When writers get political

Aperspectival/ Pluralistic

Everything is political, down to the french fry you ate last night.

Just call it as you see it, and let "The Man" worry about himself.

goatpiper said:

Neal Stephenson has an opinion on this one - from his website (on writers getting political):

"[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]These I avoid for the simple reason that artists often make fools of themselves, and begin to produce bad art, when they decide to get political. A novelist needs to be able to see the world through the eyes of just about anyone, including people who have this or that set of views on religion, politics, etc."

Now, I love Neal Stephenson, but I must disagree with him on this one. Expressing one's political opinion does not preclude one from envisioning a different perspective, thereby allowing the expression of said perspective. I love perspective. It makes my life fun.

But then again, I'm a bit of a supergeek, so whatever.

Chime in on this one, please...I'm interested. Where would many writers be without their publicly expressed political opinions? Twain anyone? Vonnegut? Who cares if you disagree with them, does it really prevent you from enjoying their writing? Orwell? Huxley? Kafka (the prophet of our current morass, if you ask me).

Get political, for crying out loud. I'll love ya for it.

J. Ritchie - perfect example - I think we'd probably clash in the political department, but I read every post you write, because I think you're one of the best people to learn from on this board. You rock!
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If we're talking fiction, I have mixed emotions about this, and I'd love to hear a bunch of opinions on it. I can't remember who said it, but I remember reading once that the best way to write about politics or religion is to write about them indirectly by writing about people who are in politics or religion. I think there's truth in this.

I don't like getting preached at in fiction. I think Kim Stanley Robinson, for instance, preaches too much, and it gets in the way of the story.

At the same time, I don't think you can really separate a writer from his views on politics and religion. I guess what I want is for whatever politics and religion teh writer puts in fiction to come trhough the character, and to be a necessary part of the story. It can't come across as preaching, it can't stand out from teh story, and it can't make anyone in the story with opposing views look like a moron.

It also has to ring true to me, no matter which side of something the writer takes. This is often a huge problem. Writers who delve into politics and religion have a real tendency to go overboard, to build up their own side, and to put down the opposing side, both in unrealistic ways.

I guess I'm say that, yes, writers should write about politics and religion, but also that doing it well really is tricky.

In his fiction, Twain tended to concentrate on story, and any politics and religion came out as an aside, as a matter of course, and was presented as one character's view. Vonnegut, on the other hand, often seems to write with the sole purpose of expressing a political opinion. I prefer Twain's method.

But can a writer ever really NOT write about his own political and religious views?

goatpiper said:

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Now, I love Neal Stephenson, but I must disagree with him on this one. Expressing one's political opinion does not preclude one from envisioning a different perspective, thereby allowing the expression of said perspective. I love perspective. It makes my life fun. [/font]

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I agree with you on this. I don't really see how expressing a political opinion is different from expressing anything else in writing. A reader either likes what you are expressing or doesn't. That's their right. But if you are inspired to say something, why shouldn't you say it? There are a great many novels that are political. I consider A Clockwork Orange, one of my favorites, to be political. Some of the greatest German Expressionist films from the WWII period were written about Fritz Lang's distrust of Hitler. Certainly, some writers get preachy when they write about their politics, but I suppose it's just like anything else. Sometimes you go overboard, and sometimes you pull it off.

I think that if we write about what moves us, getting political is inevitable. However, we don't have to get preachy about it.

When the characters start preaching to me, it's a turn off and it puts me out of the story. I agree that it's impossible to cut political and religious beliefs out of a work, but particularly in a story where politics just don't matter it bugs me to have this random political rant. There is a time and a place for everything and if the plot doesn't call for them, politics can be extraneous and even an excuse for charactization.

So I say include it if it is pertinent to the story. But if it's irrelevant information that the writer gave for the sole purpose of letting everyone know his political views, it'll turn me of.

Frankly, if I picked up a novel and saw that the author had gotten political--and I'm specifically referring to an author doing a message piece on whatever the current agenda is--I would put it back immediately. Where I live, I get an overdose of politics every single day (the area is so bad that people actually get culture shock from the lack of politics if they move somewhere else). Plus I feel that the political message will overshadow the story and get in the way of it. We have a writer in our group who is impassioned by a particular political message--and the problem is that his hot button issue doesn't make for good fiction in the genre he's writing. However, I don't mind if a political backdrop is used for a story. It can be make for a really good story if someone is conflicted between saving his political career or doing the right thing. Or having a story where people are scheming for positions they want and doing villainous things to get what they want. Of course, that uses the flavor of politics without getting into hot button issues and certainly allows more interesting opportunities for conflict.

Every novelist expresses a specific viewpoint that represents certain aspects of humanity, including politics. Give me any novel and I can probably pick out something political in it (let's say, To Kill a Mockingbird, or the Da Vinci Code). The question is: Is the author preaching? Is the author trying to say, "This is the right way, the only way?" A good novel makes us think and let us see through the characters' eyes. I don't think a novelist should "see through the eyes of just about anyone." That's both unrealistic and silly, I think. I try to see things through other's eyes and understand their viewpoints; I do. But I'm still me and when I write, I write from my POV and there are probably a billion people who won't agree with me.

Looking at the books I've read over the last few years, I certainly can't say that strong political messages put me off, even when I disagree with them. Ken McLeod's perfect communist future Earth (from the Cassini Division, and presumably the others I haven't yet read in that series), for instance, I thought of as hard to believe -- then set those doubts aside and enjoyed the book for what it was. Kim Stanley Robinson's books -- I've read a few, and don't see what other people are complaining about. Yes, he has characters with strong political views. Strong views make people do interesting things. MZB's Mists of Avalon: I keep hearing it described as feminist. Couldn't care less.

Maybe I'm unusual, but I don't think so. As long as you keep the story moving, I think most people will ignore the politics if they disagree with them. And they'll be even happier to read stories that have politics they agree with. Just don't stop the story to explain your political point. Keep it brief, keep it subtle.

Politics

The more I thnk about this, the more I think Stephenson is both wrong and right. Writers do often make fools of themselves in writing about politics and religion, especially when these subjects become the primary focus of the novel. I do think we all tend to put our views of both subjects into most of our fiction, but I strongly suspect this is because we tend to choose a protagonist who reflect us in many ways. But doing this is always a choice, even if a subconscious one.

I think I've talked about it before, but I wrote a story that sold to Ellery Queen called "Wild Strawberries." In it, the protagonist gets his pregnant, teenage girlfriend drunk, then places her on a railroad and lets a train kill her. He then successfully blames it on his best friend, who gets sent to prison, and who actually belives he's guilty because he bought the whiskey.

The protagonist not only gets away with the murder, and not only blames it on his best friend, but lives happily ever after, and is actually recalling the incident many years later as he eats strawberries his future wife bought at the supermarket.

Whatever belief system exists in this story belongs strictly to the POV character, and has nothing at all to do with me. It simply seemed like a good idea for a story, and the POV character seemed like a good character to write about. I suspect this may well be what Stephenson means when he says [font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"A novelist needs to be able to see the world through the eyes of just about anyone. . ."

I also think the ability to see the world through the eyes of just about anyone, and to write effectively from this viewpoint, is absolutely crucial for secondary characters in any story, and for writing effectively about antagonists. It is not how a writer views those with opposing beliefs that matters, it's how those people view themselves.

So, I do thnk it's perfectly fine to write about politics, religion, or anything else, but there is a tendency to fall into the trap of preaching, or of amking everything so one-sided that the book becomes nonsensical, or of making a complete fool of yourself, so such writing does have to be done with care.

And I do agree with [/font]l Stephenson completely in saying [font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]it's absolutely crucial for any good writer to be able to write through the eyes of almost anyone.
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Hmmm, so Bradbury's Farenheight 451 and many of his other works are bad art?
Last time I checked, nobody considered Bradbury a fool.

I get what Stephenson means but the whole political arguement is a bit ironic. A bias view doesn't necessarily make a story bad. Hopefully he'll practice what he preaches and look through other people's eyes on this, as well.

Sorry if I come off strong, don't know how else to put it.

It depends. What I think really kills a book is when the writer lets his political beliefs get in the way of telling the story. For example, compare Tom Clancey's Hunt for Red October with Executive Orders. They're both political as a talk show, but in the former the politics are motivators for a story, while in the latter the politics take center stage and I kept wishing he'd get on with the stories about war and terrorism.

Jamesaritchie said:

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I also think the ability to see the world through the eyes of just about anyone, and to write effectively from this viewpoint, is absolutely crucial for secondary characters in any story, and for writing effectively about antagonists. It is not how a writer views those with opposing beliefs that matters, it's how those people view themselves.

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I agree. I read fiction to be entertained, not instructed. The writer's personal beliefs may sneak in occasionally, but, if I begin to sense an agenda, even if it's one I agree with, the spell is broken and I'm back in a two-dimensional world.

Didactic writing feels like an attempt to manipulate me as a reader, and I resist by backing out of the story-world and turning my attention to the author instead: "Oh, look what he had the character do now. How slick!" On the other side, I think it's impossible to keep one's general moral views out of fiction while writing anything significant, and moral views feed into religious and political ones.

Akuma said:

Hmmm, so Bradbury's Farenheight 451 and many of his other works are bad art?
Last time I checked, nobody considered Bradbury a fool.

I get what Stephenson means but the whole political arguement is a bit ironic. A bias view doesn't necessarily make a story bad. Hopefully he'll practice what he preaches and look through other people's eyes on this, as well.

Sorry if I come off strong, don't know how else to put it.

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No, Bradbury isn't a fool. But Bradbury is as good as anyone at seeing through the eyes of otehrs, and I don't think re resorts to preaching very often. When he does, it comes off as poorly as it does with any other writer, and he's preaching only to the choir. No one thinks a writer is a fool if they agree with what that writer says, but such writing does no one any good.

A biased view does make for bad writing if that bias overrides the story, and if that bieas makes every opposing character in a work look like an idiot.

MadScientistMatt said:

It depends. What I think really kills a book is when the writer lets his political beliefs get in the way of telling the story. For example, compare Tom Clancey's Hunt for Red October with Executive Orders. They're both political as a talk show, but in the former the politics are motivators for a story, while in the latter the politics take center stage and I kept wishing he'd get on with the stories about war and terrorism.

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That's a very good point. "Red October" was story. "Executive orders" was a treatise on Clancy's political views, and I thought the novel would never end.

views

reph said:

On the other side, I think it's impossible to keep one's general moral views out of fiction while writing anything significant, and moral views feed into religious and political ones.

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Not, I think, if you stay true to the POV character, rather than to yourself.

Jamesaritchie said:

Not, I think, if you stay true to the POV character, rather than to yourself.

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I meant what I said in a broader sense. Here's an example. The character in your Ellery Queen story did despicable things and got by with them. Presumably, you expected readers to recognize that his acts were despicable; the story wouldn't have worked otherwise. You didn't select random things for him to do, you selected bad things. It was necessary to start with some idea of right and wrong, including that killing one's girlfriend is wrong and setting up someone else to take the rap is wrong. A writer can assume that most readers will share these values. The protagonist can be amoral – and, in some stories, that's the point – but the writer can't be.

Terry Goodkind, anyone?

reph said:

I meant what I said in a broader sense. Here's an example. The character in your Ellery Queen story did despicable things and got by with them. Presumably, you expected readers to recognize that his acts were despicable; the story wouldn't have worked otherwise. You didn't select random things for him to do, you selected bad things. It was necessary to start with some idea of right and wrong, including that killing one's girlfriend is wrong and setting up someone else to take the rap is wrong. A writer can assume that most readers will share these values. The protagonist can be amoral – and, in some stories, that's the point – but the writer can't be.

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That's a good point. I did nothing in the story to say that any of these things were wrong, but I did expect the average reader to recognize them as wrong. You're right, the story would not have worked, and probably wouldn't have made any sense at all, if the average reader did not understand that the protagonist's actions were wrong.

It's also interesting that you use the word "amoral." That's what I was actually aiming for. I wanted a character who was not immoral so much as amoral, and his attitude towards the various evil deeds he did was supposed give the reader this impression.

Jamesaritchie said:

That's a good point. I did nothing in the story to say that any of these things were wrong, but I did expect the average reader to recognize them as wrong....

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Sorry if it didn't come across directly enough the first time.

Another story driven by the same engine is Ring Lardner's "Champion."

There's often a moral point of view, even when no numbered commandment is involved. "To Build a Fire" is a warning against hubris: know your place in the world, and have some humility before Nature. Come to think of it, "To Build a Fire" reads rather didactically these days.

reph said:

Sorry if it didn't come across directly enough the first time.

Another story driven by the same engine is Ring Lardner's "Champion."

There's often a moral point of view, even when no numbered commandment is involved. "To Build a Fire" is a warning against hubris: know your place in the world, and have some humility before Nature. Come to think of it, "To Build a Fire" reads rather didactically these days.

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I don't remember ever reading "Champion," but "To Build a Fire" is a very good example of such a story. I'll have to look for "Champion."

"Champion" is in Tellers of Tales, an anthology edited by Somerset Maugham.

The best example of doing this well that I can think of is actually a TV show.


"King of the Hill" is about very... v e r y Republican people. But, that's not the point of the show. The political leanings are a part of the characters that would, naturally, have strong Republican leanings. The politics are just background, not foreground.

Have your characters express political opinion as part of their character--and, to make sure you aren't intruding as an author, choose the opposite positions you might personally hold for your main guy. Whenever you start to preach to the reader, you lose him. The only rule I know for sure about writing is: Thou shalt NOT bore the reader!

If a reader wants a political essay, he can read the editorial page. Fiction is about the human condition, about escape and all that. Good fiction isn't about pushing a political agenda.