Do you concern yourself with messages as you write?

[Overread]

So something that seems to come up fairly often in discussions about books we have read (esp but not limited to those in the young adult and children's sections) is about the messages that the story sends to the reader concerning the morals and choices the characters make; especially the lead role-model character.

So for something that can be a hotbed of debate after writing I wonder if its something that writes on the site concern themselves with when writing their own. Do you worry about the messages you could be sending; do you focus upon ensuring that you send the "right" messages. Or are you more concerned with the story, that your characters need not worry about the influences that their actions could have beyond the pages.

Is it something you feel is overblown, that in fantasy the messages need not be worried about too much because in the end its all a fantasy?

 

[Toby Frost]

I don't write with a moral message in mind, but I am careful that the characters shouldn't come across badly by mistake. But I think that's just part of the editing process. I tend to think that actual moral messages make for clumsy writing, especially the ones telling you that something is what you should be doing as opposed to the ones where the author is warning the reader to avoid something else.

 

[The Judge]

I do try and think about the messages I'm giving out in what I write. So for instance I do include strong intelligent women without making the men stupid or craven weaklings; I don't make my baddies Jewish stereotypes, or the only foreigner or the only person who is gay -- if as I wrote them they turned out to be eg black or a minority or lesbian, I would ensure they were balanced by others who were not. And if I were writing YA or children's books I would be even more careful of the messages that might perhaps be picked up as a result of my thoughtlessness in writing the characters/situations.

We're not responsible for what others might choose to read in our writing, but I do think we have a responsiblity in our writing as in our daily lives to think hard about what effect what we do and say has on others.

I don't actively push a moral stance -- as Sam Goldwyn probably didn't say, "If you want to send a message, use Western Union." -- but I'm a product of my upbringing, and my writing is a product of me. I disapprove of liars and thieves, so even if I didn't actively push a lying-and-thieving-is-wrong message, I would be hard-pressed to write a story in which the main character lies and steals for fun, is utterly unrepentant and triumphs over all the boring goody-goodies.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I don't over concern myself with them, as such, and focus more on a good story. But, always in the back of my mind I know what I want to achieve - which will be my message.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I don't consider the message as I write, but like TJ there are certain kinds protagonists I won't write, because why should I? People I would utterly despise in real life -- which is not the same thing as characters that are more enjoyable to read about than it would be if one actually knew them and had to deal with them -- I won't make them my protagonists. I think writing about a protagonist I despised would lead to poor writing because I could not get inside their heads. (Note: finding a character or parts of their personality horrifying is not the same thing as despising them.)

But in the editing or revision process if I find something that troubles me I'll think about it. As TJ says, we aren't responsible for what other people make of our stories, but that doesn't relieve us of responsibility for what our writing actually says, perhaps carelessly and accidentally. We all have our own opinions of what human nature is really like, what human societies are like, what is right and wrong, and I think we owe it to ourselves and our readers to write with truth and honesty -- the truth as we see it, of course, not some ultimate truth -- and not carelessly put in things that we actually believe are false just because we think they would make our stories more exciting. (I think there is some latitude, especially in humor or when one is writing larger-than-life characters, but there still should be some honesty in how we write them.)

But also, I believe that Fantasy and Science Fiction allow us to show not only the world as it is and was but as it could be (not just wishful-thinking daydreams of the world as we want it to be, but who we are actually capable of becoming) and I think that as we have this power more than writers of any other kind of fiction that it is a waste of that potential if we never at least show glimpses of what we might do and what we might become, to be better than we are now. And then, when depicting things as they are now, not to just dwell on the violent and cruel parts, because there are other aspects of life that are just as true and real and if we are looking for writing that is truly "realistic" then pretending they don't exist is no more realistic than pretending that there is no darker side to human nature.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I tend to think that actual moral messages make for clumsy writing,

Agreed.
I'm not writing a sermon, crusading or pushing an agenda. Or producing propaganda. I want to entertain.

It may be that some characters have strong views or a mission, not my own.
It's likely though that my own world view is evident or inherently supported. Why would I distribute something that promotes a view contrary to my own?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Agreed.
Why would I distribute something that promotes a view contrary to my own?

For money. Not that I am saying that you would, but it has been known to happen.

 

[Warren_Paul]

I just want to write a good story, and sometimes my characters can get quite morally ambiguous.

I don't know if any writer truly intends for their stories to convey any particular message. While there may be some exceptions, the way I see it, it's more like art. An artist can throw some paint on a canvas, just making patterns that please them without any real meaning. But then they get put in a gallery and people come along and try to interpret something from the art that wasn't necessarily intended by its creator. And the same goes for novels. The readers may invent a message by reading more into it than the author originally intended.

 

[tinkerdan]

I don't think that we can avoid messages. In fact, often the message you might have in mind might be interpreted incorrectly, but you aren't aware on a conscious level that you have the message there until someone misinterprets it.

I only say this because I had it come up with a beta reader and I almost took the message out except that it was who the character was and what they would do and in this case what they would think and if it led to misinterpretation then that was a risk I was willing to take.

I actually did have a message in that and the previous book that was closely tied and it is a hot topic that I hope one day will not be viewed as one; but the irony is that the beta reader took the message and scrambled it a bit to come out at the wrong end- that could be poor writing on my part or it could be that I wanted the ambivalence to be there to let the reader decide which way to take things.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I thought originally this was about responding to SMS, email, Facebook etc while writing from the title.

For money. Not that I am saying that you would, but it has been known to happen.

I never thought of that, oddly.

So what actually did L. Ron Hubbard believe in?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Do you worry about the messages you could be sending; do you focus upon ensuring that you send the "right" messages.

IMO a writer needs to try and understand every layer of their own plot and characters. Otherwise there's a danger of not understanding your own story, and even of inadvertently promoting personal/cultural biases and prejudices - something male writers can be especially blind to.

Also, my characters are not me, so they must be able to hold - and promote - different opinions, to my own.

 

[Toby Frost]

Well, the text of Russell Miller's very entertaining life of Hubbard, Bare-Faced Messiah, is available free online if you want to find out what motivated him (although one suspects that cash and power might have been involved...).

To be honest, I think the best sort of message fiction is that where the message is so embedded in the story as to be inseperable from it, such as the feminism in the recent Mad Max film. This sort of fiction may well be the most powerful, because it's subtle and pervasive. In 30 years' time, say, assuming that Russia doesn't annex Europe or the Bin Ladenists don't win, a film like Mad Max won't be seen as controvertial in this way. It may be that the real change comes not when Character X doing Activity Y is depicted as the source of controversy in a novel, but when it's seen as completely normal. However, the counter is true. It's easy to give the wrong idea by mistake (and I think a lot of wrong ideas come from ignorance rather than malice, contrary to popular internet belief).

I would also draw a distinction between books warning against something (1984, say) and those advocating a particular cause (Starship Troopers). 1984 doesn't argue that English democratic Socialism is the way forward, as Orwell believed, but has a much easier time showing you how bad totalitarianism is. It's much harder to argue with Orwell's negative argument than it is to poke holes in Heinlein's utopia. And of course the more positive utopias are less exciting, because there's nothing to rebel against. There's a point in one of my books where Isambard Smith makes a speech to the leaders of the world which I pretty much agree with, and it was extremely difficult to write without lecturing the reader or making Smith and his speech into a total joke.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

My novel settings or themes always contain a message, often a pro-green one, but once that's settled it's plot, narrative and character all the way, with some extras if they work. I think most, if not all authors, write in order to communicate what's inside them to others - most often that will be an ethical stance, an observation about life, or whatever.

I agree with Toby that much of "wrong ideas" is naivete or similar; I don't think there's much malice. (Do not feed the trolls!)

 

[Susan Boulton]

I never set out to put any message in any story I write. I just want to write the best story I can, with a good plot and interesting characters. But I do tend to look at history, mostly English history/society/manners/politics and do what if this happened and maybe if the result was this. Also like any author my own opinions/take on the world, do creep into my work subconsciously. No matter how you try little bits do seep in, even if it is just a few lines, a turn of phrase, or a single action by a character.

 

[J Riff]

Who are we assuming is being influenced by our moral messages? People who don't watch the news, the common murders, assaults, acts of stupidity and crime?
If your characters are subject to your personal 'moral view' then... how can you write believable characters?
Lots of writing is this way, preachy, no matter how sneakily it's disguised.
Never occured to me to send 'messages' other than openly.
I see blatant, open racism every day. It's accepted around here - until it hits the news and everyone starts going oo,oo,oo,
I'm not a racist, not ME, it's those other people, the ones pointing at me and screaming 'racist'. So I don't
think anything that any of us write has much effect at all.
Subliminal techniques as a way of influencing people, that's the ticket, that's where a lot of research has been done, and we see it everyday on TV and may not even be aware it's affecting us.
What is the moral message in a story where the bad guys win? Happens all the time.
Hollywood sends the worst messages there are, constantly! Basically - anything goes as long as you can swipe enough bucks.
It's OK to kill for love. Sorta thing.
I will write any viewpoint for anyone at any time, IF they fork over the goods. If the new Nazi party is forming, and needs some stirring diatribe- I am there for them. Same for gay militants, terrorists or even pop bands. That's mercenary but hey I learned it from watching movies about dinosaurs eating people. Dinosaurs have morals too for all we know.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

If your characters are subject to your personal 'moral view' then... how can you write believable characters?
Lots of writing is this way, preachy, no matter how sneakily it's disguised.

Actually, it's rarely disguised at all. I think that intentionally setting out to write characters that will convey a personal message (moral or not) often leads to very bad writing. But intentionally writing a book that conveys a message that is contrary to how we see the world and what we believe about human nature leads to bad writing too. Especially because it is usually done for cynical reasons, like making more money, or pleasing a publisher, or drawing in more readers. When writing about the human condition, we ought to write about what we see (which is what I mean by truth and honesty), not what we think other people would agree with or want to see. Overt messages are one thing, and I generally don't like them when I find them in writing. On the other hand, I think a writer should say what they mean and mean what they say, even (perhaps especially) if they didn't understand their own feelings on a subject until they wrote about it.

But poor writing can garble what you say, so that you appear to be putting in messages that are the opposite of anything you intend, perhaps where you intend no messages at all. Some people will misinterpret what you say whatever you write and however well you write it, because of their own agendas or because they are careless readers, but if the mistake is yours through poor writing or poor communication, why would you not want to fix it? If you set out to write morally ambiguous characters and that is how readers see them, then you did a good job. But when a writer sets out to write characters that he or she means readers to admire or readers to be revolted by or pity or find amusing or ... whatever the writer is trying to do with those characters, and then because the writing gets sloppy readers get confused, that's very often because of poor characterization. Characters start acting out of character by doing things that are just not plausible (given their personalities, backgrounds, and circumstances), just because the writer thought it would create an interesting situation. If the writer recognizes this after it is pointed out, then it only makes sense to look at what went wrong and do something about it (unless the book is already published, and then there is nothing that can be done, unless the writer chooses to answer questions as readers bring them up).

 

[J Riff]

Teresa's right as usual. I dint really mean sneaky preachy. I'm thinking of the bible tracts we used to get on the bus in the 1950s I guess. They were preachy.