Writing and, gasp, politics

bsolah, sometimes the best way to gather thoughts is to do some freewriting. Pen and paper is my method, but some people do everything on the computer. Whichever you prefer. Just start writing about the things you have read. Let the thoughts flow together. Sooner or later you'll find a clear topic and have something to say.

That'll be five cents. ::shakes tin can::

Off the top of my head I can think of two ways that might help:

1. Jot your thoughts on index cards - one thought per card or sticky notes on a bulletin board.

2. On the computer, in Word, type your thoughts giving each idea a bullet, then cut and paste them into order.

When your mind is ready it will know what order you want them to fall into place and then do an outline - if you use outlines.

Hope this helps you and good luck with your burning thoughts floating around in your head and putting them to paper!

I'll just bill you at the end of the month!

Right, I just couldn't help but add that after Chaostitan was shaking the tin can! What's five cents among friends?

If we're talking fiction, and I assume we are since this is the novel section, nothing turns me off faster to a piece of fiction than being clubbed over the head by some author's political views or activist agenda.

There are ways to incorporate your beliefs into fiction without bashing people over the head. Set your story in a historical era that has strong parallels to today, or make up a fantasy world where factions are fighting over something equivalent. Or just use a gentle hand: try to present both sides of the issue fairly, and have your mc realize how complicated it all is, even if she or he supports one or the other side.

As to getting started, I agree that you need to take some time to decide what it is you want to say, and then the best way to get the point across without turning people off. Some people work better intuitively, like with freewriting, some with a more organized, index-card approach. Me, if I have a couple of different things that want to be written, I start writing on two of them, and wait to see which grabs me more. Usually takes less than a week, and the bonus is I've got my next project started once I finish with the one that grabbed me.

politics

bsolah said:

Shadow, I know a lot of people are sqeamish about thinking about things politically, but hey, I'm not targetting that audience.

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I don't think it's being squeamish about politics that turns readers off, it's when the writer forgets that fiction is about story and character and entertainment, and tries turning a novel into a polemic.

No matter how politically motivated readers are, very few want to be battered about the head by the writer's beliefs. I'm a very political person, and I constantly read about politics and live and breathe political news, but the moment a writer turns a work of fiction into a political statemnt, I'm gone.

Very, very few readers pick up a novel just to learn what the writer thinks about politics.

There's nothing at all wrong with getting politics into a novel, as long as it's done through appropriate story, character, and entertainment, and not through statements, the writer's opinion, or a "plot" simply designed to reveal the same.

Some of the best works are about politics (as opposed to current affairs). 1984, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, Hunt of the Red October, Dr. Zhivago...

But yes, it's always story and characters first.

It can be quite entertaining if the politics stay somewhat in the background compared to the story. Let them become center stage, and you will have turned the novel into a political polemic and would have been better off writing a polemic in the first place.

A good example - although he is definitely on the other end of the political spectrum from Marxism - would be to compare Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October to Executive Orders. The latter one is way too much politics and quickly turns boring even to many on the same side. The former, though, makes the politics the background and motivations for the story, and is much better reading for it.

Clancy

MadScientistMatt said:

It can be quite entertaining if the politics stay somewhat in the background compared to the story. Let them become center stage, and you will have turned the novel into a political polemic and would have been better off writing a polemic in the first place.

A good example - although he is definitely on the other end of the political spectrum from Marxism - would be to compare Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October to Executive Orders. The latter one is way too much politics and quickly turns boring even to many on the same side. The former, though, makes the politics the background and motivations for the story, and is much better reading for it.

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Good examples.

As much as I love Ayn Rand, she is a prime example of beating you over the head, not just with politics, but a complete ideology.
I actually had an idea (it came in a dream) that happens to parallel the world oil situation and the wars that result. But the idea was for the story, which I'm writing now. Maybe your concern over today's political climate can fuel some inspiration.
BTW, how do I go about moving to Australia? I've heard that it's difficult to gain citizenship.

bsolah said:

I'm not for giving readers a political monologue, but I am for making a point through telling a story.

As for Tom Clancy, I think he is something writers want to avoid. Other than being a horrible racist, he's of the kind that beats you over the head.

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A racist? Why? Oh, yeah, I forgot. He's a conservative. Kind of reminds me of my favorite definition of racist. A racist is anyone who wins an argument with a liberal.

He didn't beat anyone over the head with Red October. That's a novel that got the politics correct. It can't be done any better. A couple of his later novels do beat readers over the head, but it's largely because there's so little action in these novels that the politics stand out far more than they should.

I haven't read all his novels, but I have read The Hunt For Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, Without Remorse, and Red Storm Rising. All very, very good novels that do not beat the reader over the head with politics. They get it right. Very right. Though, of course, if your ox is being gored in these novels you'll think you're getting beat over the head.

I've also read Executive Orders. Politics do beat you over the head in this novel. It's one of the most boring novels ever written. The Cardinal of the Kremlin also falls into this category, at least for me. So little happens that the politics in the book jump out at you, beat you over the head, then kick you while you're down. I would avoid writing anything the way these two books are written. Clancy not only lets politics beat the reader over the head in these two novels, there's so little story and so little action that the novels would be bad, even without politics beating the reader over the head.

I've also read The Sum of All Fears, which some not too bright people (As in the bulb isn't just dim, it's burned out) call a racist novel. It isn't. And while politics comes across very strong, an honest novel couldn't be written any other way.

I can't say I've ever read anything in a Clancy novel that was racist in any way, and with the exception of Executive Orders, I think Clancy does an excellent job of blending story, character, and politics. Whether you agree with the politics is another story (Clancy is a bit too liberal for my taste), but the way politics and story and character are mixed in most of Clancy's novels is something every writer should read and emulate.

Clancy is most definitely not racist. He was one of the few writers who came out after 9/11 and protested against anti-arab violence. I can't seem to find an article, but here he is protesting against the Iraq War, later on.

http://www.worldmagblog.com/blog/archives/004861.html

I'm liberal too, but at least give credit where it's due.

If you're looking for a writer with really racist views, look no further than Vince Flynn:

"Not all muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are inevitably Muslim."

Except all the groups in N. Ireland, the Basque seperatists, Tamil Tigers, whatever neo-nazi group Timoth Mcveigh was in...

Anyway politics is a fine backdrop, just make sure there's a story up front.

merper said:

Clancy is most definitely not racist. He was one of the few writers who came out after 9/11 and protested against anti-arab violence. I can't seem to find an article, but here he is protesting against the Iraq War, later on.

http://www.worldmagblog.com/blog/archives/004861.html

I'm liberal too, but at least give credit where it's due.

If you're looking for a writer with really racist views, look no further than Vince Flynn:

"Not all muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are inevitably Muslim."

Except all the groups in N. Ireland, the Basque seperatists, Tamil Tigers, whatever neo-nazi group Timoth Mcveigh was in...

Anyway politics is a fine backdrop, just make sure there's a story up front.

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I've never read Vince Flynn, but if he said that, well, weird. I don't know that's it's technically a racist statement, more a religious one, I think, but it sure is a stupid point of view.

bsolah said:

Ok, maybe it was the wrong political novelist. I'm thinking of one which my grandfather reads all the time, it always seems to be about some 'crazy young Muslim terrorist.'

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There's nothing racist about having a crazy young Muslim terrorist in a novel, or even a hundred of them. There really are crazy young Muslim terrorists in the world. A LOT of them. Right now, most of the terrorists in the world probably are Muslim, and some of them are certainly crazy. They're real. They exist. There are a lot of them. Writing about them is perfectly valid.

It would only be racist if you said all Muslims are terrorists. Even then, it wouldn't be racist. Muslim is not a race, it's a person who belongs to a religion, and there are Muslims of nearly every race and most nationalities.

Most countries and nationalities have their share of terrorists. Islam just has more than most right now, but there are certainly many other terrorist groups around, and many of these get written about, as well. We've had a few right here in America. Timothy McVeigh was most definitely a terrorist, and there have been others.

But it's just wrong to think a person is a racist, or biased against a religion, because they write stories about crazy young Muslim terrorists. When something is real, good writers write about it, and crazy young Muslim terrorists are very real, very numerous, and very good fodder for novels.

Saying you can't write about any group of terrorists is certainly silly, and probably racist in its own right. Good writers write about the real world on all its gory and unpleasant truths. The truth is, there are a lot of crazy young Muslim terrorists in the world right now.

Every time you have villains based on some other races, religions, political affiliations in a political story, someone will suspect prejudice. The only way around it is to use villains within your own circle -- such as a villainous US government or something -- but then people will say, "What, you don't like your own people? Are you a patriot?" I think everything is fair game in fiction unless you portray people as stereotypes, and you keep using the same stereotypes. One thing about the movie Flight 93 that I'm impressed with: it actually portrayed the terrorists as real people, instead of some caricatures.

bsolah said:

I've been having trouble writing lately. My mind has been elsewhere and I can't seem to keep focus on a story for a long period of time. As some of you may have noticed, by surfing to my homepage, or even glancing at the banner in my sig, I'm a very political person. I'm involved in activism around Sydney, and lately, with the situation the Middle East, my mind is all over the place.

Someone suggested to me that I should incorporate politics into my writing. I've tried it, and I'm in the process of a few political projects. I've been reading a lot and I feel I'm on the verge of writing some defining work, maybe to do with Palestine, and a bit to do with Black liberation.

I'm basically asking for some advice about gathering my thoughts to actually stop thinking and write something!

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Heaven Sakes Man....sheesh
Take a map of the middle east, Israel, Australia whatever.

Read the current news...

Get a character or two going in your head, with some thinly veiled plot at the beginning.....

Use current events as your background

Work the book as current events unfolds, and use your imagination

Voila you are writing....

What is all the angst about?

There's nothing racist about having a crazy young Muslim terrorist in a novel, or even a hundred of them. There really are crazy young Muslim terrorists in the world. A LOT of them. Right now, most of the terrorists in the world probably are Muslim, and some of them are certainly crazy. They're real. They exist. There are a lot of them. Writing about them is perfectly valid.

It would only be racist if you said all Muslims are terrorists. Even then, it wouldn't be racist. Muslim is not a race, it's a person who belongs to a religion, and there are Muslims of nearly every race and most nationalities.

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Perhaps, not so much racist as jingoistic. The author I mentioned has a CIA agent as an infallible dispenser of justice, while the terrorists are always bumbling singleminded people bent on the destruction of America. Basically he presents it as a battle of good vs evil, which is a complete oversimplification of the issue. Yes, terrorists are idiots who run around killing innocent people, but they didn't come out of nowhere, there are very big political reasons behind their rage (or at least behind the rage of the leaders who send them in to blow stuff up.) And yes the CIA does some good in trying to stop them, but you don't even have to go into secret documents to find proof that a big portion of the mess arises directly from their policies in the 80s.

Just the fact that he oversimplifies the issue into the talking points that Fox News hounds upon is enough to make me never want to read another of his books.

Also, his first book has the "heroes" assasinating senators(mostly democrats)and threatening the president with the same, as a way to force congress to balance the budget.

Also, if you want to see politics entered in a book done HORRIBLY, take a look at The Camel Club. Forgot author, but every other paragraph seemed to be a page long discourse of middle eastern history and customs or US involvement in the Mid-East. Even worse, some of this was dialogue, that often had absolutely nothing to do with the matter at hand. The plot was also ridiculous, with a finale dealing with a NIC(think CIA but more powerful) officer who also happened to be a karate master fighting north korean mercenaries in an abandoned fortress. Trust me when I say, I just spoiled nothing.

In a different direction from Tom Clancy, but equally political, you have Carl Hiaasen. Invariably, his villains are developers and assorted other types hellbent on destroying the Floridian ecosystem.
And then there's the character of Skink, whom I wish actually had been governor at some point.