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Originally Posted by DiapDealer
What constitutes Christian fiction? Does it have to be fiction about Christian subjects... or is a lack of non-Christian subjects enough? Does it require a Christian publisher and/or author?
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As I understand things, "Christian Fiction" as the genre it's dubbed as today, is kind of like "romance": a very broad umbrella category that encompasses a lot of conventional genre variants (historical, mystery, sf/fantasy), but put its own twist on them by having to conform to certain standards (core story centred around a couple falling in love and living happily ever after, in the case of romance) to satisfy target audience expectations.
"Christian Fiction" seems to all be required to have "clean language" with absolutely no swearing, also have no explicitly depicted sex. The main characters usually have to uphold fairly conservative US-style Christian values (no non-marital sexual relationships, no same-sex relationships, no divorces*, don't be a borderline alcoholic smoker if you're a noir detective, etc).
Generally they're also supposed to regularly attend church/have religious community involvement/spiritual thought/pray for guidance or otherwise express Christian faith, but some of the Christian "lite" novels skim over this part and are written pretty much like regular secular novels, only completely without swearing or sex and maybe have a few extra mentions of God or scripture quotations. Others are very evangelical and make a point of "converting" even already Christian peripheral characters who are apparently too lax in their faith to devout church-goers who then go on to spread the good word like an expanding ring of killer coral (if you don't like this sort of thing, avoid reading Julie Lessman's "Passion" series, which is in the dreaded Topaz format anyway, at least for the freebie they gave away).
Some publishers make further requirements like avoiding reference to supernatural elements which might be considered pagan, like Halloween and vampires, apparently in order to fit in with the reading taste of that portion of Christianity which loudly proclaimed the Harry Potter books Satanist because they had magic in them, and try to get
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe banned from community libraries in one of those "completely missing the point" moments.
Over at the Harlequin website, they've a set of fascinatingly specific guidelines for aspiring writers, and you can compare the stuff for their "Steeple Hill Love Inspired" Christian line to their other imprints.
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Originally Posted by from Harlequin's guidelines
Because Steeple Hill sells to both CBA and ABA bookstores, we must adhere to CBA conventions. The stories may not include alcohol consumption, card playing, gambling or games of chance (including raffles), explicit scatological terms, Halloween celebrations or magic. Lying is also problematic in the CBA market and characters who are Christian should avoid lying or deceiving others.
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I'm kind of tempted to see what they prescribe for their erotica imprints now.
* "In my family, we don't divorce our men. We bury them." is a quip from a Southern US comedienne whose name I can't recall.