What makes readers keep turning pages after chapter one? In this episode, we explore the craft of writing memorable openings that hook readers from the very first line. We discuss how to create curiosity without confusion, establish a compelling voice, and build emotional investment early in your story. Whether you’re drafting a new novel or revising an old manuscript, this episode will help you craft openings readers won’t forget.
327: Why Clean Reads Are Booming: What Christian Readers Really Want
Can you write a powerful, emotionally engaging novel without explicit content?
In this episode of The Christian Indie Writers’ Podcast, we dive into the art of writing clean reads that still captivate readers, create intense emotional connection, and keep pages turning.
We discuss:
• What “clean fiction” really means
• Why readers are increasingly looking for stories without explicit content
• How to create romance, chemistry, and tension without graphic scenes
• Using subtext and emotional vulnerability to deepen relationships
• The difference between realistic storytelling and unnecessary explicitness
• Common mistakes writers make when trying to write “clean”
• How to handle difficult topics authentically without losing hope or heart
Whether you write Christian fiction, sweet romance, cozy mystery, fantasy, or general market fiction, this episode will help you craft stories that are emotionally rich, compelling, and unforgettable—without relying on explicit content.
326: Can Good Characters Save a Bad Plot? (And What Actually Keeps Readers Hooked)
In this episode of The Christian Indie Writers’ Podcast, we tackle a question every writer wrestles with:
Can compelling characters carry a weak plot—or will the story still fall flat?
We break down:
• Why readers fall in love with characters (and when that’s not enough)
• The hidden cost of a weak plot—even with amazing protagonists
• How character and plot are meant to work together, not compete
• Practical ways to strengthen your story without losing your voice
Prompt: lantern, secret, river, promise, shadow
229: Back to Basics: Characters or Story first?
Plotter vs. Discovery Writer?
Morning writer vs evening writer? Coffee or tea?
There are a lot of things that separate us as writers, but are there any areas that we agree on?
In this episode, the ladies discuss if they have any common ground in how they start the planning of their work, specifically, do they start with the story or with the characters.
Be sure and join our private Facebook group, Listeners of the Christian Indie Writers Podcast, to be a part of this growing and dynamic community of Christian writers.
We can’t wait for you to join us on today’s podcast!
#228:Did God Tell You to Write?
Hey Christian Indies,
Are you called to write your book? How do you know if God has called you to be a writer? The ladies discuss this as well as what it means to be created to create in this episode.
Be sure and join our private Facebook group, Listeners of the Christian Indie Writers Podcast, to be a part of this growing and dynamic community of Christian writers.
We can’t wait for you to join us on today’s podcast!
Tina, Jamie, and Jen
227: Back to School: What’s Your Why?
Hey Christian Indies,
Summer is quickly slipping away and that can only mean one thing…back to school.
But it isn’t just the little tykes that need to prepare for the change of seasons. As writers, the transition into fall is the perfect time to get your writing and your author business back on track.
Today we continue our Back to School series with the question of Why?
Why do you write?
You might not have thought about it before, but the why behind your writing will affect it.
Be sure and join our private Facebook group, Listeners of the Christian Indie Writers Podcast, to be a part of this growing and dynamic community of Christian writers.
We can’t wait for you to join us on today’s podcast!
Tina, Jamie, and Jen
225: The 3 Rs of Keeping Your Novel Accurate
How accurate does your novel need to be?
Does anyone really care if your character is holding the gun properly or if she is dressed in the appropriate attire for the time period.
Do coroners really give cause and time of death at a crime scene?
Will an EMP really shut down everything electronic, sending us back to the stone age?
Believe it or not, accuracy is important to readers and in this episode, the ladies will share ways you can ensure your novel is accurate.
Be sure and join our private Facebook group, Listeners of the Christian Indie Writers Podcast, to be a part of this growing and dynamic community of Christian writers.
We can’t wait for you to join us on today’s podcast!
Tina and Jen
Writing Sprints Inspiration: Tina
If you missed last week’s episode, you missed a great one. You can watch the replay here. As always, the ladies of the podcast created some great pieces of writing from this sprint prompt. Today’s Prompt is five words: like, fascinated, massive, cough, tall. We really enjoyed Tina’s take on the prompt, and we think you will as well! Enjoy, and make sure you reach out to her to let her know you want her to finish this story!
Winter nights in the wilderness were not what Ivan expected. Having spent his life in the city he couldn’t remember ever seeing a sky so vivid. The stars hung in the sky like a child’s mobile, some invisible strings longer than the others, so it seemed as if he could reach up and touch them. He came out every clear night he could, and stood looking up in awe at the beauty of the stars. But tonight was different. Tonight took his breath away. He knew scientific facts about the aurora borealis, seen pictures and videos, but none of that prepared him for this.
As he gazed into the sky the many colored particles danced across the sky in a ribbon that reached from the eastern horizon to the west. In his mind, Ivan heard Mozart as he watched the particles dance in perfect time. It made his chest ache so that each breath seemed almost painful.
His body shuddered from the cold and he knew he’d been standing out here too long. He should go back inside and check on his sleeping son. As he turned toward the cabin a new sensation crawled up his spine, making the hair stand up on the back of his head. He stopped to listen. The night was completely silent. He turned in a slow circle, examining every shadow among the trees. No movement. Alarm coursed through him as he realized. It was completely silent. No shrill calls of the night birds. No hooting from the owls nesting nearby. No rustling or scurrying of the many small animals that lived in the forest. They’d all gone silent.
Before he could react he saw them. Dark shadows in the shape of men rising as if spectors and emerging from the treeline. He tried to run but they were on him before he took a step. He heard the sickening thump from the back of his head more than felt it. As the sky shrunk to black in his vision he called out.
“Joshua!” and the sky faded to black.
Christina Cattane is a Christian Indie Writer who writes stories set in Alaska and other exotic locales. She is the author of a novel called ‘Lost in the Land of the Midnight Sun’ which falls in the Christian Dystopian Fiction genre, but she also writes in many other genres. Tina grew up in Alaska, has lived in Saudi Arabia, and currently resides in Michigan with her husband and youngest 2 of 4 kids. Her travels around the world often influence her writing. Visit her website at http://christinacattane.com where you can see the progress she is making on her novel. Or catch up with her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cmcattane
Writing Sprints Inspiration: Jenifer
If you missed last week’s episode, you missed a great one. You can watch the replay here.
Once again, our 15 minute word sprint produced some great works. This week, the prompt was: “What are you eating?”
“What are you eating?”
So lost in his own thoughts, Cade hadn’t heard Colleen approaching and the sound of her softly lilting Irish accent tinged with disgust made him jump. “Where’d you come from?”
“I was out back hanging the wash. What is that?” she asked, motionining her head in the direction of his lunch.
[Read more…] about Writing Sprints Inspiration: Jenifer
Jenifer Carll-Tong is the best-selling author of historical Christian romances and co-host of the Christian Indie Writers’ Podcast.
Writing Sprints Inspiration: Jamie
If you missed last week’s episode, you missed a great one. You can watch the replay here.
Jamie put her heart into today’s prompt, which is to use the following in your story:What are you eating? Enjoy, and make sure you reach out to her to let her know you want her to finish this story!
Joanie looked down at her plate. Several crumbs had fallen away from the graham cracker crust and formed what her mind saw as a smile face on the plain white porcelain, or what she assumed was porcelain—this was a swanky sort of place after all. Didn’t all swanky people eat off porcelain? Or was that only in the olden days?
Joanie had grown up with corel ware—dishes that were virtually indestructible, especially in the days before granite countertops became the default for the suburban set. As her mind took a walk down memory lane, re-living several occasions in which either she or her sister had managed to explode a corell plate in spectacular fashion, She continued to stare at the smattering of crumbs, longing to press her fingers into them. The keylime pie had been a delicious indulgence that hadn’t lasted quite long enough in the microscopic portion it had been served.
“I could go for another slice,” a voice croaked from her left side, and Joanie looked up in surprise to meet the gaze of Mrs. Vanderpool, who hadn’t spoken a word to Joanie throughout any of the equally miserly courses the two had sat through together. Joanie had been seated on the end, leaving her with no other opportunity for conversation, and she and Mrs. Vanderpool had been placed immediately across from the perpetually drunk Olsens. Joanie looked across at them now, and saw only the same red-faced man, grinning at everything being said at the other end of the table, where those with good breeding or at least some potentiality for entertainment which overshadowed potential for embarrassment—had been sat, and his washed out blonde wife, who sat as still as she’d seemed to the entire evening, one arm hugging her body, the other a stand for a wine glass which she lifted with rhythmic regularity to her overly powdered face, sipping at it through lipstick that seemed intent to create an entirely new upper lip, this motion only interrupted by a lifting of the empty hand to wave away each offered course, not even bothering to look at the server with her heavily mascara-d vacant eyes. Joanie wasn’t sure if Mrs. Olsen saw her now, or if she had noticed Mrs. Vanderpool’s comment. As far as Joanie could tell, Mrs. Vanderpool hadn’t spoken a word to anyone since arriving at the estate two days previously, merely gesturing to everyone with shakes of the head and points of her walking stick. Her silence and refusal to join in the party’s hilarity had only been matched by that of the perpetually stoned Mrs. Olsen, and Joanie had actually wondered whom she would hear speak first. She wondered now if Mrs. Olsen would smile, were she to understood the nature of her victory.
“Oh, yes, the pie was very good,” Joanie stammered, and smiled at the plump and fashionably dressed matriarch.
“There was a time when the portions were bigger,” she said, lifting her considerable girth in a massive harumph, as if her substantial size were proof of what she’d said.
Jamie Hershberger enjoys writing shorts (short fiction) under the pen name, J. R. Nichols. She is the creator and curator of www.writingshorts.net and the editor of The Writing Shorts Newsletter. Her flash fiction has won several contests and has been featured in two anthologies.
