About Writing

I’ve decided to add a category to the left hand column devoted to the subject of writing. I already have categories on fiction, books, etc., but these are mostly taken up with particular works or series.

The new one will be devoted to blog posts about the craft of writing itself–both how to do it and what moral and theological questions it raises.

A couple of things started me thinking along these lines. The first was a request I had to help someone learn how to do apologetic-style writing. I’ve been doing this for a baker’s dozen of years now, and in that time I’ve grown a lot as a writer. (Of course, like everyone, I also have more growing to do.) There are certain tricks of the trade–both of writing in general and apologetic writing in particular–that I’ve learned, and I wanted to start writing them down in a place where they could benefit others.

The second thing was the recent dustup over what Pre-16 may have written in a thank you note regarding Harry Potter. This surfaced a number of moral/theological issues connected with that, while I didn’t have time to go into them at the moment, I still thought were worth exploring.

I’ve got less experience writing fiction than non-fiction. Frankly, I don’t have that much time for it. But I do have some experience, and many of the rules are ones it shares with non-fiction writing.

I also have the same experience as others of reading (or viewing or listening to) fiction and wrestling with the moral and theological isues it raises.

So. . . . Hope this’ll be of interest to folks!

To be continued. . . .

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

4 thoughts on “About Writing”

  1. I’ll find it interesting! I would like to get a glimpse inside how you go about it and perhaps learn some tricks to improve my own writing.

  2. I did that last year 🙂 I’m in graduate school this year, not sure if I can make the time commitment to that and school work.

  3. I did that one year. Then, that was shifting writing time to concentrate on one project. . . .

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