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April 3, 2014 at 10:38 am (This post was last modified: April 3, 2014 at 11:00 am by Silver.)
I have been playing with an idea of writing an atheist fiction novel, since I discovered there is no atheistic genre of fiction available.
Below is a synopsis of the novel, something one would read on the back cover of the paperback or on the inside left jacket of the hardback cover:
Quote:Early one morning people around the world seem to instantly devolve as they attack and kill those around them. Those who have lost their humanity are not attacking each other, but that does not make them any less scary.
What is happening to people? One person, a young sociologist, knows what is taking place because he wrote about it the previous year. Unfortunately, no one had bothered to take his hypothesis seriously because it resembled science fiction.
Some people now are beginning to pay attention to him as he attempts to reassert his theory to the scared masses. If he is right, there may not be a cure for what is ailing a huge portion of the population.
If this young man is correct, the infected population may have to be exterminated to ensure the survival of everyone else. The disease, after all, is not contagious in the traditional sense. In order for those uninfected to continue to survive, they must rely upon reason. Slipping into the dredges of faith will lead them to...
DELUSION
**********************
I figured I would at least share the prologue and the first chapter with everyone.
Prologue
"You heard correctly."
Michael looked around the room, wishing that his expression could match theirs. It did not even surprise him that they could be as ignorant as they were. It was to be expected in a society that preferred fantasy over reality.
"You can't be serious," said Schae, an older woman who had been part of the council practically since she was out of diapers. Almost, was the joke.
"Very serious, and we have proof," said Ward, the one who had brought the situation to everyone's attention a year ago when no one wanted to take him seriously.
Darien Ward, as young as he was, had been the first to discover the problem that was plaguing the world. A college graduate at the age of sixteen, he had only needed three years to figure out a problem that thousands of years of humanity had only guessed at being the bane of society.
"I refuse to believe it," said Schae. She was old, stuck in her beliefs, and clearly nothing was going to convince her otherwise.
"You better believe it," said Ward. "Otherwise, you'll be just as dead as them."
Everyone looked from one to another, each wondering who would survive if what was being presented turned out to be true.
Michael knew that most of them would not survive the early morning. He had to make sure he was no where near them when the sun finally rose.
Chapter One Twenty-two hours earlier
She was awake before the sun had a chance to make its appearance. It had always been the same for her. She could set an alarm, but it never went off, because she was always awake before it had a chance to ring. She had been as close to a minute before it went off when she awoke, reaching for the alarm to disarm it. She could not explain it in any certain terms other than stating that it was just a part of her.
A glass of orange juice in hand, because coffee was something she avoided, she looked out the penthouse view as the sun made its slow ascent. The sky was beautiful, with its myriad of blues, oranges, yellows, and even pinks to paint the daily unique canvas of wonder before her.
That was God's work.
She had never had a reason to doubt it. God's influence in her life had been apparent ever since she was a little girl who would spend hours in church amazed at the wonder that the Holy Word of the bible instilled in those around her. Such good that came from a divine source could not be doubted.
A sip of orange juice slid down her throat and she continued to be amazed at the beauty that God daily provided the world. It bothered her that not everyone could experience the truth that she knew, and that was why she always made sure that her life was devoted to ensuring the eternal salvation of others.
There were problems, of course, because not everyone was open to the grace that God was willing to impart. They were the ones she worried for the most, because they were unaware of the torment they would suffer upon death. Death without the protective embrace of Christ was an eternity of Hell. It was something she could not understand. How could they willingly choose Hell?
A couple years ago there had been a man who, by all appearances had seemed quite intelligent since he was a surgeon, refused to accept that God wanted him amongst His flock of saved souls.
God daily guides your hands in the operating room, she had said.
His response had been something stupid, she could not remember what exactly, about how his hands were his own. How really dumb was that? God gave him those hands and God guided those hands. It was so simple to understand. Well, she was certainly proven correct when his heathen hands killed his next patient.
God was to not be mocked, she thought. She had even sent him an email informing him as such, but she never received a response. That was okay. She had done her duty. The rest had been in God's hands. God had tried, but the surgeon had refused the grace.
"Mom?"
Evil, said the divine voice in her head.
She sighed and turned around. What she saw before her was the epitome of evil. A child who donned the appearance of innocence to confuse and fool everyone. She knew better, though.
She shook her head. No, that could not be right. Her son, an eight year old angel who daily inspired her, could not be a bad seed. He was the one good thing to come from the relationship she had had with the man who had abandoned her.
He's evil, because he's his father's son.
God was right. Her son was evil. Just look at that evil smile, she thought. He thinks he has me fooled. The devil thinks it has outsmarted me.
"Mom, are you okay?"
She smiled, knowing what evil stood before her. She could not let the evil know that she knew, though. "I'm fine."
"Can we go to the park today?"
She nodded. She walked with him to his room to get him ready for a day at the park.
A voice in the back of her head told her to stop what she was doing, but she knew the will of Satan. That devil wanted her to become a victim. She would be no victim because she had God on her side. God had never steered her wrong, and He was with her that morning.
God's will be done.
She stared down at the dead body of that which had impersonated her son and she smiled.
"You can't have my soul, Satan," she said.
Copyrighted by Roy Ott
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
1) Why do you think there needs to be a atheist genre for novels? Why not just write the novel and if it happens to have atheistic overtones than so be it? I think some of the most successful novels that critique social ideas aren't explicitly in a genre about that social idea, they're just written well and categorized in the literature section. Also, making an explicitly atheist genre might discourage some people from reading your book and accidentally encountering atheistic ideas. If it's shelved in the literature section someone might accidentally pick it up and start reading it and become exposed to ideas they never would have been exposed to otherwise.
But to each their own. If this is the battle you want to fight, go for it.
2) From a writing stand point, I would expand your prologue and write in more character rather than describing your characters. Instead of saying Schae was "old, stuck in her beliefs, and clearly nothing was going to convince her otherwise" make the scene a little longer and show her being stubborn, refusing to concede a point or arguing fruitlessly in the face of overwhelming evidence. You know how stubborn theists behave, show her being a stubborn theist. It would make the prologue more dynamic and captivating, I think, especially since it seems you're using it as an ice monster prologue where these three characters are setting up a conflict, and none of them appear in the first chapter. Writing more characterization into the prologue might also allow you to drop character names and make the prologue more sinister (who are these people? Why are they talking about this? What's going on?) while making the characters recognizable through their mode of expressing themselves, their mannerisms and their motives so you pick up on who they are when they reappear in the story a little later.
Teenaged X-Files obsession + Bermuda Triangle episode + Self-led school research project = Atheist.