I will write, damn it!

[smurasaki]

I have stories I want to tell. They aren't perfect. They won't be liked by everyone. They have problematic content. I write in a genre that pretty much inherently has all the things wrong with it ever. Okay, it's not that bad. I don't think I'm adding to the sum total of human misery. And if I brighten even one person's day, then I'm doing a

Comments

[baeraad]

I can't quite remember what it is you write? But I know the feeling. I write fantasy, with all what that entails of romanticising the past and celebrating elitism and validating violence as a means of solving problems. Not quite the sort of thing that fits my personal ideals. ^_^;

But all those quotes you made are right. You have to write what is beautiful to you. Whether it is moral has to be a secondary concern.

[smurasaki]

Space adventure, which also has the validating violence as a method of problem solving problem, among others. But, yeah, I need to write what comes to me.

[baeraad]

But also a healthy pro-science stance. See, you're ahead of me already. :)

[smurasaki]

On the bright side, both fantasy and space adventure can be pro-cleverness, pro-friendship, and pro- any number of other good things.

[baeraad]

Very true. And my less politically involved friends have been known to complain that everything I write (or run, in terms of roleplaying) tends to show a strong anti-capitalist bias, so I think that your own ideals tend to shine through even in genres that are inherently hostile to them. It might end up a somewhat mixed bag - enthusiastic fight scenes interspaced with passionate arguments for peaceful debate, say - but that tends to be the case with most fiction.

I am not entirely familiar with space adventure as a genre. What other problems do you consider it to have? I know that a lot of sci-fi writers are extremely wingnutty, but that is surely not a requirement of the genre?

[smurasaki]

Pretty sure being a wingnut isn't required. It's mostly solving things with violence and perhaps a little too much emphasis on mavericks as the people who get things done. Also some of that elitism, but that turns up in a lot of genres.

Granted, my characters do a lot more trying to talk their way out of trouble (and sometimes succeed) than many. And I try to keep in mind the idea that one should be able to tell the good guys and bad guys apart, even if one came in in the middle, so those factors might balance out the fight scenes, chase scenes, and the like.

[baeraad]

There you go then. :)

Also, Star Trek would be space adventures, yes? And it tends to have a strong emphasis on diplomacy, problem-solving, team work and adherence to a higher moral authority. (well, it used to, at least, until it got ZOMG DARKER AND EDGIER! :P But at least that shows that it can be done)

[smurasaki]

Yeah, Trek's a good example of people trying to work in some better ethics. (At least before the ZOMG DARKER AND EDGIER. Because that was really a needed move. *rolls eyes*)

*ponders*

Perhaps the trick is in what one presents as actually solving problems. (As opposed to avoiding them or fending the, off with a stick, so to speak.) If violence is more of a stop-gap than a solution, and solutions come from diplomacy, reason, and the like (or if violence is only a solution in cases where those solutions really -can't- work. There will always, sadly, be people who simply can't be reasoned with. Not many, one hopes.). Also good people's goals and prefered solutions are - if they aim to reason with the reasonable, help people, and and want a world where people are decent to one another, maybe that's enough of a statement right there.

[baeraad]

Yes, I think it is. :)

I know how easy it is to get paranoid about these things. You read all those reviews and discussions online, and it's always, "this is problematic, that is problematic, everything is problematic. And this part that is clearly meant to avert something problematic? This part is especially problematic!" It feels like you're screwed from the moment you open your mouth

[smurasaki]

Yeah, my best is (by definition) the best I can do.

I'm not sure what statement, exactly, you're making, either, but a world in which societies have happiness as an aim seems like a positive message of some sort. :)

[aesmael]

Nodding a lot reading this exchange. Tend to worry a lot about similar issues in my own writing, vacillating between trying to write 'more ethical fiction' and just accepting it as problematic but... really, what you and baeraad are saying seems like the way to go.

[smurasaki]

Man, I hope so.

It's always a really tough debate, but for me, I really think the choices are "write problematic fiction as ethically as possible" or "don't write at all." I want to write, so I'm going with the former. What I love might never be problem free, but it's what I love. And, when it comes down to it, nothing is problem free. Such is life.