Catholic Fiction

[Mark_Adderley]

It looks like you have a lovely novel there. However, homeschooling our kids over the last four years, my wife and I have both been struck with the total dearth of books for boys specifically. While girls will often read books with male protagonists, boys won’t often read books with female protagonists. This has been the mantra of middle-school teachers and parents of middle-school boys for as long as I’ve been paying attention–about twenty years.

On the age of the protagonist, I’d say that is hardly a rule. Catholic boys want to know what it’s like to be a Catholic man; when my boys play, they play at being grown-ups, not at being other children. And most movies made for children, rightly or wrongly, have adults for protagonists, even if they’re relatively young adults. I think there’s an important place for child-protagonists, but I think the world is big enough for adult-protagonists whom the children can imitate. Perhaps this is just a parenting philosophy–I don’t consider myself to be raising children, but to be raising people who will one day be adults,

 

[empther]

the total dearth of books for boys specifically. While girls will often read books with male protagonists, boys won’t often read books with female protagonists. This has been the mantra of middle-school teachers and parents of middle-school boys for as long as I’ve been paying attention-

That is 99% true.
However,
there is a notable exception. The Hunger Games trilogy. It has a female protagonist, but all the kids read it.

Of course, whether the protagonist, Katniss, can be described as a hero is debatable. She is undoubtedly brave, but her moral structure if any is rather obscure. Author Suzanne Collins, who is Catholic I read somewhere, mysteriously avoids exposing Katniss’s character other than her bravery as a soldier. You never get to know how she feels about human issues.

Want a challenge? Try writing a story about a female protagonist who is uncompromisingly good, whose personality is fully revealed in the book, and who is so brave in extreme situations even the boys will cheer her on!!! :extrahappy:

Now there’s Mission Impossible ! No wonder nobody has tried it.
Can it be done? We’ll see.

 

[Mark_Adderley]

Well, I’ve written a book with a female protagonist:

amazon.com/The-Hawk-Huntress-Mark-Adderley/dp/0978984080/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365117641&sr=8-1&keywords=hawk+and+the+huntress.

But its for a more mature audience (I’d say, at least sixteen years old, depending on the reader’s emotional maturity) and Nymve is far from perfect. It’s a story about forgiveness, so she has to do something that she can be forgiven for.

You’re right, of course, that such a perfect character would be difficult to write engagingly. Not many people nowadays enjoy reading about Galahad, who fits all the criteria except gender. There’s Fanny in “Mansfield Park,” of course, but I don’t particularly admire her–the girl who strives to get her own way doesn’t impress me much. Kind of like a grown-up little mermaid (movie, not story).

Cheers,
Mark Adderley.

 

[latingirl]

Not only did I write a series of books “The Misadventures of Cardinal Fratelli”, I made a blog about the main character from them that contains more humorous stuff. Not that it’s a great accomplishment of anything. I am still spending a lot of time trying to get exposure. I am glad to see I’m not the only one interested in Catholic fiction.

 

[empther]

Well, I’ve written a book with a female protagonist:

amazon.com/The-Hawk-Huntr…d+the+huntress.

But its for a more mature audience (I’d say, at least sixteen years old, depending on the reader’s emotional maturity) and Nymve is far from perfect. It’s a story about forgiveness, so she has to do something that she can be forgiven for.

I would not attempt a story about the Middle Ages, or Dark Ages. Years ago I became interested in Joan of Arc. I talked about her all over the internet. I found out that nobody was interested. The attitude was, “It happened a long time ago. Who cares?”

You’re right, of course, that such a perfect character would be difficult to write engagingly.

Theresa is not necessarily as perfect as St. Mary. But her faults if any have no place in the story and don’t interfere with her accomplishments.

If you want to call them faults, Theresa cries when things don’t go her way, she can become confused about what to do next, she can get discouraged sometimes and want to give up and go home. She’s not a robot. She feels and acts as any other 18 year old girl would in her situations. But she recovers, and goes on.

What’s difficult to pull off with a good character is that everybody today is conditioned by television and movies to want characters with “an edge”. It seems that screenwriters think they can’t make a character interesting unless they give their characters some fault to make the viewers bite their nails. Either that, or, they make their characters robots, people who triumph consistently over every challenge but who are one dimensional characters. You don’t know who these characters are.

After finishing the twelve hundred pages of The Hunger Games trilogy, I found myself wondering who Katniss was besides a brave soldier? What does she feel about God, human rights, democracy, human relationships etc etc etc. Not a clue in those twelve hundred pages. Suzanne Collins had a great gimmick, the games in which teenagers were forced to kill each other by dictators in a futuristic dystopic society, but if that’s all that will be remembered about the books I don’t think they’ll be read a hundred years from now.

 

[DaveBj]

This thread is kinda dormant, but I’ll just say that there is a lot of good information here, especially as regards Kindle publishing. It’s not difficult, but you have do have done all your proofreading and formatting homework in advance, although there is a point in the progress where the Kindle Direct Publishing site will give you a list of possible spelling errors. In my case, most of them were foreign-language words, but two of them were genuine uff-das.

As concerns formatting, I use WordPerfect, but WP will save in the .doc format of MSWord, and .doc is one of the formats that KDP accepts. Once I had resubmitted the file (after correcting my above-mentioned uff-das), the process let me review what the book looked like on my choice of simulated Kindle screens (for me, a replica of my own Kindle Keyboard). If you go this route, I highly recommend that you take the time to at least look at every page. What I found was that the formatting system hashed the bullets that I had used for a list (so I changed them to simple dashes), and that my paragraph indents were all over the place (because I had used tabs, so I did a global search-and-replace to exchange every tab for five spaces). Format-wise, the final version looks as good as most books that I read on Kindle, and better than some.

I had an art school graduate, a friend of my step-niece, do the cover art. Be sure that the picture file corresponds to the KDP requirements, and use a browser other than Internet Explorer to submit it (they recommend Firefox or Chrome). I’d include the pic, but I can’t figure out how to do it

My book is The Children of the Maker, a sci-fi “first-contact” story. It is not a specifically Catholic story, but the narrator-protagonist is Catholic, and his faith colors the decisions that he makes throughout the course of the story. The story is a look at what might happen if fallen humanity were to be discovered by another created race, much older and more technologically advanced than humanity, but one that had never experienced a “fall,” and therefore had no experience with deceit and evil. How would interacting with us affect them, and how would interacting with them affect us?

The book is written on a “PG” level. There is a little raw language, because unsavory characters must be seen as unsavory (no “F-bombs," and no vain uses of the names of Deity), but there is no sex, and the one portrayal of violence is reported second-hand. There is also no polemical discussion of Catholic doctrine; I wanted to write a story, not a sermon.

Happy writing, y’all!

 

[edwest2]

Speaking as someone with experience in the publishing field, a few observations:

There is a very simple formula for writing fiction. There is an encounter with a problem, the character, though not perfect, tries to come to grips with it, there is a second encounter which causes either physical or emotional pain but the lead character(s) work through it, learning as they go, followed by a third encounter that is even more serious, and which requires a little cleverness on the part of the author to make sure it isn’t predictable or simple or “I’ve read this before.” Finally, there is a last encounter where the problem is resolved in some way. Hopefully, in a clever - this makes sense - way.

Some young authors are drawn to the F-bomb or graphicness or gore or just “the dark.” Others are concerned that their fiction comes off as ‘too preachy.’ An almost natural reaction since saying anything positive about religion is a negative thing in the media today. All you need is to have the character say, “God help me.” in an appropriate situation, or something like “Call me after Church.” Or, “My brother is a priest.” Etc.

There are people out there living lives that are based on Biblical principles, imperfect as those people are. They don’t get much media coverage and most aren’t bragging about it. My company produces books that are PG-13. We understand the sensitivities of parents and the allure of the New Age. Our books aren’t preachy, but good is good - not perfect, and bad is bad.

I could relate strongly with the older science fiction in books, on TV and in movies. What Catholic writers need to add to their stories are signs that at least one character is taking his faith seriously, thinks about God and even goes to Church. He or she is not perfect, but their faith is a part of who they are and it should be presented that way. Nothing heavy-handed or preachy. And while temptation(s) may come, he or she decides to do the right thing instead. Or not. Only realizing later in the story that it was a mistake. A mistake that can be fixed.

Peace,
Ed