This includes any blog posts I’ve written about writing practices (how to write better, writing lifestyle tips and so forth).
It probably goes without saying that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien changed fantasy with their works. While a lot has been written about their works, a lot less has been said about other Inklings like Charles Williams and Owen Barfield, or about the fantasy writers who were influenced by them. Writers like Walter Wangerin, Robert …
Continue reading Great Fantasy Writers (Who Aren’t CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien)
Frederick Buechner died yesterday. I haven't had the chance to read many of his works yet, but I discovered him in a class where we read "Faith and Fiction," where I discovered this line: The danger, I suppose, is that you start out with the idea that sainthood is something people achieve, that you get …
When I helped lead a presentation for Inkling Folk Fellowship on William Lindsay Gresham's novel Nightmare Alley, there were some sub-topics I wasn't sure would come up. There was a chance we would talk about the movie Shadowlands, or about how Gresham's spiritual journey compared to C.S. Lewis' spiritual journey. Since the 1947 movie Nightmare …
Continue reading What Makes a Noir Novel? Considering Nightmare Alley
Today, I was part of a presentation by Inkling Folk Fellowship about Nightmare Alley, a bestselling noir novel by William Lindsay Gresham recently made into a film by Guillermo del Toro. Readers familiar with Shadowlands, the movie about C.S. Lewis' marriage to Joy Davidman Gresham, may know that William Gresham was her first husband. Gresham's …
In my first "sidetrails" post, I talked about how the sentimental stories that truly survive are ones with something substantial behind them. The flipside of that is so many sentimental stories lack substance and don't survive, and many even enter a weird zone. Peruse the romantic-comedy/family melodrama/faith-based fiction section of your bookstore (or streaming service) …
A couple of weeks ago, I released a "Concluding Thoughts" post about a recent series, and said that "most artworks can’t cover all reality." Every piece of art has a theme or message - sometimes defined by the medium, sometimes intentional, and sometimes an unplanned message that evolves as the work progresses. From a moral …
Continue reading The Omen, Left Behind and the Value of Complexity (Sidetrails Pt 3)
In the last few blog posts of my series on how evangelicals differ from high church Christians on entertainment, I’ve discussed several trends. I’ve talked about how suburban values inform evangelical institutions, how high church liturgy encourages a recognition of sin that evangelicals often miss, and other related ideas. Many of these ideas have been …
In a recent post about "kid-friendly entertainment," I pointed out that for a certain audience, "Christian art" and "family-friendly" automatically go together. You can also use the term "sentimental," or "inspirational" to describe that kind of art, which dominates faith-based films and Christian Romance novels. There are several reasons why "Christian" and "family-friendly" don't always …
Continue reading Sentimentality and Substance (Sidetrails 1)
I recently finished a 7-part series on why evangelical Christians have often struggled to create good art, compared to Christians who come from high church traditions (Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, etc.). I will discuss a few points (such as the need for art that captures "the thinginess of things") in more detail in "sidetrail" …
Continue reading Why Do High Churches Get All the Good Artists: Concluding Thoughts
The following is part of a series on American evangelicals, considering why American Christian artists who produce high quality work tend to Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox or other high church denominations. Several years ago, I was in a Christian college's creative writing class where everyone had to write a novella on a topic of their choice. Since …
G. Connor Salter 