Responsible Writing?

[SciFrac]

Thought I'd drag out a dead horse and beat it again.

In the wake of this most recent school tragedy, I was wondering if this affects your stories at all?

Do you question what you're writing? The tone, the action, etc. A plot, a character arc, a scene that borders some grey line? Just curious. Does this affect what you choose to write about?

To clarify, I don't mean to imply anything toward anyone, and I don't blame books or stories for what happened. Just wondering if it factors into the projects your choose. Does it change anything for you?

Contemplating...

 

[nubins]

No, has no effect on me at all. At least not that I'm aware of.

I've always been someone who is vigorously for as little censorship and restrictions as possible though. I think the arguments that films, games, books, media in general "cause" these things is complete rubbish, it's almost as if people think people only do bad things since they were invented. A lot of the loudest comments come from religous sources who have a great deal more blood on their hands than the worst "video nasty" producer has.

 

[Mouse]

No quite sure what you're asking... You mean, would I worry about writing about a serial killer in case it inspired people to go out on murderous rampages? No.

 

[allmywires]

Never. Seen a lot of crap about how video games and that made that disturbed man kill all those poor children, and I can only roll my eyes. I played violent video games as a child, am I a brewing serial killer? Of course not. Sure, my brother has a bit of a problem with his temper, but is he about to shoot up his school? No. I would never blame literature or media for what an individual is responsible for. At the end of the day, nobody is to blame for anything you do, except for YOU. (Similar situation for the Aussie DJs and the hospital receptionist who killed herself - but that's another thing entirely).

I write what I want to write, and besides, not like I'm ever going to be famous enough to have people blaming their psychotic actions on the behaviour of my characters!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

On the other hand, if we do raise something that's pretty hard hitting, I think we have a responsibility to at least be sensitive to those who might have been affected by such things, and at least do some sort of justice to the subject. I had some hard hitting stuff in WIP 1, which covered a range of difficult subjects, and I did loads of research etc into the longer lasting effects. But, no, I don't worry people might go off on one because of something I've written, if they have the propensity to do that, they'll find something that kicks in, and there's no way of predicting if your fantasy world is the one to do that.

 

[allmywires]

On the other hand, if we do raise something that's pretty hard hitting, I think we have a responsibility to at least be sensitive to those who might have been affected by such things, and at least do some sort of justice to the subject.

I agree with this, I do feel a bit of pressure to do justice to characters who I write that have been through terrible situations that i can barely relate to at all from my comfy middle-class sofa. But it doesn't worry me overtly, to the extent that I wouldn't write such characters.

 

[Hex]

How about all the BDSM stuff in Twilight/ 50 Shades encouraging girls to go out and get themselves tied up by vampires? Do you think that's a causal relationship? Is that the same sort of thing?

 

[SciFrac]

On the other hand, if we do raise something that's pretty hard hitting, I think we have a responsibility to at least be sensitive to those who might have been affected by such things, and at least do some sort of justice to the subject.

Yes, this is more of what I'm asking. So many people experience different negative things. Do you take more care to represent these things truly as possible, and not just a plot point or character development? Does it make you more sensitive to those who've actually lived them?

Allmywires, I totally agree. We are each responsible for our own actions, and I too have played many violent games, listened to violent songs, watched violent movies, etc., yet I'm very calm and I've never been involved in a physical fight. Plus, I don't really believe there is a single factor for anyone's behavior, positive or negative.

Let me explain myself further. I already deplore violence as much as anyone can, so when I see things like this, I want to back up and completely shy away from violent plots altogether and focus on more mystery or cultural issues. There is so much hatred and violence in the world, a major part me wants to respond by writing really fun, humorous adventures just to add some miniscule balance. I hear enough about the real world already. I guess escapism for me involves less focus on tragedy and more on positive experiences.

That's where I've been for the last year or so.

 

[HareBrain]

The idea that art has no effect on how people see the world has to be rubbish. Where do you think (for example) the increased tolerance towards homosexuals over the last twenty years has come from? Partly through being normalised by gay characters in TV shows, etc. And if this can happen in a positive way, why not a negative? People can be desensitised to violence. That doesn't mean they will then express that desensitisation in the real world, towards other people (unless their socialisation is very weak, perhaps). But to claim that moral codes instilled as part of socialisation are never affected by the media, if only at the margins, is extremely questionable in my view.

That said, I wouldn't self-censor on that basis. Though I wouldn't write anything I didn't think had, overall, a positive "message" in some way (that's much too strong a word, but I can't think of the right one at the moment).

I agree with springs about being very careful regarding horrible stuff that might have happened to potential readers or their families.

 

[nubins]

How about all the BDSM stuff in Twilight/ 50 Shades encouraging girls to go out and get themselves tied up by vampires? Do you think that's a causal relationship? Is that the same sort of thing?

Interesting point. Girls reading twilight I guess might be more drawn to that lifestyle, because of their interest in the book. Although you could also argue that they were more drawn to Twilight because they were already there, even if they didn't know it yet.

I think it's the same thing, a small number will go to the extreme of living vampiric/bdsm lifestyles. The vast majority will not. But as you get more extreme in the subject matter, the percentages of people drawn to try the subject matter drop off to tiny tiny numbers. Which is where the arguments come in about films etc. ausing people to go on murdering rampages. They often ignore the circular nature of this topic - those people would probably have got there anyway, just fixating on a different subject.

In terms of our responsbility as writers.. hmmm .. I don't know. I think you can be irresponsible writing about these things, but it's doubtful it would ever genuinely encourage someone to do something they would not already have done without reading it. Reading it and being really moved (in the wrong way) by extreme subject matter I think is a symptom of a problem, not the cause.

 

[stephen.samuels]

If your writing isn't evocative, then what is the point?

 

[SciFrac]

The idea that art has no effect on how people see the world has to be rubbish. Where do you think (for example) the increased tolerance towards homosexuals over the last twenty years has come from? Partly through being normalised by gay characters in TV shows, etc. And if this can happen in a positive way, why not a negative? People can be desensitised to violence.

I agree with this. There is a reason all these school shootings are happening now and not 50 years ago. Something is different. Many things are different. Just wondering if affects others as it does me.

 

[Mouse]

Do you take more care to represent these things truly as possible, and not just a plot point or character development? Does it make you more sensitive to those who've actually lived them?

Luckily (HA!) I've experienced a great deal of crap so I do know what a lot of awful situations are like. But if I was writing about something awful that I didn't know about, I'd make sure to find out about how it felt to people who'd actually experienced it.

 

[SciFrac]

Luckily (HA!) I've experienced a great deal of crap so I do know what a lot of awful situations are like.

Sorry to hear that, Mouse. I'd never laugh at you for them of course, but I appreciate that you can even write that now. I've experienced my share as well. I suspect most of us have.

 

[The Judge]

Hmm. The I-watched-violent-videos-and-I'm-not-a-serial-killer argument seems to me to be about as helpful as the I-was-beaten-as-a-child-and-it-never-did-me-any-harm brigade's maunderings. The plural of anecdote is not data.

We can all become de-sensitised to things we experience, seeing them as normal and acceptable no matter how they are viewed by others eg violent anti-semitism in pre-WWII Germany, eg the proliferation of pornography and taking photos of themselves half-naked among pre-teens nowadays. Regrettably people are encouraged to act on the basis of what they hear of others doing, hence copy-cat crimes, hence spates of suicides, and it isn't too far-fetched to say that what they read and watch can be as powerful as what they see their neighbours/friends doing. That's how advertising works. That doesn't mean that everyone will do those things, and the worse the offence/behaviour, the fewer people will have their social controls overridden, but some people will act who wouldn't otherwise have done, purely because they are more susceptible to suggestions from wherever they come.

So, yes, I think we have a responsibility as writers. That's not to say we can't write about eg violence, but we should think carefully how we handle it. Not because our book may trip someone into acting deplorably, but because we should not be contributing to a culture in which violence is glamorised and made to seem acceptable.

 

[SciFrac]

The I-watched-violent-videos-and-I'm-not-a-serial-killer argument seems to me to be about as helpful as the I-was-beaten-as-a-child-and-it-never-did-me-any-harm brigade's maunderings. The plural of anecdote is not data.

I think samples help. People sometimes oversimplify the problem by implying that "video games will turn you into a murderer." While games may contribute in some small way, this is an irrational belief, in my opinion.

 

[Warren_Paul]

I think violence in media does have an influence, but only on people that already had issues with their life/mentality to begin with. It wasn't the violent media that pushed them to take a gun and shoot people like the news is wanton to report. The violent media desensitized them, sure, and made it easier for them to even consider it, but it was more likely the rubbish going on in their personal life that pushed them to do what they did.

The more important issue I see with all this is how they get their hands on guns. I'll have to read up more on this case, but in the past I've seen things like this happen and the perpetrators are kids - often bullied by both fellow school kids and their parents - that just snapped, took a gun to school and shot those kids that bullied them. The mistake in these situations wasn't the violence in media they were exposed to, but the fact that their parents had guns, and the fact that their parents were silly enough to teach their kids how to use those guns - I see so many times when kids go hunting with fathers, use guns to shoot animals, or do target practice for fun, and I think, 'That's just wrong.' That is the mistake made.

But back to the topic of the thread. I think we need to be careful when writing similar scenes that we are respectful about it and write the scenes as tasteful as possible - if that is even possible - but on the other hand we need to be accurate about it too. We don't want our writing to come across dismissive of the hurt and pain caused by it, the grief parents suffer. I'm sure we will all have the right idea about how to write such scenes properly though.

I know when tragic things like this happen, that movie producers tend to cancel/delay movies that follow similar scenes. The twin towers comes to mind. After the terrorist attack on them, I believe they stopped making movies that featured the twin towers in them for awhile to be respectful towards the tradegy. Of course there are the few producers who are inspired by such tragedies and make movies based off them, but they usually don't surface until a year or two after the tragedy has been and gone. At that point it's not so fresh on peoples minds I guess.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

My thought is that there is probably nothing you can write that someone will not take the wrong way and experience bad outcomes because of it. That's part and parcel of being a writer. There are seven billion people out there and they're all different. What one sees as harmless another will take as the devil's work. Its a sort of Catch 22, which ironically enough is seen by many as a reds under the bed, anti war, pinko diatribe that is responsible for much of the resistence in society to wars and the military. (I won't even mention A Clockwork Orange!)

But even Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein, a true right wing, self reliant, glory of war kind of guy before he wrote it - Starship Troopers) took heavy flak for promoting moral decay. (Made him the star of the flower power generation though!)

I think that there are things we can do that can make this problem worse, for example writing a manifesto exhorting people to violence, crime etc. So I wouldn't do that. And no more would I try to glorify really horrible and immoral things, to make readers for example imagine that rape is fun and women really want it etc.

But at the end of the day if you are absolutely determined to write nothing that could be taken as a cause by some wacko to do something horrible, you will write nothing.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

I agree with the others saying that while violence in various media has an affect, re: desensitizing the audience to things like violence, I don't think there is a causal relationship there. I forget the name for the theory or idea, but it's basically multiple points building up to a causal relationship. Excessive diet of hyper-violent video games, mental defect, and easy access to high-capacity firearms. Among other factors.

As to our responsibility as writers or how this affects us, re: our writing, I for one have certainly taken another look at the violence I use in my stories and given those scenes and stories another glance to see if it's necessary for the story or superfluous. Not self-censorship, no. But looking again at the needs of the story and what kind of stories I want to tell.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Not self-censorship, no.

I actually think self-censorship can be a very good thing - we've seen in discussions recently on chrons how some published writers deal with violence, especially sexual violence, in a way that can be argued as anywhere between sloppy to offensive.

I remember working on a story with generic "dark horde creatures that can be killed without any moral reservations". Then I watched the film Starship Troopers (ironic from the above mention of Heinlein) and realised the glorified killing of sentient creatures was one of the key objections of the film - and frankly it sickened me. So I dropped that angle, and made the story into a political thriller - one that is now my WIP.