A Writer's Resolution

Elaine here, hoping everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Are you ready for 2017?

Like everyone else, I’ve resolved to be better during the New Year. Eat healither. Exercise more. Stop a bad habit. One thing I’ve learned from past failures is how important it is to have someone hold me accountable. Other than God, of course, because we’re always accountable to God.

Since I lost my dear husband this year, I don’t have him to hold me accountable. So for my writing resolution, I’m asking you, our STT readers and writers to hold me accountable.

My writing resolution for 2017 is to publish a new series of three books I’ve been working on for years. These books began before I started writing Christian fiction. They were standalone secular stories, and Harlequin was interested in one of them, but I couldn’t bring myself to agree with their terms. It isn’t because they were erotic. They were clean romance, but missed the mark of what I wanted to say.

For years these stories simmered on the back burner as I waited for the Lord’s direction. I revised, adding some sermonizing, but preaching isn’t my gift, and my characters didn’t sound authenic. Most of my inspirational themes come across as witnessing. Christian characters overcoming the world’s difficulties through their faith. I revised again, but that didn’t work either.

Then I realized these stories were more like parables, circumstances everyone can relate to, but with an overreaching theme that teaches a moral. I don’t know why I’d never noticed it before, but every one of these plots had the same theme—people deceived by the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The obvious title of my series became The Wolf Deceivers. Though the villain in each book is known by the POV character and the reader, the people are deceived. In the first book, set in Scotland in the 1770s, the clan is deceived, and the chieftain must fight the villain to save his people. In the second book, set in Regency England, the London aristocracy is deceived, and the heroine must fight the villain to regain her reputation. In the third book, set in the post Civil War South, the ex-Confederates are deceived, and the hero must fight the villain to achieve peace.

I’m amazed at how easy the edits are now with this new perception, and I take that as my green light from God that I’m on the right track. I might even be able to promote these books to the secular audience. After all, Jesus used parables to speak to those who didn’t have the spiritual perception to see or hear.

At any rate, now that I’ve shared my resolution, I’ll be more likely to carry through, and it will be a lot easier than sticking with my diet.

Thank you for being my witnesses, and since I’ll need comparable books about wolves in sheep’s clothing, if you’ve read a book with such a villain, please mention it in your comments. The first book I remember reading with this type premise is Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier, but I'm sure there are many more in both Christian and secular genres.   

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