Welcome to the Spring Issue of Faith-Filled Fiction!

The launch of Magic, Mensa and Mayhem: From the Case Files of DragonEye, PI, started with a pleasant surprise--a review from Publisher's Weekly! What was especially interesting to me was the first sentence: "Religion and humor suffuse this well-imagined and densely plotted comedic mystery..." I have a fantasy version of the Catholic Church in my tales, but my DragonEye, PI stories are nto meant to be religious--especially this story, which is an exercise in silliness and pranks on the dragon. In fact, my Faerie Catholic Church is close enough to Roman Catholicism that members can attend each other's Mass, but otherwise, they have a lot of differences.

On the other end of the spectrum is Infinite Space, Infinite God II, which I am trying to keep as Catholic fiction. While I didn't accept storied that preach, I am concerned the every one of them conform to the Catholic Magesterium. It's in review with the Catholic Writers' Guild right now; the future of the project depends on the results and the willlingness of the authors to make changes.

The point I'm trying to make is that how we approach the topic of religion in our stories depends greatly on the plot and situation.

This issue focuses on making up religions in your fiction. My guest is Dan Starr. I met him at the MuseOnline Conference in October 2008, where he took my worldbuilding class. I loved his made-up religion Spafuism, and asked him to share it with us. He gives us two articles: one on the joys of making up his own religion and one on the doctrine itself.

Saralee Rosenberg, a terrific and funny writer of contemporary fiction, brings us the writing tips based on her own experience of incorporating the Jewish faith in her books.

Enjoy the articles!

In the meantime, if you like fantasy, mystery and satire, check it out and register on the site! www.dragoneyepi.net

Guest Columnist

The Joys and Woes of Constructing a Corporate Religion

By Dan Starr

Once upon a time, in a certain franchised burger joint, I saw a stained-glass window in which all the characters from the chain's TV commercials gathered around the company's mascot. Their pose could only be described as the Good Shepherd and His Flock, which led me to think, This isn't a restaurant, it's a church--the Church of the Hamburger Clown! Thirty years later, when I set my novel The Last Protector in a parallel-world theme park, I couldn't resist having the park's workers (the "Cast," in theme-park parlance) worship the corporation's cartoon-character mascot.

But creating the "Church of Spafu the Friendly Dragon" turned out to be a lot harder than I anticipated. For one thing, I had to figure out why a theme park corporation would go to the effort of creating a religion for its workers in the first place. What doctrine and rituals would they invent? How would the Cast be indoctrinated? How would the religion be organized, and how would it evolve in the century that the park's Cast waited for the Guests to arrive? In addition, I had to understand how the Church would serve my needs as an author, and how it would interact with my three lead characters: a time-traveling Ranger, his Celtic warrior bodyguard, and a serving wench who possesses the ability to prevent the end of the world. How could the religion help move the story along? Where could I use it to generate conflicts?

While I'd like to say I researched world religions and then carefully crafted a "Spaufist Doctrine" to meet the needs of my story, in truth the religion evolved in bits and pieces and went through many, many rewrites as the characters taught me what worked and what didn't. For instance, how does the bodyguard, who follows the Celtic-flavored Christianity of St. Patrick's era, handle his conflicts with the High Priest of Spafu's Temple? And what would happen if he fell in love with a Cast member who saw a cartoon character as divine?

Each rewrite wove Spafuism deeper into the fabric of the story, making the religion, the backstory, the society, and the novel's plot more complex. In time, I found myself dealing with a new question: how to keep Spafuism from taking over the book! After all, The Last Protector is a science fiction action/adventure novel, not a discourse in theology. In my attempt to strike the right balance, I found myself writing lengthy explanations of doctrine, only to put them aside in the "scaffolding" file, among the other things I needed to write down but didn't need to show the reader.

After many, many revisions, I found myself with an abundance of conflicts, ranging from comedic (an escalating war-of-insults between the bodyguard and the High Priest), to theological (how can the abstract notion of an invisible deity compete with the concrete Gifts that appear beneath the Dragon's wings each morning?), to deadly (a sect that believes the Dragon wants more than just consumer goods as a sacrifice). In other words, I'd created (or evolved; take your pick) a corporate religion just about as complex and irrationally logical as a real faith.

Writing Tips

An Interview with Saralee Rosenberg

"My Big, Fat, Jewish Blockbusters"

How did you incorporate the Jewish faith into your novels? It was an easy decision given that every writer's first lesson is to write what you know. I was raised in an observant Jewish family and have always lived a Jewish life. What has been so gratifying is that although my characters are Jewish, and many editors rejected my manuscript because they said the audience would be too limited, I have heard from readers all over the world who are NOT Jewish, who shared how much they enjoyed my books. A story well told will always transcend cultural backgrounds and geogrpahy. Exhibit A would be The Kite Runner.

Did you have to do any extra research? If so, where did you go? I do scads of research before I write my novels, but generally the subject matter I am investigating has to do with medical, legal or technical issues. The Jewish aspects of my story, the attitudes, beliefs, values, humor and customs are all within my personal knowledge base. The one exception was the story line from Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead involving the Kindertransport, the British rescue mission that occurred before the Holocaust that brought ten thousand children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia over to safe bordersy. I only knew a little bit about the history and did extensive research so that I could incorporate it as one of the sub-plots. I decided to do this because I learned that the book would be published at a time that coincided with the seventieth anniversary of this miraculous mission. I received lots of positive feedback from readers who said they very much enjoyed that part of the story.

What tips do you have for handling "hot topics" whether the Holocaust or the cliché of Jewish guilt in a way that's funny without insulting? Good question. I've found that as long as the writer handles a controversial subject with honesty and isn't smug, condesending or in any way demeaning, readers will give you a lot of latitude. People devour books in order to be entertained and enlightened, but they also hope to discover inner truths about the human condition. If they come away feeling smarter for having gained insight, they will not likely take offense at language or subjects that would otherwise raise eyebrows.

Any advice for someone not of the Jewish faith who is writing a Jewish character? Jewish or otherwise, the best advice I can offer about character development is to create ones who are three dimensional, not stick figures who simply mimick stereotypes. In life, no one is all good or all bad, they are a sum total of attitudes, fears, pleasures, issues and ambitions. Therefore, the best characters are the ones who are multi layered and complex. I liken the process of building a character to building a sandwhich. You can make a plain turkey on rye, or you can load it with lettuce, mustard, pickles, onions and thousand island dressing.  Which would you enjoy more? If the character IS Jewish, again, avoid stereotypes. Delve into the human aspects of what makes them tick.

We often hear that secular publishers don't like fiction with faith in it. Obviously, that's not your experience with Avon. Why do you think that is, and what do you recommend to those who want to write faith-filled fiction? I don't think it is true at all that publishers turn away from faith-based fiction, they simply reject stories that are not well told, that are not honest or compelling or that don't explore aspects of the human condition in a way that is new and engaging. Trust me, a beautifully written manuscript will get the attention of editors and agents, regardless of the subject matter.

Saralee Rosenberg's four high-spirited novels explore every day life with great humor, heart and faith in happy endings and a higher purpose. She is the author of these Avon novels: A LITTLE HELP FROM ABOVE, CLAIRE VOYANT, FATE AND MS. FORTUNE and DEAR NEIGHBOR, DROP DEAD. Check out her website. www.saraleerosenberg.com

Religion Research

The Doctrines of Spafuism

By Dan Starr

Yeah, it's a made-up religion, but I thought it'd be an interesting article to explore how you can make a made-up religion conform to the ideals of a real one.

What does a religion created by a theme-park corporation look like? The project's architect describes it as "a faith that suits our needs--one rooted in our corporate values, filled with exotic and entertaining rituals, free of inconvenient dogma like 'money is the root of all evil.'" A theme-park religion needs to entertain the Guests, provide purpose and meaning for the Cast, generate profit for the Company--and create the necessary conflicts and mysteries in the story. When The Last Protector was finished, I found Spafuism is based on these four doctrines:

·    Show hospitality to your Guests, for in so doing you also entertain the Friendly Dragon. All of the law hangs upon this command. The creation story in the Book of Spafu says that the Dragon made the Cast as his chosen people, his special treasure, and appointed them to the task of serving and entertaining the Guests. It goes on to say that after creating the world, Spafu perched atop the Temple as an enormous, flame-spewing stone Dragon, and in this form he watches over the Cast and Guests to this day.

·    All things come from the Dragon, and to the Dragon all things return. Spafuists take this literally, for they see it every day. The High Priest prays in the evening, before the sacred microphone, and in the morning the doors beneath the Temple open to reveal the Gifts of Spafu--all the food, materials, and merchandise the people need for the coming day. And four times a year, during the Fortnights of Sacrifice, a rotating array of consumer goods are piled atop altars and ceremonially burned before the Dragon. These offerings are not lost; anything a Cast member sacrifices during this life is promised to be returned to him or her in the next. In Spafuism, he who dies with the most toys wins isn't just a T-shirt slogan; it's holy scripture. Consumption is a sacrament, and the Guests are encouraged to join in.

·    You shall not make images of any other Dragon. Many shops make Spafu-themed art objects, from simple T-shirts and stuffed toys to knives and swords engraved with the image of the Dragon. Of course, the artisans must pay a fee to the Temple and get priestly approval for their work. The depiction of any other dragon is forbidden, as Spafu is the only Dragon deemed worthy of art.

·    Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from the Dizzer. The Book of Spafu warns against the Dizzer, a demon disguised as a Guest who will attempt to confuse the faithful and lead them away from the Friendly Dragon. Legend says the Dizzer serves a false Temple, where the faithless and lost worship a giant rat. (The meaning of "Dizzer" is left as an exercise for the reader. Remember, all persons, places, institutions and corporations in this book are fictional...)

Action! Adventure! Romance! And the World's Most Perfect Beer Container!
All this and more in Daniel C. Starr's Debut Novel, The Last Protector
from Twilight Times Books. Visit http://danielcstarr.blogspot.com/ to find out more.