Creative Writing Group dates for 2012
I’ve just had confirmation of my writing group’s dates for next year! The Brisbane Square Library is an awesome venue: right in the centre of the city, with loads of room for everyone and friendly staff.
Better yet: I was able to get all of the dates that I asked for! I haven’t had to shuffle any of them around. How fantastic is that? So now the group is regularly on the second Friday of every month, like clockwork. (Coincidentally, I’m writing a steampunk thing at the moment that involves a lot of clockwork. Fun!)
Now those are set, I can work out the monthly write-in dates and we’re set for the year! Whoo!
I’ve added the dates for next year to the Creative Writing Group page. Check there for updates, or feel free to add yourself to the update list if you want reminders of when the meetings are!
Hope to see you there. :)
Garbage in, garbage out
Or, why writers shouldn’t read Twilight
Anyone familiar with software development or computer programming will be familiar with the ‘garbage in, garbage out’ principle (you get the same quality of material out that you feed in). Until the Digital Writer’s Conference, I hadn’t heard this term applied to writing before.
In Christy Dena’s address, she said that writers should keep this in mind too. The quality of writing that you expose yourself to will affect the writing that you produce.
It’s not as simple as that, but the theory is sound. It’s a fact that the style and quality of what you read can affect how and what you write, from phrasing to mood to literary quirks. It’s not a bad thing in itself, but if you’re reading crap, then that’s likely to influence what you’re producing.
I believe that writers should always strive to improve their skills and craft, and should read as much as possible. Absorbing tips and tricks from high-quality writing is good and can lead to a honing of your style. Learning what is bad or wrong in writing is valuable too; that’s how we learn what not to do. But we should be careful that reading second-rate material doesn’t drag us down!
Definitely worth bearing in mind. Support good writing and let it support you. The next time you think about picking up a trashy novel, do what’s good for your writing: make it something worthwhile!
Prizes and plans
It has been another busy weekend here, gathering all the bits we need for the big NaNoWriMo Kick-Off Party. The KOP is next Sunday and there was a lot to do!
Yesterday was spent building the party bags we’ll be giving away at the party, with Jordan_Lee and the lovely Sarah. I’m still waiting for the official NaNo stickers to arrive, so we couldn’t complete the bags, but at least the rest of the packs have been put together now.
We took stock of all the stuff we have for the party, and it’s looking good. With three sets of prizes to organise, plus the party bags and hipster PDAs, there are a lot of things to keep track of.
Today, my co-ML and I were driving around, collecting up most of the outstanding pieces of our KOP puzzle.
First stop was Roma Street Parklands, where the party will be held, to check the scavenger hunt clues. It’s lucky that we did, as lots had changed since the scouting mission that Jordan_Lee and I did a couple of months ago! The hunt has been adjusted and will now hopefully all make sense.
Next up was the Coffee Club at Milton, which is where we camp out through November. They treat us well, letting us spread out in the back of the restaurant and wire up dozens of laptops for our write-ins. We also spend piles of money there on coffee, food, and drink, so they do pretty well too! They’ve given us $150 in vouchers to give away, so a big thanks to them.
Third stop of the day was Avid Reader bookstore, to pick up a book from Trent Jamieson. He had kindly offered to donate a copy of his latest book, Roil (which is great, btw!), and threw in a copy of Managing Death as well. Fantastic! We now have a healthy pile of autographed books to give away, dominated by Trent.
Heavily laden with goodies, Jordan_Lee and I headed into Office Works on the way home, to pick up some last bits to fill out the prize packs.
Phew. So it’s been a hectic day. Just a few more bits to sort out over this week and we’re all set.
In between all of that, I’ve been writing out notecards for the new story that has been scrabbling around in my brain all week. It’s steampunk and it’s supernatural, and that’s all I’m saying right now. But if I get the second book of Starwalker finished during NaNo, I’ll be starting on that.
Can’t wait. I’m exhausted, I have a million things running around in my brain, but I’m buzzed and eager to get going.
Ooo, and the All Blacks just won the Rugby World Cup. Whoo!
Writing, talking, absorbing
The writing events are coming thick and fast lately! And it’s only going to get worse (or better, depending on your perspective) for me as November gets bigger in the windscreen.
The weekend was packed full of writing events, rather like last month’s weekend of writing and awesomeness but with less birthday celebrations. Once again, the Creative Writing Group meeting coordinated with other events. This time, however, there were a lot more than two festivals competing for attention!
I managed to get to two of the festivals on offer. These were the Emerging Writers’ Festival – specifically, the Digital Writers’ Conference that was held as part of the EWF – and the Write Around Moreton Bay: Readers and Writers Festival. Big thanks to the lovely Elle, who gifted her Digital Writers’ Conference ticket to me.
Both days were jam-packed, fun, and informative. I had a great time, met interesting people, and caught up with some familiar faces. I also got to hang out with a good friend, so it was all good!
Today, I’ve got pages of notes that I have to write up into coherent blog posts, a Starwalker post to finish (as I was sick last week and didn’t manage to get it up), and some formatting of ebooks to do. Looks like taking the day off work to rest hasn’t led to a lot of resting! But I’m feeling well enough to get started, so might as well get to it. Onwards!
Digital revolution
There has been a lot of attention lately on the digital revolution of textual content, and this was the subject of a talk at this year’s Brisbane Writer’s Festival. As someone who is getting increasingly involved in e-publishing of various stripes, I was interested in what professionals in the writing industry had to say on the subject.
Overall, I would say that the talk was a big disappointment. There was a lot of doom-and-gloom, nay-saying, and general bleakness with regard to the future of writing as a business as text is increasingly delivered digitally. I walked out feeling incredibly negative about the whole thing, which is not the best message to leave an audience with.
I don’t disagree with most of what was said by the speakers, but I don’t believe that the talk was representative of the ‘digital revolution’* or digital writing markets.
Most of the problem with the talk was the selection of the speakers. They were involved in literary publications, publishing, and journalism. In other words, they were involved in the areas of the business most likely to be hit hard by a move towards digital media. There was no representation of fiction writers or indie publishers, or anyone else who might offer a different perspective on this ‘revolution’*.
So, given that the talk was slanted in a particular direction, what did they have to say about the current climate for writers and publishers?
Publishers
The increase of the digital market is hurting publishers – namely, the big ones. According to one statistic given in the talk, traditional publishers are finding that their paper book (cutely known as ‘p-book’, I’m told) sales are going down faster than their ebook sales are going up. This is, naturally, a cause for concern.
Interestingly, however, traditional publishers’ profits are still going up. They are not losing money due to the digital markets or their overall sales going down. And yet the atmosphere among the publishers is one of doom and panic.
This suggests a couple of things to me:
- Traditional publishers do not know how to optimise the digital market yet, and don’t have the appropriate business models in place. Basically, they need to catch up with the times and figure out how to make it work.
- If their profits are going up while their sale volumes are going down, that means that they’re taking a bigger chunk out of the digital sales than they are out of the paper sales. This means that the cost savings of digital over paper books are not being passed on to the authors, and the authors are probably getting crappy royalties. (That’s what it looks like – I’d love to be wrong about this!)
The move from physical to digital media does mean a big change for traditional publishers, and I don’t know how agile they are being in this transition. From the things I’m hearing, their agility is elephantine!
Newspapers and Journalism
Newspapers are moving into the digital world and away from paper publications. The cost of printing newspapers is increasingly being seen as prohibitive, and it is believed that once the baby-boomers die off, the culture of reading newspapers in paper form will go with them.
It’s hard to know if these two things are true. I suspect that the second point is probably right: generations X and Y don’t have the same newspaper-reading habits that the older generations have. The culture is simply not the same, and moving away from it towards instant digital gratification.
The first point is, I believe, a misnomer. There are plenty of papers around who publish at a loss, compared to the money they receive from sales of the paper, and there are many free papers on offer. This is not a new phenomonon. So how do they survive? Pure sales revenue is not how they make their money; advertising revenue is where their profit lives. Like Facebook, they can afford to give their product away for free because their real customers are the advertisers.
The same is true for online content: there are lots of ways to monetise content without charging the reader for it. Newspapers are moving towards this model. However, in the process, there seems to be other changes happening.
A problem that was mentioned several times through the talk is the perceived cheapness of digital content. This perception is across the board; it’s not just readers, but vendors and publishers as well. No-one wants to pay much for it, because it is seen as quick and easy to deliver, and often of a lower quality than paper-published content. (Note: this is a common perception, not my opinion.)
This means that ‘serious journalism’ is at risk. Where (traditional) newspapers have journalists on staff and are willing to pay them for several weeks or even months’ worth of investigation for a particular piece, the belief is that digital newspapers won’t support this. They will pay for the content by the word (or similar length-based currency), not for the time it took to create it. Serious in-depth journalism will be too expensive to support, which means it will become impossible to make a living this way.
That is, without public help. In the talk, analogies were drawn between the digital revolution and the introduction of radio and television. In order to maintain material of quality and ‘cultural value’ in an increasingly commercial landscape, public (government) support was required. Hence, the BBC was born (or ABC, depending on where you are). It was suggested that the same will need to be done for journalism. (Doesn’t the BBC already have a serious news site? Isn’t this already catered-for to a degree? Questions I wish there had been time to ask!)
Whether there is government-funded papers or not, the business of journalism is changing. Digital content writers are already out there making money from this, and they will tell you how much the market is changing every day. One of the speakers at the talk mentioned that making a living from writing (meaning: journalism or non-fiction articles) will become impossible. Serious journalism will move into the hobbyist’s realm, and they’ll all have to get day jobs to put food on the table.
This sounds familiar. That’s because it’s the lot of 90% of fiction writers – only the very biggest sellers can afford to live off what they make from their books alone. It makes me sad to think that other types of writing might be sliding into the ‘hobby’ zone when I’d like to see the opposite become reality.
Literary Magazines
Literary publications in the digital realm have problems with the same cause as journalists: digital content and publication is seen to be cheap and easy, and so no-one is willing to put the same kind of money into it as they are for a paper publication. For literary magazines, which rely largely on donations and grants, this means that funding can be cut if they move online; apparently, they don’t ‘need’ as much money as they did pre-digital! Some publications have already lost funding in this way.
I guess this means that publishers of literary content are being forced to find other revenue streams to support their work. Is this good for the industry? It’s hard to say. It opens up a few questions:
- Is there enough money to pay for quality editing?
- Will literary fiction suffer by being commercialised?
- Will literary publications be forced to close?
The opinions at the talk seemed to be centred on the need for public (that is, government) support for the arts to ensure that quality, culturally-important material is still produced and published for the world to see.
Libraries
This is an interesting subject. Libraries are being forced to change by the move towards digital media, and it will be interesting to see exactly what that means in the long run.
Will the perception of ‘digital=cheap’ hurt them too? Will it lead to a reduction in funding for libraries? I hope not, as in this case, it could be particularly counter-intuitive. For libraries to keep stocks of digital media, they will need servers, archives, back-up systems, IT maintenance, and the power to keep it all running. Or might libraries become more centralised and ‘virtual’? Is that a good or bad thing?
Quality
One of the concerns that was raised in the talk was about the quality of digital content. The truth is that it is cheap and easy to publish online, especially if you forego professional aspects of writing. Namely: editing, formatting, and design.
In paper publications, editors and publishers are the gatekeepers of quality (and from many of the books I’ve read, they’re not that good at ensuring error-free text, either: I’ve been tempted to take to more than one book with a red pen and send it back to the publisher). In digital publications, there do not have to be any gatekeepers at all; that is both the appeal and drawback of the digital realm. So how is quality ensured?
Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that. I think that writers should take pride in their work and go to the effort to make sure that it is correct and professional, especially if they are charging money for it. I go to pains to edit and proof the work I offer for free, because quality matters to me. I’m also aware that not everyone cares about it as much as I do.
It’s a lot to think about, and going over it again leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t believe that the ‘digital revolution’ is as drastic or doom-laden as some would like to believe. Things are changing and the publishing industry as a whole needs to move with it. Old roles will change, and new ones will open up.
I believe that writers have a lot of opportunities in front of them right now. It’s not easy to find your way through the morass of information and speculation being thrown around, but I don’t think it’s as dire or as shiny as the various parties would like us to believe. There will always be writing; let’s embrace the new ways of delivering it to people and keep pushing forward.
* I put these words in quotes because, while they’re being bandied about at the moment, they always sound melodramatic to me. I haven’t seen anyone launching at paper with digital pitchforks yet. Perhaps that’s next month!
Apocalypse Blog now available at Amazon
After some shenanigans over the weekend, the Apocalypse Blog is now available through Amazon! You can get it direct to your Kindle from the US, UK and German stores.
You can find the books on my Author Page, or here are some handy links to the US store versions:
Enjoy! And don’t forget to tell all your friends about them!
When they get away
Warning: potential spoilers here. If you haven’t read (up to and including) this week’s Starwalker post, go catch up quick!
So, this week’s Starwalker post went a little sideways on me while I was writing it. Which is not to say that it went badly – on the contrary, the reactions have been very positive! It just wound up not being what I intended.
I’ve got a little list of the stuff that I need to cover in order to get the story to where it needs to be for the end of Book 2. Next in line was a discussion about the implications of time travel, but somehow, the characters didn’t want to talk about that. No, they decided that they’d get hung up on the issue of legally changing the starship’s ownership to escape prosecution.
As I was writing the scene, it reminded me of at the end of Book 1, in which the crew had to decide whether to stay on board or not. This week’s post came down to the same question, for a different reason. I’m not a fan of repetition but it was difficult to get away from – the decision had to be made in order for them to be able to move forward, and while the captain could have made it on their behalf, that’s not the sort of person he is. Not to mention that having a pissed-off crew would have caused more and different problems down the track.
Perhaps it’s a happy symmetry, instead. Both books have come to a point where the crew have to weigh up just how much they want to stay, points of no return for them to step over. Thinking about the projected arc of the third book, it’s likely that there’ll be a moment like that towards the end there as well (again, for a different reason).
I suspect that when it comes to editing the Starwalker books (into ebooks or for submission to traditional publishers), I’ll either shine them up into a more pleasing symmetry, or take one of them out. Having just got done with editing the first book of the Apocalypse Blog, the chances of me taking something out are fairly slim (I hate throwing stuff away).
There’s definite scope for improvement in there, though, once I can see the bigger picture. Writing the way that I do, it’s sometimes hard to keep the big picture in mind, especially as deep into the story as I am right now. I’m pretty determined that I won’t start editing this story until I have all three books written, so I can get that 1,000-foot view of the story as a whole.
Back to this week’s post, it wound up completely missing out on what I originally set out to achieve. I had written in the talk about time travel at the end, but that not only added almost 1,000 words to the post (and they’re getting way too long lately!); it also changed the tone of the post entirely. Starry’s giddy moment was quashed by the seriousness of what followed and wound up getting lost.
The more I looked at the post, the more it felt crammed and trying to do too much. It wound up muddled, particularly in terms of the emotions running through it. And, hell, I’m not tied to any particular deadline for the end of Book 2, so why rush it? So the serious bit at the end has been pulled out (and will be filled out/polished for next week’s post) and it just focusses on the crew’s deliberations and decisions.
I tend to write for and from character, and I’ve grown to love writing the conversations in Starwalker. The transcript-style format is fun to play with, and I enjoy the rapid back-and-forth nature of it. My cast have such different voices to play with, and often their perspectives surprise me.
I had expected Cameron to be the one to be most disturbed by the captain’s proposed course of action (due to the legal violations involved), but she was very calm and pragmatic about it. Elliott was quiet, which makes a change from his usual mouthiness, but he already knew about the proposal. Rosie got to be the outraged one for the most part, which amuses me because she’s also the one most likely to smack someone in the face.
Of all of them, Lang Lang was the biggest surprise. When I started the conversation, I wasn’t sure how she would react, but when it came time for her to speak, she knew exactly what she wanted to say. That was one of the easiest bits of the post for me to write (and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me a little emotional!).
I think it was Lang Lang’s statement that determined the subject of the post. Her quiet declaration and its affect on Starry fitted so beautifully into the starship’s evolution that I wanted to hug them both. Starry’s going through so many changes lately, stamping around in her processors like a rebellious teenager, and she needed this little gem to alter her perspective slightly.
Through much of this book, Starry has been a kid trying to work out who she wants to grow up to be. She has been searching for so many things, like safety, security, and belonging. Her homecoming and Is-Tech’s rejection damaged her more than she realises – they’re her parental substitutes - but it also gave her the strength to try to stand on her own. Lang Lang’s statement helped with that too, but in a more positive way.
I bandied names for the books around a while ago, and have roughly settled on Identity for Book 1, and Ownership for Book 2. The story is taking that idea into places I hadn’t originally planned, just like this week’s post didn’t quite turn out the way I had intended. But I’m far from complaining: I love where this is going. It’s so much fun to write!
Can’t wait to share it all with you. :)
Apocalypse Blog ebooks now available!
After a weekend of madly formatting, checking, proofing, and uploading, the first two ebooks of the Apocalypse Blog are now available on Smashwords! They are:
- Book 0: Before the End – free prequel!
- Book 1: End of the Old – the first of the trilogy, starting when the bomb went off. Now with new and extended content!
I had piles of fun editing through the first book of the Apocalypse Blog, and wound up extending a lot of the posts. A few gaps filled in here, some detail in there.
It feels great to finally have them up now, released into the wild! I have a little bit of work to do on the covers (they’re gorgeous, but the file size needs to be adjusted) before the books can go out to more stores, but it’s all good.
So far, the free Book 0 has had over 50 downloads. In less than 2 days! Wow. :)
For those of you who read this blog, you can get Book 1 for half price by entering this coupon: “ZY43T” Valid this week only!
Next job: edit up Book 2 for release!
On literary and popular fiction
I recently attended a talk on writing literary vs popular fiction at the Brisbane Writer’s Festival. When I signed up, I was hoping for answers to a number of questions, like:
- What is considered literary fiction?
- What is excluded?
- What is literary fiction for?
- Why is popular fiction classed as low-brow entertainment?
- How has literary fiction changed with the times?
- How does popular fiction become literary fiction?
- Who decides?
- Can fiction be both?
Sadly, the discussion was not what I had hoped. I don’t think they touched on any of the questions above, apart from a brief flirt with how literary fiction can move with the times (which told us little except that it cando it).
I had a far more interesting, pointed discussion about literary and popular fiction with my two well-read writing-inclined friends afterwards than I heard inside the auditorium.
Part of the problem was that the chair of the panel gave long, rambling monologues that had a question buried among his many, many phrases, and no-one had thought to bring a shovel. The panelists didn’t quite know what they were supposed to be answering, so tended to speak on their best guess about what they were there for.
Another problem was that the one popular author on the panel had come from a background of creating popular television, and the talk skewed towards her screen stories rather than her novels. It wasn’t a good examination of popular fiction today, because they didn’t spend much time actually discussing popular fiction writing. Comparing literary fiction to TV shows is like comparing an egg to a piece of cheese.
They didn’t once mention the place of different genres of fiction, or the struggle to get non-mainstream (or any fiction not classed by a bookstore as ‘literary’) viewed as quality or well-crafted writing. It is rare for a science fiction book to win a literary prize, for example (and until relatively recently, it was unheard-of). But nope, that didn’t rate a mention. Not even a little rant about trash like Twilight becoming so popular.
I’m disappointed by the talk because I don’t read much literary fiction any more and don’t tend to follow the big literary prizes. They’re not relevant to my life or my writing at this point; I don’t consider myself a reader or writer of literary fiction. However, I am interested in the distinctions that are imposed upon literature in the modern climate. Sadly, I have enough trouble squeezing in the things that I want to do right now!
I have a degree in English Literature and can decode literary fiction if I choose to, but it’s simply not the kind of reading that I enjoy; I prefer to read for entertainment rather than intellectual gymnastics. I like intelligent writing, but not the forced way that literary fiction often comes out. I prefer story over stylistic flourishes (though I enjoy literary techniques that enhance the story).
Plus, a lot of that stuff is aspirations to high-falutin ideals dressed in pretentious clothing, containing little of value except a reason for educated people to sound educated at each other. It doesn’t help that all the writers I know who aim to create literary fiction are pretentious, snobby twits who look down their nose at every other kind of writing. (Maybe it’s just the writers I know that are like this!)
To be fair, I don’t think that literary fiction is a waste of time. It has its place; the nature and purpose of that place is what I’m curious about, as well as how big it is (or could be). For me, it’s like the statue of David: important as a piece of art with the potential to be beautiful and instructive, but I wouldn’t want the sucker standing in my living room.
As a writer, I do take a certain pleasure in crafting words onto a page using literary devices. There is something beautiful about weaving text in that kind of way, the subtle layering of subtext and meanings.
However, it doesn’t always fit with what I’m trying to achieve; it might not suit the voice I’m using or the kind of piece I’m creating. First and foremost, I write for character and story (usually in that order). If I can work in devices, craft clever bits of phrasing or imagery, then I’m happy, but it’s usually subtle and not the point of what I’m trying to convey. I use them to support the story, not the other way around, whereas in literary fiction, the opposite is the norm.
After the talk, I made a joke about starting up a review site for literary fiction, done from the perspective of someone who isn’t enamoured of the form. It’s very tempting! If I had the time and the will to do it, I would. Of course, that would mean reading at least some literary fiction, which sounds more like a job than fun to me. But if I had the time, I’d still do it.
Literary fiction remains an enigma on the periphery of my vision, a voice that expounds away to itself in a posh accent and has little relevance to my life. I am curious, and disappointed that the talk did nothing to illuminate the closed halls of literary fiction. I am left with my assumptions and knowledge from a years-ago degree, and can only consign literature to a corner of my world that I don’t look at very often.
One of the panelists quoted an author (in another talk), who was asked, “What would you prefer: a literary prize or high books sales?” Her answer was, “High book sales, because that means reaching more readers.” (This was the highlight of the talk.) It got a laugh from the audience, but I wonder if that’s because she’s right as well as mercenary.
I can’t remember her name now, but I completely agree with her. I’d rather be read than acclaimed. I write to touch people’s lives, share something with them and hopefully entertain them in the process. That’s part of why I (currently) give my work away for free.
I hope to craft my work well but I don’t need an academic (or a highly-educated critic) to tell me that I can write. It would be nice, I admit, but I’m already fairly confident that I have some skill. I’m constantly learning and seeking out new avenues to gain new insights.
I prefer to create more accessible art. I don’t want to produce some untouchable, coded thing that has to be unpicked like a puzzle box. And I write science fiction, because that’s where my heart lies and I don’t care about literary acclaim.
One day I hope to master both, as I suspect that many writers strive for, because it’s good for us to aim for the stars. I don’t know if it’s possible to get there, but maybe we’ll catch an updraft and fly a little way.
Writing about dangerous ideas
One of the talks that I attended at this year’s Brisbane Writer’s Festival was on ‘dangerous ideas’. It brought up some interesting points, and is a topic that I find fascinating. It’s like a shiny, smooth rock that you turn over in your hands and get the urge to launch through someone’s window.
The first question that comes up is: what is a dangerous idea? What kinds of things are dangerous to write about?
Let’s put aside for the moment the effect of location and what that means for a writer’s ‘safety’. There are many parts of the world where the wrong (right!) type of writing will land you in prison, or worse. The BWF always remembers these writers with an empty chair on the stage at each event, representing all those writers who can’t join us because their writing has caused them to be unavailable. I love this tradition in the festival and applaud their desire to keep these suppressed writers in our minds. However, it’s not quite what this post is about, so I’m going to leave it there.
In the Western world, what is considered dangerous to write about? What raises people’s ire, shakes fingers, or is simply viewed as risque? Should we write about these things? Should we restrain ourselves? All interesting questions, and none of the answers are simple.
The danger of silence
One of the most striking comments from the talk was made by Rachel DeWoskin. (This is badly paraphrased from memory, but this is the gist of what she said.) She said that when it comes to taboo topics - like underage sex, or abuse, or teenage desire, or cannibalism - the most dangerous idea was to not talk about it. The notion of shutting these things away and never looking at them is a terrible one for her, and I agree. Talking about dangerous things is less dangerous than not talking about them.
This reminds me of a conversation I once had with a Jehovah’s Witness on my doorstep. The woman opened the conversation by saying how sad it was that things were so terrible for children these days. How we couldn’t let them play outside on their own, how we had to protect them from the many dangers that surround them now. Wasn’t it awful how things had declined over the years and that things were getting so much worse?
I thought about it for a moment, then I said: No. She looked a bit shocked, so I explained.
It is terrible that there are dangers out there for children and the world is a frightening place. But I don’t think it is getting worse. The difference between the past and the present is that we are talking about it more now. We know about all those many things that might hurt a child, such as abuse, paedophilia, or bullying. It’s not new; we are simply starting to understand the size of a problem that was always there.
Yes, it looks awful, but better to look at it than pretend it isn’t happening. Better to be aware and protect our children. Better to be able to fight it. Awareness is the first step in being able to stop it, not a symptom of a decline into an abyss.
(The woman went away after that. This is something of a pattern with me and people who strike up conversations on my doorstep.)
Part of the purpose of any type of art is to reveal the truth. To examine, to provoke, to ask questions. To make people think about something, even if it’s an uncomfortable topic. Pretending that teenagers don’t have a sex drive might make some people more comfortable, but how does that help a teenager learn how to deal with it, or how to protect themselves from the issues that it brings? How does that help us improve anything?
Sensitivity
So, bringing these issues out into the open is a good thing. That said, when you talk about taboo subjects, how do you avoid sliding into voyeurism, cheap sensationalism, or pornography?
The panel agreed that this was largely a matter of taste (the panel being: Rachel, Tim Richards and Cory Taylor). For some, the mere mention of a subject is pornographic, while the bar is much higher for other readers. As writers (or artists of any type), you cannot guarantee that you’re not going to offend someone.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t try to avoid offense. Treating the subject matter with respect, sensitivity, and empathy is the best perspective to start from.
Do your research in the area you’re discussing, and talk to the people that you’re writing about. Rachel’s book Big Girl Small is about a girl with a form of Dwarfism, and she consulted hundreds of Little People (I believe that is the correct term) to make sure she got it right. Cory made a short film about a Down Syndrome teenager and spoke with many families with Down Syndrome members about their experiences; afterwards, they thanked her for getting it right.
I think these are good rules of thumb, no matter what subject you’re writing about (taboo or otherwise). Coming from a place of empathy is especially important when you’re dealing with a sensitive topic, though. Again, awareness is key.
Morality
Sadly, the talk didn’t get into the moral side of the issues for writers. This is a part of this topic that I find interesting. While the panel agreed that art should bring taboo topics out into the open, should ask questions, I believe that writing does more than that and cannot avoid morality entirely. The way that taboos are presented makes a difference, and that’s where the moral issue comes into play.
If you have ever had to write a questionnaire, you will know that there are many ways to phrase the same question. The wording that you choose influences the answers you’re likely to get. Someone skilled in this can present a survey and get exactly the results that they’re looking for. As writers, we should be aware of this, especially when handling a sensitive topic. Wording, presentation, and perception matter.
So is there a moral imperitive for writers? Should they only present things in an ethical manner?
I find those questions hard to answer. My instinct is to say: no. Writers do not have to be driven by high moral rules in order to write about taboo subjects. We do not have to present every murderer as a blackhearted demon or a mentally unstable drooler, or every rapist as a violent underachiever.
But writers should be aware that their presentation will colour how a reader views that subject. Is presenting a sympathetic paedophile the ‘right’ thing to do? Is, perhaps, the horror that such a thing presents to a reader the point of such a presentation? Is it possible for a piece of art to excuse it?
What about murder? Look at the Dexter series (books or TV) and how a serial killer becomes the hero, even while he’s exercising his serial killing desires. Look at (the dreaded) Twilight and how it presents a violent stalker and a passive, weak girl, as if they are an ideal for others to live up to.
I find some of these presentations insidious and repulsive. To me, they present a talking-point as something to object to – and this, too, can be the point of an artistic presentation. Prompting talk (sometimes of any kind, even negative) can be a worthy purpose. Sadly, with the more popular examples, too few look at the details and take the surface on faith. Too few question it. The writing slides under their skin and they don’t look any further.
Morality is like taste; it varies between readers and you’ll never satisfy everyone. So should you seek to satisfy anyone?
Like I said, I find these questions hard to answer. Personally, I try to stay true to my own morals and go from there. I suppose that that’s all you can ask of an artist. That, and be conscious of what you’re presenting and how it might be read. That is something that I suspect gets lost much of the time.
Awareness. Sensitivity. Empathy. With these three things, I don’t think that you can go wrong when dealing with controversial topics. But keep dealing with them, because we are the world’s window to the truth, whatever flavour we choose to suck on.
