I can't tell you how many times I've read something like this in the fiction proposals I've considered over the years:

I wrote this novel to prove that Christians ought not gossip.

...or...

My aim is that readers conclude that unconfessed sin can cause their lives to fall apart.

...or even worse...

I have written this novel to show the complete depravity of man and that the world's only hope is salvation in Jesus Christ.

Okay, don't get me wrong, I agree with all those things. Especially the last one.

But when you come to fiction, you can't write a novel to prove a point. You can't be writing a sermon (or, more commonly, a diatribe) to tell those sinners off.

Many well-meaning writers come to fiction as a means of sugar-coating their bitter pill. They want to preach to some deluded audience or rail against some social ill and they feel that fiction will somehow make their message more palatable and persuasive.

I'm here to tell you that it does not.

Agenda-driven fiction is bad for two reasons. First, it's almost always written by someone who has no interest in learning the craft of fiction. In other words, it usually stinks as a novel. These authors aren't typically patient enough to learn how to do it right. They just want to loose their fusillade and move on with their lives.

Second, agenda-driven fiction is often bad because it isn't about a person or a story; it's about an Important Lesson.

In fiction, story is king. It outranks (or should outrank) everything else, including that lesson you want to drive into the reader's thick head.

And in order to make story king, you have to start with character. Read Tip #50 to find out how to construct a story the right way: protagonist first.

Readers do not come to fiction to be preached at. They come for escape and entertainment and fun. You start putting in anything that feels like bony finger pointing and the reader will quickly find something else to do besides read your book. If they want a sermon they'll go to church. Outside of church they want no sermons.

But What About Theme and Message?

Am I saying that fiction must be about merely funny or entertaining things, "lite" topics without any substance?

Of course not. Good novels have a theme or a message or even a note of warning or challenge. Hopefully your novel will have this, too.

My novels Operation: Firebrand—Crusade and Operation: Firebrand—Deliverance tackle serious humanitarian issues (modern slavery in Sudan and North Korean tyranny to its people, respectively). I very much wanted to make people aware of what's going on in these regions. But even in those novels, story was king. Characters reigned over Message.

There's a difference between writing a novel to prove a point and writing a novel about a person and finding out later that you've made an interesting commentary on some theme that resonates with you and readers.

It can even work if you know in advance what you want your theme to be—if you do it through your protagonist's inner journey (see Tip #3). Keep it subtle, keep it about the character and not the reader, and the reader may (or may not) take up your invitation to examine her life on this issue.

And that's the difference. With agenda-driven fiction you're nailing the reader to the wall like a fire and brimstone preacher. You want her squirming in her pew. With correct fiction you're offering up a story and letting readers interpret it as they will.

You're doing what Rod Serling often said when introducing an episode of Twilight Zone: "Presented for your consideration, a man who..."

Don't come to fiction to prove a point or teach a lesson. Just tell your story and let the chips fall where they may.

This tip is the second in a series on things to avoid in your fiction.

In the parlance of cinema, direct address is when an actor speaks directly into the camera. If you'll watch, most cinematography is done in third person. The camera (and therefore the viewer) is an observer, not a participant.

There's an invisible wall between the world of the story and the world of the viewer. Films occasionally break this barrier intentionally (and of course TV news anchormen do it all the time) to interesting effect, as when Ferris Beuller looks right into the camera and lets us in on his world.

This is akin to the "aside" in theatre. In these, there is a kind of a pause in the action and an actor turns directly to the audience, often with his hand to the side of his mouth as if sharing a secret, and makes some humorous comment about what's going on in the story.

In nonfiction writing, especially of the self-help variety, authors can and should speak directly to the reader. In Christian living books the effect the author is striving for is usually an intimate chat between a person who has knowledge and a person who wants that knowledge. But fiction is not self-help. Fiction is entertainment.

In fiction, direct address is when you talk directly to the reader. Often this takes the form of sentences using the word you, in which the reader is the you in question.

You'd never know it to look at him, but Tommy was...

You know how irritating it is when people...

The building was rectangular as you look at it from above...

It was the largest celebration you've ever seen...

Let me set your mind at ease, dear reader...

[Also watch for examples of when the you is understood: "But don't worry, he'll be all right."]

When the author does this, it has a disconcerting effect on the reader. It's shocking and off-putting, rather like finding out that the two-way mirror you thought you were safely hidden behind is actually just a pane of regular window glass. You're exposed and suddenly part of the story, instead of sitting back as observer only.

That's why movies don't do it very often. People come to movies to be entertained, not put onstage. It's also why video phones will have a hard time catching on. People would rather be hidden than revealed.

It has the same effect in fiction. The invisible barrier is broken and the reader is discomfited, if only on an unconscious level.

It's similar to the reaction my young son had the first time he heard the Veggie Tales CD in which Bob and Larry actually said his name. It was too intense. He was no longer safely hidden. He was exposed. It was three years before he could bear listening to that CD again.

Go through your manuscript looking for those times when you've broken this invisible barrier. If you really, truly want to reach through the page and grab your reader's attention—even knowing that will quite likely make her ultimately not finish reading your book—then go for it.

And this rule, like most of the others on this column, can be violated flagrantly and successfully by a wildly talented novelist.

But most of the time most of us should maintain that invisible barrier and not try to directly address the reader.

And you can take that to the bank.