Real-life ideas in fiction?

[ljwrites]

What do you think about using political, social, religious and other ideas in fiction-writing? Do your beliefs find their way into your work, and if so how? Alternately, do you believe enjoyable fiction is free of ideology and partisanship?

These questions were touched off in me when members of another comm that I admin were quite open about expressing political and moral ideas through their works. I've given a lot of thought to this issue, too, for instance in a long rant about a post by Holly Lisle on her website, in my review of Changes by Jim Butcher, my review of Frozen, my review of Kingdom of Heaven and... oh, let's face it, everything I've ever written, including fiction. Especially fiction. As I noted in the Changes review, my political views are inextricable from the literary.

That's not to say my goal is to preach or proselytize, quite the opposite in fact. I believe the role of fiction is to tell a truth that lies beyond and below facts. Having an uncompromising agenda tends to distort the truth, and if a writer finds herself going into contortions to make her side look good then she has some issues to work out before she can write to her full potential. On the other hand, truth doesn't exist free of viewpoints, and every work of fiction has some moral standpoint no matter how well or poorly expressed. That's the way I see it, anyway. What do you think?

Comments

[sarillia]

I don't believe in the separation of "politics" from everything else. For a lot of people the divide seems to be "If I think it's important then it's an important aspect of life that needs to be talked about and if I don't care about it then it's 'just politics' and should be kept out of most things". Whether or not something counts as "an issue" is often a matter of perspective. Even the fact that I write about gay people in happy relationships without condemning them can be seen as a political act. And in fact it would be seen as political by certain relatives who are the main reason I like the idea of writing under a pen name.

My beliefs definitely show up in my work. I don't often set out to write about them but sometimes I realize that a story could be read in a certain political light and that shapes how I finish the story. For example, one of my current projects is a fantasy that involves two characters who are both connected to assassins and I realized that their differences in opinion could be seen as a commentary on the death penalty. I didn't mean to write a main character who agrees with me on that issue but it ended up that way.

[ljwrites]

For a lot of people the divide seems to be "If I think it's important then it's an important aspect of life that needs to be talked about and if I don't care about it then it's 'just politics' and should be kept out of most things".

This totally gets my goat, that mainstream, majority political/moral/social positions are somehow considered "neutral" and "default" and everything else is considered "politicized." This is exactly how prevailing power structures hide from sight and remove themselves from public discourse. When gays and trans* people are erased in favor of heteronormative gender binaries, that most definitely is a political and moral statement yet the practice hides behind the veil of normality and inures itself from criticism. It's like straight people have no sexuality, as Jackson Katz once said. (He was building on the work of female feminists, as he fully acknowledged, yet he's the one I remember and quote just as he predicted. I am most certainly not immune from prevailing social attitudes and assumptions. That's why these systems of thought are so scary, you look it straight in the face and it still gets you.)