Tools for Writers

More than perhaps in any other genre, many readers who love Christian speculative fiction would also like to become writers of Christian speculative fiction.

And why not? If we have tasted the power of what this kind of novel can do, why wouldn't we want to harness that power ourselves? Surely we have a story to tell and a strange world we have imagined. So why not take others along?

A Signpost in the Wilderness

I have arranged this section of the Web page around the following five subsections:

  1. Books and Conferences for Improving Your Writing

  2. Getting Your Novel Published—A large and detailed article on the entire process of publication, with several subtopic pages that spin off from the main article (see the full list of subtopics below)

  3. Fiction Writing Tips—Read these tips from beginning to end for a great education on the craft of fiction

  4. Editorial Services—Sometimes it just helps to get professional help with your novel; read this page to learn about the WhereTheMapEnds editorial services

  5. Idea Starters, World Builders and Name & Language Tools —To help spark your creativity and build your amazing worlds (don't miss the Random Story Generator)

Writing and Publishing Subtopics

The large article, "The Biz," covers a wide array of subtopics of interest to the aspiring speculative novelist. Those subtopics are:

Worlds We've Yet To See

WhereTheMapEnds boasts an extensive listing of Christian speculative fiction for you to read. But I suspect you are here on this page because you're possessed of the same notion I couldn't get out of my head before I published my first novel.

"Yes," you say, "those novels are wonderful. I've read many of them and fully enjoyed them. But there's one problem: nobody has told exactly the story I want to read. Some have gotten close, but there's a world I want to see that no one is describing. There's a tale I need told that apparently no one else knows. So I'm just going to have to write it myself!"

If those are the words resounding in your head, you're in the right place. We need you to learn your craft to its highest potential and we need you to understand publishing, because, frankly, we need your story. Lovers of Christian speculative fiction are poorer than they could be because they have not had the opportunity to explore your understanding of what lies in the space marked terra incognita on the map.

Some of the most exciting speculative ideas I've ever seen have been in unpublished manuscripts. It is my joy as editor and acquisitioner to encounter thousands of proposals and manuscripts by aspiring novelists. Some of them, for sundry reasons, I wasn't able to get published at the time, but the ability of their authors to imagine fantastic worlds was never in question.

In these unpublished works I have seen lizard men who served the Lord and underwater cities teeming with intelligent life. I have seen an alternate medieval church that had to wrestle with the idea of whether or not elves have eternal souls. I have seen a young woman catapulted forward to a time when all knowledge of God has been lost. I have seen a man teleported to an alternate universe. I have seen a woman transported back in time to where now only castle ruins stand.

I have seen children who speak with beings that hold the universe together with thread. I have seen a man who returned from hell with a demon still after his soul. I have seen a detective use a time machine to investigate in person the claims of Christ. I have seen a young woman who can visit other people's souls, the starship Evangel in stardock, and the immortal Apostle John riding a whale.  

You, dear Christian speculative author, are the one who goes to the unexplored land for the benefit of the rest of us. You stand at the threshold of the unknown and describe for us what you see. You show us, dear friend, what lies beyond where the map ends.

And it is on these pages where I hope I can help equip you to get your skills and your manuscripts and your knowledge to the place where you can succeed in bringing your stories to the reading public. Because we need them. We need you.

It is my hope that you, intrepid explorer, will leave these pages better equipped to chart out and report back for us what you see beyond where the map ends.