the basics are assumed. There might be a redemption arc, for example, but only if absolutely needed and even then the Gospel message doesn’t need to be spelled out because the readers already know.

The other type of fiction is for a broader range of readers. It is meant to show truths to people who aren’t necessarily Christians and because of that, the themes may be more subtle. The themes are there, simply because the writers are Christians, but the focuses are different.

So who your readers will be and what they expect is quite important when writing. Showing how Christians should love everyone is a great theme. If it were told from the pov of an LGBTQ character, however, a number of Christian readers would probably not read it because that’s not the kind of story they are looking for, even if it could be very powerful that way. (yet if your message is for Christians, it isn’t going to do you much good if the general audience picks it up) If it were told from the pov of a Christain who is involved, and then maybe get pov scenes from others later, you’d be much more likely to draw people into the story. I’m not saying one is better than the other. Just that the reader perception and what they expect is going to be important, even if it’s not the one it should/you want it to be. Because the most powerful message in the world won’t do any good if no one reads the book.

Readers and writers alike seem to be rethinking the whole ‘Christian means clean’ deal but it’s not going to change overnight. And… I’m rambling and not sure where I was going with this. XD Karthmin put it really well though. So yeah, I don’t really have much else to add.