Writing and Representation

For people wondering why I am intensely interested in writing fantasy (as you can probably tell from just reading a few of these blog posts), here are some clarifications.

Well, to put it simply, I love it. Fantasy is my favorite genre of fiction, and has been for a long, long time now. I read fantasy almost constantly, and enjoy the possibilities and intricacies of the genre immensely.

For those of you who don't know, what my friends and I have done is created a fantasy universe with an overarching story in which to separately write different books in said universe. We all have our separate novels and series' planned, all set in the same galaxy and connecting to the larger story.

And we have magic. Contrary to popular belief, magic in fiction is not evil. Obviously, magic in the real world is a bad thing, because God expressly forbids it--and because there are demons behind it. But "magic" in the fantasy setting we've created (and almost every fantasy setting ever created) is simply a way of having the characters do things that normal people can't do. It isn't evil--it's simply a part of their world.

Now, there are demons in the setting as well. They aren't really demons in the real sense of the word, rather a race of beings that was corrupted by the main baddie of the universe, a guy we named Chaos. But these demons represent the real thing, and are an active and dangerous part of the universe, tempting and corrupting people. It is established very early on that these demons are evil, and the powers they give people are also evil.

The premise of the story is a battle between Good and Evil. The fine details of the plot have yet to be put in stone, but the basic story revolves around this battle. "God", as in the real God that is the Creator of our universe, is not in this galaxy (at least, I don't think so, we haven't actually ironed out the details yet), but we have set up our books to be allegories (though very subtle ones) about different spiritual truths and moral problems.

For example, one of the worlds in the galaxy has a type of magic that revolves around truth and lies. The basis of the novel written on that world is going to be focused on the morality of truth. My own series, The Proanadi, is built to be a representation of the journey of redemption, along with a lot of other spiritual truths about friendship, revenge, and other things.

As a Christian, I understand that the only thing that really matters in this world is serving Jesus, serving others, and telling others about Jesus. And I want to do this by writing books. I want to give people good entertainment, but get them thinking about spiritual truths and moral issues, as well as allegories that represent things about Jesus and other spiritual things. And I want to write fiction in which the junk that permeates our society now is nonexistent. I want to show people that you can write books without swearing and sex scenes. And that it will actually be better without it.

But that's just me.