While researching an article on Christian fiction, I came across many different authors with fascinating backgrounds – some quite unexpected. Peter Laws is one such writer. He is an ordained church minister who writes horror fiction. Here he talks about his journey to become a published author, why he writes horror and what he thinks of Christian fiction. While you may not agree with his conclusions, Peter certainly shares some interesting thoughts…
I’m an ordained church minister who had an idea for a novel about ten years ago. It was a horror thriller. I didn’t see it as a Christian book, but rather that I was simply a Christian who wrote a novel. So I sent it to secular literary agents, and was delighted to find a London agent who wanted to represent me.
It actually took another five or six years to get a book deal. I’d write a novel, my agent would send it to all the big publishers, they would say they really liked it, but they weren’t sure how to market it. So I would just write another one, and try again. I got another agent, and she’s been great though there was still some rejection at first – par for the course in writing. In 2016 I was close to giving up on fiction, and so wrote a non-fiction proposal instead. Amazingly, my agent called to say that I’d been offered a two-book fiction deal by a publisher called Allison and Busby. Then, not long after, she called to say that I had also been offered the non-fiction deal from Icon Books.
Since 2017, I’ve had four books out in shops (three in my fiction series and the non-fiction). My latest novel (Possessed) comes out in shops next February from (Allison and Busby). My books were released in Germany last year in translated editions. My non-fiction comes out in Taiwanese this year, and it also came out in hardback in American shops last Halloween, from a US publisher called Skyhorse.
You don’t tend to find my books in Christian bookstores, but you will find them in Waitrose, at airports sometimes, in libraries etc. They’re out in audio, paperback, hardback, eBook. It’s been pretty exciting to find myself on trains or in random cities where strangers have come up to say they’ve read my stuff. I’ve spoken at various literary festivals, been a guest on a lot of radio, including Radio 4, discussing my books. So it’s been a real blessing and thrill.
Why do I write horror stories? Because they interest me. I’m drawn to mystery, the supernatural and high-stakes drama. And there is little more high stakes than murder and death! My books are usually found in the Crime fiction section of Waterstones, even though I’m more of a horror guy. Crime fiction is the most popular of all genres in the UK, and so it makes sense for me to be pitched there, and my books certainly do belong on that shelf. However, I do thread themes of the supernatural into the books, and there’s a lot of exploration of religious ideas.
I write what I think is relevant to not only me, but also to our world. I’m particularly interested in how evangelical Christians appear scary and deranged to many everyday people. It’s easy for us to see ourselves as normal everyday folk in the church, but for many, the idea of full-on Christians is terrifying. That is rich picking for writing scary novels.
That’s why my novel series features a character called Matt Hunter. He’s an ex-vicar turned atheist professor who spends his time debunking the Christian faith, while also helping the police solve religiously motivated murder. In book one, Purged (Allison and Busby, 2017) he’s on the trail of a Christian serial killer who thinks the most effective way to evangelise is to baptise people then murder them immediately afterwards. That way they are fast tracked to heaven, with no risk of backsliding.
I find such topics interesting, exciting, but they also give a lot of scope to ponder deep and profound issues, both theological and philosophical. My books are dark, but they also have a pretty strong sense of humour throughout, because I like to have a laugh in amongst scary things.
What do I hope reader will glean from my books? First and foremost I want them to be entertained. There is something very noble about pure entertainment, and I think Christians can sometimes dismiss it as trivial when it’s not. I’ve even heard some preachers say that escapism is dangerous…I think that’s nuts. Escapism is an important way that human beings relax, but also how they assess some deep and profound ideas too. So while my books are designed to thrill, excite, scare and amuse (my stuff is classed as commercial fiction) it also raises some really deep ideas, especially about Christianity.
I’ve had a handful of Christian readers who struggle with the idea that the hero in my books is an atheist and the killers are often religious. They assume that Matt Hunter is going to drop to his knees and convert at some point. That is not my aim. I think as Christians we need to respect other worldviews, and atheism is perfectly reasonable, even though I don’t ascribe to it. Ironically, I get many messages from atheist readers, thanking me for respecting their view and giving it the space to be. They then seem really interested in my faith. However, that is not why I’m writing these books. It’s not a method of conversion in my mind, but a form of entertainment that may or may not provoke thought on all sides of faith and none.
I don’t see myself as writing Christian fiction, because to me, and I might be wrong, that sounds like fiction that is aimed at Christians. I write for anyone and everyone, so it’s just plain old fiction to me. If people see Christian fiction as a glorified conversion tool, then that’s up to them, but that’s not where I’m coming from. Some people think I must be writing horror and crime thrillers as a way of swinging into the darkness, and scooping up lost souls. Then I’ll swing them back into the church world and will hopefully start reading nice stuff instead. That is totally not where I’m coming from.
There is a value in the morbid and macabre: my non-fiction book The Frighteners: Why we love monsters, ghosts, death and gore makes this point. In that book I travelled around Transylvania, Rome and the UK meeting people who sleep on mortuary slabs, and self-proclaimed vampires, and I also went on werewolf hunts, stayed over in a haunted hotel, was blind driven to a remote mansion by the BBC where they threw spiders on me and put me in an electric chair. It was such fun. It was all to show that gritty or macabre subjects are an inherently human preoccupation, and that there are actually great benefits from pondering them. I think when the Church warns people off such things, they’re misunderstanding what it means to be human.
Peter Laws is an author, journalist, film critic and public speaker. He is the creator of the Matt Hunter novel series. He’s an ordained Reverend with a fascination for the macabre. Peter writes a monthly column for the print magazine The Fortean Times and also hosts the popular podcast and YouTube show ‘The Flicks That Church Forgot’, which reviews scary culture from a theological perspective. His acclaimed non-fiction book The Frighteners was released in the UK and US in 2018. He also regularly speaks and preaches at churches and events. Find out more at https://www.peterlaws.co.uk