It Starts With A LIE!

Slipping in a personal confession here: The Spiritual Journey of a character is one of the most difficult aspects of writing Christian Fiction for me.

In examining why I struggle, I’ve determined it’s because every spiritual journey starts with a lie . Either believing something that isn’t true, or not believing the truth because it isn’t known yet. As the author, I KNOW it’s a lie. I’ve either already been taught the truth, or learned it through experience. The temptation is just to tell my character to stop believing lies and get on with their lives...

And yet, my characters need a spiritual journey, something that they either didn’t know about God when the story started, or something they thought they knew, but that turned out to be untrue.




The Spiritual Journey is the bedrock of the story, so I need to know and understand it fairly early in the plotting process. Once I realized this, plotting that spiritual journey got easier...not like super-easy, but easier than before.

The fun part now is exploring possible lies my character might believe, either through an experience they had, teaching they have been given, or because of their personality type.

A child who had been abandoned by his parents might have trust issues when it came to his relationship with God. A child may have been told over and over that they were an accident, an unplanned, unwanted complication to an otherwise orderly life, and therefore might struggle with feeling unworthy and unloved. A type-A personality might struggle with surrendering control, or with the notion that God is Sovereign and His will prevails.
The key to a good spiritual journey is to find one that fits the character’s back-story and personality. If you choose something that is organic to the character, you will be less likely to be accused of sounding ‘preachy.’


Dun-dun-dunnnnnnn. Preachy. The wince-inducing word no Christian Fiction author wants to hear/read in a review.

Novels sound preachy when the author tries to teach the READER a spiritual lesson. Stories where a character learns the truth about a lie they believed, or that enlarge their truth through understanding more fully a spiritual reality, are rarely labeled preachy, because the spiritual journey springs naturally out of the character and plot. There is no "Block of Great Truth Because The Reader Needs To Know It" passages in the book, just a gradual awakening of the characters to a truth.
Truth can be revealed a couple of different ways in your story. Through the plot--what the character experiences can teach them the truth or falsehood of what they believe. Or through a mentor/wise person who counsels and reveals truth to the character.

One word of warning though. When you set your characters on a spiritual journey, you will travel right along with them, learn and relearn what they do, and as a result, both broaden and deepen your understanding of a fundamental truth or two about God.  

Consider some of the possible lies your character could believe, and how you could weave that lie into their back story and personality:

Lies that a character might believe about who God is

· Doubt His sovereignty

· Doubt His goodness

· Doubt that He is truly all-knowing

· Doubt His kindness

· Will He be merciful?

· Is God truly faithful?

· Is God Never-changing, or is He capricious?

· Does He hear their prayers?

· Does God keep his promises?

· Does God hold grudges/is vindictive?

· God only wants to punish people for doing bad things

· God is impossible to please


Lies that a character might believe about who they are
· Unworthy

· Unlovable

· That they must get themselves cleaned up in order to approach God

· That God needs their help

· Unable to trust

· Too smart to need God

· That God is just for Sunday- I don’t need Him every day

· That they are a failure/don’t measure up
 

These are just a sampling of possible lies for our characters to believe.

What others are out there? If you’re a reader, what spiritual journey lies have you read that resonate with you? If you’re a writer, what spiritual journey lies have you incorporated in your stories?
Best-selling, award-winning author Erica Vetsch loves Jesus, history, romance, and sports. She’s a transplanted Kansan now living in Minnesota, and she is married to her total opposite and soul mate! When she’s not writing fiction, she’s planning her next trip to a history museum and cheering on her Kansas Jayhawks and New Zealand All Blacks. You can connect with her at her website, www.ericavetsch.com where you can read about her books and sign up for her newsletter, and you can find her online at https://www.facebook.com/EricaVetschAuthor/ where she spends way too much time!


AVAILABLE NOW! Mail-Order Mishaps! Get your copy today!

Dreams of Finding Mr. Right Go Wrong in the Old West

Erica's story in this collection:
The Galway GirlKansas, 1875
A mail-order mix-up sends Irish lass Maeve O’Reilly to the Swedish community of Lindsborg, Kansas. Will Kaspar Sandberg consider it a happy accident or a disaster to be rectified as soon as possible?