Nonfiction: There is something called eco-anxiety these days, people making radical choices, including suicide, out of despair for the future and what's happening to Earth.
A few years ago a man self-immolated in Battery Park. It seems it had to do with climate change. Others who I know on Twitter speak of their depression. And so on.
Fiction: As I'm writing my sequel, I'm wondering how much of this to give voice to. The novel does not rely on eco-anxiety, and yet the global despair here and now is real. I feel that if I want to do justice to this story, and the times in which we live, I should not shy away from the reality of watching a world collapse.
So as things stand now, despair grows on my world as the climate is collapsing. I make references to people in the world, off page, who take their lives from despair. This choice is, in part, to recognize the reality of what happens here, today, on Earth. It is intended to bear witness to the real pain of my fellow Earthlings.
In ZOOM today a few people said to be careful on the topic, but that so far (one reference in Chapter 2) it was done well enough, the justification for the reference to suicide (that the very world was burning down) worked. I was surprised it even came up, only because the reference was so glancing (chapter 2).
Are there general guidelines for the inclusion or omission of themes like suicide? None of my characters are suicidal. One looks at the suicides that she sees (from afar) and how those deaths do not change anything on the world, and from that decides she wants her death to matter (cue Tasha Yar, ST:TNG). She makes a choice because of the suicides.
But ... there might be thoughts.
Thoughts?
A few years ago a man self-immolated in Battery Park. It seems it had to do with climate change. Others who I know on Twitter speak of their depression. And so on.
Fiction: As I'm writing my sequel, I'm wondering how much of this to give voice to. The novel does not rely on eco-anxiety, and yet the global despair here and now is real. I feel that if I want to do justice to this story, and the times in which we live, I should not shy away from the reality of watching a world collapse.
So as things stand now, despair grows on my world as the climate is collapsing. I make references to people in the world, off page, who take their lives from despair. This choice is, in part, to recognize the reality of what happens here, today, on Earth. It is intended to bear witness to the real pain of my fellow Earthlings.
In ZOOM today a few people said to be careful on the topic, but that so far (one reference in Chapter 2) it was done well enough, the justification for the reference to suicide (that the very world was burning down) worked. I was surprised it even came up, only because the reference was so glancing (chapter 2).
Are there general guidelines for the inclusion or omission of themes like suicide? None of my characters are suicidal. One looks at the suicides that she sees (from afar) and how those deaths do not change anything on the world, and from that decides she wants her death to matter (cue Tasha Yar, ST:TNG). She makes a choice because of the suicides.
But ... there might be thoughts.
Thoughts?
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