By Adrianne Barrett
Although exposure has been negative in the past, more mainstream novels are featuring LDS characters than before.
'As we get larger as a church and people, it keeps getting easier to write about our culture,' said Dean Hughes, author of the 'Children of Promise' series.
Hughes has had difficulty in the past including church members as characters in books for the national market.
'It''s one thing to mention a character''s religion, but something else to get into it a great deal,' Hughes said in an interview last April.
Hughes tried to include a boy being baptized who was disappointed that his father didn''t show up, in a book he was working on last April.
'My editor couldn''t handle that,' Hughes said.
Since April, that same editor has changed his mind. He is letting Hughes include a church member as one of two main characters in 'Soldier Boys,' the World War II novel Hughes is currently working on for national readers.
'I think part of what is changing is the realization that certain books about or by Mormons have done very well financially,' Hughes said. 'The best example is President Hinckley''s Standing for Something.'
Hughes said his editor was aware of how successful Hughes'' 'Children of Promise' series was in the LDS market and felt the same people would want to read 'Soldier Boys.'
It may be getting easier to include church members as characters in novels, but it hasn''t always been that way.
Authors in only 12 western, 9 historical romance, and 13 science fiction novels have represented LDS church members in the last 21 years, according to Michael Austin''s article 'Mormons In Popular Literature Bibliography: 1979-2000.'
What little exposure there has been hasn''t always been accurate or positive.
The history of Mormonism in America is intimately bound up with the history of bad literature, according to Austin''s article.
Mormons were portrayed negatively as the antagonists in the very first modern mystery novel, Arthur Conan Doyle''s 'A Study in Scarlet,' according to the article.
Church members have been featured the most as characters in mystery novels. Forty authors have included church members as characters since 1979, according to Austin''s article.
Preston Hunter, a computer programmer in Texas and author of www.adherents.com, a Web site that examines world religions from a sociological perspective, agrees with Austin.
'In the mystery genre, many novels feature main characters who are lapsed Mormons, or Mormons weirdly at variance with the official church,' Hunter said.
Austin''s article indicated some of the most popular mystery writers working today are church members, including Anne Perry.
Other LDS writers publishing outside Utah include Orson Scott Card, Chris Crowe, Bernice Rave, Dave Wolverton, M. Shayne Bell, Elizabeth H. Boyer, Paul Fisher and Ann Chamberlin, according to a web page about LDS authors.
Greater exposure for church members in fiction is exciting for students who crave a good read.
Sarah Harward, 20, a junior from Loomis, Calif., majoring in English, said she would enjoy reading nationally published novels that feature LDS characters.