Impact and responsibility (TRIGGER WARNING)

[Devor]

If I write a horror story and someone is disturbed or depressed by it, am I supposed to say "Maybe I shouldn't have written that"?

If you're writing horror, then the depressive elements aren't needless. If you're writing social commentary, then the ________ elements aren't needless. With the remark you quoted, I'm specifically referring to things like, for instance, stereotypical portrayals and other baggage-causing things that are needless towards getting the impact of your story.

 

[Steerpike]

If you're writing horror, then the depressive elements aren't needless. If you're writing social commentary, then the ________ elements aren't needless. With the remark you quoted, I'm specifically referring to things like, for instance, stereotypical portrayals and other baggage-causing things that are needless towards getting the impact of your story.

Yeah, but you still have to have someone in a position to make that call, don't you? Even in a horror story, the degree to which the horror is presented or described varies considerably. Suppose an author presents something in pretty horrific fashion when instead the tale could have been told by creating an atmosphere of horror without explicit detail. Both approaches are used all the time in horror. If you write a story about suicide, who's to say which scenes or depictions weren't needed and which were? When it comes down to it, it seems like you have to let the author make the call for themselves, and let the reader make the call on their end. There are certainly types of writing that I think are disturbing and probably indicative of mental problems, and I might say that my personal view is they don't contribute meaningfully to the art or to society, but I don't want to say that authors as a whole have to adopt my view, even if I might present reasons why they should voluntarily do so.

 

[Devor]

Yeah, but you still have to have someone in a position to make that call, don't you?

Err . . . to call it rude? I didn't realize we needed a universal standard for that.

 

[Steerpike]

Err . . . to call it rude? I didn't realize we needed a universal standard for that.

You can call it what you want. The fact that any one person or group of people think something is rude doesn't make it objectively rude. Again, as before, it comes down to an individual's personal assessment.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

If I chose to be concerned with every way someone could possibly interpret my work, or how their belief systems may be insulted as a result of reading my work, I'd never be able to write anything more than bland drivel that is incapable of invoking emotion.

Just as the reader has a right to choose to read, view, or listen to artwork...the artist has a right to produce as they see fit. No one forces anyone to read a story or sit through an entire film that offends them. Further, if we're discussing how art might negatively influence someone...the artist cannot be responsible for a myriad of potential reactions.

Honestly, if you're writing anything based on criteria other than "writing what you'd want to read", I feel you're missing the entire point of writing original work.

 

[BWFoster78]

At the same time, I do think there is a responsibility to recognize, in some part, that people often respond strongly, that from their own perspectives that response may be warranted, and that you should consider whether your art is genuinely contributing to the baggage at the root of their response.

If you're needlessly building upon someone else's baggage, I think you should show more consideration in what you're doing. Doing otherwise is kind of rude.

If I understand you correctly, it's okay to contribute to someone's baggage as long as theirs a "needful" reason to do so. What constitutes a needful reason?

The best novels are the ones that make you feel.

I stopped reading Stephen King because it depressed me (and, at least partly, because his later books don't seem to be as good as his earlier ones). While I no longer read him, I applaud him for being able to make me feel something. In a way, that's better than most books I read where there is absolutely no impact once the last word is read.

Is the attempt to create a feeling, any feeling, a valid "needful" reason?

Since, as a reader, I like books that make me feel, it's something that I strive for in my books.

 

[BWFoster78]

If I chose to be concerned with every way someone could possibly interpret my work, or how their belief systems may be insulted as a result of reading my work, I'd never be able to write anything more than bland drivel that is incapable of invoking emotion.

Just as the reader has a right to choose to read, view, or listen to artwork...the artist has a right to produce as they see fit. No one forces anyone to read a story or sit through an entire film that offends them. Further, if we're discussing how art might negatively influence someone...the artist cannot be responsible for a myriad of potential reactions.

Honestly, if you're writing anything based on criteria other than "writing what you'd want to read", I feel you're missing the entire point of writing original work.

Ninja'd.

I wrote essentially the same thing before I saw your post.

 

[Devor]

If I understand you correctly, it's okay to contribute to someone's baggage as long as theirs a "needful" reason to do so. What constitutes a needful reason?

That doesn't really sound like what I was trying to say to me.

I said that not considering whether the baggage-adding content was necessary would be rude. Inconsiderate. People are allowed to be rude a little. But rudeness, I think, means that it affects others negatively, and there's no real point in doing so except selfishness.

If the content is necessary, as in, that's the point of what you're writing, then I offered no characterization. It could be fine. I'm not saying there's any problem with writing horror, or other powerful depressing stories. Sometimes rudeness can even be kind of the point, like with satire. Maybe it makes you a visionary ahead of your times. Maybe it makes you a racist, sexist, bigotted, religion-hating jerk. If what you want to do with your art is affect people negatively and rile up emotions, then it might be good or bad or nothing at all, but I wouldn't call it inconsiderate. You considered. You decided.

But as a writer, you need to recognize something very important. If you're providing material that's offending someone, and there's no point to doing so, then you're also breaking immersion and distracting them from your story. Plus, it's probably a sign of bad writing.

I had a roommate in college who was in film class, and for a random project he included the news film of the twin towers coming down on 9/11. Our college, of course, was in Manhattan. I saw the final version of his film, and I have no idea what his project was about. Based on what he said after he showed it to his class, neither did anybody else. They couldn't see anything past that ten second clip.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

This thread puts me in mind of a story I heard about an anime series quite a while back. I don't remember which one it was (Neon Genesis Evangelion, mebbe?) since I never saw it, but it was apparently considered so nihilistic and depressing that is actually caused suicides to trend up in Japan. The creators' response? To make an extra, final, episode where all the children of Japan sing together and make everything better again. Yeah, I know, very strange, but that's what I was told. As a result, I have noticed a tendancy in more recent dearker anime series (Black Butler is the first to spring to mind) where they have an extra "happy" episode that brings back all the characters who have died over the course of the series and puts them into over-the-top humorous situations, as if to say "No worries - see here? Everyone's ok."

Not only does this, in my opinion, take the concept of "author responsibilty" to an extreme, it also I think cheapens the emotional journey the the audience has been on (as well as does minor brain damage, as in the case of the final episode of Black Butler, which was called "Black Sushi Chef").

What sort of responsibilty does the writer have to the reader? I think that it is to tell the truth of the story. We live in a very complex, many threaded tapestry of a world, where many different truths exist side-by-side in disharmony. My writing partner and I were actually talking just the other day about offending readers. In our urban fantasy world of dragons and wizards and vampires we have many themes that deal with social issues. Gender identity and sexuallity; childhood sexual abuse and exploitation; the nature of good and evil; families, in all their many faces; redemption; spritualtiy versus religigion; abandonment, rape, incest, addiction, child abuse, ethnocentrism, mental illness... the list goes on and on the further in we get. In the first book alone, we're tackling addiction, violent rape, child abuse, the systematic annihilation of an entire bloodline, preternatural politics, and family.

In the third generation of the family we write about, there are 11 children born - only 1 of them has parents who are actually married. A lot of our characters gravitate to poly-amourous (sp) relationships.

In the first generation, the second book, our primary character gets pregnant, but won't marry the father until he comes up with the right reason to, because for her just having a child is no reason to get married.

In the very first book, two male characters are introduced early as having a fairly physically intimate relationship, though they do not become lovers until much later.

We write about angels and demons in this world where we question a great deal the nature of "good" versus "evil" and have a primary character who has a strong dislike for angels because she sees both angels and demons both as "counting coup with people's souls." Turns out, she's not wrong. We have a guardian angel who other angels consider to be on the verge of falling. His sin? Compassion. Ever notice that angels fall, but demons never assend?

Are we going to offend people? Oh heavens, yes! We have characters who express sexuality all across the spectrum, both positively and negatively. That, alone, will probably get us into trouble, especially with an Amercian audience. Are we doing it to be shocking? Of course not. We're expressing the full facets of our characters' psyche and humanity. People are weird, complicated critters, in all sorts of ways. We follow the character's history and what sort of impacts that has on their interactions with other people who also have histories and psyches, and how these interactions have an effect on the world the characters find themselves in and the plot arches happening around them. It has a lot of impact on the plot.

We feel a responsibility to tell the truth of the story, to not pull the curtain on a character's experiences just because (shh) we "shouldn't" talk about it in polite company. If talking about the spectrum of mortal experience (I would say "human," but many of our characters have never been human) is offensive to some people, then so be it. Some things just need to be said.

 

[BWFoster78]

But as a writer, you need to recognize something very important. If you're providing material that's offending someone, and there's no point to doing so, then you're also breaking immersion and distracting them from your story. Plus, it's probably a sign of bad writing.

To the best of my recollection, nothing on this thread has really been about the effectiveness of your writing technique. Topics addressed seemed to have centered around an author's responsibility to consider the impact of their writing.

Are you saying we have a responsibility to create the best stories that we can?

If so, that's probably the best argument I've heard so far, though I'm not sure that others will agree with it.

Otherwise, given that I apparently misinterpreted your point, I'm unclear how your post then relates back to the discussion on author responsibility.

 

[Steerpike]

Are you saying we have a responsibility to create the best stories that we can?

If so, that's probably the best argument I've heard so far, though I'm not sure that others will agree with it.

I can agree with it, but if there's one thing this and other writing sites demonstrate, it is that different authors have vastly different ideas of what makes a story "best."

 

[BWFoster78]

I can agree with it, but if there's one thing this and other writing sites demonstrate, it is that different authors have vastly different ideas of what makes a story "best."

Agreed. Tough to define...

Also, I'd think that we'd have to stipulate:

Best for current level of ability
Best you can produce in a reasonable time frame

 

[Devor]

Otherwise, given that I apparently misinterpreted your point, I'm unclear how your post then relates back to the discussion on author responsibility.

I've just been trying to characterize that responsibility in a way that's proportionate. You've as much or as little responsibility, in my view, to avoid needlessly offensive subject matter in your work as you do to avoid being needlessly rude in your day. The rudeness is probably badly written and detracting from your work anyways.

As for suicides and such specifically, in my original post, I explained why I think an individual is ultimately responsible for their own actions. Ultimately they can choose to follow a path towards letting go of the baggage that's affecting them.

 

[Feo Takahari]

And it did turn into the Bechdel Test thread again. Can we please not have another argument over whether it matters if some housewife in Topeka puts your book down and goes "Well, I never"? Let's at least approach it in terms of whether someone who's been raped rushes to the bathroom and throws up after reading your story, or someone who watches TV news sees a report on a rape case just like his favorite story and thinks that frigid bitch had it coming.

 

[BWFoster78]

And it did turn into the Bechdel Test thread again. Can we please not have another argument over whether it matters if some housewife in Topeka puts your book down and goes "Well, I never"? Let's at least approach it in terms of whether someone who's been raped rushes to the bathroom and throws up after reading your story, or someone who watches TV news sees a report on a rape case just like his favorite story and thinks that frigid bitch had it coming.

Feo, please understand that speaking of "housewives in Topeka saying 'Well, I never'" attempts to remove the emotional connotations and address arguments in a logical and rational manner.

The principles we're discussing apply to each; some examples are simply more emotional than others.

 

[Devor]

And it did turn into the Bechdel Test thread again. Can we please not have another argument over whether it matters if some housewife in Topeka puts your book down and goes "Well, I never"? Let's at least approach it in terms of whether someone who's been raped rushes to the bathroom and throws up after reading your story, or someone who watches TV news sees a report on a rape case just like his favorite story and thinks that frigid bitch had it coming.

I was trying, I swear. I'm not even arguing - I've just been trying to explain what I was trying to get at.

I think authors are primarily responsible for what impact they're attempting to create with their work, and that any other impact/responsibility is tertiary at best.

So if you're writing to help people to fantasize about rape, that's what you need to own up to. I might not like it. But if someone goes out and rapes someone because of it, I don't pin that on you. For all I know there's someone else who uses those fantasies to help suppress those same urges. But at the same time, because you're deliberately toying with this area of the psyche, and because readers are reading to deliberately toy with this area of the psyche, you're going to affect people, and writing it is going to affect you, too. Assuming that the site won't die without you, it's the second of those which you need to think about most. Because that's what you can see - how is your writing affecting you, and is that affect something you want for yourself or not.

 

[Steerpike]

Feo, please understand that speaking of "housewives in Topeka saying 'Well, I never'" attempts to remove the emotional connotations and address arguments in a logical and rational manner.

The principles we're discussing apply to each; some examples are simply more emotional than others.

Yes, I think this is right. The arguments are the same in either case.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I dunno. It feels weird to say that offense and actual harm are comparable, even if I can't articulate why yet. (Maybe just because I'm afraid of actual harm being dismissed and assumed to just be offense?)

 

[Steerpike]

I dunno. It feels weird to say that offense and actual harm are comparable, even if I can't articulate why yet. (Maybe just because I'm afraid of actual harm being dismissed and assumed to just be offense?)

Offense and actual harm are not the same, but the arguments with respect to what responsibility an author bears if a separate individual reads her work and takes some action are the same, in my view. That reader is a separate, autonomous person whose acts of selecting the work and reading it (and continuing to read it once started) intervene between the authors act of writing the work and having it published. That cuts off responsibility, in my view, whether the reader is just offended or takes some physical action.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Since I ought to address Devor sooner or later: these stories mostly just depress me. I don't think they've affected how I think of women.