Let's Evaluate Your Favorite Author

Who is your favorite Christian novelist? Why? Try this exercise. Gather three books by your favorite author and evaluate these features:

Themes. What life issues are at stake? Does the author choose themes that are genuinely important to you? Do her stories help you reflect on these issues in a meaningful way, or are they simply entertaining diversions from them?

Plots. Are the author’s story lines intriguing enough to capture your interest? Are they true to life? Do they contain the sort of complications and twists that you experience?

Characters. Do you learn useful life skills from the author’s protagonists? Do they have realistic conflict with other characters in the story? Do you find yourself reading this author’s stories with eager curiosity to learn how her characters deal with their problems?

Description. Does the author describe settings in ways that engage all of your senses? Does she choose settings that conjure up good memories of places you’ve known, as well as settings that are unfamiliar enough to draw you into the narrative? Does she describe characters in sensory-rich ways that cause you to visualize them?

Transcendence. Does your favorite author narrate her stories effectively yet unobtrusively, so that you feel transported to that place and time? Do you enter a “fictive dream” when you read her stories? In other words, are you so immersed in her narrative that you feel transported to the scene of action as you read?

Inspiration. This one's especially important for a Christian author. Do you sense that God’s Spirit is telling the story through the author’s words? Do your favorite author's books make you more aware of God’s presence? Do they move you to say to the Lord, “In your light we see light” (Psa. 36:9b)?

Not only does this kind of evaluation help us appreciate our favorite authors more; it can reveal the strengths and weaknesses of our own writing. That's well worth the effort.

Joe Allison writes both fiction and nonfiction, and has been a member of the Indiana chapter of American Christian Fiction Writers since 2010. He lives in Anderson, IN, with his wife Maribeth and daughter Heather.