When I was around 13 or 14, I used profanity in an effort to fit in with my friends. That never happened. I’ve never “fit in,” and probably not just because I have big feet. Then I started reading Moody Bible books and met the Sugar Creek Gang and kid characters like them. I wasn’t a Christian. I didn’t read the Bible. I didn’t go to church. Conversation around our table at meals consisted of my father telling us that God didn’t exist.
The clean living characters in those mystery/adventure books resonated with me and I vowed that I would never use profanity again. I haven’t. Not even in my books. I want my book characters to be like my son Luke, who made it from enlisted to major before a plane crash changed his address from earth to heaven. While Luke was still a captain in the USMC, one of his enlisted men wrote in the platoon newsletter: “We can’t make Captain Parker swear no matter what we do to him.” I want my characters to set good examples—not by preaching it, but by living it.
Readers also will not find people smoking, using drugs, drinking alcohol, or having gratuitous sex in my books, because the Bible tells us that our bodies are God’s holy temples and that we are not to do anything that destroys them.
One of my friends is dying of lung cancer right now. I used to work with her. I begged her to quit smoking. So did a lot of other people. She was smoking long before I met her. But just suppose that she had fallen in love with a character in one of my books and started smoking because my character made it seem so “cool.” How devastating would that be?
“You were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” 1 Corinthians 6:20.
Stephanie Parker McKean 
You give God the glory and bring honor to his name.
Thank you, Oneta. What a sweet thing to say. You do exactly that with your writing. God bless you.
What a great example you are with your writing. And I love that Luke had the same integrity as his mom.
Aww, thanks. No one could have ever had a better son than I had in Luke. The Lord blessed me greatly. I just wish I could have kept him longer. Then, again, he will never get old, never have arthritis…he will miss a lot of heartbreak and pain. God bless you, Meghan.
I feel so sorry for people who smoke. My former husband smoked since he was a teenager. He died still smoking, even though he had to lug a canister of oxygen behind him. Then there’s the smell. But I won’t go into that except to say, I don’t know why anyone would want to smell that way. I pray that more people will wise up to what smoking does to them, and to the people around them. I have small lungs because both my parents smoked. My mom quit when I was just into high school.
God bless you, Steph, for writing the wonderfully written, clean stories you write. In my stories, only the bad guys smoke and do other things not desirable in order to present the right picture for them. But I’m careful not to have them do too much.
Your books are perfect, Sharon. I love every one I’ve read and I am looking forward to reading your new one when I get a bit more caught up on everything. God bless you. And you are right; I should have clarified that in my books only the bad guys do things like that. Writers strive to make their books as realistic as possible. I’m sorry about your former husband. That must have been painful to endure. God bless.