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OK, without taking much rest from the Waltz, Dan looks around to see if anyone’s wandering back in – I haven’t had a chance to see if anyone’s noticed my tardy replies... can’t get online from the passenger seat of my minivan unfortunately <g>, I’ll jump right back out onto the dance floor and begin a... hmm... someone give me another dance move... ah, The Hokey Pokey. Putting my right hand in...

That was a key revelation to me - Dave’s reaction to finishing Hunter. Basically, Ian Merchant started his career as a Stephen King, but in the end as more of a Jack Ketchum (equally talented, but with much, much darker themes and violence). That was what drove him to think there must be something more. Not sure what to say more on this point. I just liked learning this was a catalyst.

Ian moves from fiction to fact, a theme covered extensively by. To add a little – we, as Christian writers, have an interesting perspective, or maybe it’s a calling, in our writing. Our fiction must be interesting, entertaining, but must also offer some facts of salvation, somewhere, even symbolic. (The debate on this is one of the biggies within the F*I*F world so I’ll just skirt by it <g>). Ian, having done a Girl Next Door style book (see Ketchum reference), has finally moved past where he’s comfortable that he now, after his baptism, has gone to the other extreme – non-fiction. He needs to stay in truth, because truth is what he’s looking for and until he does he won’t be able to go further and play around with fiction again. Peter Ray calls his work a testimony, says he needs to hear this kind of thing spoken. I really like Peter Ray. Dave I hope you do write his story some day.

OK, here’s a line important to all Christians, and to us scribes when it comes to our writing:

“...through Jesus, there doesn’t have to be any more terror.” Amen. Loved that line.

End of horror – perhaps there is no more terror for us, and for me, writing through my fears doesn’t seem as real since my own perspective has changed, my own “lack of terror” of the world since I gave my life to Christ. But it doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy going on a roller coaster. People love a thrill. Of course, trying to scare other Christians who – one hopes – also have that newfound (or long ago lost) lack of this world-terror, you have to come at it differently. Sure, you could use that old stand by (and quite real) baddie Satan/Molech/Zebub.... but in general, how does one write horror in the Christian market, how can you really scare the crap out of the Sealed Ones? Eh, I don’t know. I kind of hoped the answer would come as I wrote the question. <g> Oh, wait, here it is. You don’t. You only creep them out as best you can, and truly scare the ones who don’t know better (yet), who might read your book, then turn to the more God-centered messages you’ve planted in the story for comfort. The Baptist reading about your mummy-stalking-the-girl-beside-the-pyramid story will think, “Hmm, a demon’s possessed that poor bandaged person – he mustn’t have gotten baptized when he was 12”, but Joe Schmoe picking up your books will still think, “Ah! Ah! A walking Mummy! Run!!! Why is she picking up a Bible?? Run, woman!!!!” There’s always someone who will be scare-able in the world. Disclaimer – yea, I know. Mummies aren’t that scary. But like everyone else in the world, I like to pretend they are because they look cool.

Back to ES, I think an extended flashback, or perhaps a prologue – no, not a prologue, we don’t know the characters enough yet, maybe an interlude half-way – of Ian’s conversion and baptism by Howard, would have been good. I did find myself, with SO much reference to that event, really wishing I could have experienced it with the main character to fully understand what happened, where he’s coming from now.

Mark’s note that one of the differences with Ezekiel’s Shadow is that conversion is the central element of the story, rather than tacked on at the end is a very good one. And to the point that there’s nothing wrong with primary / sympathetic characters who are either unsaved or “non-evangelical” – amen. To keep it real, you need to have characters which you like enough to want them to come to Christ, but who don’t, for one of the billion reasons people don’t. Another thing I liked, in the keeping-it-real category in this book, the very active sex life of Ian and Rebecca. Obviously, there aren’t any graphic scenes, but we walk along the hall with them up until the bedsprings creak. They’re happy (at least now) together, and why not have them celebrate – and they do, often. I could have done without Ian taking his shoes and socks off in that one scene. Call me weird, but other guys’ feet gross me out... :-)

Dan Keohane
www.dankeohane.com