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Viking ZX


Author of Science-Fiction and Fantasy novels! Oh, and some fanfiction from time to time.

More Blog Posts1452

Jun
20th
2016

Being a Better Writer: Author Morals and Story Theme · 8:52pm Jun 20th, 2016

So, right now, I think I may be able to guess what many of you are thinking, which is, upon looking at the title: Hey, didn’t we just read this like a week or two ago? To which I say, yes, almost.

For those of you who weren’t yet thinking, but now have looked up and noticed the similarities in the title, yes, it’s almost the same topic. In fact, there’s only a single word of difference.

See, a few weeks ago, I wrote an article about contrasting an author’s morals versus a character’s morals, talking about some of the difficulties new authors—or really any author—could run into while writing a story that contained characters with viewpoints or beliefs that disagreed with the authors. And, though you should probably go read that article if you want the highlights, the conclusion was that you shouldn’t be afraid to write characters who are not you that you disagree with, though there was the additional caveat that you should consider theme, and whether or not that character will detract from the theme you’re instilling into your work.

Then, a short time later, I wrote another post, this one discussing theme, message, and the difference between the two. It discussed how theme could become message, how message could distract from an otherwise good book, and how you could help keep the balance between having a theme without becoming message fiction.

Well, today we’re combing those two topics, bringing everything back around for another look. Because we’ve talked about characters having different views/morals than an author, and how that’s okay. We’ve also talked about the difference between theme and message, and how to try and hit that balance between “there’s a point” and “this is the point and you will accept it.” So now, with both of those in mind, we’re going to blend them together a bit and tackle a slightly different question (to wit, two word’s worth of difference, which can go a long way).

Today, we’re going to talk about author morals once more, but this time how they relate to the theme of your story, the morals that it presents and ascribes to. We’ve already declared that it’s okay to have a character that you personally disagree with, but what about a theme or a moral? Should that same logic applied to characters that you disagree with also extend to the very themes of what you write?

Some of you, I gather, have already reached an answer. Or to be more accurate, I should likely say answers. See, the reason that this is a topic in and of itself is because right now, in the US particularly, but likely extending in small amounts to other writing regions as well, there is a “progressive” movement that argues quite vocally that “Yes, an author should write themes—or with these movements, more accurately messages—that they disagree with.” They use a variety of arguments, from “It’s the author’s duty to write what the public wants, and we’re the ‘public,’ so therefore they need to write what we want to read” to “An author is only limiting themselves if they only write morals that they support”—usually followed by a list of their “demands” for what the author should write instead.

You can read the rest of this post at Unusual Things

Comments ( 3 )

I'm confused by your calling that the progressive movement. The progressive movement would say that you should write certain things and that you should agree with them. Or, theoretically, that we should have a diverse set of views represented. (Though in practice, the opposite happens. "Diversity" is literally newspeak--a word that has come to mean the opposite of its denotation while maintaining its connotation.)

4037911

The progressive movement would say that you should write certain things and that you should agree with them.

Well ... a real progressive movement, yes. But the one that's trying desperately to dominate the literary world right now is anything but. My comments about telling authors that they must write things that they are uncomfortable with in order to be "progressive" and "accepted by the progressive movement" is something I've seen written out on more than one occasion by different voices from that group. The irony that they themselves only write what they're comfortable with is, of course, completely lost on them.

Yes, it's true that it's actually not the meaning of "progressive," much like "diversity" no longer means what it once did either (see my response to my post on ethnicity and gender, where IIRC, I believe I pointed out someone who was a die-hard member of this "progressive movement posted a literal checklist of each of the things they believed someone must specify when writing a character who wasn't white. It was unbelievably racist, but a lot of the members of this comment thought it was a grand list of "attributes." It also brought this to mind, as it was similar). But for a lot of young writers ... they may not know that, and when faced with a loud, angry group that argues that a writer shouldn't be writing what they enjoy, but argues that it should something that makes them feel uncomfortable (I've seen that specific gauge used as well), they might cave.

It's not really progressive, except in the minds of the loud-mouthed loonies. Unfortunately, they're loud enough that they're changing progressive to mean that.

Meh, as much as I really dislike certain writing cliques calling themselves "Progressive", I find no reason to say that they are not, because we just get into the No True Scotsman fallacy. My counterargument more or less starts off with "Yes, you are progressing... right off a cliff because diversity of skin color / sex / sexual preference / pineapple pizza preference / race / etc. does not mean diversity of ideas." Eventually I make references to how much a Great Leap Forward they are taking, which sadly some people do not get the reference. Well, either that or I get put on the ignore list. What I am usually more worried about is when these loons get a teaching position, or get presented as the ideal writers and are invited to come to schools and universities to speak about their dogmatic ideology without any sort of debate or counterargument.

But the story itself presents Varay and the characters around her to a degree that you’re never once under the impression that she’s right. In fact, the story argues the opposite, despite Varay’s opinion otherwise.

*sad laughter*
Pretty sure I can find and already found some loons that would actually agree with your nutcase of a protagonist.

4037987

I believe not being racist... is the new racism

It is called a glaring lack of self-awareness. A lot of these loonies feel guilty about themselves for perceived wrongdoings and overwork themselves trying to do the opposite, and then to not understand the horseshoe theory. The whole he who fights monsters deal.

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