An Unpopular Opinion #4: Artists and Authors Should Have Unpopular Opinions · 10:28am Mar 15th, 2016
Artists and Authors Should Have Unpopular Opinions.
Today's article prompted by an interview with Austin Wintory, composer of Journey and other games and film. (~2:20 for relevant part.)
Early on both in my writing and in the way I acted in the community/fandom, I tried quite hard to please people. I zipped my lips when reading other stories because I didn't want to start drama and in chats I tried to be neutral, non-abrasive, and generally keep the various strong opinions I had to myself. I didn't want whatever opinions I had to somehow reflect on me as an author.
I eventually realized that the way I hid and downplayed my opinions was the thing that reflected on my writing instead.
People will tell you about rule twenty-three or fifty-five of the hallowed, ephemeral writer's handbook, along with the disclaimer "WARNING: SOME RULES MAY BE SITUATIONALLY NULLED." I think every author walks a path in which they form opinions and that from those opinions their voice is formed. Opinions may be political or philosophical. They may be about relationships or about what sparks excitement and wonder. I think my first fic was such a popular success despite how many things I did wrong, because I wrote it with some strong opinions about what was wrong with other romance fics on the site at the time.
"Gee, Rainbow Dash, we're really high up."
"Hey, Twilight, remember how there was a chocolate pudding in the fridge that said on it 'do not touch on pain of death'?"
One of those opinions is that "love" was thrown around too freely in romance fics. "Love" is the climax of a romance. Flying High Falling Hard didn't broach the idea of "love" until almost 80,000 words in. I hold a similar opinion about violence and tragedy being the climax of dark stories. This does not mean stories which don't are bad for not doing so, just that I strongly prefer to save such things for the climax.
The point I'm trying to illustrate is that even simple opinions can greatly alter a story to make it stand out. Descriptions of violence in A Darkened Land had that much more impact because of them missing earlier. When the question of love finally does get brought up in Flying High, it carries that much more weight after everything the two had been through in the first 80,000 words. I've taken this stance--this opinion--because of the way I feel about how it affects the stories I write. The same goes for why I've taken the opinion you're reading in this post.
By the way, is it too meta that I'm doing An Unpopular Opinion on having Unpopular Opinions?
In the end, the more outspoken and comfortable you are in your opinions, the more that character bleeds through into your writing. The more outspoken you are, the stronger a message your story can carry. First you have experiences and from those experiences you form your opinions. Strong opinions in regards to style create a voice and strong opinions in regards to everything else create a message for that voice. It's a symbiotic relationship between the two: the message carries the voice and the voice carries the message. One without the other leaves something lacking.
You probably are already full of opinions. It goes against your instincts to put them out there in the world and take a public stance in your stories, but doing so will add an element of conviction to your story which says, "Look. Listen. This is what I am." All that remains is to take a dive off the deep end. All that remains is to voice and stand by your convictions.
Thoughts? Questions? Favorite flavor of ice cream?
I'm a blueberry cheesecake man myself.
The problem is that if you have bad opinions, you'll probably write bad stories. If you have bad opinions, maybe you're better off not expressing them. :V
I dunno. As a strongly opinionated person, I'd say I'd like to like the idea, but honestly, I think that really it is about writing with conviction about whatever you're choosing to write about, rather than necessarily expressing your opinion. I think letting your characters have their own opinions is a big part of what makes for good writing, as then they actually are like real people, and not all just aspects of the same person.
3808802 It's like I don't even know you anymore.
3808809
I think if your story comes off as overly preachy or your characters are all just an echo chamber for your ideas then you're just fucking up as a story teller. People fear coming off as preachy or that their story only acts as a soapbox and so they write stories which don't express as much.
I absolutely think you can express opinions through stories. Many of the best stories do, such as several noteworthy war novels who wrote about how terrible war was during a time that it was still seen as mostly glorious. If your story is just an echo chamber for your views, or just feels like it's only there to prop up your views, then that's a different type of failure in my mind.
Many opinions are in fact popular. Despite that, it can still be scary to voice them in the exact way, the exact words that you would. The root of that fear, I think, is that your intent is misunderstood. However, The Lord of the Rings would not have been nearly impactful if it did not contain its many ideas about courage, morality, and mortality. Nor would The Great Gatsby without its ideas concerning vanity and selfishness.
What you're describing really is just poor implementation and poor characterization.
I still think it would be better that they try. And I don't think anyone writes without having their influences and opinions come out at least a little in their writing.
It's a relief to see this idea put into words. I don't strive to have unpopular opinions, but it's the case anyway.
(As an aside, let me just say that I dare any other fandom to claim to be as intelligent as this one. While the others are having shipping wars, we're discussing literary theories and trying to improve our craft.)
Chocolate flavour ice cream. All the way.
And I would tend to agree. At least on the topic of what you did with Flying High. While I am someone who really dislikes "Romance" stories where the ending is the two characters in question getting together (or the "will you date me?" question being asked), for the simple reason that I read the story for the sake of seeing their relationship blossom, not because I wanted to see them confess (sounds a bit strange, but I feel there's a difference), I will agree that the whole "Love" or "Proclamation of Love" thing should only appear as a sort of climax, not just a small scene thrown in at random. With fear of looking like a self-promoting asshole, I've tried something similar in my own story. I've carefully avoided the use of the word "Love", referring to the (at the moment) one-sided attraction as only a crush, never "being in love". The romance itself is somewhat secondary to the actual plot of the story, but I very much want to use the first "I love you" in a very impactful manner, and to do that I can't overplay the feelings the characters have to a too high degree.
...I hope I made sense, and wasn't just echoing SoundsLikePonies...
3808885
One "Unpopular Opinion" I would say you have, is the one that lead to the ending of Biblical Monsters :P I recall a fair few people being rather... put out, by it back when you first uploaded it[1].
[1] - And this is all in jest, not trying to offend ^^ But let's be honest. A lot of people weren't fans of that particular ending. Me among them, until I returned later with a bit more experience under my belt, and realised why and how it made sense to end it that way.
Oh, I absolutely agree. As Thomas Uzzell in "The Technique of the Novel" says, "No author can escape the embarrassment of having convictions."
Good writing comes from strong feelings, even if those feelings are "this is boring or uninteresting or stupid, and here's why." Good writing also comes from matured thoughts on a subject. Say you passionately despise a political party, but your feelings are not at all well educated, then your story will appear flimsy to anyone with a degree of knowledge higher than your own.
If you want an unpopular opinion here's one: it's impossible to avoid telling the reader what to think and how to feel.
3808809
I agree, but I dont think making a character their own individual stops me from expressing my opinion through them. For instance, I might create a religious character completely different from my own views and show them to be a bumbling idiot, or do the same with an anti-religious character. After all, I decide how their personality drives them to act and what happens to them (in other words, it isn't really their personality driving the plot, but my interpretation of it; if Bob does X because he believes in Y, that doesn't mean someone who actually believes in Y would do X, only that I think they would) . My opinions and desires will certainly affect that, whether consciously or subconsciously.
You have to have your opinions. People tend to overdo this idea to great extent. Be it 3edgy5me fics/characters, or trying to jump into hate bandvagon of some kind before the crowd inside grows too large and it statistically turns into *gasp* POPULAR opinion.
In the end you should not think whether your thoughts conform and your opinion is popular or not. Little good comes from trying to please the crowd. Well, no, that's a lie, sometimes a lot of good comes from it, but... If you can afford a little bit of honesty, to yourself and others, there's no reason not to indulge. Your thoughts are what makes you unique (for a given definition of 'you', I've met people who are nothing but a hollow garbage bin for stuff that comes flying to them). Unique isn't always a good thing, but... 'good' is highly subjective and relative thing anyway.
3809090 I got curious and skimmed through that fic... It's 'self-fulfilling prophecy' kinda stuff, you build what you fear and all that. People love that trope for reasons I can't quite understand, it makes the reading material 'deeper', I guess? Nothing much to it though.
3809090
True, but it's an example of how complicated this sort of thing can be in practice. A number of staunch atheists, such as Bad Horse, GaryOak, and even InquisitorM, found no bones in the theme; others (far as I can tell) seemed to be angry that the theme was more complex than they expected.
But again, this shows how much more intellectual this fandom is than others. The show is designed to make philosophical points in ways children can understand, so we find ourselves arguing about Big Questions. That's much better than arguing about pairings, even if we never agree on anything.
3809524
Pretty much. Although, atheist or not, the story's the same. I don't really see how one's belief (or lack thereof) should determine what one thinks of a story. I guess what I mean is, the reasoning behind the characters' decisions remains the same, and one should be able to see that reasoning (and reflect upon it) regardless of whether one is religious or not.
And, well, as to pairings. We all have our favourites, and people will aalways argue about it. Heck, if there wasn't dissatisfaction/disagreements on that front we wouldn't have things like This Thing (I don't know what else to call it. T'is a thing).
3809156
Those caricatures are part of your personality too. They aren't acting like real people with real goals and desires and personalities of their own, they're just strawmen created to assert your opinion, fragments of your own personality which have been given some stuffing to pretend like they're someone else.
It is entirely possible to create people who aren't like yourself if you have empathy. Many people fundamentally lack it, and are incapable of imagining people who aren't themselves on some level.
This is why many religious people think that atheists reject or hate God, for instance - the idea that an atheist simply doesn't care about something that they're obsessed with breaks their brains. Likewise why many people decide that their political opponents basically eat babies.
3808830
Looking at this from the perspective of a reader, I find a lot of it comes down to how you go about expressing that opinion. A story that is worth reading even if I simply don't care about the underlying message is both more enjoyable and more likely to sway my opinion than having a character sit down and rant about it for four pages. I suppose a good example would be that I always loved Calvin and Hobbes for the comedy, and only when I got older did a learn about and recognize some of the deeper things that Watterson was commenting on. By comparison, I stopped reading RealityCheck's stories because I didn't like having things periodically stop for a chapter so he could tell us about why the government shouldn't impose price limits during a crisis or whatever else he's upset about while he's typing. It's just bad storytelling, regardless of whether the author and reader agree (though it's definitely more noticeable to the readers that disagree).
3809701
You're right. But I wasn't arguing they were. My point was you can't escape the self-reflective nature of story telling, (or any art, really).
Right, but again that wasn't what I was arguing ^.^
No matter how individualistic, unlike yourself, or "real" a character is, you are going to express your own opinions (about their beliefs, about their traits, about life in general, etc and so forth) through them.
Some atheists do hate God (I've known them personally). Just like how some people think religious folk are all ignorant idiots--and some are (I've known them personally). At the end of the day, it's rarely as simple as anyone thinks it is.
3809753
Of course. I absolutely advocate the former version of getting ideas across rather than the latter. In the former the commentary adds depth and "nourishment" to the material, which is what I'm going for. The story and the ideas which it presents should work in harmony. I think a story which merely serves as a platform for ideas is just as bad* as a story incapable of imparting anything in its reader. A story which doesn't impart anything is usually just entertainment or "empty calories".
I think the fear of being seen as soap-boxing prevents some writers from attempting to convey some meaning or message in their writing. They don't want to come off sounding either preachy or stupid. It doesn't have to be something controversial and political like your example, but just something as simple as Gandalf saying to Pippin: "End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take." Or like the several moments Calvin and Hobbes has that you mentioned.
Moments like that add so much to a story.
*With the exception of allegorical stories whose main purpose is to communicate an idea. Philosophy books do this a lot, and if you're reading one, you know what you're really there for.
3809552
Right. But it seems philosophy will always be a touchy subject.
True.
But while this fandom turns those things into fun, others have actual drama over it. Or so I hear from older folks, who have experience with other fandoms. Bookish Delight put it this way: "Some fandoms have shipping wars; this one has shipping skirmishes."
We really can't complain.
3810248
And even if they're smaller, there do tend to be far more of them. But then again... they're also over quick, so while disagreements do happen we tend to be able to figure it out relatively quickly. Worst comes to worst, we write a satire like That Thing :P
Skirmishes aren't necessarily less bloody than an all out war
3808802 Rainbow Sherbet or gtfo
You state a pretty good point sounds. Though I think you'd also agree with me that reviewers should be able to state their opinion even if the author disagrees. (I mean, you were the one who pointed that out to me quite bluntly XD)