The Dangers of Dark Fiction

Modern YA fiction warped my mind as a young woman...make sure it doesn't warp yours, too

Take it from me: the imagination is a powerful thing. I grew up voraciously reading every book in sight, whether it was written by C.S. Lewis or Stephen King. I was an unstoppable reader who was on a quest to learn more about storytelling and the world around me. As a young kid, I didn’t give much – if any – thought to the stories that I was ingesting and obsessing over. I never stopped to think if what I was feeding my heart and soul was healthy. Now, as I raise my daughter and begin mulling over the content that she will be allowed to read as she gets older, I find myself coming at the subject of fiction for Christians from a totally different angle than how I felt in my teens and early to mid-twenties.

Today, I’m going to discuss the dangers of dark fiction, my concerns about Christian fiction, and the simple practice of exercising discernment.

Christians and Fiction

Christians are held to a different standard than the rest of culture. The Bible tells us that we are no longer to be conformed to this world, but rather, we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). We are to be set apart, in both our behavior and in our entertainment diet. But how many of us can really say that we’re all that different from the world? I’m certainly guilty of watching and reading things I shouldn’t have put in my mind, simply because I wanted to do something dumb to relax.

When it comes to reading, I’ve realized that what I put into my mind has a profound effect on my thought life! A few months ago, I read a dark fantasy novel that had heavily graphic sex scenes. No big deal, I thought. I’ll just skip the bad parts and read the book for the story. Unfortunately, the entire book was filled with pretty graphic content, from language to explicit sex scenes – and I should have tossed it aside rather than plodded through to the end! As Christians, I think we need to be very honest with each other when we mess up, and fiction has been the hardest thing for me to let go since the Lord has convicted me to step away from dark entertainment. It’s also why I feel so strongly about writing about it as a Christian, because I think that Satan sneaks into our lives in the most seemingly harmless ways.

Godless, graphic, profane, vulgar, and demonic fiction is entertaining – you bet it is. But it’s also dangerous, because if we’re not filling our minds with godly things, our minds are filling up with the complete opposite. In Colossians 3:2, the Bible tells us, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

A good reminder.

The Seduction of Vampires and Fallen Angels

Today, I’m opening up about my own experience with fiction. I worked in the publishing industry for roughly 12 years in addition to my work as a journalist (I actually still write novels, occasionally), and I was obsessed and surrounded with dark, sensual fiction. My first foray into the world of supernatural fiction was with the vanilla romance series, Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer. Millions of other girls and women have read the books, too, and I eagerly waited on pins and needles for each book to release when the series was at its height of popularity, reading and re-reading my very favorite love scenes between Jacob and Bella (le sigh).

I started reading books by Bella Fitzpatrick (Hush, Hush) and was absolutely mesmerized by the idea of falling in love with a fallen angel (I knew nothing about what that really represented at the time). I read countless books centered on bloody vampire romance, and read and re-read Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice eagerly, entranced by her beautiful prose, occultist underpinnings, and darkly sensual content. I was totally hooked on this kind of fiction for most of my life, because it fed the part of me that desired soaring romance, thrilling adventure, and an exploration into the supernatural unknown.

And, for some reason, vampires and fallen angels (and werewolves, demigods, and cursed beasts) are very alluring for teenage girls and women. There’s something incredibly attractive about the entire concept, and I believe that has to do with the fact that most of it is rooted in esoteric, occultist tradition. Demonic content is often the most attractive content – a beautiful flower at face value, with the biting poison of deadly hemlock.

We are warned in Scriptures in many different passages against engaging in activities that are associated with witchcraft or magic because it’s spiritually dangerous and opens us up to spiritual attack.

“I will set my face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute themselves by following them, and I will cut them off from their people.”

Leviticus 20:6

Young Adult is not Safe

Frankly, I didn’t start reading “real” young adult fiction until I was nearly graduated from high school. I really dug into it in my late teens and early twenties. Even then, it was increasingly adult. I remember reading The Fault in our Stars, by John Green (which isn’t supernatural, but still), and being shocked at the level of profanity and descriptions of sex in the book, which is marketed as a book for kids in high school.

Here’s the problem, books like Harry Potter and Twilight, as entertaining as they are, can be a gateway drug to devouring more supernatural and spiritual content. Sometimes, this can manifest in a really bad way. I’m not saying this is the case for everyone, and I’m certainly not trying to shoot down anyone’s love of reading middle-grade fiction. I’m just pointing out that how I got hooked on occult fiction was through the softcore vanilla vampire romance of Twilight and the mystical intrigue of Harry Potter.

It all seemed so harmless.

And to a point, it was. It is just a story. What it comes down to is whether or not the person reading is spiritually and emotionally mature enough to read the book and then toss it aside without become obsessed with the fictional world. I wasn’t. I was mature in other ways, but I filled a void in my lonely heart with fictional stories. I still love to read, and I read a diverse array of fiction – but there’s a line that I’m careful not to cross now, because our culture is increasingly saturated with erotic and demonic fiction – and it’s very, very financially lucrative for the publishing business.

Having worked in publishing for a long time and bouncing from one place to the next, working as a publicist or journalist or literally whatever work I could find for a long time (any other entrepreneurial spirit will relate), I realized early on that the hottest-selling novels were romance, and they were typically erotic. Seriously. Women who write erotic fiction make bank. Just as the porn industry is a money machine that preys on the desires and fantasies of men, the book industry preys on women who desire emotional intimacy as well as physical.

To be totally transparent, there’s nothing I love more than a good romance story. Like most women, I look forward to getting swept up in a good romance, and I’m not talking about Amish romance, either. Not to knock Christian fiction, but I’ve never found a Christian fiction novel that interests me enough to read it. There’s no zest, no heat, and no passion that’s enough to keep me going – and that’s mostly because I spent my adult life reading pulse-pounding, graphic, and erotic romance novels with bad boy heroes and good-girl-turned bad heroines. Christian fiction, sadly, will probably never truly entertain me, because I’m accustomed to something wholly different.

And I believe that’s part of the marketing plan of secular fiction. It ruins some of us forever. To be entertained by a book, I need an adrenaline rush from start to finish, tempered by a hefty dose of romance. My expectations are set.  

(To clarify: I’m not talking about the classics here. I read thousands of books growing up, including history textbooks, and didn’t even start reading contemporary fiction until I was between 16 and 17)

The Permanent Effects of Dark Fiction

The effects of dark fiction on my mind have been twofold. First, dark, intense fiction and even erotic fiction, make it really hard for me to be entertained by anything less. For this reason, reading Christian fiction (for me) is like eating nails. I can’t get into it. Second, I have a great perspective on exactly how the publishing industry can work to pollute the minds of young adults. As many of you may already know, I struggled deeply with my understanding of my place in the world, my sense of self-worth, and my belief in God for a number of years before I picked up a Bible and actually read it for the first time as an adult. I was a publishing enthusiast from childhood, and as I worked in the industry as a teenager (and later, as an adult), I grappled seriously with the core tenants of feminism and social justice narratives. I had an intrinsic sense of right versus wrong, but I couldn’t viably argue for either because I didn’t have the foundation to do so. It’s not like I wasn’t trying. I was. I just didn’t…get it. Who was I to try and establish what was true or not?

Many of the beliefs about myself and about the world around me stemmed from the lessons I learned devouring contemporary fiction. Here are some of the very bad ideas I picked up, internalized, and clung to as I grew up:

·         It’s perfectly acceptable to change yourself in order to get a boy to love you (so many young adult novels feature a good girl who falls for a bad boy and, in the process, ends up getting damned herself literally…and this is somehow viewed as a positive thing),

·         Cussing and swearing and smoking are acceptable and commonplace among most kids in high school – and so is drinking. It’s very cool and if you don’t do it, you’re a prude (probably),

·         Everyone is having sex. Literally. Everyone. If you’re a virgin, it’s because you need to meet someone who can change that. Immediately. Seriously – it’s the only thing in life worth living for (if you think I’m joking, have you seriously read Twilight?),

·         Being a witch is great (there are too many witch books to count…I just read one recently to check it out, because I like to be aware of what content is being marketed to kids these days, and was disgruntled at how witchcraft was elevated as such an enlightening practice and Christianity was denigrated the entire time),

·         If you don’t have a gay guy friend, your friend group is not diverse enough. I actually believed this, because so many of the books I read featured a character like this. I thought I was such a prude because I didn’t know any gay stylists who could do my makeup and hair for me before a date with the man of my dreams,

·         Suicide is the ultimate form of self-glorification. Hear me out, because this is a real theme that I see in fiction a lot. If anyone has ever read 13 Reasons Why, you’ll understand. The book recounts the thirteen reasons why a girl named Hannah killed herself in high school, and I was absolutely enamored by the book and cried my way through the Netflix series when it came out. The book is marketed in the young adult section and includes depictions of sex, rape, and violent suicide. I thought it was artful and fabulous at the time – it fed the inner self-loathing inside me that every girl struggles with. It was a poison then, and it’s a poison now. No teenage girl should be reading that kind of book unless they are emotionally and spiritually mature enough to handle it!

·         Do what you feel, not what is right. Most of the books I read had a common theme running throughout, and that was something along the lines of “Do what you want, as long as it makes you happy.” Consequences be damned! Elevate yourself. Be yourself. Embrace your inner goddess. Do whatever it takes to get that happy ending – even at the expense of everyone else.

I also went through a long period of time where I was highly influenced by Eastern philosophy and thought. I read Life of Pi by Yann Martel in high school (I realize the book is not Young Adult, but it was very popular at the time), and I was obsessed with it. In the book, the character Pi is stuck on a lifeboat with a tiger, and the book expertly introduces Hindu philosophy and thought. I found it enlightening at the time and resolved promptly to marry an Indian boy and convert, perhaps, to Hinduism if the opportunity arose.

I’m glad it didn’t.

I had a propensity to get swept away into each book that I read on such an intense, emotional level that it was as if the story world was real to me, and because of that, everything that I read had a profound effect on my ideas of morality, logic, and spirituality.

I would argue that most people – especially young girls who may be struggling with self-esteem problems – have the same issue. Because of this, I recognize now that I was, through various mediums, being groomed to accept graphic sex as normal. I was being trained to view Christianity as a joke. I was being told that suicide was glamorous – people even wrote whole novels about it, after all! I was being conditioned to believe a godless, and in some cases, downright Satanic, agenda.

I’m glad I didn’t follow that road as far as it could have taken me, but I’m grateful for my experience with dark fiction, because I uniquely understand why and how it so deeply affects people. And it emboldens me to warn people to be careful with it…because I’ve learned the hard way the damage it can do.

Guarding our Minds and Using Common Sense

For me, filtering my content is a constant work in progress. I’m not perfect, and like I said at the beginning of this story, I’m still learning how to limit my intake on some things. Christians should be vigilant – always working to guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). Sometimes, allowing ourselves to obsess over certain types of entertainment can be a way for Satan to sneak into our lives and establish a stronghold.

Am I saying that the Christian can’t read secular fiction? Absolutely not.

I’m saying, use a little discernment. A little common sense. Watch what your kids are reading, because Young Adult fiction these days has become increasingly profane and increasingly sexual. The gender agenda is strong in the publishing industry, and between pushing dark, spiritual books and same-sex romances, Young Adult is hardly a safe oasis for kids’ content.

When it comes to what we’re feeding our hearts and minds, the best way to decide what to read (or watch) is to ask ourselves if it is good and pure and lovely:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”

Philippians 4:8

---

NOTE:

I want to be clear that I’m not advocating for not reading secular fiction. I love reading. I will always love reading. The bottom line of this article is that I want to draw attention to what I believe is a very serious agenda in the publishing industry, which is to sexualize teens (particularly teen girls) and desensitize them to concepts of occultism and witchcraft.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

---

Resources

As per usual, I’ve lined up a few resources for you if you’re looking for alternative fiction choices. Again, I’ve resolved to be totally transparent in my writing, and I would be 100 percent lying if I said I don’t read supernatural fiction. I don’t see an issue in reading a story…as long as it’s not overtly graphic or disgusting…or mocking God. That’s a big one. Also, you have to ask yourself if what you’re reading will have an effect on your heart life and your thought life. Is it worth it? Will it cause you to stumble? For example, I can still very much appreciate the story and writing in Harry Potter and recognize that it contains witchcraft and divination and everything else that God warns us against. Sometimes, dark fiction can be a teaching moment. Again, use discernment. Chew and spit (thanks, Mama Bear Apologetics!). You don’t have to become a nun and shut yourself away from the world and read only Karen Kingsbury romances for the rest of your life (don’t take it personally, it’s a joke). It’s okay to read secular fiction. Just don’t do so at the expense of your own heart and mind.

Here are some resources this subject:

GoodReads Clean Romance List - GoodReads is a great way to find romance novels that you can read that are secular but not over-the-top with the graphic stuff, if you’re trying to avoid it! This is just an example of one list.

Is it OK for Christians to read erotic fiction? - A good little article from Karen Coleman.

Focus on the Family’s Plugged In Book Reviews - This is a great way to read current book reviews on fiction for yourself and your family before diving in. If you’re in a fragile season where you’re being really strict about your content intake, this is a good place to start. You may not be in that place forever, but if you are, there’s nothing wrong with taking extra steps to protect your heart!