{"id":33,"date":"2005-03-04T17:11:37","date_gmt":"2005-03-04T21:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2005\/03\/04\/market-intervention\/"},"modified":"2007-02-16T00:42:04","modified_gmt":"2007-02-16T04:42:04","slug":"market-intervention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2005\/03\/04\/market-intervention\/","title":{"rendered":"Market intervention"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> [*]<\/p>\n

As part of his research into the links between the New Age and the same-old-age, The CBO<\/a> has a useful installment on a phenom within a phenom: the Left Behind series and Christian Fiction. As it happens, I recently read a chapter on Christian novels as a specific genre, as well as an interview with Jerry B. Jenkins of the LaHaye-Jenkins team, in The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing<\/a>. Pulp fiction is pretty big business, with individual genres that grow a fan base and carve out market share. The chapter on the Christian market is by Penelope Stokes (pp.303-309), and explains to would-be writers what that market wants. (It’s probably not a bad idea to remember, at this point, that pandering to a market needn’t be influenced by what you actually believe, either….) According to Stokes, the following are the golden rules for success in the Christian book market:<\/p>\n

A clearly articulated Christian worldview.<\/strong> A Christian worldview is based on the assumption that God is in control of the universe, and that true meaning and fulfillment in life are based on a relationship with the Almighty. (…)<\/p>\n

A familiar but intriguing setting and\/or time frame.<\/strong> [self-explanatory] (…)<\/p>\n

Universal themes and subject matter.<\/strong> Novels usually work best in the CBA<\/a> [Christian Booksellers Association] market when they connect with some issue of current interest or universal appeal: love, suffering, injustice, moral challenges, or family relationships. [In other words, could we say that if the contemporary political climate punches up a general tendency toward paranoia and panic, those themes will find their way into Christian literature, and assure the popularity of those books?] (…)<\/p>\n

Action orientation.<\/strong> [focus on action, suspense, etc. Paranoia, anyone?] (…) This general principle does not eliminate the value of character-oriented books, but it’s a good idea to steer clear of psychological novels comprised mostly of self-awareness, internal insights, or relationships.<\/strong> [emphasis added]<\/p>\n

Viable Christian characters.<\/strong> (…) …have a clearly identifiable evangelical faith, along with some kind of memorable “conversion” in their history. Most Christian readers are looking for a conflict of good versus evil… [Action! Forget introspection.] (…)<\/p>\n

Series plans or potential.<\/strong> [self-explanatory: franchisable characters, the cash registers are happy.] (…)<\/p>\n

Strong evangelical perspectives.<\/strong> (…) Most CBA publishers expect their authors to refrain from writing scenes that include gratuitous sex or overt sensuality<\/strong>, obscenity and profanity, humanistic philosophy<\/strong>, or excessive<\/strong> violence (particularly toward women [sic!]). [emphasis added] <\/em>[So, systemic-implied violence in the form of authoritarian relationships wherein the man is the master and the woman is subservient are ok, because they’re not excessive<\/em>? Hmmm…] From The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing<\/a>, pp. 305-07.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As for the Jenkins-LaHaye team, it’s clear that LaHaye is the more ideological, while Jenkins appears to be the crank-it-out-on-demand writer. Here’s what he answers to interviewer Chantelle Bentley’s question, What kind of research do you do for the books that make up the Left Behind series?<\/em><\/p>\n

The idea for fictionalizing<\/strong> [emph. added] an account of the Rapture and the Tribulation was Dr. LaHaye’s, and he has been studying prophecy and theology since before I was born. I have become, in essence, his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 and now own everything he has written or read on these subjects. He provides a chronology of biblical events, and I get the fun part of making up the stories and writing the novels.<\/em> [From The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing<\/a>, pp. 410-11.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I read Jenkins’s answer to Bentley’s question as “None whatsoever.” How quaint. (And how utterly cheesy.)<\/p>\n

And just in case you sinners had any doubt as to what it all comes down to (at least for hacks), it’s this: when asked if Christian writers are at a disadvantage in publishing, Jenkins replies,<\/p>\n

The general market seems to be thrilled with anything that entertains and sells<\/strong> [emph. added], so where there might have seemed to be a prejudice against Christian themes, that has been dispelled by several best-sellers (not just our own).<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

$$$$<\/p>\n

You have to love how rational<\/em> all this insanity really is: it’s beauty, eh<\/em>, as they say up here. As long as something makes sense in the market place, it gets survivor cred, and no one messes with a survivor-winner, or succeeds in tearing down his (or her) junk. If it’s popular, fills a niche, and survives economically, it works.<\/p>\n

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n

[*]: I thought I posted this when I wrote it on March 2, but in a continuing string of software mysteries, the entry got — ahem — left behind<\/em> and never actually hit the page. Chalk it up to divine intervention, perhaps?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[*] As part of his research into the links between the New Age and the same-old-age, The CBO has a useful installment on a phenom within a phenom: the Left Behind series and Christian Fiction. As it happens, I recently read a chapter on Christian novels as a specific genre, as well as an interview […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-yulelogstories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}