1) Storyteller: How Faith-Inspired Authors Can Find the Freedom to Write the Coolest Fiction in the World
A Mini Course for Authors with a Message
Are you excited to write a novel full of fun and depth and meaning? Do you dream of writing novels, but no one in your life seems to understand where you’re coming from?
Are people telling you you’re wasting time not ‘converting’ people with soul-numbing altar calls?
Are they turned off from your stories because they think your beliefs shouldn’t influence your fiction?
Do you feel like you’re stuck standing on a six-lane freeway of opinions, fired up with a passion for writing fiction (that you didn’t exactly ask for and can’t ignore)?
Hi, I’m Dominic, and you’re not alone. Chances are, people shaking fingers at you probably haven’t read as many books as you have. They have no idea what you’re trying to do. More importantly… they’re not storytellers.
Would you ask a mechanic to explain why mythology matters? No. You go to a mythologist. Same thing for storytellers. Stop asking permission from people because you want to write science fiction or fantasy.
You don’t need their permission. And I can say that, because my heroes have been the world-rending Silmarillions of Tolkien, the dream-like delving and scrying of George Macdonald, the urgent, haunted wolf-myths of Martin Shaw, and the gritty grace and buckshot of Flannery o’Connor, and more.
They didn’t ask. They knew their fiction mattered. So they found their freedom.
You can too.
Who is Dominic de Souza?
I’m a cradle-Catholic who’s been writing scifi and fantasy novels since I was 13, graduated from the Writer’s Institute for Children’s Literature, and found out I was living in a Catholic doomsday cult. This led to a decade of deconstruction, and a careful rebuilding of what it means to be religious at all. I was a complete book nerd as a kid (and a grownup), who played games, built insanely dangerous treehouses, and accidentally travelled the world.
Today, I’m a dad, work fulltime in marketing, and building LegendFiction to bring together the coolest storytellers in the world.
And many of these storytellers show up saying the same thing:
I have a deep message I want to share, but I don’t want to be preachy.
I’m inspired by my faith, but I really want readers to love my writing.
My Catholic faith brings me life and joy, and I want to share that, without losing friends
Does that sound like you too?
Most fiction authors already have a hard enough time just trying to write cool stuff that can sell.
Check out a 20-minute talk on this topic, shared in our first LegendHaven 2022 convention!
Faith-inspired fiction authors carry an extra challenge.
Some of the stuff you write has to mean something. You want your characters to get real about reality. Maybe that actually scares you.
My approach is to double down on being a great human, because that’s got to come first before anything else. In fact, the better author you are, the better human being you should be.
After this course,
You won’t feel like you’re shoe-horning your faith in afterward, because you had too much fun.
You won’t feel you have to explain your ‘lack of evangelism’ to your parish or your Sunday School group.
Your ‘imagined guilt’ will evaporate… because it was fake anyway.
You’ll just relax and find a freedom to just write because you love it. Not because you have to score points and earn praise from someone who doesn’t see what you see.
You be free to explore any topic and genre with honesty and imagination.
Fiction is messy. Because humans are messy. Fiction blends psyche with story, myth with mysticism, faith with word-smithing.
If you know anything about the authors I quoted, we live in a Perilous Realm of bright and shade. I believe in an ‘enchanted creation’ bristling with beings who are conscious and active in God’s evolving plan to redeem all things.
Humans (the point of all fiction) are anything but simple, with anything but a simple linear journey. We’re immersed in a ocean of mythic gods, actual archetypes, psychic impulses, intangible energies, quantum biology…
And magic too, probably.
![The Secret of Kells [Official Trailer, GKIDS] - Out now on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital!](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!f7-M!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F528adbca-ca8e-4bd1-b713-74864b35c71a_1280x720.jpeg "The Secret of Kells [Official Trailer, GKIDS] - Out now on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital!")
Most importantly, you’ll find that I’m not afraid of anything. And neither should your fiction.
We will circle a core idea: God (Ultimate Reality) is not in competition with his creation. In fact, he reveals himself through it, across lives, and millennia of time. As an author, you’re a sub-creator. You’re doing the same thing when you create.
Writing is a vocation: a commitment to something deeply good that’s meant to change you, and level you up. It’s fun, definitely. Hard to practice. But real.
This mini-course covers three themes:
Discover the role of an author
Understand how to respect your audience
See your call in a new and greater light
As you finish each lesson, please leave a comment with your key takeaway or question. Or you can grab a pen and paper to journal offline.
NEXT:
Send me a private message any time!
Our Catholic faith is a lifeline that lets us explore anywhere without getting lost. And if it feels like a straightjacket, you’re not imagining wildly enough.
What readers have said about this course… so far!
Fantastic advice on bringing Catholic values into the media of our secular world! I admire the upbeat and whimsical tone this course is written in. God bless! Immanuel P on March, 2023
THIS WAS SO HELPFUL! THANK YOU SO MUCH! Karime on June, 2022
This was wonderful–just what I needed to read and take to heart. I’ll be sharing this (and rereading often!) God Bless! Mary on May, 2022
Great read! I was actually thinking of writing a blog on a similar topic, ie. how ‘ethical’ does a Catholic author have to be when telling their story, etc., because even though we don’t want to risk promoting evil along with the good, stories cannot exist without it simply because Life is not without its share of evil, failing, struggling and striving. As you pointed out, if you try and just write ‘goodie goodie tales’ where everything is all happiness and sin free, the book doesn’t ring true… E.A. Bucchianeri on April, 2022
This was awesome. You brought up a lot of things that made sense because they were… already written on my heart, somehow? I’m one of the write-for-yourself writers; I fall in love with the idea of a story, and have been thinking that there was something wrong with me (think about your readers, girl!) until I read this course. Grace on March, 2022
Thank you Dominic for this fantastic course! Every segment provided wisdom and hope for this exciting (and daunting) journey as Catholic authors. It was deeply inspiring and encouraging and something I’ll be referring back to often! Citlalin on February, 2022
I like the emphasis of “we are not in competition with God.” It is like God wanted it in the garden of eden. He wants to walk alongside us in the evening’s cool. - Bob, 2024
I appreciate centering around the nexus that God “reveals himself through [creation]. And since time exists within him, he acts across lives and aeons.” - Jane, 2023