As my debut novel, Bell Time, is released next week, I’ve been thinking a lot about how my faith intersects with my writing. I’m not (at the moment) writing anything that would be labelled as Christian fiction, but being a Christian definitely impacts what I write and how I write it.
I posted on Tiktok this week about why I write – the main focus being to give God glory by using gifts that He has given me. I don’t want it to be about me, and it’s so easy to get obsessed with how many people are following me or liking my posts, and next week I’ll be looking at how many people are buying my book too. What I’ve been realising is that if I measure success by sales or likes, then I’m not really using a very biblical metric. In the Bible, success is measured by faithfulness to God and His calling (see the passage below from Hebrews 11). So if I’m writing the story God’s given me, and I’m honouring Him in the way I write it, then that’s more important than how it is received.
I also wanted to address why I write romance, given that, of all genres, this seems to be one most tainted by inappropriate content and very unChristian messages. There certainly are an increasing number of mainstream romances including explicit sexual content, and ‘erotica’ seems to be much less of a taboo genre. But there’s a reason why readers are drawn to romance: God has made us for relationship. Ultimately we can’t find perfect fulfilment in any human relationship, and trying to do so will only make that person our ‘god’, a role they were never meant to have. But our romantic feelings are a powerful gift, and when they are misused, the destructive consequences are evident. I don’t think Christian writers should remove themselves from the genre of romance, but create better content that points people towards the truth. The values we model of humility, sacrifice and generosity provide a positive antidote to the self-driven nature of many secular novels, and ultimately indicate the need for the gospel of Jesus Christ to transform our lives, because we can’t be the people we want to be without Him.
Just like the great heroes of the past, we walk by faith. There isn’t a manual telling us exactly what to do with our unique gifts and talents; which jobs we should or shouldn’t apply for; how we should use our time. There are principles, principles of stewardship and using wisely what we’ve been entrusted, because our time on earth is brief. We’re told to ‘walk by the Spirit’ (Gal 5:16), because for every step we take, we need to rely on Him and not trust in our own judgement.
In other words, there are no easy answers about what it means to be a Christian writer. There are no easy answers about what it means to be a Christian anything! But if our hearts are set to genuinely seek God, and we lift everything to Him in prayer, I don’t believe He will let us go off down the wrong track.
I’m blessed to know other Christians who write, but I want to work harder at building a community of voices around me who will weigh up my work and speak truth to me when I need it. The idea of writing as a solitary pursuit behind closed doors needs to be de-bunked as a myth! Left alone, we’ll only create drafts and words on a page. Community brings life to a story, and we need that if we’re ever going to create something that will last.
Sophie Toovey 