Monday, February 28, 2005

Critiquing Christian Fiction

For those of you who don't know me. I'm a book reviewer by trade and by craziness on my part...It was brought to my attention by a christian fiction author that book reviews are subjective and you can't critique God's work. Two both of those assumptions I flat out said she was wrong and more than likely she will either pray for my change of heart or never speak to me again, but I will sleep at night regardless. But I bring this question to you.


My answers are as follows?

1. Book reviews are subjective.

I use a five point star criteria to review a book. Each criteria gets a maximum 1 point score:

Plot -1 star
Character Development- 1 star
Theme/Content/Big Voice- 1 star
Style/Flow- 1 star
POV/Little Voice- 1 star

There's nothing subjective about this scoring basis.

2. Christian books shouldn't be critiqued.

If christian fiction authors want this genre to evolve and to be respected, our work must hold up to some sort of literary standard. Although your book maybe littered with church scenes, scripture and angels saving the world I can't negate the fact that the other 2/3rds of the book plods through Egypt and back to Po Dunk county, georgia with as much cohesion as water downed glue on wet paper.

American literature includes faith genre and it has standards. Our work holds a better standard, because of our message. But no one can see our light shine, if they are knee deep in poor grammar, and a sagging middle.

In April I will begin posting my reviews on this blog and you can debate with me whether my review is justified.

Writing to see what the end gon' be,
Dee

1 comments:

La Monica said...

I'll be the first to admit that the critique process can be nerve racking and it ain't always pretty,
but to suggest that Christian fiction shouldn't be critiqued is like saying Christians don't have accountability to one another. That just ain't so!

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