Keeping Your Own Politics Out of Your Fiction

As an atheist author ...

One of the MCs in my epic fantasy series is an atheist. Of course he's not labelled as such - more a non-believer. Whereas most people thank one or other god for something, he'll thank the stars; he doesn't see the stars as what folklore claim them to be - special people and minor gods from throughout the Ages - but rather sees them as something altogether less divine and (ironically, in a fantasy story) fantastical. In an origin story, his closest friend believes in the gods, and it's been a cause for debate between them since they were kids. In a later story, another friend of his doesn't worship gods but sees them in a more poetic context, putting him (belief-wise) somewhere between the MC and his origin story friend.

Me, I'm an atheist to my mortal core. My MC doesn't share my own fear of mortality, and he also doesn't share my hatred of organised religion, but he does share my view that the gods are highly implausible and never seen, therefore not worth believing in.

There are varying levels of beliefs and worship through the world of my series, and, having studied religions and the history of religion a lot, I don't paint my religious characters or religions themselves two-dimensionally or as caricatures; I treat it all very seriously.

Yes, I'm being somewhat activistic by making my MC a non-believer. And why not? Fantasy has had its share of Christian authors who have painted so many Christian parallels into their stories, why shouldn't atheism, logic, reason, free-thinking and critical thinking have its time in these scientifically enlightened days?

I don't think it's entirely possible for your own values to be absent from your work. The characters, plots, and themes you consider important and interesting will be influenced by this to some extent. We're always going to be writing and reading through the filter of our own times.

Of course, it can go overboard. There are writers who, in my opinion, hit their opinions with a hammer versus letting things play out. Big difference, imo, between showing a character who jumps up on a soapbox and lectures about reproductive freedom, and someone who just assumes it's a good thing, or showing (in the way your story unfolds) some of the consequences of not having it.

I think it's possible to have a sympathetic character in a story who takes certain things for granted in his or her world, yet for it to be pretty clear that the writer isn't promoting them. Your choice of characters and how you present them will make a difference too.

There will be people who dislike what you've done no matter what. They'll either think you're too complicit with certain things, or don't examine them enough, or examine them too closely. And there are writers who are very soapboxey who have plenty of fans. Terry Goodkind and Sherri S. Tepper come to mind as examples at opposite ends of the political spectrum.

And people will see things (good and bad) that you didn't even intend.

[edit] Just realized this was a resurrected thread, so maybe I said the same thing up thread

You can't avoid being read politically.

I read a review of Pan's Labyrinth that went on for a page or so about how the communist resistance (to Franco's fascist Spain) were the good guys. Commies! That bothered the reviewer so much that nothing else about the movie made any impression at all.

I guess Torres should have invented a group of Libertarian resisters to hide in the woods of Franco's Spain. Or told the story from the fascist's point of view, so that the communist resistance would be the "bad guys".

I didn't see any political message at all (beyond a generic "fascism is bad, but we all knew that, so lets move on to the faerie tale elements"). But as far as that reviewer was concerned, the movie was nothing more than an extreme-left communist screed.

I try to find characters who are very different to me (not always politically) because writing a book is exploring who they are/why they feel that way. Sort of anyway...

So, I've written atheists living in a theocracy, devoted Catholics (I am neither), people who in this world would be labelled liberal, conservative, socialist and all things inbetween. Except communism. Haven't tried that one yet.

Writing someone who isn't you is 9/10ths of the fun for me.

Now, no doubt my own biases might leak through a bit. But the better job I do, the less the leakage. I did a post about lenses we filter through once....hang on, I'll see if I can find it. ETA: Here it is.

It can't really be done, though it can be made less invasive. Like I treat religious people (in the text) as misidentifying surveillance cameras that look like eyes. Though in the revision I'm thinking of toning it down.

The sort of stuff I can't stand, is more when it goes something sort of like "I feel x and X, and you should to. Here is a story about X and X" that I tend to have issues. Which is a distinct sort of problem from having your politics known. Didacticism only works in didactic poetry, not to be didactic.

starrykitten said:

I've been struggling with something that I imagine has come up for other writers here, which is trying to make sure that my own politics are not creating bias in my characters or storyline. I happen to be a very liberal, sex-positive, radical feminist, but I don't expect all my characters to be. Still, I find myself overthinking things way too much when I write about topics like abortion or sex work. (Most things I write about are not that political.) I try to remove myself and envision my characters as totally separate entities and just take dictation from them. I also know that we have to write for our best reader instead of writing for that one guy in one place who might read one thing that's not there into our work.

Still, I find myself conflicted when I encounter controversial topics about which I have strong feelings. How have you dealt with this issue before?

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my stories are about my characters. I'm not pro-rape, pro-abuse, or pro-death penalty. It doesn't matter, my characters are, and its my job to get out of their way and let them talk. After that, its up to the reader to make their own choices.

I realize someone will point out bias invariably shows in writing, and they are probably at least partially true, but I have a choice if I want to pander to them or try to go Switzerland, and give my characters room to try to tell their own stories, and either succeed or fail. There ARE very good reasons to choose to "pander" but for me I've always been more interested in giving my characters rope than shackles..

I suspect the OP was not so much concerned about keeping politics out of one's fiction, but avoiding the dreaded Author On Board.

It's one thing to discern an author's POV from the way the characters behave and the direction of the plot, it's another to feel like the author is getting up on a soapbox or using characters as mouthpieces.

It's a lot more common in 19th century fiction - Dickens and Tolstoy and Hugo went on for page after page as the omniscient third person narrator hectored the reader. That's gone out of style, and as much as I love Dickens, good riddance to such blatant authorial soapboxing. It really doesn't age well in books like Gone With the Wind or Atlas Shrugged. It's just silly in books like John Norman's Gor series, or the works of certain right-wing military fiction authors.

Most readers don't want to feel like the author is Delivering! A Message! even if it's a message they agree with.

But of course your politics will inform your writing. You'd have to go out of your way to write from an external POV to write otherwise, and why would you want to?

That's entirely different from writing an external POV sympathetically. An atheist who writes all religious characters as bigoted simpletons will turn me off as quickly as a Christian who writes all atheists as amoral villains.

Amadan said:

It's just silly in books like John Norman's Gor series, or the works of certain right-wing military fiction authors.

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Not just right wingers. I've read my share of political thrillers written by lefties who made their villains transparent versions of Dick Cheney and Carl Rove.

You are writing to communicate something, and if you are not true to your beliefs, your writing will not come across as believable or legitimate. Your beliefs are not the same as my beliefs. I write what only I could write. If we do not challenge eachother, no one wins and no one learns. Do not hesitate to write what you believe. I am conservative, and would not hesitate. Neither should you.

Our beliefs and politics are inseparable from our fiction. Go with what you have.

RikWriter said:

Not just right wingers. I've read my share of political thrillers written by lefties who made their villains transparent versions of Dick Cheney and Carl Rove.

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I haven't read too many political thrillers by lefties, but I'm sure that's true. Even Stephen King is somewhat guilty of this. Right-wing authors seem more likely to gravitate towards military and political thrillers, though, where they can write revenge porn about limp-wristed lefties getting what's coming to them when SHTF.

I personally don't care for stories with hideously evil characters doing hideous things where this goes completely unexamined. At the end of the day, I want there to be a point to the story, and if the author wants to examine things like genocide, slavery, rape, torture and so on, that's fine, but they had better do some research and portray these acts and their consequences realistically and not just be trying to show how edgy they are.

But that's my own taste, and there are certainly people who aren't psychos who enjoy darkness and evil in stories. Maybe it's cathartic, or it allows them to come to terms with something that's happened to them in some way, or it's just an interesting intellectual exercise. Who knows?

But examining something isn't the same as pontificating or delivering pearls of wisdom about The Truth. As Amaden said, the old-fashioned approach where the author lectures us about religion, or charity, or sexism or uppity women or whatever is just that. Old fashioned. Maybe it appealed more back in the days before the 24 hour media cycle and the widespread availability to places where people could hear speechifying by people who agree with them.

And while I dislike proselytizing for any purpose, I probably do hold stories with characters or themes that are counter to my core values to a higher level of scrutiny. I suspect most people do. To some extent, our values drive our tastes too. I think this is why some people get so angry about discussions related to things that are, on their surface at least, just matters of taste (like what kind of music we prefer).

Others have pointed out that our characters aren't us, and this is certainly true. Part of the fun of writing is getting inside someone who has a different perspective on things than you do. Sometimes those people aren't terribly nice.

Roxxsmom said:

Others have pointed out that our characters aren't us, and this is certainly true. Part of the fun of writing is getting inside someone who has a different perspective on things than you do. Sometimes those people aren't terribly nice.

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This is true for me, at least. No one of my characters is me. But - there's a little bit of me in some of my characters, purposefully put there as a character trait, viewpoint, physical identifier, etc. In many of my characters there is also a nugget of the types of people I admire or despise. As others said, it can be great fun exploring how different people live, and how they might react to things in a very different way to me.

One of the countries in my epic fantasy is a "closed-walls" country, inside which exist a very religious and very brutal people, toting scimitars, beheading their own, etc. It sounds familiar because it's a reflection of what is not only happening today, but has happened throughout history. What good is a fantasy world if it doesn't horrify us like the real world does?

I also have characters who believe in a "supreme god" but who poke fun at those who believe the sun is a god. It's a little bit tongue-in-cheek, since I'm writing from my own atheistic perspective, but it's also a showcase of the varying levels of ridiculousness and reason.

Dickens put politics into his fiction too: ghastly treatment of the poor, etc.

So one needn't keep their politics out.

Keeping 'em in can actually be a plus -- granting an author everlasting fame !

Amadan said:

It's a lot more common in 19th century fiction - Dickens and Tolstoy and Hugo went on for page after page as the omniscient third person narrator hectored the reader. That's gone out of style, and as much as I love Dickens, good riddance to such blatant authorial soapboxing. It really doesn't age well in books like Gone With the Wind or Atlas Shrugged. It's just silly in books like John Norman's Gor series, or the works of certain right-wing military fiction authors.

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Sales numbers disagree with you.I think you're expressing your personal view, but not the reality of the situation. Dickens is more popular than ever, and sells unbelievably well, even though all his books are free in the e-version. Gone With the Wind, too, is still enormously popular, and outsells many books on the bestseller list year in and year out.

As for what you think is silly, a Gog Almighty lot of readers keep buying year in and year out, and they don't find it silly at all. It's what they want, what they believe, and what they buy. Such "right wing" series are very, very popular.

Tom Clancy was probably the number one example of a pure right wing writer who injected his beliefs into everything he wrote, and he sold millions of books. Readers loved his writing, his stories, and his political views.

Readers love character who express their own views, and they love stories that are handled the way they want the story handled. The message is blatant, but expressed in the story and characters.

Nor is this strictly a right wing thing. I run into far more left wing fiction, and in these, the message usually slap the reader in the face. I can't read pretty much anything Spider Robinson has written since his early Callahan's Bar work. But many readers love his novels, and they sell pretty well.

What readers dislike are overt political views and characters they don't agree with in any way. So what? In some genres, nothing matters at all as long as it's entertaining. In others, you are going to express your beliefs. It's unavoidable, and there's no reason not to do so. Every book finds it's own audience, and no book pleases everyone.

The one thing I would never do is write a story with a political message. or a political belief I disagreed with. I would also never try to avoid offending anyone with a given message or belief, or worry about whether it might chases some readers away. It will attract others, find its own audience, and this is how I want it.

Jamesaritchie said:

Sales numbers disagree with you.I think you're expressing your personal view, but not the reality of the situation. Dickens is more popular than ever, and sells unbelievably well, even though all his books are free in the e-version. Gone With the Wind, too, is still enormously popular, and outsells many books on the bestseller list year in and year out.

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Of course they both sell well. They are classics. Try writing like Dickens or Margaret Mitchell today, though. You don't see too much third person omniscient narrator nowadays either.

As for what you think is silly, a Gog Almighty lot of readers keep buying year in and year out, and they don't find it silly at all. It's what they want, what they believe, and what they buy. Such "right wing" series are very, very popular.

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Obviously. I said it was silly, and makes for inferior writing. No one ever said silly, bad writing doesn't sell well. The Gor series is up to, what, 20-something books now?

I don't like anvil-heavy message fiction even if I agree with the message. It feels like the author is preaching at me. That's why I've only ever read one book by Jodi Picoult. But some people obviously like it. The OP's concern was about sounding "too" political. Usually that means avoiding writing that sounds like the author is trying to sell a worldview, not just tell a story.

Roxxsmom said:

.....

I do try to avoid simplistic "black and white" thinking, even regarding people whose views I find abhorrent, but even that is a reflection of my world view in a sense (my belief that few, if any, things, countries, institutions, or people are all good or all bad).

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This is me, too, and one of the things that I love most in a story--when I'm moved to empathy for someone I vehemently disagree with (or even hate) philosophically or politically, as well as when someone with whom my own views align is nudged off the pedestal.

Showing the humanness, the grayness of people, basically.

Amadan said:

Of course they both sell well. They are classics. Try writing like Dickens or Margaret Mitchell today, though. You don't see too much third person omniscient narrator nowadays either.

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Certain classics I enjoy despite wanting to throw an anvil at the author for the "blatant authorial soapboxing." I forgive it because it was the fashion at the time, and the book has other virtues I appreciate, but I wouldn't advise a modern novelist to try it on.

My favorite example is Anthony Trollope. Don't get me wrong; I like him. I believe I've read every damn one of his novels. I have two shelves full. Some of his characters are perfectly marvelous, IMO, and I'd read him just for that. But damn, when he starts going off on his several-page-long lectures to the reader, I want to smack him.

The worst, I think, is in Can You Forgive Her? where he repeatedly interrupts the action to ask the reader if he/she can forgive the heroine of the novel for her foolishness in temporarily dumping the hero. I can forgive her easily, but Trollope not so much.


ETA:

Sorry -- I've only just realized that was a derail. Pardon me. I'm far too prone to getting more interested in a side topic than in the main topic.

Anyway. I'm fine with politics in a novel, whatever they might be, as long as you don't lecture and hector me about it, and as long as your novel isn't dull. I can't forgive Ayn Rand for Atlas Shrugged, not because of her politics, but because she bored the living shit out of me with them. Nothing can excuse John Galt's 60-page speech. Nothing. My wall had a dent from the number of times I threw the novel at it while trying to get through that speech.

So I say don't worry about whether your politics are sneaking in. Worry about whether your novel is a good read.

Amadan said:

Of course they both sell well. They are classics. Try writing like Dickens or Margaret Mitchell today, though. You don't see too much third person omniscient narrator nowadays either.

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Sure. A lot of the format and language is antiquated. But the content never will be, which is why it is worth studying classics. Write a novel with as good as a plot as those by Dickens and with characters as memorable and in-depth as his and you too will make it into the pantheon and be hailed as a literary great !

Liosse de Velishaf said:

You can do it. You just have to decide ahead of time which politics you do want to include in the novel.

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Sure, but what writer is going to put in politics that are the opposite of his own?

Amadan said:

Of course they both sell well. They are classics. Try writing like Dickens or Margaret Mitchell today, though. You don't see too much third person omniscient narrator nowadays either.

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More omni than every before in my lifetime. How do you think the Harry Potter books are written? Third person omni is extremely popular right now.

Writing like Margaret Mitchel today would sell as fast now as it did then. Many do write almost exactly like her. Dickens is a little overstuffed, but we still tell the same stories, and certainly use the same POV techniques. Sometimes language dates a writer, though not as often as most think. The only POV technique that's difficult to get away with today is authorial intrusion. It was once popular with writers, but never very popular with readers, so it largely died out.

Language has evolved, as it always does, but every POV is still used, and the content was as good, or better, a hundred and fifty years ago than it is now.

I practice writing stories like classic writers. I've never done Dickens, though I think the style he uses in some of his work would still sell very well. I have done Twain, Poe, London, and Hemingway, and sold the stories. I've even done Shakespeare, and I think I've nailed it. It's just difficult finding the right story to write this way, and still find a market in today's world.

I think SF is wide open for it, though.

Jamesaritchie said:

Sure, but what writer is going to put in politics that are the opposite of his own?

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Not politics, but I've written from world views that are pretty much polar opposite my own (and world view and politics are at least kissing cousins)

More omni than every before in my lifetime. How do you think the Harry Potter books are written? Third person omni is extremely popular right now.

Writing like Margaret Mitchel today would sell as fast now as it did then. Many do write almost exactly like her. Dickens is a little overstuffed, but we still tell the same stories, and certainly use the same POV techniques. Sometimes language dates a writer, though not as often as most think. The only POV technique that's difficult to get away with today is authorial intrusion. It was once popular with writers, but never very popular with readers, so it largely died out.

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I agree with you there though, especially in certain genres. EVen in genres where limited is more usual, omni has its chunk of the market -- except perhaps romance? Can't recall an omni romance unless it was La Nora under her pen name which I can't recall (and was more future police procedural than romance iirc)

Derail about Cheney has been moved: http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=299672

I don't enjoy books with obvious agendas, even when I share the author's politics. They make me feel itchy and contrary and like my intelligence is being insulted. I also don't like books where the overall message, even if subtly done, is something I really don't agree with. So as long as you try to sell me something I agree with in a subtle way, I'm fine.

My beliefs are part of the core of my identity and so they are also part of the core of my writing. They are inherent in everything I write. But that doesn't mean that all my characters necessarily share my beliefs. My current project is set in the 17th century and I write from the POV of several people whose opinions are very, very, very far from my own. But I don't think anyone can read the book and think those are MY views, even if I try very hard to make their reasoning convincing and to make them sympathetic and multidimensional characters. I think my basic political beliefs will be pretty obvious because my political and philosophical beliefs shape the very structure of my fictional universe, and they have shaped both the themes and the plot. However, I try to make the world and the people complex by not showing black and whites but shades of grey (which in itself is probably part of my political and philosophical beliefs). They are there, no doubt, but I try not to preach or shove them down the reader's throats.

I think it's fine to either include or exclude your views, as long as you are doing it 1) consciously and 2) organically 3) something I'll probably think of later, so I'm leaving it open for 3. Political, eh?

I recently read a YA in which, about 1/4 of the way through, it became apparent that the author was using his novel for the sole purpose of ranting about how much he hated the public school system. It became so aggressive that I went into defensive mode, wanting to play devil's advocate even though, had the issue been presented more subtly, I might have agreed with some of his points. That is when it fails. A fiction book should not be an author's soapbox (does not arise organically from the characters & story).

In my own books, where an immortal race has taken over the world, I imagined them being very aware of the future of the planet since they'd be around to see it, therefore, they are very conservative re: the environment, reusing things, recycling, etc. A reviewer reamed me for being too 'granola.' To me, it made sense. But my political views had crept in without any intention or awareness on my part (was not used consciously or carefully as a political statement, therefore, should not have been included at all).

My .02