Hello

[kelkoura]

I joined the Anomaly several months ago but haven't had a chance to post yet. My debut novel just came out today and I was going to post about it in the "what's your project" thread but figured I should be polite and introduce myself first.

My name is Karl El-Koura and I'm an Orthodox Christian living in the Great White North (getting whiter and colder by the minute these days!) I've been writing for the last 17 years, and a lot of my work falls under the speculative fiction category. So it was quite neat to find a publisher (Marcher Lord) and this forum dedicated to Christian sf.

If you'd like to know more about me, you can visit my website at www.ootersplace.com.

Karl

[Kessie]

Welcome to the forum! Use the New Topics button up there (it has a star by it) and it makes forum browsing so much easier. We have all kinds of irreverent discussions going on right now. :-)

Now, advertise your book to us, complete with back-cover blurb!

[kelkoura]

Thanks for the warm welcome, Kessie! It can be intimidating to jump into a conversation mid-stream, but I can definitely be irreverent so that helps!

Book advertised!

[rjj7]

Welcome, and congratulations on being published. Still working on the 'complete draft' milestone myself.

[firestorm78583]

Welcome and congrats.

[kelkoura]

Thank you both!

Good luck, Randy. It's a great feeling. But once you're done the first draft, the biggest struggle (if you're like me) is going to be deciding when you've edited and polished it enough that it's ready for someone else to read. I've heard interviews with movie people where they say, "A movie is never finished, only abandoned." I think that's true of books too to a certain extent.

[fluke]

Welcome! Orthodox! I attended an Orthodox service as part of my Christian history class in seminary. I enjoyed it immensely, especially that large portions were done in Greek. It gave a real sense of continuity and connection to the past. We were worshiping as a body in the same way with the same words that Christians had used for centuries.

I'll have to check out your book. Sounds interesting.

[kelkoura]

Thank you and I agree. I love our services for that connection to Christians from the ancient past. I like feeling connected to Orthodox Christians around the world (who basically use the same Divine Liturgy) and to those from the ancient past. So connected in both space and time, and feeling that we are one body transported into God's presence to worship Him together as one. (Also why I love the icons in Orthodox churches; it reminds me that I'm surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.)

[newburydave]

Welcome aboard Kelkoura;

Theological Fiction, eh? That sounds interesting.

I assume that means that you start with a theological truth and weave an Sf story around it to flesh it out in human terms and present it with an appealing "face".

I feel called to write Christian Themed hard science fiction for the secular market; sort of stealth or asymmetric evangelism. What I'm attempting to do may be in line with your efforts. I'd be interested in your plot planning methodology.

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We have a secure, online Peer to Peer critique group (the Anomalous Sandbox) operating in parallel to the Anomaly. We share membership and are fraternally associated; but not formally connected with The Anomaly and Marcher Lord Press. I set it up so we could share actual works in progress for critique and discussion without compromising our copyright interests.

We Sandboxers are a lively, international group of Christian writers. We generate a lot of good critiques and some interesting discussions. We're rather informal, I tried to structure it like Baen's Bar except with a Christian fundamental instead of the secular slant you get over at Baen. If you want to check it out the link is in my signature line below.

========

At any rate, welcome to the Anomaly. Irreverent we are, about many things, yes; but possibly surprisingly deep when it comes to writing craft and the spiritual applications of truth into our "fantastical" story worlds. We try anyway.

Welcome!

Write on my brother

SGD
dave

[kelkoura]

Thanks for the welcome, Dave! Actually I don't really start out with a theological truth, it seems I more often end up there. What I mean is that an idea for a story or a character will grab me, I'll start outlining or writing, then (at some point) I'll realize that it communicates some theological truth as I see it (in my bio I wrote, "a Christian deeply interested in the “big” questions, Karl’s stories explore issues of theology and spirituality even when he doesn’t consciously intend them to do so"). For example, I recently finished an Epic Fantasy piece that I realized as I near the end that I was really writing about Christ's sacrifice. It wasn't intentional at all ... I think Christianity is so much a part of the way I think and view of the world that I can't help but express its truths through my stories. Does that make sense?

As for my plot planning, I can point you to this discussion: wherethemapends.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=workshop&thread=2325&page=1#27181. In short, the biggest change in my writing over the last couple of years is that I started outlining (a discovery I describe on my blog: www.ootersplace.com/writers-god-wants-you-to-outline-your-novel/). I use a modified version of the Snowflake Method and then write from that outline. What about you?

[newburydave]

I've done it both ways.

Sometimes an inspiration will grab me and I write more seat of the pants, following the thread of the story spinning in my head. That works for short stories the best since I can keep the characters straight and all the pieces in the air in my head over the short term.

The only novel MS that I've actually finished was for NanoWriMo two years ago. I planned that one out in a two page outline using the three act plot structure. Of course the inspiration ran in that direction so it wasn't so much discipline as writing down what I was "told". (back when I was able to preach that's how I survived in the pulpit too.)

That novel is still in revision (I've been learning too much about the writing craft since I finished the first draft to pull the trigger on it yet, I need to keep going back to redo...) ;D

I know I have to bite the bullet and get serious about it, kill the artist (as in how do you finish a masterpiece) and start shopping it around for some rejection letters .

I wrote in business for 25 years as an internal management systems consultant, but novelization is a whole different animal.

If I were to describe my meta-method, I've developed into a character driven writer. I start with a main POV, or set of POVs, who are like me or my committed Christian friends; then throw them into a plot explosion and "watch" how they act and react. This allows me to explore the practical aspects of our internalized faith and knowledge of God in Christ. I guess that gets at Theology, but I'm more focused on specific manifestations of Christian Character under pressure.

Lewis once observed that writing Christian fiction had the function in society / evangelism of teaching people how to be human again after the death dealing effects of our pagan social programming has done its worst.

I look at my calling as a sort of asymmetric evangelism, attempting to rebuild the foundations which have been destroyed in our post Christian western world.

That's really a continuation of my original calling as an inner city mission preacher.

Write on my brother

SGD
dave

[Bethany J.]

Hello! Welcome, and congratulations on your book's release!

[kelkoura]

how do you finish a masterpiece

Careful, Dave! I know some writers who'd be very upset if they heard you speaking like that. I know you were half-joking, but the tyrant Perfection has stifled a lot of artists.

Thanks very much, Bethany!

Karl

[newburydave]

Jan 1, 2013 21:01:30 GMT -5 kelkoura said:

how do you finish a masterpiece

Careful, Dave! I know some writers who'd be very upset if they heard you speaking like that. I know you were half-joking, but the tyrant Perfection has stifled a lot of artists.

I suppose some might take offense, but after seven trips to the doors of death and a trip through them to get a glimpse of heaven I've learned to take the things we do in this life not so seriously. When I lay dying in the hospital bed and nobody answered the call button I found that all my "religious works": preaching, church planting, 'good works', theological work, apologetics, pastoral efforts....all of it were falling away with the world. They offered no life or hope, nothing to cling to.

The only place my soul found joy and peace was when I looked up to God and Jesus. In them was my only victory and release.

My writing is my current calling, but it is not a terribly weighty thing. Paul said God chose to save people through the "foolishness of Preaching". I got in trouble when I began to take my preaching too seriously, as if it were the weighty arguments that would bring souls to Jesus.

More often than not I found out from peoples testimonies that my "weighty discourses" were just background music while God was speaking to them, frequently though other means. Each of my sermons was just "Another brick in the wall", not the magnum opus that would seal up the wisdom of all the centuries of Christian witness. I was really more like the court jester than the wise old counselor.

So I approach my writing with a large spoonful of irreverence (toward my own works) since I know what a lightweight I really am. If my literary capering can catch someone's attention and make them glance in God's direction so He can reveal to them the Crucified / Risen Christ and open their graves of sin to raise them to new life then I rejoice. However I know that He did all the real work, I'm just a cheerleader dancing around on the sidelines of the serious action. I just love to see how God does things.

So, when the Artist in me asserts his (my) selfish need for perfection to put everyone else in the shade with my dazzling literary art, I have to pull out my reality gun and shoot that pompous fool in the head so I can 'git er done' and move on. God doesn't have much time for my posturing to admire "my own excellence".

One thing that I've noticed is that those authors who have a lot of novels out there, who are getting the public's attention often exhibit woeful lacks in style, grammar and even (gasp) spelling; but they tell engaging stories that crackle with their own passion for the tale. As they write each novel gets better. I guess that's what's called finding you own voice. I wanna' write like that.

That's the context of my comment about killing the artist. My stories aren't masterpieces except for the inspiration that the Master puts in me while I write. That spark of the divine fire is the thing that makes all of my efforts worthwhile and in His hands, life giving.


I do go on don't I?


Write on Bro.

SGD
dave

[rjj7]

Wow. Quite the post, Dave. Magnificent bit of sense there. Thanks a ton. Popped in after the holidays and got it right between the eyes.