I contacted Ted to talk about this trilogy, and how he goes about crafting the gripping page-turners that he writes so well. But I found out that he is a thoughtful man with a multitude of opinions and ideas on any topic you can imagine. I was delighted to learn that the ideas of art and faith that form the foundation of this website, were already very prevalent in his own worldview.

Robin: How are you?

Ted: I'm good, man. It's good to finally connect a voice with a name.

You too.

Infuze Magazine, I have to say, sounds really cool. I love the site. It looks good, high quality. Looks very interesting.

Thanks. I really think that this is a concept whose time has come. This "art & faith" thing.

Yeah, I really like that tagline, "the intersection between art & faith." I'm pretty interested in the Web in general.

You seem to have a pretty active website.

Well, we're just getting started on it. They just launched a bulletin board. It's kind of cool. The board is called "The Circle," and it's a virtual gathering place for like-minded -- and sometimes not-so-like-minded seekers. I could see where, over time, these kinds of things could almost become virtual churches. Not quite, but you know... gathering places for people to walk through questions with other believers and discuss all kinds of issues.

Yeah, forums and message boards are really unique. They have a social structure all their own. There's something about the anonymity of it that frees people up to the point that they feel completely uninhibited. You're not saying what you say to someone's face, so you're more brave about speaking your mind.

You're right. It's the same with email. I remember about seven or eight years ago, when email was first happening, I joined a writer's list. It was some kind of list for unpublished writers, because this was before I was published. And anyway, I'm fairly opinionated, or at least passionate, so this tends to bleed through into strong points of view.

And I remember commenting on the direction of Christian fiction in general, and in the process of commenting on that, I upset some of the other members. It was like, a bunch of women, and me. (Laughs.) I was with the group for maybe two months, and I quickly decided, "This is not where I'm at. This kind of represents the status quo, and I'm not really there." So I bowed out. And I didn't realize that I'd offended anybody at the time.

But I found out last year -- someone came up to me at a book signing. And they said, "You know, I want to tell you that I was a part of that email group you were on, and what you said really offended me. And I want to ask your forgiveness, because since then, I've come to realize that what you said was dead-on. But for several years I really harbored some bitterness towards you." And I was like, "Whoa! I am so sorry, I had no intention whatsoever of offending anyone."

But the problem is, words work that way. They can offend very easily.

When you can't hear the tone of a person's voice... Something about doing it in this way allows people to hear it how they want to hear it, to think whatever they want to think about it.

Yeah. I just finished an article that's going to be published in Relevant Magazine.

Oh, I love Relevant.

Oh yeah, I love what they're doing. Anyway, it's entitled "Out of the Box, Into the Circle: The Relevance of the Common Culture Movement." Essentially, the whole premise of the article is that true Christianity -- following Jesus -- actually embodies the spirit of the counter-culture movement. I go back and talk about Jesus being very counter-cultural in many respects. But I also draw on my experiences from being a missionary kid growing up, in a totally different culture, and how the message of the Gospel impacted the culture in a unique way there. We are, as Christians, in essence, strangers to the rest of the world.

It's kind of a strange thing. Because on the one hand, we want to connect very much with the culture. There's no doubt about that. But on the other hand, our message is counter-cultural. And always is, because it kind of flies in the face of the status quo. The status quo is always going to seek the path of least resistance, and Christianity, although we also want to communicate it in ways that intersect with that path of least resistance, the message itself is quite counter-cultural.

So when I see sites like yours and what you're trying to do, it's like, "Alright! That's cool. I like that."

What is art, to you?

I really think the most artistic endeavors are attempts to connect with the longings and desires and understanding our Creator. We just don't tend to see it that way. But art, more than anything else, is an attempt to connect with who we really are. Who we really are, happens to be people created in the image of God.

So when I look at a band like Nine Inch Nails, for example, and they're like way out there, I see beyond that to a group of people who have not found the truth but who are seeking it. They're seeking desperately to understand the truth in their own way, through their own form of artistic expression. It's a very noble, very passionate attempt. It's wholehearted, and the more wholehearted it is, the more attractive it is, and the more response it gets.

So the spirit that I think should embody Christianity in its truest form, is often embodied in some of these kinds of artists, or these art forms, that are way out there. It's distorted, obviously. Many of the arts have been essentially kidnapped and held captive by the "dark side," if you will, but it's an imitation of the same spirit that should embody Christianity.

I agree. Okay, tell me about this trilogy of books you're working on for 2004. I think this is such an interesting idea, because to my knowledge, nothing like this has ever really been done before -- three books, one storyline, all releasing in the same year. How many of them are already complete?

All three books are already complete. The first book comes out in February.

From the book's description, it sounds like it's going to delve a little into the world of fantasy or science fiction maybe.

Not science fiction. Fantasy, yes. It depends on how you define fantasy, though. Not classical fantasy. No elves and dwarves or any of those well-known conventions of fantasy. I'm skirting those conventions. This story is very out-of-the-box, out of those literary boxes. It's a new kind of story.

The whole device used in the book is alternate realities. It starts out with Thomas Hunter, the protagonist, being chased down an alleyway in Denver. He's pretty sure he knows who these people are that are chasing him, and he barely escapes them. He makes it to the top of a building, and it's like midnight -- it's dark. And he just barely, barely escapes with his life. A bullet clips his head, and he tumbles off and lands in a garbage bin on his back. He's immediately knocked unconscious. He wakes up in the dark, and shakes his head, and he feels his hair, and he's bleeding. He look around and he's in a forest, and he's fallen and hit his head on a rock. He doesn't remember being chased through an alleyway, but he remembers having a dream about it. And that's it.

And now, he's being chased here, in this forest. Again he barely escapes, and in the process, is knocked unconscious again. Now he's back in Denver in the garbage bin. And he remembers dreaming about being in a forest, being chased. So what happens is that he quickly becomes completely confused, about whether he's really in Denver, or whether he's in this other place. In the other place, he has no history, because he has amnesia from hitting his head. In this place, he's got a full history, but there's a natural reason why he would have that history.

So we follow Thomas Hunter through this incredible sequence of events, and in each reality, significant events occur which propel him into terrible danger, and the fate of both of those realities quickly depends upon the choices he makes. So there are two parallel stories, and each one is dependent on the other.

I'll give you an example of the device that I'm using. Somewhere in the story, in Denver, he's boxed into a corner, and he realizes, "If I just had this bit of information, I could possibly get out of this situation. But the only way to get that information is to go to the other reality. So knock me out. If I could fall asleep and dream, I could go to the other reality and retrieve that information. And then I could fall asleep there and wake up here, and perhaps get myself out of this situation."

So it's kind of a mind-bending adventure. It's a trip.

I like it already.

It's not a brand new convention. Other people have used dreams this way. But in each book, the story in one of the realities comes to a conclusion, a resolution. But in the other reality, it ends with a complete cliffhanger. So you have a certain amount of satisfaction at the end of Black, the first book, knowing that, "Oh, wow, okay this is what's happened here." But in the other reality, he's right in the middle of the story. So you have to read Red to continue it. But all three novels -- Black, Red, and White -- really tell one story.

My whole objective with this was to retell the story of redemptive history. This is a Christian term for it, and it never comes up in that way. These are not "Christian books" as such. There's no Christian jargon in them, but in the same way, there's no redemptive jargon in The Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of the Rings. But the further you go through it, you clearly start to see what's happening here, and that is that Thomas is reliving redemptive history, in a one-month period, and it's all done in a completely different way than you would ever expect.

And I want someone to read this trilogy, and see for the first time, from a very broad perspective, the entire redemptive history of the human race.

Is Thomas Nelson going to market the books to mainstream stores?

Oh yeah, definitely. My core base of readers, I think at this point, are Christians. But even most Christians don't have a clear picture of what our history looks like. We think in terms of stories, of Bible stories, but we don't really understand how they all fit together. This is valuable I think just as much for Christians and non-Christians. I'm not making an overt attempt to go out and convert people, I'm simply writing about God.

That's the way it should be done. That's why we never seem to get anywhere with traditional evangelism anymore. Because as soon as you use the word "Christian," half your audience immediately changes the channel.

You're absolutely right, but even more than that, I don't think that the word "Christian" any longer necessarily describes a follower of Jesus Christ. You know, there's a stigma to the word "Christian" now, and the definitions have changed, especially overseas. There, a "Christian" is somebody who was born into a certain sect and has a certain set of beliefs, which primarily revolve around religion and have very little to do with faith. So a Christian might be somebody who's involved in a war, slaughtering Muslims, with no faith whatsoever, but they're seen as a "Christian." It has very little to do with following Jesus.

So the word "Christian" -- I wouldn't mind if ten years from now, there was a new term to describe followers of Jesus. I kind of doubt that will happen. But sometimes when I'm asked about my faith, I'm not sure I want to be called a Christian. Because to many people, being a "Christian" means something very different than what I am. Of course, that would be a controversial statement in middle America. So you can't say that to people. But I can explain it to someone like you.

Exactly. I think one of the best ways to approach this subject is to ask a simple question: Is there a difference between a Christian and a follower of Jesus? That's a very interesting question, because it requires the person you're engaging to consider that there might be a difference. And then you can start to talk about the differences. And that kind of engagement ends up being very nonconfrontational and often quite enlightening.

I want to talk to you about creativity. I could talk all day about this subject, because it's a fascinating thing and it's a big part of what we're about here at Infuze Magazine. First of all, one thing that I've always wondered about -- especially in regards to writers like yourself who have stories full of big twists and turns and reveals -- how do you do that, exactly? When it's a story that large, how do you plot out all of these intricate story beats and keep track of them? I've heard of some writers who will use giant boards and attach index cards to them and sort of arrange them like puzzle pieces until the entire story falls into place. And then there are others who will just start writing and kind of plot it all out on their computer. How do you do it?

Well, in hearing you say that, it reminds me of reading your review of Thr3e from a while back. Thank you for that, by the way. In reading that, I loved how you wrote it, because you weren't just reacting to it, you talked about things like pacing and flow, and it was like, "This guy gets it. He's a writer's writer." We just signed a contract, by the way, with Fox Studios to do a movie based on Thr3e. But who knows if it actually ends up getting made.

That would be fantastic. Thr3e begs to be a movie. It reads like a movie.

Well, I'm very cinematic. I'm totally into movies. I write with the movie generation in mind. And that totally affects how you tell a story, by the way. It really does change the way you tell a story, if you think in terms of movies.

But to answer your question directly, I am one of those writers who has plots that are very intricate. They require a very careful plotting. So I start with a basic premise, a cool idea, a high concept. Like, "What if there was a guy who dreamed and went to another place, and he didn't know which reality was real?" You start with a concept like that, and then you start forming a story.

I have a database program that I use called Dramatica Pro, which is a program made for writers. You create your characters, flesh them all out, within that software. And it's just a database, it doesn't tell you to do anything. It just organizes it all for you. You develop all of your characters, you develop your logline, and then you develop your plot summary. Which is like a one page summary of the entire plot. And then you go through and you start developing specific scenes and chapters.

I normally start with twenty or thirty pages worth of notes, single-spaced, written on the computer. And then I write the whole story out, scene-by-scene. "This happens. And then this happens. And then this happens..." I've got it all in my mind, and that will take me a couple of weeks just to set the story onto paper. Now, there will be a lot of times when I'll write down a scene summary and I'll just say, "He gets trapped in a basement." And I have no idea how he's going to get out. But it's enough for that part of the process just to say, "And he finds a way to get out."

So, I'm not slowing down to figure things out yet. I may have a very basic idea, but then I move on to the next scene. When all is said and done, I might have two to five sentences per chapter. But what I have is the basic through-lines of the story, where the characters are going -- where they're going to start, and where they're going to end. I use mythic structures for my characters, so I know which role each of them plays. There's the protagonist, the antagonist, the sidekick, the skeptic, the guardian -- there's all the basic mythic structures for the characters.

Then I begin to write, starting with the first chapter. I'll have four or five summary sentences to draw from, and then a whole new level of creativity is required at this point in that, "How do I make these four or five sentences come to life? How does he get out of the basement?" And I'm constantly finding myself in boxes that I've got to figure my way out of. This is what propels the story, this is what creates a real sense of mystery and urgency. I don't know how, scene-by-scene, the story is going to develop. I know where it's going. There's a difference. Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

Some people, like Dean Koontz for example, start Chapter One with a basic idea or a concept, and he just goes. But I feel like, usually you can tell when the writer has done that, because the story sometimes tends to wander. And I want to tell a very tight story.

I can't stand that sort of thing -- that wandering. And you're right -- you can always tell when the author has done this, because they spend too much time on one thing and not enough on something else... It makes me nuts.

Exactly. For me, pacing is very important. I want my books to be a very intense read. I want them to be the kind of read that keeps somebody on edge from chapter to chapter, so there are always a number of story questions left open. Just as I answer one story question, I ask several others. These are like waves coming in from the ocean, one after another after another. You're like, "Ah, so he got out of the basement, but now there are three other problems that have arisen." You have this effect that propels the reader forward.

But that's it. Different people do it differently. That's just how I do it.

True. But I think you're the kind of writer that I would like to be, so that's very helpful to me, personally.

Oh, thanks.

Planning and plotting out some of the stories and things that I plan to do here at Iinfuze Magazine has been some of the most fun I've ever had in my life. It's a rush.

It's a very raw, creative experience. Plotting, especially. It's the ultimate "what if?" It's just raw creation. Editing is a lot more tedious, of course, because you're connecting all the dots in a very, very methodical kind of way.

I agree. Let me ask you this: Do you consider what you do to be art?

Oh, totally. Absolutely.

Do you think that really great art can even exist that does not in some way reflect God?

No, I think all art does. I think all artistic expression is a form of creation. We're all created by a creator who made us in his image. I think that the noblest task that anyone can take on is reflecting that creative imprint that we all have on us, as creatures created in his image. We're all a bunch of mini-creators, and we all have a desire to create.

Now we don't all think of ourselves as creators or creative people. That might limit how much we create. But at the very least, we are all fascinated by other forms of creative expression. We watch movies, we listen to music, and so on, and we are so moved by it. That's because it's all part of the same thing. We are all made in God's image, born to create. We can't get away from it.

So absolutely, yes, what I do is definitely a form of art. I paint pictures in people's minds.

Why do we -- as Jesus' followers -- why do we need art?

Because all forms of art are ultimately attempts to understand who we are and where we come from and what makes us tick. We need art to help us understand who we are. It's the purest form of understanding. Art is about connecting with who we are. Maybe "connecting" is a better word than "understanding." As people trying to make sense about this life, often we can't make sense of it with words. It goes beyond words into images and ideals. It's in the heart of those ideals that we find guidance.

Jesus Christ used art. He used stories -- idealistic stories -- that were actually quite shocking, in many respects. Many of the parables he told were quite surprising. Within the context of these parables, he set forth a certain worldview that challenges us to follow a certain way that is almost impossible to follow. You know, he said that if your eye causes you to sin, you should gauge it out. Did he mean for you to gauge your eyes out? He used a metaphor, which is a form of art -- a metaphor is a writing device. But he set up this ideal. And now we as his followers have this image in our minds of a guy poking his eye out because it caused him to sin. We use this metaphor to guide us. It becomes an ideal which we follow.

You and I aren't going to poke our eyes out, but if something causes us to stumble, we should become very aggressive in removing it from our lives. And it's much more powerful when he states it in this kind of artistic form.

So I guess the short answer is that art helps us connect with who we are. It helps us explore who we are. And it helps us explore God's creation. And also, art is probably the best way known to man to set up ideals which guide us. Jesus was the greatest example of setting up ideals. Many of his teachings were very idealistic. And our heads kind of spin when we hear them. The Sermon on the Mount is full of ideals. Nobody's actually following it to the letter, because it's impossible to do so. Nobody's walking around gauging their eyes out. Nobody's taking the planks out of their eyes because we don't have planks in our eyes. It's all metaphors.

Jesus was God, and from all that I understand about God, he's quite an intelligent fellow, and he understands that art is probably the best way to communicate with man. Because he is essentially all about art. He is the ultimate creator. He is the grand artist. He is the greatest artist who has ever existed. Art is in his very being, and he has planted that artistic drive on our minds, in our souls, and in our bodies.

 Ted's website: teddekker.com