Adding to the Bible? Why Writing Christian Fiction Is NOT Sinful | Rick Norris, Musical Novelist

Rick Norris (00:00)
some people are upset if somebody writes biblical fiction. They're saying you're destroying the Bible. You're you are violating the last chapter of Revelation that says, if anybody adds to this, they will be they will be condemned forever.

what's so important about writing this way, as long as you are not contradicting the Bible, is you're throwing a story alongside to prove a point, to give a message.

And that's what I do. And if we don't do that as fictional writers or screenwriters, The Chosen would never exist.

Allen C. Paul (00:38)
Rick Norris, welcome to the God and Gigs Show. How are you, my friend?

Rick Norris (00:42)
Great. Thanks a lot, Alan, for having me here today. It's exciting to be here and I I love the the title of your show.

Allen C. Paul (00:49)
If someone's meeting you for the first

time,

And they're not meeting you online, but they're meeting you in a grocery store, restaurant, just in real life. What are those couple of things that you like people to know about you when they first meet you?

Rick Norris (01:01)
Well, something that I tell people often is what's going on in my life right now because I used to be an entertainment CPA and but currently I'm an author and composer of musical novels. I'm also an online missionary for Explore God. Uh I teach the Bible in various countries, that people that have found me through pastors that found me through Facebook. So my life

as ministry work has just uh exploded uh around the world from some little kid in Culver City in nineteen sixty five or something.

Allen C. Paul (01:35)
Incredible. So

What was the seed that was the first

Creative seed, I guess, is the question I'm asking. Because some of us start with something in school, some of us start with music, some of us start with, you know, a church thing where that kind of sparks your creative life. So what was that first spark for you? Was it in music? Was it in writing or something else?

Rick Norris (01:56)
Well, you know,

my dad was a rockabilly singer. He had a record uh contract with Capitol Records, and uh he uh s tried to make it uh in and so in rockabilly in the fifties, early sixties, it ended up destroying his marriage. Um and what was interesting is they have pictures of me as a four-year-old or three year old dragging his nineteen fifty

Gibson Southern Jumbo acoustic guitar around the house. And I still have that guitar. He's passed away. I play that guitar now. In fact, that guitar is heard on some of my songs. And so I have to say that creativity came from there.

Allen C. Paul (02:35)
Very, very cool. So with the creative side obviously coming from that is exposure to your father, what about the business side? Was that kind of something that went side by side with the growth of your creative life or you know, was it something that was kind of different?

Rick Norris (02:48)
I like the entertainment industry, and so uh uh I enjoyed numbers, I did well in math and I thought about engineering, but then um I said, Well, maybe I want to go to law school. So I went to college, paying my way through college, and my cousin said, You know, you should try to.

you know, like a CPA, 'cause she was a CPA. And she said, y you know, in a lot of people it would make you better if you were a CPA and also graduated from law school. I went, Okay. So I went to UCL you went to UCLA. became a CPA in a few years, turned around and went to law school.

Graduated in eighty-five uh and was in the entertainment industry as a entertainment business manager, uh CPA. And the law degree gave me the legal background for tax. I never practiced as lawyer. Uh and um and so that just the ball kept rolling. But at the same time, I was very much involved uh uh still with my Christian background. I was teaching Sunday school.

Uh but before I sold my practice, I got this idea about writing a novel about this the beginning of Good Against Evil, when Satan rebelled. The first battle of good against evil. We see this on TV, we see this on movies, we see this on Star Wars, we see this on Lord of the Rings, we see good against evil. But not a lot of books are about this battle. You know, there's Paradise Lost and some of these other things that are written back then, and now there's been more books that have come out since I started this.

Allen C. Paul (04:17)
I was curious because you you talked about the whole thirty year career of your accounting and then

you just talked about the music, starting from the music, right? And then

getting into the actual career of working in the entertainment industry. what was like the genesis of that particular idea? Did it just come to you? Was there a was there a seed that was planted? Was there like, you know, uh something something you heard at church or something like that that actually 'cause there's a lot of people listening that want

that inspiration, but they they they're like praying like, okay, where's the idea going to come from? So I'm very curious about the specific idea that that was sparked it.

Rick Norris (04:47)
in the other church I was at where I was teaching Sunday school, um, I had this thirst for the Bible. Uh, to learn it. I went to my pastor and I said, You know, I want to learn more about this. I'm reading it, I'm gonna study it. what commentary should I buy? And he Well, here's some major commentary. I wanna buy all the all the all the Barclay commentaries for the whole New Testament. And so I started reading all this stuff.

And I went into this Bible class from Logos Ministry by Dr. Bill Creasy, who goes five years to the Bible. And he's a he was a medieval literature professor at UCLA who approaches the Bible from a literature point of view. That just opened up a love world a big world to me. So as I'm reading this, I'm reading about good and evil. And that's where the idea came from me from reading the Bible, studying the Bible, anywhere from Genesis

To Revelation, all the good and evil that has happened in the Bible, it's like, well, this had to begin somewhere. And how did it begin? And so let's come up with a fictional story and stay as close as we can to it. And so that's where it could probably came into.

So I got this idea, this idea, but you know, was I a storyteller? Well, I was a storyteller of my kids. You know, I would tell them to pick three things in the room, and you know, they would pick a crayon, a you know, a paper clip, and a piece of felt, and I would make a story using those three things. So I kind of developed as a father, as a storyteller. In the church, though, they had something that they wanted to do as an experiment, as a children's sermon.

So one of the adults will come up and they tell a story to the kids or they tell them some lesson. I use that as an opportunity to create fiction. Uh biblic

Allen C. Paul (06:33)
Interesting.

Rick Norris (06:34)
biblically based fiction. And and some of it could be with crayons, like a box of crayons, and uh who was who thought who was the most who was the prettiest in the box, that kind of thing. Uh and and I actually have some of these typed out, uh sitting in a drawer. Um, but

So I got this idea of of a message, but not only to the kids, because you're telling it to the whole congregation, the kids are sitting up in front,

Allen C. Paul (07:01)
Right.

Rick Norris (07:02)
but to have a secondary level message to the adults. And I did that every time they called me to do that, which was like once a month or something. Uh and so this got me into this kind of this mode of of biblical fiction, of of telling stories. And in doing it on multiple levels.

That's a really important part to do on multiple levels. Cause when I write my novels, I write them on three levels. the first level is for anybody uh who is not a Christian, who has no belief like that, who wants to read it, read it like Star Wars. Have fun. All right. The second level is for the Christian who says, Hey, this makes sense because I have a hundred and eighty to two hundred footnotes in each of my novels to the Bible. And and the reason why I have that is because I take a lot of settings from the Bible.

Plus, I take scripture from the Bible when the angels talk. When the angels talk, they're reciting scripture many times, but it's out of it's in a different context.

Allen C. Paul (08:03)
I am curious because you were a CPA by trade. So what was that like getting into the business of writing a book as far as editors and publishing

Rick Norris (08:12)
Yeah.

Allen C. Paul (08:12)
and all that kind of stuff?

Rick Norris (08:13)
what happened is I went to some Christian book conferences and I kind of write a synopsis what I doing. I met this one agent named Steve Laube, who's a Christian agent, and he's and he basically said, Let me direct you to a book coach. So he directed me to Susan May Warren, who is a um USA Today bestselling author, Christian author. She's got I don't know, like 20 books or something now. And my first book.

she coached me. She coached me in my first book. I learned all the things that you know, all the big ticket items, things that you do wrong as an author, you know, it makes you look like a novice and stuff like that. Um, and then uh after that I took a course, actually it was from great courses, so all places, from

Allen C. Paul (09:02)
Okay.

Rick Norris (09:03)
a professor from uh Iowa. Iowa is like I think the top or one of the top

writing schools, one of the top literature schools in the

country. Yeah. And he changed my writing a lot. That was great. I really enjoyed it. And there's other courses and other books and things like that read to kind of and I'm still learning. I'm always always learning, trying to make it better. Um and um so these these all the pieces that went into it because when I went to um that first book conference I submitted my like seven pages to a um a

a book coach who's gonna review your your seven pages. And the guy said to me, he said, You're a storyteller. I said, Yeah. He said, All right, great. He says, wonderful. That's the hard part. He says, now you have to learn the craft of writing. That's the easy part. And so

Allen C. Paul (09:55)
Hmm.

Rick Norris (09:56)
that's what it is. So if you're a storyteller, that's the most important part.

But be a storyteller, learn the craft.

Allen C. Paul (10:05)
love this and I want to make sure I incorporate or ask you about the other levels because you mentioned levels in terms of children, in terms of being able to tell different perspectives, but also now we're talking about disciplines because there's a discipline of writing, which you just talked about, learning it, actually learning it, but you have also applied music in the actual novel. So I need to ask, how did that come about? How did you even get the idea to insert music into your novels and

kind of like also the nitty gritty of what was the actual process. So what where did it come from? And then how did you actually, you know, accomplish it?

Rick Norris (10:43)
Christmas Christmas music. Christmas music is is is my

favorite. I love Christmas music. And angels we have heard on high. uh the in you know both in in um in Luke and in Matthew, you have the birth of Christ, uh one of those who have the angels singing for the shepherds, right?

Allen C. Paul (11:04)
True.

Rick Norris (11:05)
Um angels sing, and so I'm writing a book about angels and they sing. So let's make sing.

So I wrote songs because that's what they do naturally. It's like saying, I'm gonna write a story about a baseball player, but I'm not gonna give them a bat. You know, you know, and so

Allen C. Paul (11:23)
The tool, yeah, you have to have the tool, I got ya.

Rick Norris (11:26)
right. So they sing. So how would they sing? Well, they would sing worshiping God, they would sing crying out to God, very similar to what we do.

one of my son, my third son says, Well, why don't you use QR codes

in there?

'Cause I couldn't figure out 'cause the technology wasn't there yet in books, even in ebooks. Oh gosh.

Allen C. Paul (11:42)
What year was this by the way? Yeah, you say ebook, so what what what brought time was this?

Rick Norris (11:46)
this um I think the first songs that I wrote were I think they were copyrighted in twenty eleven. That early. Yeah.

Allen C. Paul (11:53)
Okay, so yeah, I would say yeah, yeah yeah, I see

yeah. I don't know when Q QR codes started kinda getting definitely

Rick Norris (11:57)
Y right.

Allen C. Paul (11:58)
that was definitely after that, yeah.

Rick Norris (12:00)
You right, right. So 2011 I had the music on the recording studio and um and that's a whole different and that's another of the story about how I got in there. Uh but um even ebooks, I don't think at that time even had the links, had uh issues with I mean how you could use a link in the ebook. So

Allen C. Paul (12:20)
Right.

Rick Norris (12:20)
Um, no, I started writing the novel, getting trained on the novel, we're in the novel, uh, and you know, putting the music in there. Um, and then um QR codes happened to work. And that was before the pandemic. The pandemic they really came on big. but this is before the pandemic. Right.

Allen C. Paul (12:37)
Yeah, that's when things where everything became digital. Right.

Rick Norris (12:41)
So um, you know, I put it all together and I wanted it to be a separate uh dimension of how the reader

feels the character. So I I use this example a lot. So Les Miserab, it's a musical. Singing in the rain, it's a musical. Okay. Les Miserab, he's singing at that that uh that scene about the number on the that's tattooed on his wrist because he's a prisoner, right? And he goes to this whole thing. It's great s great song. And the purpose of the song in that musical, in any musical, is to be able to feel the emotions of the character. Be able to feel what they're feeling.

However, that's where it stops. Because I don't think a prisoner would be singing about the numbers on their arm in reality. You know, I don't think that uh you know, in the sound of music, a nun would be singing climb the highest mountains when she's trying to convince somebody to leave the Nazis, you know. Well, maybe I mean I've been around a lot of nuns. But

Allen C. Paul (13:43)
Mm-hmm.

Rick Norris (13:44)
uh so but in this case.

Not only does it expose the inner emotions of the angels, but it's what they do. And so that makes it even a different thing. That brings it even closer to the reader of who this character is. And so that's what makes it exciting to do this. And so when I when now I have it in um with the human spirits now in my my latest book coming out, where they're rejoicing because they've accepted God in their life or something.

That's something that we do, you know, that when when we accept God, we we praise Him, we're excited about it. So these this is something that I think about a lot on trying to make things as realistic and and pull together all the loose strings so that it makes sense.

Allen C. Paul (14:35)
you mentioned earlier the 180 Bible footnotes. And that's yet another thing that you just said. Like, you know, you have to juggle all these different pieces

Rick Norris (14:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

Allen C. Paul (14:43)
and how to make sure that everything gets into a place where people both believe what you're writing, understand that it could be Christian, I guess you could call allegory. I don't know if that's the right word.

but also has this biblical fact. So how are you handling that? Have you had to deal with critics? Have you had to deal with people saying, that's not what the Bible says, that's not what this angel would have done? Have you had to have to deal with kind of, you know, criticism?

Rick Norris (15:07)
Read my comments on Amazon.

Allen C. Paul (15:09)
That's and that's why that's why

I mentioned that, because like I said, there's so many authors that would be would be scared to to to jump into this area because of that.

Rick Norris (15:20)
I'll tell you some of the ones that um I remember. One said, Well, you have some angels as females. And I did that on purpose. I I changed Raphael. This is from the Apocrypha, which some people don't know what that is. That's the seven books, hidden books, that the Catholic Church uh has in their Bible. I took s you know, like Raphael

Malachi, Uriel, they're all from the from that from the the Apocrypha. So I changed Raphael to Raphaela. And I I the reason why I have two female of the seven angels is female for is for um female uh readers to identify with them. Uh and secondly, is it gives more depth. And third, Raphaela was my Italian grandmother's name, and she's about as close to an angel as I can get.

get. Um and fourth is that angels don't have sex as or genders. Okay. I mean they're usually they refer to them as angels in the Bible. I think there's one time or two times I recall where they had said he or him, but it was always because they appeared like humans in that thing. But I mean basically they're spirits. There is no gender. Okay. So I can make whatever, you know, him or her I want. Yeah. So

so that's one thing.

Um the second thing is that some people are upset if somebody writes biblical fiction. They're saying you're destroying the Bible. You're you are violating the last chapter of Revelation that says, if anybody adds to this, they will be they will be condemned forever. And I actually have that in my preface. I am not adding to this thing I saw I actually cite that that that that

That section.

But here's the thing to think about. Jesus told taught in parables, right? The tree of truth. Now, were those true those true stories? I don't really know. It could have been something that happened in a neighborhood, you know, in Galilee that he took in like that. But parable normally means uh para means well first of all parable, parabola.

Para means to go alongside. So this means like paralegal,

Allen C. Paul (17:28)
Yeah.

Rick Norris (17:29)
you know, paramedic, things like that, so parabola, parabola is to throw alongside. And that's what's so important about writing this way, as long as you are not contradicting the Bible, is you're throwing a story alongside to prove a point, to give a message.

And that's what I do. And if we don't do that as fictional writers or screenwriters, The Chosen would never exist.

I think what the Chosen has done well is they showed motivation. The

Bible does not show motivation very well or very often about what we we have no idea what what Judah why Judas did what did, right? We can only guess that Peter denied Christ because of the fear, you know, but we don't really know. Uh we don't know why they really followed Jesus. You know, I mean he did this miracle,

but

They left their fishing career. They left their families. I mean this is huge. You know, there's some real there's some real motivation issues that you have to put into something in order to make a story. And the Bible is not a it's not a story. The Bible is the story of redemption. It's not a it's not a novel. It's a story of redemption.

Allen C. Paul (18:45)
not it's not it's not meant to be a narrative

Rick Norris (18:47)
Right.

Allen C. Paul (18:48)
just for the sake of being a narrative. I gotcha.

Rick Norris (18:50)
Right. So that's so important when you write music and you write uh novels is that you are trying to use uh what you know about humanity and hopefully the spirit of God infusing you in order to tell a story to somebody that may not be written in scripture. Though I though I I take that back a little bit because all my songs have a lot of scripture in them. Um, you know, I I sing songs at

great songs on Sundays that are on radios and things like that. Uh and you know, there'll be some scripture in there, but there'll be a lot that's not scripture. Maybe like eighty percent that's not. And that's fine. I don't have a problem with that at all. But I'd like to keep it as grounded as possible. And and that's why the angels sing it, because it's in scripture and scripture is timeless. And even though it was written, who knows how many you know

hundred thousand years later or whatever it was or million layers later or whatever, billion layers later, I don't know, from when the angels became in the um in the into uh heaven, it's timeless. And it's it's as meaningful today as it was when angels were there. The same words.

Allen C. Paul (20:03)
Very powerful. And I love the fact that once again that we go back to the idea you mentioned the songwriting and the fact that we have personal experience. And the Bible says there's a song that the angels can't sing because we will sing it one day. So someone's got to compose it, I guess, right? Someone's going to have to be help us to create new things in heaven that don't exist yet.

So with all this information, all this amazing inspiration that you've gone through, I do like to ask a question about what's next.

What is the end goal? Not end goal. That sounds like a very, very final. What is the next goal for your creative work?

Rick Norris (20:37)
I told I told my wife,

I told my wife another uh premonition, and and that I said, 'cause she was a successful professor at university, and one of the administration's vice provost in in a major university. And I said, you know, I uh we'll see if this happens, but I seem to have this feeling that whatever you and I created in our first career will pale in comparison to what we do afterwards. And and a lot of that is because

just like in the you know the the the the the five loaves and three f two fishes is that God takes whatever little we have in our talents, we give it to him, he blesses it, just like the fish in the I think and he gives it back to us. And so that's what we did with the loaves and fishes. We they gave them very how little they have. And so in my case, um I'm uh I have that third book that's gonna be coming out later this year.

Uh and um and then after that I'm actually writing one that's not about angels that I'm actually doing with a former client of mine who is a music legend. And it's kind of like taking pieces of her life, but it's a fictional novel, but it's gonna be a musical novel with a different kind of genre.

Allen C. Paul (21:52)
Wow. Very interesting.

Rick Norris (21:53)
And uh

yeah, so we and I'm working I am working on that right now.

Allen C. Paul (21:57)
Kind of like I did like a little

cliffhanger there, by the way. I just noticed that a little cliffhanger there. Good job for not giving it away.

Rick Norris (22:02)
Ha ha

Allen C. Paul (22:03)
So I love this because once again, I feel that as I am sharing my platform with creators of all types, re writers, musicians, all uh poets, videographers, graphic designers, there's so many people that I started really this whole platform from the musical side. So your story gives me, you know, life and inspiration as well that you can evolve.

as a creative. You can find new ways to connect the dots between all the different things that you've learned. And so I do want to make sure we don't close out without you giving some encouragement to someone who might say, maybe they do have a business mindset. Maybe they have spent a lot of time in the nine to five, more of the uh business or the corporate space, but they've got this creative thing on the side and they're worried.

They don't know how it's gonna work out. They don't know if their music or their writing will ever

see the light of day. Can you give some encouragement to some of those people who maybe you've even seen in your in your,

Rick Norris (22:50)
Yeah. Sh yeah.

Allen C. Paul (22:53)
you know, work with the entertainment industry?

Rick Norris (22:56)
So as I started off in this this a podcast episode is that um it's not a straight line. It's never

Allen C. Paul (23:05)
Right.

Rick Norris (23:05)
a straight line, it's a journey. And you know, I told you about my journey and the people. Some I only told about some of the people on my journey. It's just amazing. And the the way to be, in my opinion, to be a Christian, is that don't sit here and wait for God to tell you something. You know, if you get a premonition, step out in faith. Step out in faith.

Uh doesn't mean you have to spend a lot of money. Just step out in faith and start investigating and listen for him to lead you. Uh 'cause Elijah uh it was uh whispers. You know, he heard he was heard that God was in the fire, he wasn't in the fire, it wasn't the earthquake, when the earthquake stepped out in the cave, and a gentle whisper uh came up and said, Elijah, what you doing here? Uh first Kings. Uh it's a whisper.

It's always a whisper, and it may not even come from a Christian. It could come from an atheist. It could come from anybody. Uh, and God will speak to you that way. And I've had so many ways that that has spoken to me that way and still continues to. But there's one important caveat this whole thing. You've got to walk the walk. If you start um saying, Well, I'm just gonna live my life the way I want to live my life, and it's not the way God wants me to live it, but I want to hear from God, guess what? There's gonna be a lot of static.

And I I can speak that from personal experience. I mean, an example is that my wife and I don't get along and I'm I'm mean to her. I can't write. Can't write anything.

Allen C. Paul (24:31)
Beautifully said. I love the fact that you came back to family. You've mentioned even that your children were involved with your writing and with your with the music side. Um I suggesting the QR codes. So the fact that you came back to family at the the core of what allows you to be creative speaks volumes. Um I love the fact that you landed there and I am praying that more people will see your example. Well obviously go find your books. I want to make sure I get their w their website right. Was it Rick Norris? sorry.

Books, was it? Yeah, make sure I get it right.

Rick Norris (25:01)
Well it the easiest the other

easiest way for everybody to look at is AngelicWars dot com. That will lead you to the same place. Right, right. So that

Allen C. Paul (25:06)
Okay, NjeticWars dot com. Yeah, I saw another URL. Thank you for correcting it.

Rick Norris (25:10)
yeah, just that's the only thing you have to remember is AngelicWars dot com. From there, you know, you you can get two free books if you sign up for my uh my newsletter, which basically and you can always cancel out if you don't want to get the newsletter. the two free books are actually uh written from a different point of view of the first book, a different character's point of view.

Allen C. Paul (25:28)
Interesting.

Rick Norris (25:30)
Uh and and there's there's sheep music up there, uh the band Semtaveri uh band that uh that right that plays all the music that's on the books, it's on the albums. it's been actually been spun on some radio stations, which is really good. That'd be really surprising. That's the first time I've tried that. Um

Allen C. Paul (25:44)
Very cool.

Rick Norris (25:45)
but if you like the music, free sheep music. It's there under the band Semtavari or under Music Muse Video. I have it a couple places on there. Uh it's free. If you ever want to play it in your church or whatever, it's all there for you.

And uh and there's musi videos, there's a lot of stuff. Just remember angelicwars dot com, you can find a lot of stuff there.

Allen C. Paul (26:02)
Yeah, no, I saw it. It was it's incredible how you again it's not that you created a universe, you're retelling a universe that already exists, right? But it's so beautiful that you're able to again to connect all the dots of your creative life and your business side. I can see we could obviously go into a whole nother conversation if we want to talk about the business side of music and everything you know. So maybe we'll invite you back. We'll have to do a part two some other time. But until then, I thank you, I bless you, and I appreciate you sharing your vast wisdom and your understanding and experience.

of creating this amazing book series. So thank you so much for joining us and I hope this isn't the last time.

Rick Norris (26:36)
Well thank you, Alan. It lot of fun. I enjoyed it and I hope I was able to give something to your listener.