The fearful struggle’s ended now, and peace smiles on our land
And though we’ve yielded, we have proved ourselves a faithful band.
We fought them long, we fought them well, we fought them night and day
And bravely struggled for our rights while wearin’ of the Gray!

And now that we have ceased to fight and pledged our sacred word
That we against the Union’s might no more will draw the sword
We feel despite the sneers of those who never smelled the fray
That we’ve a manly honest right to wearin’ of the Gray.

Our Cause is lost, no more we fight ‘gainst overwhelmin’ power.
All wearied are our limbs and drenched with many a battle shower.
We feign would rest for want of strength and yield them up the day
And lower the flag so proudly borne while wearin’ of the Gray.

Defeat is not dishonor; No, of honor not bereft.
We should thank God that in our breast this priceless boon is left.
And though we weep just for those braves who stood in proud array
Beneath our flag and nobly died while wearin’ of the Gray.

When in the ranks of war we stood and faced the deadly hail
Our simple suits of Gray composed our only coats of mail.
And on those awful hours that marked the bloody battle day
In memory we will still be seen a wearin’ of the Gray.

Oh, should we reach that glorious place where waits the sparklin’ crown
For everyone who for the right his soldier’s life lay down,
God grant to us the privilege upon that happy day
Of clasping hands with those who fell a wearin’ of the Gray.

Today I was discussing the battle flag with a few people who are screaming to have it removed from a place where all the flags which have flown over Augusta in its history, from the 1500 's until today.
The flag in question is the 2nd National flag of the Confederacy: a white banner with St Andrews cross in the union. Beautiful flag, by the way!
These folks, mostly preachers, admitted the flag has some historical significance. But they think that since the KKK has adopted it as a symbol everyone should see it as an emblem of hate.
In their words, "the fact that such a group uses it ought to be enough for you to see that it is racist in intentions now."
I asked them how many of them had crosses in their churches. All of them did. When I pointed out that the Klan also used the cross as one of their symbols they all said with one accord: "Well, that's different!"
How is it different, except that no one ever burned St Andrews Cross in anyone's yard as a gesture of terrorism.
What it boils down to is that things are always "different" if they do not conform to one's own perspectives.

HAUNTED FIELDS

 

Come with me in search of ghosts;

Our country's long lost spectral hosts,

They wore the Blue, they wore the gray. . .

Their generation's toll to pay.

Upon these fields that I have trod,

With names once only known to God

I've heard mothers softly weeping,

Seen the widows lonely sleeping,

Felt the Nation's heart Blood seeping. . .

And known that I was not alone.

 

Devil's Den, the deadly tangle,

Hornet's Nest, and Bloody Angle,

The Dunker Church in September morn,

Farmer Miller's field of corn,

A clump of trees against the sky,

Where Pickett's men set out to die,

Franklin's field, and Malvern Hill. . .

Of Southern blood have drunk their fill.

 

Fredericksburg, and Hatcher's Run,

Cold Harbor's dead in the summer sun,

Ironclad gun decks deep in gore,

The Alabama laid on the ocean floor,

Shenandoah Valley red with flame. . .

All Georgia curses Sherman's name.

At Kennesaw Mountain, and Wilson's Creek. .

Vultures fed 'mid death's foul reek.

 

Glorietta Pass, and Harper's Ferry,

Chattanooga's ridge—called Missionary,

Leggett's Hilt, and Kelly's Ford,

Guiney Station where Stonewall met his Lord,

Olustee wood, and Bloody Pond,

 

Sumter's ruins, Palmetto Frond;

 Chancellorsville, and Snodgrass Hill, . .

Plowshares're turning up bones still.

 

Morris Island, and Crampton's Gap,

The Wilderness homestead of Widow Tapp,

Appomattox; death knell of a Nation,

Brice's Crossroads, and Brandy Station,

Fort Pulaski's battered walls,

Beauvior's haunted, holy halls,

Okolona, where Jeffrey Forrest fell. . .

Brother's grief and fury no tongue can tell.

 

Marye's Height drenched in red,

With Irish flags above the dead,

Fort Fisher's blasted, pitted sand,

Hampton Roads—Congress and Cumberland,

Chantilly's blinding rain and lightning flash,

There Kearney made his final dash.

Spring Hill, Nashville, and The Crater. . .

Of war's dark, folly, what blunders greater?

 

Forts Henry, Donelson, and Champion's Hill,

Stone's River, and Perryville,

 Shiloh's silent, unknown graves,

The Monitor's hulk beneath the waves,

Andersonville and the martyred Wirz

(Elmira held its' equal hurts),

Spotsylvanla's bloody mire.  .  .

Where Sedgewick scoffed the marksman's fire.

 

The Sunken Road heaped with, slain,

Burnside's Bridge, Manassas Plain,

The Seven Days, Resaca, and New Hope Church,

Mobile Bay and Farragut's lofty perch,

Vicksburg, New Market, and V.M.I.,

Tredegar and Selma in ruins lie,

Columbia's ashes blown in the wind. . .

Our common heritage—and graves to tend.

 

One place more sacred than all the rest,

Where sleeps a sad, lost Nation's best,

Silent reverence, bended knee. .  .

Before the marble tomb of Lee.

Though memories fade and Peace our lot,

Let not these Battles be forgot.

Lit by the dawn of eternal suns. . .

Faded banners, silent guns.

 

THE SOUTHERN DEAD

 

 

The Southern dead are sleeping

        in a thousand Southern glens . . .

The moss and willows beckon

        with the breath of Southern winds.

 

Though the blood-stained cross of St. Andrew

        is tattered now and furled,

they bore it high on every field

        and o’er every ocean of the world.

 

It wasn’t through their failing

        that the gleaming turned to rust;

and the dreaming of a Nation

        is enshrined within their dust.

 

Some would have their deeds forgotten,

        their monuments swept away. . .

But while Southern blood flows in our veins

        those knaves will never see that day.

 

Teach your children of the stories

        of battles fought and won;

keep memory’s light a-burning bright

        till Southern rivers cease to run.

 

The Southern dead are sleeping

 

 

THE RE-ENACTOR

 

 

For the time that I last, I shall live in the past

        and remember the world’s fading glories;

the battles, and hero’s, and songs that were sung,

        and the nearly forgotten old stories.

 

Though I’ve earned not a cent for the time I have spent

        (and to many, that’s surely a mystery),

I now recreate a time that was great,

        in our nation’s own turbulent history.

 

Some call it a game, and some say “Oh, for shame!”

        To the unknowing, a useless vocation.

But I’ve shouldered a gun in the blistering sun

        and shivered at morning formation.

 

In my jacket of gray, I strive to portray

        the private Confederate soldier;

though I taste not of death, not the cannon’s fierce breath

        I shall not let his memory molder.

 

When I’m finally called in to account for my sin

        and receive my Saviour’s just sentence. . .

The prayer on my breath, as I slip into death

        will be,”God, save the Southland forever!”

 

 

 

ON SEMINARY RIDGE

written at Gettysburg Pa on July 3^rd, 2002

 

 

In the pale light of dawning,

        the mist swirls ‘round the trees

and the green leaves are rustled

        by a warm Southern breeze;

in bronze upon granite-- forever to stand

        Lee and Traveler look over the land.

 

As I stood all alone in the clearing,

        in the shadow of Virginia’s brave sons

and gazed out across that dread valley,

        I could almost hear the enemy’s guns.

The chill bumps arose, and a tear dimmed my eye

        as I thought of our soldiers

who marched there to die.

 

I walked down the slope

        toward the Emmitsburg Road

where the red seeds of Southern valor were sowed;

        the silence was eerie; the breezes had stilled,

then the grass gently rippled, and my heart nearly chilled.

        For I knew that around me, unseen and unheard:

the spirits of gray-clad warriors stirred.

 

I knew naught of fear, for their cause was my own,

        but I felt out of place as I stood there alone.

Unworthy to tread where their battle flags flew

        I retraced my footsteps in the soft grassy dew.

Back in the clearing the grass and leaves stirred,

        and a faraway rumble of thunder I heard;

then a voice beside me, faintly and chill,

        said, “Never forget us!”

And then all was still.

It’s quiet and peaceful this morning

        ‘Neath the maple, the elm, and the oak;

where one hundred and thirty-nine years ago

        Southern artillery spoke.

Now their muzzles are silent, and birds build their nests

        undisturbed by the ghosts of our bravest and best.

 

 

AUGUSTA’S   SON

 

 

Augusta’s son came home today;

His friends marched with him all the way.

The fifes and drums beat out the time

And in his box of Georgia pine,

So soon to lie in the Georgia clay. . .

Augusta’s son came home today.

Augusta’s son was a fine young man,

With a wife and children who were his pride.

With them he would have lived and died

Till By a Yankee bullet, sanctified.

Now he's a hero. . . or so they say,

They brought their hero back home today.

Above the banks of Peachtree Creek

The Georgia sky looks down and weeps,

On soldier's blood in trenches spilled,

'Midst dreams of a Nation, unfulfilled.

As part of freedom's price to pay,

Augusta’s son came home today.

 

Augusta’s son came home today;

His friends marched with him all the way.

In his tattered coat of faded gray,

They lowered him down into Augusta's clay. . .

His grave unmarked until the day

When the wounded lion turned, at Bay,

Still clutching our flag in his gory paws,

 

He roared defiance at Yankee laws,

Then bowed his head--and in slumber lay.  .

To guard the earth that enshrouds the gray.

Augusta’s son came home today;

And this time. . . he's come home to stay.

 

Adapted from My Youngest Son Came Home Today By Eric Bogle

 

THE MEN WHO SERVED THE HUNLEY

 

On the seventeenth of February,

Evening tide, in 'sixty-four. . .

They sortied against the tyrant's fleet.

Blockading Charleston's door.

 

The men who served the Hunley,

The bravest of the brave.

Dared where just one had gone before.

To war beneath the waves.

 

Their ship was an iron cylinder,

Square-pointed fore and aft;

Spar torpedo and hand-cranked screw,

The watchers thought them daft.

 

Forty men had drowned before them,

Her inventor, Hunley, too;

They vowed to make one more attempt,

That valiant Southern crew.

 

O'er their cranks they bent and toiled,

 Their craft, they did propel;

They blew the  Housatonic

And her crew beneath the swell.

 

The moment of their triumph

was the same that sealed their doom;

and there for one hundred and thirty eight years

they lie in their silent tomb.

 

And now we lie them in their graves;

and honor them once more;

on the seventeenth of April

in the year two thousand four.

 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

 

The German’s in their U-Boats

twice brought England to her knees;

The American submariners

who sank the Japanese;

The men who sail the Doomsday ships

as deterrent to the worst. . .

Owe their thanks and their successes

To the men who served the Hunley;

Who scored the very first.

 

TWO TROOPERS

 

 

Beside their mounts, by cannon slain

Two troopers lay upon the plain.

As close in death as once in life,

A Southern soldier. . . and his gray-clad wife.

Her auburn tresses loosed in death,

Hands clasped in lover's final breath.

Their secret shared, by their comrades unknown,

Dust to dust they sleep. . . but not alone.

Not for them the vacant chair,

The lonely hearth, and mourning wear.

In love they lived and in love they died,

For home and country. . . satisfied.

 

 

A TROUPERS FRIEND

 

 

My friend and I rode off to war,

when duty and country called.

We fought four long and bitter years,

by glory un-enthralled.

 

I loved him dearer than a brother

more than the tongue can tell,

and though he never said a word

he loved me just as well.

 

Though we both were often starved

if there was grain, it went to him;

I could get by on old salt pork

and on moldy hardtack grim.

 

A bursting shell at Chickamauga

took one of his ears away,

but he stood by the surgeon’s tent

as they cut lead from me that day.

 

He saved my life at Brice’s Crossroads,

–took a bullet meant for me;

a saber slashed across his neck

when we charged some battery.

 

Now here outside old Petersburg

the end is drawing near

dark smoke and bloody footprints

across the land and Cause so dear.

 

I saw my friend this morning

–he couldn’t lift his head;

I saw within his silent eyes

there were lonely roads ahead.

 

The captain road up beside us

saying, “Major, we must retire.”

His next order died unspoken

he knew the shot I’d never fire.

 

I knelt by him, and stroked his mane

as the column rode away;

I gave him water from my canteen

and kept the flies at bay.

 

He struggled once to gain his feet,

and seemed to say, “We tried.”

I could not see him for my tears;

but held him as he died.

 

With only cup and clasp knife

I mounded him with clay;

for such a true and faithful friend

could not be vulture prey.

 

He’s gone beyond wars awful flame

past all battle smoke and din,

if there are horses up in Heaven

 

Dedicated to the memory of the men and horses of the sixth regiment, Georgia volunteer cavalry,  CSA;   1861-- 1865, and to my comrades-in-arms who strive to honor them.

 

THE BLOODING OF THE SIXTH

 

 

Morning mist and marrow cold,

embers stir and blankets fold;

Dawn has come, the nightbird flees;

Guidons snapping in the breeze.

 

Stamping hooves and bugle's call.

Stand to horses, proud and tall;

 Prepare to mount, the order given;

Prayers to God for this day's livin’.

 

By fours down the dusty lane,

'Blackened chimneys, Georgia's pain;

Videttes come dashing down the wind;

Federal cavalry 'round the bend.

 

As knights of old with armor gleaming,

Into line, our banners streaming.

 Shotted pistol, naked blade;

No quarter given, no quarter bade.

 

The shock, as horsemen crash together,

Trampling blood soaked fields of heather;

Slash and fire, ride through and wheel;

Screaming horses and bugle's peal.

 

O'er the enemy's guns we soared,

Met with pistol, sponge, and sword;

Shattered limbs and senses reeling,

Death on every hand was dealing.

 

Writhing horse at cannon's maw,

A pistol shot. . . the coup d'grace;

Ah! Had they but tongues to tell,

Those steeds that galloped into Hell!

 

Charge again into the fray.

Horse and rider flecked with spray;

Hark! Yankee trumpets, "Recall" sound!

The Sixth has held this gory ground.

Crimson banner, star be-crossed,

This day is ours, but oh, the cost!

Half a hundred laid to rest;

Twice that and more with wounds ill dressed.

 

Unanswered names and empty saddles,

Sacrificed to the God of Battles.

Alas, our Nation's woe and weal.  .  .

Saint Andrew's cross, and Georgia's seal.

 

APPOMATTOX AND BEYOND

 

 

The road to Appomattox

Was littered as never before

With the remnants of a great army,

The world would see no more.

 

Their rifles leveled on a hundred fields,

Sent the foe in flight from their wrath.

Of all the roads on the face of the earth

None now but Appomattox path.

 

For the sad old man astride the gray war-horse,

No greater anguish. . . no fate could be worse;

The death of a Nation is sadder by far,

Than the parting of lovers, the fall of a star.

 

Those men are all gone now,

The tattered and gray;

But their memory, lives on

And shall ne'er pass away.

 

The Battle's din has faded,

Time dispersed the smoke.

But we children of the Southland,

Still wear the tyrant's yoke.

 

Descendants of a conquered people,

Our banners reviled, mistreated, furled. . .

Heritage and blood demand our place,

Among the nations of the world!

 

We must drink not the wine of forgetfulness,

Northern wrongs we can't forgive;

Who will sound the call, and strike the blow

That the Dream once more might live?

 

 

THE BRAIN OF MARY TODD

 

 

You've heard of Winken, Blinken, and Nod?

Well...here's the sad story of Lincoln and Todd:

Mary Todd was once her parent's delight,

A pretty young child, sweet, nimble, and bright.

 

But her life went awry—not. according to plan,

When her path chanced to cross with a dirty old man.

The day Abraham Lincoln took her for his bride,

Mary Todd's cerebellum just curled up and died.

 

The thought of life with that ogre was too great a trial,

And back then there was no crisis number to dial.

When she realized she had married that ugly old crock,

Mary Todd just decided to stop winding her clock.

 

The fame and the fortune were too much for her head,

So she turned out her lights and went on back to bed.

When old Abe set out to conquer and rule,

Mary Todd sat down to dribble and drool.

 

She once could crochet, could knit, and could stitch.

But now Mary's engineer was asleep at the switch.

General McClellan and his staff cantered by,

Just in time to see Mary Todd swallow a fly.

 

The President sighed as she hopped onto a log,

And said, "Never mind, General, she just thinks she's a frog."

One day, Secretaries Stanton and Welles came to call;

Mary Todd was hanging by her heels In the hall.

 

When Abe came to greet them, they said, "What is that?"

He said,  "Oh, that's only Mary, today she's a bat,"

When they saw what Abe had done to Mary's beauty and youth,

Welles and Stanton started looking for John Wilkes Booth.

 

Booth was supposed to end the misery in Mary's poor head.

But he missed, and shot Abraham Lincoln instead.

When Abe took his last ride on his funeral train,

Mary smiled for the first time since he drove her insane.

 

Now it's a shame that she turned out so flaky and odd,

'Cause Mary Todd used to be a. pretty neat broad.

She was great fun at parties, and so eager to please

When she'd bark like a dog and crawl around on her knees,

 

I don't know what the two of them did in their bed.  .  .

But I can't imagine either one ever using their head.

With Abe a gorilla, and Mary a loon,

It's a wonder their kids didn't bay at the moon.

 

Just think what it was like to wake up in bed,

In the arms of old Abe with his buzzard-like head.

She stared 'cross the table at the warts on his snout,

 Till most of her hair and her teeth all fell out.

 

She spent her last years in the fruits and vegetables ward

Some days a turnip, and some days a gourd.

Now, it wasn't her fault to my way of thinkin'. .  .

How would you like to be married to Abraham Lincoln?

There is a huge difference between fiction and nonfiction.  Nonfiction is facts; it tells us where things stand.  It lets us know what is wrong, and how to fix it.  It gives us direction.

Fiction, on the other hand, holds a mirror up to our lives and allows us to see ourselves through the endless variations of the characters in the endless variations of story lines and possibilities.  Fiction shows us people just like us.  People with problems and tragedies and insights and flaws and strengths and weaknesses. 

We choose books to read because we like a certain style of book.  If we do not like romance and all the drama that goes with it, we are not likely to read a romance novel.  So when we buy a novel, a fiction book, we already somewhat identify with the characters in the story.  If we love adventure, we read adventure.  If we like history (or a certain period in history) that is the novel we choose.

The point being, we read a book because we can put ourselves into that particular story.  You cannot always do that with nonfiction.  I could read books all day on how to solve algebraic equations and in a half an hour, I would still not know where to start solving one. 

However, give me a book about real life and I am on it in a heartbeat.  I can identify with it.  Even though I am a middle-aged man, I can understand what a teenaged girl is going through, via the magic of fiction.

The power of the story is undeniable!  Entire cultural identities are based on their shared stories.  The myths and legends have been passed down from generation to generation and for the bedrock for all new story lines.  Even Shakespeare took stories that had already been told and turned them into new stories—fictional works, which are taught in Humanities, courses in colleges all over the world today. 

Shakespeare is said to be a master of the human condition.  Even though Hamlet was a prince in a far away time and place we can identify with him as he struggled to make sense of his world even as it was falling apart around his ears. 

When we connect with a character in a novel, we grow—we are changed by that character as surely as we are changed by the real people in our lives such as teachers, employers, friends and parents.  We grow into stronger individuals; people more able to cope with the hand we are dealt by life.

The bottom line is nonfiction deals with telling the facts and fiction deals with telling the truth.  Fiction by its very nature is distilled in the heart of the writer.  It starts with the truths and experiences and hopes and dreams of the writer, then is put into a pot and cooked and stirred and heated until what is left is the rendered essence of the truth of the matter.  A novel, if it is a good novel is about something.  It is not simply a day in the life of someone—rather it deals with what difference the events in that day made to the character and characters in the story. 

Even if a story is based on a factual occurrence, the essence of the tale is not the event and the petty accuracies of what happened: rather it is the truth that underlies that event.

In my humble opinion, Christian writers have a unique perspective on Truth.  We believe in a God who is intimately involved in our lives, a Creator who both knows us from the molecules up, and cares about our joys and struggles, victories and defeats.  We know a God who hears our prayers and responds—not always when as how we would like Him to—but He responds.  We learn every day how God gives us direction and comfort and whose very presence infuses eternal meaning into our temporal lives. 

As writers, we mirror God after a fashion.  We create worlds ex nihilo with words.  We have an intense interest in our characters, which were also lovingly created by us.  Moreover, in Christian fiction we create stories from our experience with God, which show a significant interaction between the Creator and the created.

 

What Is A Christian Novel?

One question that begs to be asked is simple.  What differentiates a Christian novel from any other genre of novel?  Part of the answer is, I believe, what is the motivation for writing it in the first place.

Many secular novels are written by people whose faith never shines through into their work.  On the other hand, many novels that would never fall into the Christian fiction category show the personal faith and beliefs of their authors. 

What differentiates Christian fiction from general market fiction is not simply the faith of the writer or the mention of God in the story.  It is not because there are church going people, or even, perhaps a minister as a character.

What distinguishes Christian fiction is a distinct Christian perspective: a story that usually involves the personal conversion of one or more of the characters in the book. 

Most Christian fiction that sells today is marked by a conservative evangelical story.  The purpose of Christian fiction is not actually to convert people, believe it or not.  That is God’s job anyway.  But the purpose of fiction is to draw the reader into a world of our own creation; to connect them with the joys and heartaches and struggles and victories and defeats of our characters, and then allow them to see the truth of God through the story we have created.  Just as we learn from the short snippets of King David’s life in the Old Testament and we compare what he was going through to our lives; so will a person reading your book take the situations they find your characters in and derive Truth from that. 

Before you try to write a novel, you have to realize that writing is very difficult, lonely, high-pressure work, not designed for the faint of heart.  To write a convincing novel; one which truly reflects life, you cannot and must not avert your eyes from the truth you see in the world, no matter how ugly, sad or painful it is.  You must be able to reach out and embrace the pain of a mother burying her child—of a father at the bedside of his dying wife—of a girl from a good church home who discovers she is pregnant—of a child who knows the Lord as her Savior watching her father die of something like Huntington’s disease, knowing he is not saved, and unable to reach him with the Life giving Word of God.

Writing is not for the lazy and unmotivated.  It is not for the impatient or faint of heart.  It is not done on a whim.  However, for those called to the work and for those who are willing to pay the price set by the job, it can be the most thrilling, most meaningful, most wonderful career on earth.

Writing the Novel.

A writer who wants to publish Christian fiction needs to have a clear idea of what the distinctive features that separate Christian fiction from general market fiction are.  In general, Christian fiction is geared more towards the conservative end of the evangelical spectrum.  Readers, editors, booksellers and publishers look for and expect a certain level of conservative Christian theology.  This perspective does not always have to appear in the form of decisions for Christ, sermons, prayers, and church events, but it must be visible in some form. 

A Christian novel must have a clearly articulated Christian worldview.  This does not mean a Pollyanna approach in worlds where bad things never happen and Adam and Eve walk naked in a perfect garden, fellowshipping on a daily basis with God Himself.  Christian fiction shares with any other type of fiction created worlds in which bad things do happen, and that in the end evil is punished and good prevails.  The difference is, in a Christian perspective there is always a message of hope, there is a spiritual vision, and there is order and moral resolution.

In the next paragraphs, I will point out a few things that must be in any novel, not necessarily only a Christian one.  It ought not be very difficult to extrapolate a situation with a Christian worldview in any situation, time frame, or subject.  However, to be honest, Christian fiction is no different from any other fiction in these basic areas.

A familiar setting and/or time frame.

Readers are most often drawn to settings with which they feel most comfortable.  Slice of life settings are always popular, since everyone can identify with them.  Well known historical time frames such as World War 2, the War Between the States, or Victorian England are such time frames.  What you do with those time frames is up to you.  In Victorian England, your main characters could range from the Lord of an estate, down to the pre-teen serving girl.  The key issue not being the characters here, but a time frame with which a reader can relate.

Universal themes and subject matter.

Novels work best when they connect a reader with some issue of current interest, or one of universal appeal.  Love and romance has its audience.  One thing you can write about will never go out of style: love, suffering, injustice, moral challenges, and relationship issues.  Contemporary novels also often address and approach controversial issues directly (abortion, suicide, euthanasia), but you must be careful in how you deal with such issues or what you end up with is a long extended sermon instead of a work of fiction.

Action orientation.

All novels have to contain some sort of action.  If you are writing about two girls lying in the hospital with cancer, you still must show some action.  And in such situations, there is always action to be shown.  Action is a must have!

Action-oriented books that include intrigue, danger, suspense, and of course an ultimate resolution of all the issues work best in the market.  This is not to say character driven works do not also have their place.  However, it is best to steer clear of deep philosophy and psychological works that are mostly internalized in the mind of one of your characters.  Something has to happen for a novel to be successful.

In order to have a novel there must be a conflict!  A day in the life of a seventeen-year-old girl would be more along the lines of nonfiction.  However, add some issues between her and her mother about her clothing, a football player from school who wants to take her on a date, the fact that she has not had her period in two months, and toss in a dent she put on the car, but is trying to hide from her parents; and you have story!  You have the basis for a novel.

To make it Christian fiction you create her world such that she knows Jesus as her Savior, has been going to a church all her life, (where her dad is a deacon) she has visited a different church which she likes better, but which her parents do not like, the football player is not a Christian,  and all she remembers about losing her virginity is she snuck out and went to a party and woke up in the back yard missing her underwear.

Viable Christian characters.

Christian readers look for characters they can relate to: good Christian people, on other words.  Characters do not have to be, and in fact should not be perfect (in reality, who is after all?).  However, main characters are more generally accepted when they have a well-defined, clearly conservative Christian worldview.  In fact, one major “conflict” in the story can happen when the strong Christian has to interact with someone who does not have the same values. 

Most Christian readers are looking for the conflict of “good vs. evil”—which is a prevalent theme in fiction in general.  Since you find “good vs. evil” in many types of fiction you must find a way to make your Christian novel stand out from among them.  A good vs. evil” or “redemption” theme is not enough.  Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings has both of those, but is not by any means a Christian novel.  You must create a world on which a strong evangelical worldview shines out like a lighthouse via the characters and the setting and the story line.

Strong evangelical perspectives.

Most Christian publishers insist on a strong conservative perspective that goes beyond a basic Christian worldview.  These publishers (and readers) will respond positively to characters who pray, who make decisions based on scriptural perspectives, and who have significant changes in their lives and attitudes by the power of God acting on and through their circumstances. 

Christian publishers and readers expect writers to refrain from writing scenes that include gratuitous sex or overt sensuality.  You must avoid obscenity and profanity, or at least keep it to a bare minimum.  You cannot include scenes of violence or excessive humanistic or pagan philosophy. 

Some of these limitations present significant problems for the Christian writer.  Real life does contain violence, sex, and profanity.  It is a huge challenge to write realistic characters and real fiction under these constraints

The fact is, however, that spiritual growth and the search for truth are also integral issues in human life and in today’s world, and those issues make for wonderful story lines!  You can have a character “cussing a blue streak” without having to write out the actual words.  The Old Testament records how King David had an affair with a married woman, but it does not give a blow-by-blow description of those events. 

The fact is, you have to write what you know.  I would actually extend that into writing what you are in the Christian novel.  You cannot compromise your own beliefs or create a world that contradicts who you are as a person.  It just will not work!  What you can do is to find common ground between who you are as a person, and who your more unsavory characters might be.

Jesus told stories, and His characters were not always the most wonderful of people.  He never had to develop His characters as much as you will to write a Christian novel, but you can get many ideas from the Word of God in how to tell a story and still not compromise good morals and standards.