Symbolism—Day 5

A little FYI’ing first.

The 2006 Christy Awards were announced Saturday night at the ICRS banquet. The winners are as follows:

Contemporary – Dale Cramer, Levi’s Will (BHP)
Contemporary Series – Vanessa Del Fabbro, The Road to Home (Steeple Hill)
Historical – Liz Curtis Higgs, Whence Came a Prince (Waterbrook)
Suspense – Athol Dickson, River Rising (BHP)
Romance – Deeanne Gist, A Bride Most Begruding (BHP)
Visionary – Karen Hancock, Shadow Over Kiriath (BHP)
First Novel – Nicole Mazzarella, This Heavy Silence (Paraclete)

Congratulations to each winner.

I can’t help but add a note regarding Karen Hancock’s award—her fourth in as many books. That is an incredible achievement, I think. It means that Hancock has sustained her level of excellence, and even extended it as the competition gets stiffer.

The sad truth, or maybe the happy truth for other spec fic writers, is that there will be no Hancock award in 2007 because her next book won’t be published in time. That will break an impressive and well-deserved run.

Also in the FYI category, Janey DeMeo, another of our Christian SFF blog tour participants has added her comments in support of fantasy and of DragonKnight. You might want to check out Janey’s News.

Symbolism.

In response to Friday’s post, Mirtika Schultz of the fine blog Mirathon, said

I think we can use Biblical allusions and assume MOST folks don’t get it.

I suspect she is right. So should Christian writers eschew the use of Biblical symbols and allusions? That, of course, is one option. Any use of symbols or allusions would be connected to contemporary or historical culture sans Christianity—9/11, Pearl Harbor, “I have a dream”; or a flower, a dolphin, a crystal.

Another is to use only the Biblical symbols and/or allusions that would be familiar to the majority—parting the Red Sea, eating the apple, killing the giant; or a manger, a cross, a stone tablet of the Decalogue.

A third option is to dispense with symbols and allusions and concentrate on story—write to entertain, to provide a few moments of escapism. I think of this as the Nancy Drew approach to fiction, and I don’t mean that in an insulting way. Many a reader got hooked on stories via Nancy Drew.

The fourth way of handling Biblical symbols and/or allusions is to search for ones that are central to the story. Searching, not in some superficial way, but in a thoughtful way that causes me as a writer to dig to understand what God is saying through His Word, first and foremost to me. It is as I allow Scripture to influence and affect me that I become passionate about sharing the insight and understanding I’m gaining.

If I choose this last route, it is with the understanding that I might be the only one who “gets” the symbols I am including. But the thing about symbols, they sort of become like buried treasure. Onces readers get a whiff that something’s there to be found, they start unearthing all kinds of things.

So it seems to me, one part of including symbols is to tip your hand, ever so slightly. Like beginning your novel with a line like “Call me Ishmael.”