As authors, we do our readers no favors by giving them false confidence in easy victories. If we want to encourage them to hold fast to righteousness and life, we need to write stories that show truth’s triumph over evil’s strongest arguments—not its weakest.

Storytelling is an opportunity to experiment with life. We get to try on characters’ worldviews for size and experience how they play out in action. We’re invited to compare the consequences of the characters’ decisions, and hopefully, our observations will enable us...

Thought-provoking stories don’t just make us wonder whether the characters are going to learn their lesson. They push us to pursue truth by putting us in situations where WE don’t yet have the answers.

As an author, the best way to do this is by forcing your characters to confront dilemmas where every option comes with a devastating cost.

There’s something deeply satisfying about a story worth chewing on. As much as we appreciate a great story’s offer of an escape, we also hunger for meaning to follow us back into real life and transform the way we see the world.