An Important Element In Christian Fantasy

    I've been thinking for the last several days about something that, to me, MUST be included in Christian fantasy stories, though it is certainly not required to make the story simply amazing.
    That element to which I am referring is some form of gathering to worship the "God figure" in your novel/short story. Whether God is named Elyon (Ted Dekker's Circle) or Trand/The Fire (Brian McBride's Paradox) or Ellos (Wayne Thomas Batson's and Christopher Hopper's Berinfell Prophecies), it doesn't matter.

St. Alban's Cathedral in England - I modeled the "church" in Paradox after this building.

    In my own book, I entitle it Ynderrum (in' - dare - um) - A weekly gathering of a multitude of people to unite in worship and reverence to Trand.
    The reason that I think a form of worship or some kind of "church service" is important in a good Christian fantasy is because of two reasons.
    The first is one that I have taken directly from the Bible: we are made to worship. God created us to worship Him. Why then should we not include a form of worshipful gathering in our Christian fantasy stories?
    Another reason is this: how can followers of your fictional "Christ figure" be unified with each other when they don't come together for fellowship once in a while? The Bible says that we are one body with many parts. What would happen to a body if the heart decided it wanted to be its own self? It would stop working, right?
    Well, those are just two of the reasons I could think of as to why we should include elements of fellowship and worship in our Christian fantasy stories. I'm sure there are many more reasons. I just can't think of them right now. ^_^
    Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions and disagreements in the comments below!

God bless,
Brian

NaNoWriMo 2012!!! A Month of Writing!

Hey, all!

    So, as I'm sure a lot of you writerly people out there already know, NaNoWriMo begins next month! And for you non-writerly people, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. The goal of NaNoWrimo is to write a novel (or a portion of a novel, if you would rather it be longer) that contains at least 50,000 words.

    I was involved in NaNoWriMo 2011, but I didn't win. I hope to succeed in writing all 50,000 words this year though. ^_^
    The novel that I am planning on doing this year is Point of Darkness, which will be my first supernatural horror to write. It will also be a standalone novel, so I'm hoping to get a total of 100,000 words.
    If you haven't checked out my Literary Endeavors page, I'll give a brief synopsis.

    Emma, an orphan, is transferred to a creepy orphanage in the middle of nowhere, Turn Around Point. It's run by a creepy old hag. When strange things start happening, she believes that the other orphans might be playing a trick on her - the newbie. But when, in the middle of the night, they awake and act like zombies, Emma begins to suspect that there's more going on than meets the eye.

    What do think? Is that a novel that you would read? Well, I really hope so, because I'm really excited to be writing it! :)
    So, are any of YOU participating in NaNoWriMo this year? Have you already stocked up on much-needed supplies?
    Please, leave a comment below! I love hearing from you! :)

God bless,
Brian

Book Cover of the Week - #7

    I'm really sorry that I've been slacking off on my Book Cover of the Week thing. But I'm back now, and that's what's important. ^_^

Anyway, I shall commence with the post.

The winner is................

By Darkness Hid - Book One in The Blood of Kings Trilogy by Jill Williamson

    I recently bought the entire trilogy and when book one came in, I seriously could not take my eyes off of the gorgeous cover. Jill Williamson is one lucky author to have such a beautiful set of books. I will be reading this series once I finish rereading The Berinfell Prophecies.

    Check out the rest of the books in this series: To Darkness Fled, and Fom Darkness Won.

You can watch the book trailer for the newest book, From Darkness Won, here.

God bless,

Brian

As per normal, feel free to comment below! I love to receive your thoughts and inputs on my posts!