Rachel Starr Thomson

The publishing world is changing really, really fast. When I self-published an early incarnation of Heart to Heart: Meeting With God in the Lord’s Prayer about five years ago, Lulu was still new on the scene. I researched self-publishing then, and much of what I learned–though it gave me a great foundation for understanding the publishing industry in general–is all but obsolete now. The conference I attended back in September had at least as much content for independent authors as for those who are being traditionally published–and keynote speaker Mike Shatzkin questioned why, in the Internet age, authors bother with agents and publishers at all.

Recently, Thomas Nelson opened a subsidy publishing branch called Westbow Press. The industry buzzed. Last week, major romance publisher Harlequin opened a subsidy branch of their own, and the industry buzzed even harder–in fact, Harlequin came under fire from major organizations like the RWA and were (ahem, coerced) into changing the name of the new branch from Harlequin Horizons to DellArte Press.

Five years ago most mainstream authors, agents, and publishers weren’t even talking about self-publishing other than the occasional dismissive snort. Now they’re in the midst of a full-blown fuss. An era is ending. A new one is about to begin.

If you want to get a good look at the fuss, check out this post on agent Rachelle Gardner’s blog. I respect Rachelle greatly (though I disagree with her on this issue), and the comments especially will give you a good look at why people are fussing (and in some cases, flat-out panicking). There are some big names in on the discussion, including Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson. Check it out. Tomorrow or next week I may venture more of my opinions on this.

Starting today, Worlds Unseen and Burning Light are on sale through this site for only $25 plus shipping. If you’ve been meaning to pick up the books for yourself or someone else, take advantage of this sale — it’s the lowest these prices have ever gone! You can order through the home page.

And now for a rant, on a completely different topic. It has to do with words, hence I deem it appropriate for this blog. Have you noticed that fewer and fewer people call the impending American holiday “Thanksgiving,” while more and more people call it “Turkey Day”?

To me this is like calling Christmas “Presents Day.” Thanksgiving means, “Today I give thanks.” Turkey Day means, “Today I eat.” The focus is completely different. Instead of focusing on gratitude and giving thanks for all we have, it’s a big celebration of our own appetites. I find that sad. And somewhat appalling.

So two weeks ago I came to a turning point in The Advent which I wrapped up all nice and quick, and then I realized, No, it just can’t be that easy. We need a battle scene here.

Despite the fact that both Worlds Unseen and Burning Light contain climactic battle scenes that work fairly well, I am terrible at writing them. The pacing is hard to keep up as the tension levels have to be high without frazzling readers completely. They have to be planned out so carefully, and all the time I write them I think, I’m probably missing something really obvious and important, and when readers read this, they’re going to go, Yeah, but why didn’t they just push the button? They could have skipped the whole silly fight!

I had a week where I wasn’t able to write due to Behold the Child prep, rehearsals, and first performances, so last night I finally came back to this battle scene and started writing it. I was right, it needs to be there, and it’s not going too badly, but it’s still hard. I think this might be easier if I was a guy. Possibly guy brains are more suited to figuring out battle plans.

On a very different note, tomorrow I am launching the best Seventh World Trilogy sale EVER — both Worlds Unseen and Burning Light for only $25 plus shipping. They’ll be available on the home page starting tomorrow around 11:00 a.m. and going until December 25.

In the discussion on “what makes good literature,” an issue crops up that’s unique to those who hold a set of objective standards about the world; i.e. Christians and other people who believe that a certain account of creation and morality and history is really true and not something that changes depending on your perspective.

Literature contains a whole lot of perspective, so we can look at a book that is brilliantly written and still feel that it’s “bad literature” because we believe it’s telling a pack of lies about life.

In my e-mail discussion with Annalisa I started thinking about this when she expressed frustration that there don’t seem to be black and white standards when it comes to judging literature, even though we can look at some literature and judge it as damaging to readers. I said,

I think it’s reality, though — art, including writing, can’t really be judged by purely objective standards. It’s not like truth, which is black and white. An analogy just came to my mind: when we make art, we’re imitating God when He created. Just like we can’t look around and say, “Well, that’s a good tree because it meets X and X and X standards, and that’s a bad tree because it doesn’t,” we can’t judge art that way either.

We can judge the trueness or falseness of content, because then we’re getting into the realm of truth, not just art. In writing the two often merge, which may be one reason it’s frustrating trying to define “good literature”! So you can perhaps say, “Even though X book is beautifully written, its content is full of lies and therefore it’s harmful to readers.”

What makes good literature in the world’s eyes may be the skillful handling of form and language, the treating of timeless themes, and the ability to endure. For a Christian, what makes good literature is probably the skillful handling of form and language, the treating of timeless themes, the ability to endure, and faithfulness to biblical truth.

What do you think?

Some of you may remember Chawna Schroeder from a feature I ran on her a while back. Last week, she reviewed Worlds Unseen on her own blog, and she was also kind enough to do an interview with me. Read it here if you’re interested; it was fun .

So remember yesterday’s Merriam-Webster definition of “literature”?

3 a (1) : writings in prose or verse; especially : writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest

I touched briefly on “excellence of form or expression” yesterday; today I wanted to look further into that idea of literature “expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.” While originality is certainly important, if we look closely we may find that we’re all just writing variations on the same basic themes: childhood and growing up, love, identity, spirituality, death and resurrection, sacrifice, etc.

The stories that last seem to do so because they say something about these things that resonates with many. I would break genre stereotypes and say that many fantasy novels fall into this definition of literature because they so aptly express yearning, beauty, estrangement, gain and loss. Certainly Lord of the Rings does, and Narnia too. The best fantasy hollows out a place inside me so I always carry this sense that the truly beautiful and eternal is just beyond my reach. And I think that’s true; I think fantasy just makes me more aware of eternity.

It’s that resonance with realities we may not always be able to pinpoint or face that makes a piece of writing really meaningful, that makes it really last.

Yesterday I drafted an article on writing about worry and fear, and writing to overcome those things with faith. One of my main points was that you can’t communicate raw emotions like these without being deeply honest. So I would say that resonance is an essential quality of true literature, and that honesty on the part of the writer is essential to resonance in the work.

What do you think?

So the first few commenters have weighed in on what makes a book “real literature,” and they say:

1. Originality.
2. Depth (something to ponder)
3. You Know It When You See It .

To add to this, I borrow shamelessly from Merriam-Webster:

3 a (1) : writings in prose or verse; especially : writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest

There is definitely something to that definition. I would especially point out the “excellence of form or expression” part: because excellent in language itself is necessary for literature, we can include people like P.G. Wodehouse as great writers, not because they “express ideas of permanent or universal interest” but because whatever they do express, they express so well.

I just read this PW interview with Mary Karr, author of Lit, was published November 3, and really enjoyed it. She’s got some great insight on literature in general, and I was surprised (and pleased) at her mention of prayer. I know nothing at all about Lit or Ms. Karr’s other work, but I recommend this interview! Read the whole thing here.

PW: The memoir category has blossomed in recent seasons. What accounts for the popularity of these personal stories?

MK: The failures of other genres to provide an emotional connection with some of their characters and narratives gives memoir a toehold. My two favorite novelists today are probably DeLillo and Garcia-Marquez. But the cool, allegorical surfaces of lesser postmodern novels—their self-conscious, preening intellectualism, which is as self-indulgent to me as the most whining memoirist, by the way—these trends result in cartoonish or self-consciously grotesque and/or despicable characters. Wallace Stevens wrote, “People should like poetry the way a child likes snow, and they would if poets wrote it.”

Have you read any of these books?

A Dark Orange Farewell by George L. Duncan (OakTara Publishing)
All My Holy Mountain by L.B. Graham (P&R Press)
Cyndere’s Midnight by Jeffrey Overstreet (WaterBrook)
DragonLight by Donita K. Paul (WaterBrook)
Havah by Tosca Lee (NavPress)
Hero, Second Class by Mitchell Bonds (Marcher Lord Press)
Hunter Brown and the Secret of the Shadow by Christopher and Allan Miller (Warner Press)
On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson (WaterBrook)
Shade by John B. Olson (B&H)
Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy by Theodore Beale (Marcher Lord Press)
The Battle for Vast Dominion by George Bryan Polivka (Harvest House)
The Book of Names by D. Barkley Briggs (NavPress)
The Infinite Day by Chris Walley (Tyndale House Publishers)
The League of Superheroes by Stephen L. Rice (The Writers’ Cafe Press)
The Restorer’s Journey by Sharon Hinck (NavPress)

If you have, vote for the best Christian spec fic of the year in the Clive Staples Award! The voting page is here. Let’s let these authors know how much we appreciate their contributions to Christian speculative literature.

P.S. I voted for Jeff Overstreet’s Cyndere’s Midnight — a book I also nominated.