Michelle

@mlbolangerauthor Yeah–that seems like a pretty reasonable hypothesis. It reminds me of one of Lewis’ points in That Hideous Strength: humans are willing to reject a lot of people and ideas simply to be a part of the “in group..”

Yes–basically what I mean there is that if you need to be a part of a group to critique it effectively in fiction…[Read more]

@mlbolangerauthor @josiah Honestly, I don’t read books that challenge me. I read books for entertainment, and find my challenges elsewhere. ;P

I probably wouldn’t read a book knowing it was about LGBT stuff. If it wasn’t marketed as Christian, I would assume that it would be pro-LGBT, and I am not the type of person who can read a book like that…[Read more]

@mlbolangerauthor  Thank you very much. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

@mlbolangerauthor

Haha, no problem! 😉 I forget to reply all the time and then a month later I’ll look back and be like “oops, forgot to reply to another one…” XD

As for getting involved with things like LGTBQA, I agree with you on that. I, personally, am not a person that is going to be swayed by other people’s thoughts, just because honestly…[Read more]

@mlbolangerauthor I see I’m late to a really good discussion here! It would be awesome to eventually do another blog series about tricky themes sometime in the future (though it would be a while before we’d fully consider that given how much time it takes to put these series together… If anyone has great thoughts on these ideas and wants to…[Read more]

@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…[Read more]

@mlbolangerauthor Echoing what others have said, I think the biggest reason Christians books don’t deal in these topics is because they would involve a lot of research. I think the biggest danger in these areas are straw man arguments. That is when someone assigns me an opinion that is not my own, then judges me based off of that opinion. For…[Read more]

@mlbolangerauthor I don’t have much to say on this topic, but I thought it could be helpful to mention a couple of Christian novels that deal with some of these things.

Finding Fireflies by A. C. Williams, deals with trafficking and prostitution without shoving undesirable things in your face. It doesn’t avoid them, but doesn’t describe them.…[Read more]

@mlbolangerauthor By the way, a straw man is basically when you set up a wrong viewpoint… say ‘all atheists are evil people with no moral code’ and then use that to show how atheists are wrong and have them become saved or defeated. Because in that case you’ve proved your point, but you’ve proved it based on a ‘lie’ not on the truth of how…[Read more]

@mlbolangerauthor The themes you mentioned definitely fall well within the scope of Christian fiction, and should be addressed more than they are currently.

One reason they are not addressed very frequently, is because the majority of Christian fiction is marketed as “clean”, like Josiah DeGraaf mentioned in his first blog post in the series…[Read more]

@mlbolangerauthor

Hi Michelle,

I think these questions you presented here are very important issues for authors to think about. 🙂 So thanks for bringing them up!

Currently my WIP (just started, btw) focuses on human rights. My premise is basically what makes us human and can clones possess souls and unique personalities. I plan on tackle these…[Read more]

@mlbolangerauthor Personally, I would love to see these topics addressed more in fiction. I think what may be keeping many Christians back is that they aren’t involved in these areas. For instance, I’ve never been involved in any ministry to people who have gone through human trafficking. None of my friends are LBGTQ. It would just require a…[Read more]

@mlbolangerauthor No problem! ^-^

@mlbolangerauthor @karthmin Haha, same! I didn’t know there was a Superpower Wiki either. I just found it a month or two ago since I was searching specifics on abilities for my characters. Research is key!

@mlbolangerauthor Cool!

Looks like you know your stuff more than I do, @azeline-d. I think you’re right, about both types being considered empaths.  Also, I’m totally going to check out the Superpower Wiki, too! I’d never heard of it before!

@mlbolangerauthor I think both would be considered empaths, only they don’t have the same extent of empathy abilities as each other. Empaths can range from just feeling emotions to being able to project or manipulate emotions. So I think both of your types of characters would be called empaths.

The only other terms I can think of are empathy…[Read more]

@mlbolangerauthor I’m not sure if there is a term for that, so I’ll tag a couple in-depth Fantasy writers who seem to know what their doing. xD

@hope-ann @brandon-miller @karthmin

Hopefully that helps!

@i-david Well, technically the sun’s light isn’t from fire. It’s from a nuclear fusion reaction.

@scarletimmortalized
This caused me to realize that nuclear reactions are another way of generating heat. However, you would have to think through if the technology necessary to develop nuclear reactors requires fire.

It is pretty hard to think about…[Read more]

@selah-chelyah I hadn’t thought about glass O.O

@evelyn Ooh that’s a neat idea for an alternative light source…however this world still has electricity…so lightbulbs are still a go. Yes their ‘sun’ is made of Ektos..think of a brighter moon. Ooh I’ll have to look that up, thanks!

@i-david Yes, I did, Extos replaces fire in some ways. I have…[Read more]

@mlbolangerauthor Hey, cool. I live in the Columbus area.

@mlbolangerauthor

I definitely will. 🙂