If the Bible was Submitted for Publication… (1 Samuel 31) - (A Seriously Write Blog Post)

I attended a Christian writers conference a few years ago. It was the first one for me. They had a contest wherein writers who wished to do so could submit the first three chapters of a manuscript prior to the conference. The submissions were subsequently handed off to faculty members when they arrived. The manuscripts samples were read, scored, and were given back to the attendees when they registered. The winners in each category were honored on the last evening of the conference.

I thought to myself, “My writing is pretty tight. I have a good chance.” So, I paid my contest fee, sent in my first three chapters, and waited. 

When I arrived at the conference, I received my manuscript packet. Inside, my three chapters were stapled together with a cover sheet from the editor of a publishing house who was charged with the reading of my work. This editor—being honest, I’m sure—wrote on the form, in the comment section these words: “Not suited for Christian market. Submit to general market.”

As you can imagine, I walked away a little discouraged. Borderline depressed, actually. What I thought was good writing for the CBA market had just been annihilated in nine words. As I walked away, I wondered why I was there. If my work is not suited for the CBA, then why stay at a Christian writers conference?

I wanted a reason. A note. A critique of how this conclusion was reached. But there were no comments about the level of the writing itself. No words of encouragement. No critique whatsoever. Just the editor’s name, the publishing house represented, and the comment.

Because there was no reason given, I had to speculate, and that’s the worst thing to do when you’re depressed and discouraged. I concluded that people having affairs and subsequently getting eaten by giant sea serpents didn’t fit the scope of the bonnet and buggy crowd. And, I thought, because this editor only got to read the first three chapters and not the entire manuscript, the redeeming value of the story was missed.

Now, here I sit, reading the last chapter in 1 Samuel. A book in the Bible, no less. And the gore depicted in this story rivals, probably exceeds, anything I’ve written.

This chapter describes the demise of King Saul. The Philistines had already killed his sons, and now, Saul asks his armor-bearer to “run him through” with his sword so that his enemies cannot torture him. Saul’s armor-bearer refuses, so Saul takes his own sword and commits suicide. Terrified, the armor-bearer does the same thing.

The carnage didn’t stop there. The Philistines went through the region, occupying towns and taking any and all possessions. They even raided the dead bodies fallen on the battlefield. When they come across King Saul and his three sons, they stripped them of their armor, then beheaded Saul’s dead body. They sent news via messengers throughout the land, no doubt, using Saul’s head as the proverbial king’s seal of authenticity.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Saul’s armor was taken, along with his body, to the Philistine temple of Ashtoreth. There, his armor was put in the temple (v. 10). And to top it all off, Saul’s body was fastened to the wall as a sign to the worshippers that Ashtoreth was supposedly greater than the God of Israel.

This was reprehensible to the people of Jabesh Gilead, so they entered the temple, removed Saul’s body, burned it, and then buried the bones (vv. 11-12).

I guess God should have written this for the general market.

Oh, wait. He did.

Hmmm…

And therein lies the rub.

As a writer, it’s easy to write Christian novels that ooze with Christianese and always end “happily ever after.” Everybody gets saved, finds God, gets filled with the Holy Spirit, wins the girl of his dreams, finds the man of her dreams, or whatever. When I say “easy,” I mean Christian publishers always look for these kinds of stories because they sell. But interestingly enough, that’s not how the Bible was written. Yes, there are the romantic suspense stories of the Ruths of the Bible. There are the dramatic stories of the Marys. However, the Bible doesn’t contain those kind of stories only. God chose to write stories depicting people, godly people at times, with all their spiritual warts, psychological scars, and psychopathic tendencies. Sometimes, committing horrendous atrocities.

And the most important thing to remember is that God wrote the Bible so that others could be saved.

Imagine that. People can get saved reading about violence and sin…so long as the violence has a redeeming purpose and sin is sin.

So, for those of you who write stories that don’t involve Amish women or historical figures of the wild west who hate each other in the beginning (but you know they’ll end up together), take heart. There is a place for your story in the plan of God…so long as there is a redeeming purpose in the pages. So, be patient and keep writing. God will take care of the rest.

Oh, and by the way, about those first three chapters I mentioned earlier…they were the first three chapters of my debut novel, The Serpent’s Grasp. This novel won the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference’s 2013 Selah Award for Fiction-First Novel and was a finalist in Foreword Review’s 2012 Book of the Year Awards in the Science Fiction category.

A publisher picked it up at that same conference referenced above.

It was a good thing I stayed, huh?

To see this article on the Seriously Write website, click on the following link: Click HERE!

The Author Behind the Story Series - Darlene Franklin

Well, school's about the start down here in the south. From August 10th on, you will hear collective cheers as parents drop off their children and head for the closest Starbucks. It's amazing how school has become a surrogate babysitter, helping the sanity of many a parent stay intact.
"You're Welcome."

So, for you southern parents, I've got something you may want to read while you're sipping on your caramel macchiato with no whip. (For you northern parents, you have about a month left. So, go lock yourself in the bathroom with your iPad, and you too can read this.)

Everyone, please welcome to my Florida front porch, author Darlene Franklin!

Hi, Darlene! Can you give us a quick bio. In fifty words or less, who is Darlene Franklin?

My bio proudly brags that I write full-time from a nursing home! I have found my situation to be the best catalyst for growth that I’ve experienced for a long time. I’m also a reader, a mother and grandmother, a church musician, who loves to color pictures and do word search puzzles. I guess that’s more than 50 words.

Before you ever got a notion of becoming a writer/author, how old were you, and what were you doing in that time of your life?

Do you mean before I included “writer” as a potential occupation when I was only 10 years old? That doesn’t quite count, because I sincerely believed I would be a missionary to Mexico as an adult.

I began writing daily when I was in my thirties, in the wake of a nasty divorce.

What educational background do you have?

I graduated from Cony High School in Augusta, Maine. After that I went to Northeastern Bible College and Southwestern Baptist Seminary.  I had been told that the most important qualification for a missionary was to know God’s Word. I had a double major in college—Bible/theology and music. I loved both subjects, but it left my other coursework very limited. At seminary I started out in music and switched to religious education.

The training definitely prepared for the ministries God has called me to. (I have been involved with missions to a limited extent, just not the way I hoped or envisioned.)  Nor have I been a preschool teacher or a Minister to Children. But I have always been involved with church music (became church pianist when I was twelve.) I started teaching children’s Sunday school when I was only fifteen.

So when I began writing, I wrote curriculum for children’s church and Sunday school. I’ve also written more than three hundred devotionals. Bible study is one of my passions!

I’m going to give you a shotgun list of favorites. List your favorite in each category and then tell us in one sentence why it is your favorite.

Favorite Food: rare steaks and hot caramel sundaes—but not together. Probably because I can’t get them by myself in a nursing home!

Favorite Drink: Most often drink: diet coke. Favorite drink: apple cider. I have rarely had good cider since Maine after high school.

Favorite Song: Any number of hymns! Of contemporary praise songs, songs like Blessed Be the Name and He Reins. I studied church music in college and played piano in church since I was twelve.

Favorite Non-Fiction Book (other than your own & besides the Bible): Almost anything by Philip Yancey. I really relate to his approach.

Favorite Bible Verse: Romans 8:37-39 hands down. God loves me. Period. No matter what.

Favorite Movie: Beyond Lord of the Rings? Different movies for different times. Top favs: Fiddler on the Roof, Field of Dreams, Princess Bride, Casablanca.

Favorite Actor or Actress: I have never disappointed by Leonardo DiCaprio or Meryl Streep. About the time I watched (???), I realized DiCaprio kept surprising me.

Favorite Novel (other than your own): Whip Hand by Dick Francis. The most suspense-filled novel (without being horror) and character driven story I have ever read. 

Favorite Novelist (other than you): Dick Francis, Charles Dickens. I waited with baited breath for Francis’s annual books. Unfortunately, they’re both dead.

Favorite Sport: baseball. I fell in love with baseball during the Colorado Rockies first season.

Favorite Team (Can be any sport, any level): Denver Broncos and the OKC Thunder. Regional affiliations—and the satisfaction of finally winning the Super Bowl!

Favorite Subject in School Growing Up: Music, Spanish, English. I did well in everything, but science and math was head learning and not heart learning.

Favorite Subject Now: Bible study and history. The passions drive my writing, not the other way around.

Favorite Teacher in School: Perhaps my Spanish teacher, who wanted me to become a translator. I grew up in Maine, where Spanish isn’t the second language. (French is.)

Favorite Time of the Year: Spring. New beginnings and the end of winter before summer’s heat

Favorite Place to Vacation:  The mountains. Oh, my beloved Colorado!

If you had one person you could meet (think outside the Bible here) and could spend as much time as you wanted with that individual, who would it be?

Maybe Mother Theresa—who was she before she became “Mother Theresa,” world-renowned spiritual leader? What led her to India? How did she keep going during the early years, when it must have so difficult?

If you had one person you could meet (think ONLY Bible characters here) and could spend as much time as you wanted with that individual, who would it be besides Jesus?

I might say Deborah—her take on the role of women in the history of faith! Or Abraham and Sarah, for the belief-defying faith. But actually I’d like to chat with Leah. She astounds  me. Jacob didn’t care about her at all, but she gave her sons names that resonate with hope. By the time it came to boy # four, she called him Judah, or praise. “This time I will praise God.” Unspoken: Even if Jacob still doesn’t love me. How did she do it?

Besides the usual things authors face, has there been an unusual event that changed your perspective about being an author?

My daughter’s suicide in 2008 was the first in a series of collapses that radically changed the direction of my career. I lost my daughter, my beloved Colorado, a job I loved, my mother, my health—my independence. I ended up in a nursing home.

As if that wasn’t enough of a challenge, the publisher I had written for stopped publishing. I wondered if God intended for me to stop writing. He didn’t. Instead, my career has exploded beyond anything I could have imagined!

I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter. But God is good, and He always proves faithful, doesn't He? What’s the craziest thing you have ever done?

       

One of my craziest things was traveling by bus from Mexico City, where I had been a summer missionary, to my parent’s home in Maine by bus. I traveled everywhere by bus in those days.

We know “Readers are leaders, and leaders are readers.” Is there a book you’ve read in the past five years or so that has helped you become a better you? If so, which one was it, and how did it affect your life?

This is and isn’t my work. I was hired to write prayers to accompany the text to the upcoming 12 Month Guide to Better Prayer for Women. The texts, by prayer giants such as Andrew Murray and EM Bounds, challenged me and taught me so much. As I studied, I found my prayer life profoundly changed.

What Bible scripture has impacted your life the most, and why?

Romans 8:37-39.  God loves me. Period. I am free to live and not be afraid of my failures.

Darlene, it's been a pleasure to have you on Florida front porch! Where can folks find you out there in cyberland?

Here's my Website and blog. Here's my Facebook page as well as my Amazon author page. 

Also, my Twitter handle is @darlenefranklin.

Again, thanks so much for allowing our readers a chance to get to know you better.

Reader, Until next month, May God Bless You, and may you Bless God!

Kevin

www.ckevinthompson.com

Check out Kevin's latest book!