Nikki Loftin

Archive for September 28th, 2009

Do Your Characters Pray?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of religion in genre fiction, and more specifically its role in the fiction I write.

I spent most of the last ten years working in churches. I went in a 3/4 time Christian (don’t ask), and came out a 100% God lover who drags her kids to church every Sunday, usually kicking and screaming. I tell them it’s character-building. Check this out: my sweet Hinky-Punky on Sunday. (He’s the one in the front row center, picking his nose.)

I’ll admit, we DO go to one of the most liberal churches in town. (It rocks: Central Presbyterian Church.) For crying out loud, I’m married to a Scottish guy (um, socialized medicine, anyone?), so it had to be Presbyterian and left-leaning.

I’ve written plenty of Christian-ish essays. But now, I’ve noticed the God stuff creeping into my fiction. I wondered if any other writers had the same concerns, and then today I saw this. Anyway, I spent some time editing out some passages that I thought went too in-depth into a character’s mind re: God, even though the views he was espousing were not, um, particularly in line with Christian doctrine. I just thought: Would this passage alienate my kids’ friends? (The atheist ones.) I stopped cutting when I was able to say no.

Maybe someday I’ll go ahead and write that book, the one that weaves God in without worrying about who’s watching… but not today. Comments?