Related articles and links |  1 of 3

Dear John: Enclosed you will find my editing comments for the first few chapters of your book. Overall, it looks great! Your story has wonderful suspense (will the Pharisees manage to kill the protagonist or not?), a sense of mystery (the miracles are fascinating, though a couple, like raising people from the dead, strain credibility), and lots of good characterization (all those wise sayings of Jesus make for great sound bites; we'll use some on the flap). It's going to cause quite a stir in the Christian bookstores, though it will probably have only limited crossover potential in the secular stores. It should get rave reviews in CBA Marketplace and Moody.

There are a couple of problems, however, that we need to work through.

Structure. Right off, consider deleting the entire opening section. All that "In the beginning was the Word" stuff is confusing, abstract, and sure to make the average reader say, "Huh? What's going on here?" As you probably know, storytellers have always used the technique of starting in medias res—that is, in the middle of the story. (Have you read John Grisham?) I recommend you begin chapter 1 with John the Baptist's interrogation by the Pharisees. It's so intense! And it gets the reader hooked right away.

Scene. In your writing you tend to emphasize character at the expense of developing the scene. For instance, where does John's encounter with the Pharisees take place? What kind of day is it? Are there mosquitoes and that kind of thing? Only after the dialogue ends do you mention that it takes place "in the desert, near Bethany, on the other side of the Jordan." Let's beef up that section and move it to the front as exposition so the reader will have more of a sense of locale. Don't be afraid to make the reader sweat; after all, it's a desert.

Dialogue. You really need to work on your dialogue. I recommend you read Hemingway to see how a true master handles it. Your characters speak all these great, dramatic lines, but they sound so stagy and formal, as when John says, "I am the voice of one calling in the desert." It certainly has a bell-like tone, but people just don't talk that way. You've already characterized John as a kind of wild man (have you read Iron John?), so why doesn't he speak like one? Remember, he's a vagrant, really, an outcast. He goes around in sandals and animal skins. It will help your development of his character if you have him say, instead, something like, "Hey, I'm shoutin' my fool head off out here and nobody's listenin'!" See what I mean? It's so much gutsier. It portrays his frustration and his colloquial way of talking.

Market sensitivities. First of all, the mention of wine at the Cana wedding will be a problem in our market. Wouldn't the scene work equally well with some other beverage? I recently attended a wedding at which nonalcoholic punch was served. Though I have no objection to wine personally, we are sure to get angry letters from readers if we leave the reference in.

Also, in the opening section you refer to Jesus as having been conceived by the Holy Spirit and not by "human decision or a husband's will." Many readers will find that sexual innuendo tasteless, and it should probably come out. (We have to be extra careful in our romance novels on that score.)

Similarly, I'm surprised that Jesus, in chapter 8, doesn't deal a little more harshly with the "woman taken in adultery." I know you want to portray his compassion, but the fact that she gets off scot-free will leave us open to the charge that you (the author) and we (the publisher) are tacitly condoning her sin. As it stands, parents would have a hard time sharing this book with their teenagers, wouldn't they? Isn't the whole point of Christian stories that evil people get punished?

next page... |  1 of 3

share this page

July 13 1998, Vol. 42, No. 8