Young writer crafts moral novels

SANDPOINT — Faith. Family. Friends. In that order of importance, those are the priorities in R.J’s Knight’s writing and in his life.

A goal for every book he writes is to glorify God and stay true to his word and to teach valuable lessons to anyone reading his novels. Knight uses these priorities to give his writing a moral message, something he was inspired to do by C.S Lewis, who was known for his ability to mix powerful morals and lessons into a fascinating story.

As a young adult and as a teenager, Knight always struggled finding good fantasy and compelling stories that didn’t also have explicit content.

“I don’t want those things on my mind,” said Knight.

He hopes to write stories that act as moral alternatives to other popular fantasy novels, while still providing a thrilling story.

Ever since Knight played make-believe as a child, he noticed that his stories were deeper than the other kids around him. He wanted to be able to share his stories.

Knight considered going into game design or screenwriting, but he said the expense of game design was daunting. He also didn’t like that he would have to give over control of his stories to a developer or a filmmaker once it was picked up.

He did not particularly like writing, but once he realized he could have full control over his stories that is when he buckled down and finished his first novel “Grimoire” when he was 17.

Knight then went the route of self-publishing instead of traditional publishing in order to maintain full control of his novels. He feared his inexperience would lead him to entering into an unfair contract.

This led Knight to go through Christian Faith Publishing, which had the benefits of self-publishing, and gave him more royalties as well as help in getting his books in stores. The challenge? He was then in charge of advertising..

When his contract expired, Knight opted not to renew his contract. Instead, with his added experience, he moved to self publish through the Amazon platform after praying about the decision.

Knight has published two full length novels, three short novels and a weekly chapter release on Kindle Vela called “Chroma Diaries”. Knight calls these chapters “Logs” since they are written from his protagonist's internal diary.

Releasing a weekly chapter is a change for Knight, but he finds it as a useful exercise.

Knight’s first science fiction piece, “Chroma Diaries” features a protagonist who is a synthetic human being with no memory of her past. The story starts with the protagonist awaking in a scrap hold. On top of that, she's missing all of herself — except for her head.

Knight’s readers have called his Kindle Vella is raw and less defined then his full length novels, due to chapters being released one at a time. He is writing just ahead of the reader.

All-seeing Illuminati? Alien dinosaurs? Killer Robots? Epic car stunts? All these can be found in R.J. Knight’s “Chroma Diaries” on Amazon Vela. The first three chapters are available for free. The second season is still being uploaded.

Knight will be taking a writing break for a time as he prepares for his mission trip in the next month.

“I feel like I will be going back to writing sooner rather than later,” said Knight.