Jul 21 2008
On Message Fiction
History is filled with books that didn’t just tell a story, but taught the culture around them some sort of important lesson. Many writers see this and decide they’re going to do the same, writing stories that are just as much about an Issue as about their main characters.
My advice to people who want to do this is simple: don’t.
I can almost hear the squawk of indignation echoing up from all the writers who dream of being the next Upton Sinclair or Harriet Beecher Stowe, a new Orwell or Huxley. “WHAT? But… things that need righting… how do I right them? What do you mean don’t write this story that could potentially—”
Enough, all right?
The problem with message fiction is that there are very few people who can do it right, and it’s really safer not to attempt to write message fiction as message fiction unless you know you’re one of them. But if you insist, here’s where you’re likeliest to go wrong.
The most important consideration is the balance between message and story. You can have passion for your issue, you can have all the eloquence in the world, you can be utterly and completely right—but if your story can’t stand as a story, how are you ever going to find enough readers to be able to get your message across? This is a mistake I saw in several of the stories that cropped up in one of my classes: there was definitely a Big Honking Issue, but there wasn’t really much story to it, just the issue.
Feeding off of that is the fact that many of your potential readers will not like being preached at. This goes double if they don’t agree with you. The people likeliest to like your work are going to be the ones who agree with you, which isn’t going to help much. Have you ever had someone shove a book that fit with their opinions but heavily conflicted with yours in your face?
One important thing to take into consideration as well is that there is a right way and a wrong way to deliver the message. Say you’re trying to bring people’s attention to the existence of one of the darker problems with human nature: some atrocity, perhaps. And sure, you can do that. Yeah, they realize it exists—but what’s the point, if you don’t offer them some way to do something about it? If you don’t show them what to do rather than what not to do? In addition, if you present the problem as being overwhelming, without even a spot of hope, who’s going to think it can be solved?
To illustrate, a history lesson. While Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was meant to bring attention to the horrible conditions facing the working class, particularly immigrants, the only thing it changed was the horrendous practices of the meat-packing industry. “I aimed for the nation’s heart and hit it in the stomach,” he lamented in response to this. My junior year of high school, I had occasion to figure out why. One of my classmates explained it with: “At the beginning, you’ve still got room to be shocked. By the end, there’s just so much misery that you’re completely numb. So they only reacted to the stuff at the beginning.” While this certainly holds truth, I think there’s more to it. The reason why the first part of The Jungle succeeded was that it was obvious what was wrong and how to fix it, and that it directly impacted its audiences’ lives, whereas the later parts were just a dim morass of life getting worse, life getting even worse, life getting much worse… and then, SOCIALISM! Which really wasn’t much of an answer to most of his audience, and was so transparently a political advertisement cum deus ex machina that it was near impossible to take seriously.
On the other hand, when you have a story where the message is secondary to the plot—possibly even accidental—and where the audience can see what needs fixing and how to fix it, that is how you change the world. My recommendation? Write first. If the message weaves itself in, that’s all well and good. If not, see how the writing style goes over, and try something else. If it’s message first and plot second, look very closely at it. Odds are it isn’t going to go over quite as well as you think.
