Playing The Issue of the Week Card

Needless to say, this is a bad thing. That card has a very low balance and gets maxxed out pretty fast. It also pisses people off.

That's not to say that some issue or other you feel deeply about should be kept out of your writing - far from it. Just don't try to shove it in.

See, the things that matter most to you will find their way into your stories no matter what you do - or even if you're trying to keep them out. That's why all Pratchett (and all Hoyt and all Freer for that matter) has an underlying theme of 'what is 'human'?'. Or possibly 'what makes something a person?" I tend to hit the question of just where you find that hazy boundary between doing horrible things for the right reasons and doing them for reasons that just aren't sufficient justification - and how that affects the person who's doing the horrible things. And so on.

For that matter, if something happens that really gets under your skin, it will find a way into what you write. By then, the form could well have mutated to where no-one will recognize issue X, which is - trust me - a good thing.

Readers don't like getting lectured - or at least this reader doesn't. It tends to inspire immediate and rapid defenestration of the offending book. This is a problem, since kindles don't take well to that kind of treatment, and the delete key just isn't as satisfying.

Anyway, if I wanted a sermon, I'd go to church. If I wanted a lecture, I'd go to college. Besides, the issue of the week is old news by the time the book comes out, and the chances of it being back in that position when your book hits the shelves are pretty low. So many issues, so little time... I think they've got issue of the week booked through April 2057.

Another no-no with issues is to force your character to hand down the lecture - especially when it breaks the character. Whatever it is, trust it to leak out its own way. Having your main character stop, sometimes in the middle of the action (yes, there are Names who do this. They get away with it because they're Names - but I stopped buying their book when they started lecturing me), and sound off about issue X. Even, in the case of one formerly very popular author, when the character in question had no reason whatsoever to give a flying fornication about said issue.

(What does a flying fornication look like, anyway? I've often wondered about that... ahem. Sorry.)

I've mentioned some authors who handle assorted hot button or philosophical issues very well in their fiction. Anyone else?

Here You Shall Not Go

Since Dave and Kate and Chris have all been talking about characters and creating good characters, I thought I’d talk about one characteristic of characters that – perhaps because of the way I write – baffles even me.

Good characters, like good real people, have doors in their head that say “here you shall not go.” Kind of like real people – or at least sane real people.

Heinlein had some fun with those doors in Stranger, because of course, his character raised by Martians doesn’t have the same closed doors in his head that humans have. So, “You shall not eat your friends” is not a “naturally” closed door to him. Meanwhile he has other closed doors that humans normally don’t have. Like “don’t waste water.”

Call it the superego, if you wish to go all Freudian but real people and real characters have definite barriers. And despite a certain school of thought in the sixties and seventies, those arent’ doors that need to be broken down. Rather they’re the doors that make us admire the person or the character.

By this I don’t mean the “doors” that are tested. Characters might have personal issues that keep them from doing this or that, issues that are detrimental to the character’s development or which stop him/her obtaining the character’s heart’s desire. This is what we call “character development” in the story. But this is not the same as the closed door that shall never be opened, or not unless you want to risk “breaking” the character.

Take Anita Blake, in the first few Laurell Hamilton’s. Part of what made her interesting to me was that she didn’t sleep with... well, anyone. She felt the attraction, she was a sensual person, but she had closed that door. Once she opened it, though the series in a way exploded in popularity, the character was broken to me. It’s not that I’m prudish, and I could have found a character interesting who was promiscuous from the beginning. It’s that the character to me, as I read her, necessitated a measure of self discipline. And that vanished.

It would be sort of like my writing a sequel to Darkship Thieves in which Athena is whiney, needy and is terrified of lifting her hand to defend herself. Because one of Thena’s closed doors is the “You shall not be a burden to others” and that includes in self defense. It’s not that she doesn’t feel weak or vulnerable or tired. It’s that the idea of not defending herself, or waiting to be rescued can only occur to her to be dismissed.

It’s a fine balance because to an extent, of course, fiction is supposed to test the character’s limit. On the other hand, you can test it to destruction.

So, how can one do it? How to balance it? And note that I’m asking in earnest, because I have no idea. I can point to other people’s writing and say “Here, she lost it” or “here the character broke.” I think in movie terms we’d say that’s when the character jumped the shark. However, in my own writing, and while I’m working, it’s all clear as coal, and I’m not sure how to test and evaluate whether I broke the character or not. Does any one of you have an idea of how to “see” this?