USUALLY, BY THE TIME A NOVEL IS RELEASED the author has journeyed so far down a story path he’s forgotten the fork in the road that led him there. Until someone asks him. Such was the case for me the other day when a friend inquired about the origins of my latest supernatural suspense novel, Behold.
I had to do a little time traveling (figuratively, of course) to remember that the genesis for Behold was actually a mix of things I wanted to do and things I wanted to say.
THINGS I WANTED TO DO —
For some time I had wanted to write a time travel story with scenes both in the present and in the past. Michael Crichton’s Timeline was one of the books that inspired me. But I’m not a sci-fi writer so I needed a time-traveling vehicle other than mechanical for my character.
The second thing I’d wanted to do was craft a story that featured mankind’s spiritual nature which is so often overlooked by the crush of advertisements of all things related to the body (fashion, cosmetics, body size and shape, food, medicines, body and breath odor) and stories of physical drama (serial killers, sexual attraction, technology, politics, and all manner of life-threatening danger).
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said it, oh so well: We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience. This quote became the theme for Behold.
Then, there were —
THINGS I WANTED TO SAY —
I am fascinated by the mystery of exploring a universe that is forever out of reach. Despite our baby steps in space exploration, the size of the universe is mind-numbingly prohibitive to earthly travelers who are apparently prevented from traveling faster than light. Add to that the fact that the universe is an incredibly hostile environment to humans on so many levels.
But what if we could explore the universe without taking our bodies with us? Or go back and forth in time? Ah! Here’s where the story begins . . .
And finally, while I have learned and taught the interpretation of end times as portrayed in the popular Left Behind series, I’m enough of a student of God and history to know that it probably won’t happen that way. Why? Because God is always surprising us. I am reminded of the Jewish scholars, experts in Messiah theology, who missed completely the coming of Christ because he did not fit their theology. I wanted to write a story that reminded us not to be cocky when it comes to predicting what God will do in the future.
All these things came together for me resulting in Behold, the story of a boy who is thrown out of his body, back in time, and discovers the wondrous working of God in history that culminates in the end times.
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To learn more about Behold CLICK HERE
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