Political Climate in your stories

[S.T Stevens]

Hey,

So, I'm politically active, and I try to craft my stories with a thread of political awareness, and I was wondering if anyone else does this? I generally tackle the way people react to LGBTQ+, cultural diversity, and feminism. These things are all important to me for a variety of reasons, and I don't want to overdo it, but I don't want to blow over it either.
How do you tackle these problems, and is there an algorithm to figure out the mathematics for how to create a healthy balance of the story and politics without diluting either?

S

 

[Barbara]

I've havent actually tackled this kind of thing in my writing yet apart from a blog post I wrote about conservation and what humans do to nature. I dressed it as a short story about a character who travels to the Galapgos and leaves damage in her wake. It was 'black humour'. Don't know if it worked, but I haven't had any hate mail yet.

I think to make it work, stuff like that needs to be integrated and be part of the story. If it sounds the author is saying it, it probably comes across as preachy. But if a character is vocal about feminism, and if her beliefs and actions suport it, I suspect it will work. I guess the trick is to hide your (the author's) voice. But too much of anything might become repetitive.

 

[KateESal]

I think political themes can creep into your writing without you intending them, if you feel passionately about certain things.
I set out to write a magical adventure to bridge the gap between my daughter's above-average reading ability for her age and the kind of stories appropriate for a 6 year-old.

But, before long, themes relating to screens vs children's imagination and creativity crept in. I tried to be nuanced with it, rather than making one aspect good and the other bad. And certainly my beta readers, children and adults alike have never mentioned any feelings about polemic or preachiness getting in the way of a good yarn.

Likewise, I wanted one of my MCs to be non-white. And I wanted the male and female MCs to break out of stereotypical views of how girls and boys should behave. But all of this I believe has added value to the novel as a whole and made the characters more engaging.

Politics - with a small p - can and do add greater depth to stories, but personally, I think those political themes are most interesting (and inclusive) if they're not too obviously good vs evil etc. Or, indeed obvious at all. Readers are pointed towards political points rather than dragged towards them.
I know I've read stories where the politics have been too in-yer-face and this has tended to put me off (though, I realise there are bound to be some readers who like that sort of thing).

 

[Andrew Okey]

I think political themes can creep into your writing without you intending them, if you feel passionately about certain things.

I can't tell with my last book whether I managed an instance of unconscious prescience! Fair enough, I was writing about how a society that has deceit and suspicion and paranoia (East Germany, in my case) imprinted into its very being will corrupt human relationships at every level. But I started it back in 2014 and it was only maybe 10,000 words away from completion when the 'Brexit' vote happened, and was a few months ahead of the full flowering of the Trump/fake news nexus...

 

[KateESal]

Yes, indeed, @Andrew Okey...

None of us write in a vacuum and human history is cyclical when it comes to politics. Sounds like you gave that crystal ball a good rub.

 

[S.T Stevens]

Thanks guys.
I try to focus on the broader rhetoric, but the Kavanugh thing has really thrown me and I want to discuss it so badly but it’s not right for any of my stories.
I might vent into short stories and then leave a vague trail in my other stories. Don’t know where to curb my enthusiasm though, because as a British writer I’m not sure how much American Politics and other-world politics I can reasonably expect to be accepted by readers if they know where I’m from?
S

 

[KateESal]

You could write a short story purely as a vent then maybe at a later date, when you feeling less enraged, look back at it and see if any of it may be useful in other WIPs...

 

[Paul Whybrow]

My Cornish Detective novels are subtly infused with politics and social issues, but only in how they affect the lives of my copper protagonists and criminal antagonists. For instance, I needed to mention Brexit in a story about poor farmers driven to commit crimes. Also, in the latest novel, I mentioned proposals for Devon & Cornwall police force to merge with Dorset police authority, something my hero detective opposed, for it would have led to clumsy mistakes; the idea has since been thrown out.

Although I don't do things in an overt way, my protagonist is unusual for a policeman, in that he's not a right-wing, hard-drinking, gambling womaniser. Rather, he's Green, artistic and, up until the latest book, a solitary man who doesn't overindulge in stimulants. His detective team includes a lesbian and an Indian Asian, so their opinions and life experience carry weighty messages about living in the 21st-century.

My plots include such issues as refugees, illegal immigrants and slavery, homelessness and mass surveillance of the population. Although, in theory, my lead detective should be glad of CCTV cameras and all of the intelligence agencies, to help him solve crimes, he's shocked and pissed off when he realises that his own investigation is being monitored by the FBI, MI5 and the National Crime Agency.

Actually naming names can be problematic, unless a story is heavy on politics. My protagonist has just fallen for a long-time correspondent who unexpectedly turned up from Wyoming. They met on a case five years before. She nailed her colours to the mast when he asked her why she'd returned to Cornwall, and I took what she said from online dating agency profiles, which have seen a surge of American women moving to the U.K.:
"Anyway, would you want to be living in America at the moment, with an orange madman with tiny grasping hands and candy floss hair as President?"

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Unless it's a political or a psychological thriller, and the issue (whatever it is) is the whole or the crux of the story, I wouldn't write it, wouldn't want to read it. The writer of fiction must try and stay invisible and let the reader form their own impressions and never vent.

The story is all. The story does the job if that's the job to be done. James Baldwin, anyone.

Or else the writer can use their writing skills in express their views in another form.

 

[Matnov]

The only thing I look for politics in fiction is people coming at it from a different angle. So with regards to Kavanugh you could come at it from a position of being aghast how a man's career can be destroyed because people seem willing to throw away the notion of 'innocent until proven guilty' principle that underpins both the US and the UK justice system because they dislike the man's political opinions. Scary times we live in. Ditto with the notion of free speech. Read recently about an editor being sacked because he made a statement about how women cannot have a penis. I mean this is real 'Alice through the Looking Glass' stuff going on and whilst I am not one for literary fiction, insanity like that makes me tempted.

 

[Allan Hunter]

John D. MacDonald, famously of the Travis McGee mystery-adventure series, wove his attitudes and political concerns about ecology and corporate land development (in particular) and a few broader themes as well into this stories. He did it in such a way that readers rarely felt bludgeoned by politicized messages; he let the story plotlines illustrate his points and ocasionally let his main character(s) muse over stuff they were observing in a philosophical way to sum stuff up.

 

[Matnov]

But frat-boy judges. Or politicians. Or cops. Or almost any other fictional genre character you can think of are the interesting ones. That is the point. Writing well-meaning fiction that has its heroes as people who wake up in the night worrying about the fate of the Whales or wrestling with the dilemmas faced by the conflict between wanting to travel to far-flung places with concerns about adding to their carbon footprint will get plenty of lineage in the progressive media and there seems to be an entire career on TV talk shows and the like if you make all the right noises but nobody really wants to read that crap. And I suspect that if people were honest, don't really want it in the people who lead us. An Alpha is an Alpha at the end of the day.

Humanity admires the bastards. They get the best girls, the best cars, the best houses and generally have a smashing time of it. And whilst we might delight in their downfall (and that happens with enough regularity to see that evolution has taken it all into account) ultimately we look for those qualities in leadership.

What can we do as writers other than wrestle with that reality?

 

[Katie-Ellen]

He doesn't seem fit for such an office, even without the trouble with Dr Ford, based on his performance under pressure, but I understand Matnov's comment to be more to do with the value of controversy for a great story, and the avoidance of using fiction as an overt socio-political vehicle.

Algorithm? There's none that I know of. This needs alchemy and only the writer can be that magician. I think that for S.T one way to go might be simply to write such fascinating, vibrant sympathetic characters that we're rooting for them, simply as people, even if we're just loving to hate them, no other agenda than that, while putting them in such jeopardy that any 'message' speaks organically for itself. Piggy in Lord of The Flies.

 

[S.T Stevens]

He doesn't seem fit for such an office, even without the trouble with Dr Ford, based on his performance under pressure, but I understand Matnov's comment to be more to do with the value of controversy for a great story, and the avoidance of using fiction as an overt socio-political vehicle.

Algorithm? There's none that I know of. This needs alchemy and only the writer can be that magician. I think that for S.T one way to go might be simply to write such fascinating, vibrant sympathetic characters that we're rooting for them, simply as people, even if we're just loving to hate them, no other agenda than that, while putting them in such jeopardy that any 'message' speaks organically for itself. Piggy in Lord of The Flies.

That's probably the best way to go when I write novels that inherently talk about politics. Thanks!

 

[Matnov]

... but I understand Matnov's comment to be more to do with the value of controversy for a great story, and the avoidance of using fiction as an overt socio-political vehicle.

Ish. Sort of.

I will be honest and admit that on the political spectrum I tend towards a mix of the libertarian/socially conservative side of the debate, with an absolute passionate belief in freedom of speech and opinion. And I voted for Brexit and if I lived in the US would have probably voted for Trump. So I cannot pretend to be absolutely neutral.

However, the wider machinations of politics, and those who gravitate towards its upper echelons, both fascinate and horrify me on a daily basis along with the rank hypocrisy that we all indulge in when it comes to cheering or booing those we either agree with or vehemently oppose. Always liked that saying about no matter who we vote for, the bastards always win.

And it is in the 'bastards', that I feel fiction writers should be focused on. Because they are the interesting ones. They are the ones who grab our imagination because their story arcs are fascinating. Whatever people might think of the likes of the Kennedys or Nixon or the Clintons, you would never turn down the chance to sit around and chat with them although you might want to hold on tight to both your wallet and your wife whilst doing so!

They are who people want to read about. Not the good guys. Sure, you use them and are meant to let them triumph, eventually, but lets be frank here, they are almost invariably bloody dull company. Both on and off the page.

 

[Carol Rose]

This is not directed at any particular member. Please keep the topic focused on writing about politics, not on personal politics. Thank you.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Earlier this year, I read Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel The Heart Goes Last. Set in the near future, it's an unsettling portrayal of a homeless couple, who sell their souls to a faceless corporation in return for a new start in life. They go to work at a high-security prison, which runs covert operations involving robotics, prostitution and organ harvesting, apart from its above the board manufacture of goods and growing crops.

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood review – rewardingly strange

I was vaguely aware of the workings of the American prison industry, which exists as much to make money as it does to punish criminals, but this article on the strange worldtruth.tv website highlights how much prisons are a form of slavery; the statistics quoted are mind-boggling:

The Prison Industry In The United States: Big Business Or A New Form of Slavery?

It confirmed to me, that Margaret Atwood made some apposite political comments in a clever way.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

John D. MacDonald, famously of the Travis McGee mystery-adventure series, wove his attitudes and political concerns about ecology and corporate land development (in particular) and a few broader themes as well into this stories. He did it in such a way that readers rarely felt bludgeoned by politicized messages; he let the story plotlines illustrate his points and ocasionally let his main character(s) muse over stuff they were observing in a philosophical way to sum stuff up.

Carl Hiaasen does a similar thing with his crime caper stories set in Florida. Written for children and adults, the plots are cleverly laced with messages about the damage man is wreaking on the environment.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Carl-Hiaasen/e/B00KWZGGAG

 

[Kitty]

Politics is part of the world we live in and as such will always tend to impact on the stories we write. One of my WIPs is a political thriller but the focus is on conspiracy rather than championing a particular cause. If I want to make a cause the theme of a story I try to do it in a non political way and be inspirational instead. For example the YA novel I had published was CliFi but it wasn’t about politics at all. It was more an adventure set against the backdrop of what could happen based on sound science.

 

[Tim James]

A novel can and often benefits from a small dose of relevant politics or social issues. But it shouldn't preach.
You may have a particular character in your book, whose thoughts and dialog shows he or she politically leans one way or the other. But the narrative voice, the point the writer is trying to make if you like, should not be based on the writer's own prejudice or leanings. It should be "in character" throughout.
There maybe, as I have seen in some published books, a note by the author either at the beginning or the end of the novel that explicitly states that the views of the narrator character are not their own. Ideally, when reading a novel, the reader should not be able to tell what the writer's own views on such things may be.
If you want as a writer to put across your own beliefs or promote a particular brand of politics then write non-fiction.

 

[Kitty]

I didn't take her to be a baby fetishist!