I do not want to preach at my reader.

I want to tell them a story that does the preaching for me. There is a significant difference between those two things and the difference is everything when it comes to whether a reader finishes the book or puts it down halfway through.

Frank Peretti understood this. His books are deeply theological. They operate from a specific and consistent biblical worldview. The spiritual warfare is not vague. It is rooted in the actual mechanics of how Scripture describes the unseen world. But he does not stop the story to explain the theology. He embeds it in the narrative and lets it work on the reader through the story itself.

I learned from that. In Black Water the spiritual world Alan Charms enters is full of symbolism. Things that operate on a surface level as story elements and on a deeper level as theological statements. Camille herself carries layers of meaning that a reader paying attention will notice. The black water is not just a plot device. The realm Alan enters is not just an exotic setting. Everything in that world is doing double duty — advancing the narrative and carrying a message underneath it.

That is what I mean by symbolism as preaching. The story says the thing on the surface. The meaning lives underneath. The reader who is paying attention finds both. The reader who is just along for the ride gets a good story and absorbs the meaning without knowing it.

That is the highest compliment I can give a piece of fiction. It works on every level simultaneously. It entertains and it transforms. It tells a story and it preaches a sermon. At the same time. Without stopping to explain itself.

That is what I am building toward every time I sit down to write.

Stephon Rudd