Why More Christians Should Write Novels
After all, you’re not doing anything else in November, are you?
This article aims to persuade one or two of you to do something bad. How bad depends on you. It will take you a long time, and you don’t want it to be bad. But it will probably be bad anyway.
Enough with the teasers. The suggestion is this: write a novel.
Be honest. Some of you have thought about writing a novel.
Maybe you love reading, and you’ve often thought you’d like to have a go.
Maybe you have a story in your head that you’ve always wanted to get down, but have never found the time. Or you are worried that it’ll be bad. I’ll get to that.
November is National Novel Writing Month. If you’ve wondered about writing a novel, why not give it a go?
Here are four reasons why a Christian might think writing a novel is a bad idea. And four reasons why they are not good reasons.
Reason #1: Writing a Novel is a Waste of Time
If you’re a Christian, you might reasonably think that people need to hear the gospel. They’re not going to get that from your tale of romance, or your spy thriller. So why bother?
If you are a gifted evangelist, by all means, focus on that. If you’re not, like more of us, and you are asked about your faith, give a good answer. But your evangelism has been getting harder and harder because Western culture has become significantly less Christian over the last fifty years.
Ever wondered why that is?
Christians aren’t creating culture. Since Tolkien and Lewis, there haven’t been many. You might come back with John Grisham and Marilynne Robinson. Some might argue for JK Rowling. But if we’re honest, if JK Rowling had regularly attended an evangelical church in her teens and twenties, she would probably have been persuaded not to bother writing a book about wizards.
In the UK, at least, Christians have thought that writing novels is a poor use of time. And then we wonder why the mainstream culture is so opposed to Christianity.
Where it all begins
Culture begins with novels. This may be surprising given that only a few novels sell more than five thousand copies. But novels spawn movies, TV series and more novels. There have been six seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale which has pushed the culture in a particular direction, giving an imaginative dystopian vision to those who oppose the supposed patriarchy. It is based on a novel by Margaret Atwood from 1985. If we want effective counter-narratives, we need to get writing, especially if takes thirty years for your novel to be adapted for TV.
According to Vanity Fair, 39 major movies of 2023 are based on books.
More Christians should write novels.
Reason #2: I’m too busy to write a novel
Writing a novel does take time. 80,000 words don’t write and then rewrite themselves. It is a big commitment. But bear in mind a few things.
The first is that you will make time to do something if you think it’s important. You make time to brush your teeth, wash, eat meals and mow the lawn.
But the second is more pertinent: there are very few professional, full-time novelists.
Everyone is fitting it around their day job, even if they would rather they didn’t have to. In the UK, at least, I would estimate there are fewer than a hundred people who bring in a household income purely on writing novels.
Two of Britain’s most famous novelists did not write novels full time: CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. They were academics with responsibilities to fulfil and research to do.
It was their other jobs and interests that made them excellent novelists. The professional novelist runs the risk of churning out novels that remember other novels rather than real life. In the end, professional writers end up writing about writing.
If you’re too busy to write a novel, consider that it might mean you have something to write about. So write a novel.
Reason #3: My novel will never be published
Getting published is hard. That is true. But you don’t know that it won’t be published. Maybe it will. What makes getting a novel published even harder? Not writing one.
You might think that you just need a good idea and a sample first chapter. Those days are long gone, if they were ever even real. All agents and publishers expect you to write the whole thing before offering you any kind of deal. No down payments, advances or promises without a full manuscript.
But these days, the game has changed. Self-publishing is no longer the last resort it once was. There are some amazing tools now at your disposal if you decide to be what is now called an ‘independent author’. There’s no stigma. And quite often, there’s more money. I will probably publish my next book this way.
Finding a publisher is probably still preferable in the first instance. But to find out if you can write a novel that’s going to be published, you’ll need to write a novel.
Reason #4: My novel will be bad
Here I’m going to agree with you. It probably will be bad. Most first novels are bad and never see the light of day. Plenty of first novels that are published don’t sell well. The author only finds their voice and audience with books three or four.
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown was just about good enough to ensure that the Da Vinci Code was published. The album Out of Time was the first REM album you’ve heard of. It was their seventh album, and they’d been going for eleven years.
It is good to be humble. Why assume you can compete with experienced novelists with your first attempt? So yes, the first novel will probably be bad.
I wrote a novel a few years ago called Crossword Ends in Violence (5). Some people were kind about it, but it could be a lot better. It wasn’t published by a print publisher. And I can’t bear to go back to it and attempt to fix it. But I’m glad I wrote it because I now have a healthy respect for novel writing, having been through it once.
The only way to write a good novel is to try and write a novel. The first one, like the first pancake, often doesn’t quite land. But you have to start somewhere. To write a good novel, you might need to write a bad one first. So get that one written, and your next one will be better.
What happens now?
Why not listen to the latest episode of Cooper and Cary Have Words? In it, we discuss this exact topic with Thomas Umstadtt Jr, the host of The Novel Marketing podcast and founder of Author Media. He offers all kinds of courses that I’d recommend checking out. And you can also sign up for the National Novel Writing Month.