Faith in Fiction: How I Write What I Believe Without Preaching It

"Any amount of theology can now be smuggled into people's minds under cover of romance [fiction] without their knowing it." ~ C.S. Lewis

I've been asked more than once how I keep faith from feeling forced in my novels.

That's a fair question. Anyone who reads broadly in the inspirational fiction genre has probably encountered both ends of the spectrum. You have the story where faith is woven in so naturally you barely notice the seams. Then, there's the story where a character delivers what amounts to a theological treatise in the middle of what was supposed to be an emotionally charged scene.

The second kind pulls you right out of the story. It reminds you of the author behind the curtain with a message to deliver, and suddenly you're no longer living inside the narrative. You're being instructed by it. This aligns with a common bit of advice: Show, don't tell. That second kind? It's telling, not showing.

That's not what I want to write. It's never been what I want to write. And I try hard not to write it.

But I also don't want to scrub faith out of my stories entirely, because it's genuinely part of how I see the world. It shapes how I understand people, why they make the choices they make, what they're really looking for underneath the surface desire or conflict. Removing it entirely would be like trying to write without a moral compass at all. While that's technically possible, it would produce something that doesn't actually sound like me.

So how do you write what you believe without turning your novel into a sermon?

Starting With People, Not Lessons

Sometimes, when in the beginning stages of writing a new story, it's tempting to start with the theme I want to explore or the spiritual truth I hope a reader takes away. But that will almost always lead to preaching or narrative instruction. 

No. To avoid that, you start with the people. The ones who are broken, contradictory, wanting things they can't quite name, afraid of things they won't quite admit.

Real human beings, even fictional ones, are complicated. They don't move through life collecting tidy lessons. They stumble into grace sideways. They resist the very thing that would help them. They sometimes do the right thing for the wrong reason and the wrong thing out of genuine love.

When I start there, with characters who feel true, the faith elements find their natural place in the story. A character wrestling with whether she can forgive someone who hurt her isn't a vehicle for a lesson on forgiveness. She's a person in pain, and the question of forgiveness is simply part of what that pain demands of her. The reader doesn't feel preached at because I'm not preaching. I'm just following this woman through something hard and letting the story ask the question without forcing the answer.

What Faith Actually Looks Like in a Story

In practice, this means faith in my novels tends to show up the way it shows up in real life. Quietly, imperfectly, and usually smack dab in the middle of something difficult.

It looks like a character who prays and doesn't get the answer she wanted. Or someone who grew up in the church and still isn't sure what he believes anymore. It looks like a moment of unexpected grace that a character almost misses because she's too busy being angry. And it also looks like doubt that doesn't get neatly resolved by the final chapter, because some doubt doesn't resolve that quickly and readers know that.

It won't look like a character who exists primarily to speak truth into another character's life at convenient narrative moments. And it doesn't look like a crisis of faith that gets wrapped up in a single conversation. It also won't have a redemption that costs nothing.

The faith that resonates in fiction is the faith that has been tested by something real. And the only way to write that honestly is to let the characters be tested by something real first.

Why It Matters to Get This Right

I write inspirational fiction because I believe story is one of the most powerful ways truth travels. Not truth shouted for all to hear. Lived truth. The kind that sneaks past your defenses because you're invested in a character and you feel what they feel before you've had a chance to decide whether you agree with the premise.

A heavy-handed faith narrative can do more damage than good. It can make readers feel manipulated, or confirm the suspicion that Christian fiction is more interested in delivering a message than telling a real story. I don't want to contribute to that.

Instead, I want a reader to finish one of my books and feel something true. Maybe something they couldn't have articulated before they read it. Maybe something they needed to feel without knowing they needed it.

If the faith in the story helped carry them there without announcing itself along the way, then I've done my job.

So, have you ever read a book where the faith element felt completely natural? How about one where it felt forced and pulled you out of the story? What made the difference? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.