Zero-content fiction…
Some readers think I’m too “political” in my fiction. This often needs a translation. What many of them mean is that I treat uncomfortable themes. Whether mystery, thriller, sci-fi, or some combination, there’s usually one or two themes, from spousal abuse to sexual perversion (child porn, etc), from corporate excesses to the ravages produced by inadequate medical coverage. I’ll go out on a limb here and state this is why subgenres like cozy mysteries, bodice rippers, historical fiction, and fantasy are so popular. Readers can read about good v. evil without really confronting the evil in their everyday lives while extolling cardboard Dudley Dorights (hmm, that really dates me) who surpass all odds and save the day.
In other words, some readers want zero-content fiction—murders committed with no rhyme or reason by murderers who are simply bad, neo-Victorian visions of sexual relationships, twisted and romantic versions of past history, and princes and princesses jousting with their enemies with swords or blasters. A good time is had by all, as they say. Some authors, realizing this is the market they’re faced with, pamper and addict such readers to this fluff.
I’m not saying there isn’t strife in the fluff. I’m saying that the reader can distance herself from it because it seems far from her everyday reality. (I’m not implying that these readers are necessarily female, by the way. There’s no gender-neutral version of herself and himself in English, so I use the former to avoid repetition.)
I’ve always sought those stories with some meat to them. During my short stay on this planet, I can’t hope to experience everything, but my reading provides exposure to many things, disagreeable or agreeable, that I would not otherwise experience. I want to return the favor. When I write about child porn (The Collector), I want my reader to experience its horrors. The story can be horrific but still interesting reading. Those who would bury their heads in the sand about such things when they see it in the evening news can open their eyes—and their hearts—in my fiction.
Sometimes I’m a bit stealthy about how I do this. In my new novel, Gaia and the Goliaths, the horrors related to our current destruction of the environment play second fiddle to the horrors related to attacking environmental activists. I even present something many environmentalists might consider heresy in their worship of Gaia (Earth, not the victim in the mystery): nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels (see Tuesday’s post). This heresy might get me in trouble, but I hope readers will at least ask themselves, “Geez, why does he think this way?” (Yeah, Tuesday’s post offers a better explanation, but who wants to rant in a fiction novel besides Ayn Rand.)
Of course, in my detective series Chen is generally conservative and Castilblanco progressive, so In many of these stories, multiple sides of an issue are often presented. Whether this occurs, my purpose is to slap you in the face with the issue so that you will recognize its importance and complexity. You might already do so, but in that case the fiction is even more meaningful. These themes are rarely all there is to a story. As a reader, that’s just as boring to me as zero-content fiction, and my reading sensibilities determine what I write.
This leads into the question about whether an author’s political viewpoints make people not want to read anything by that author (I’ve treated that before in my articles on writing). I’m talking about that generalized meaning of “political.” I know that Heinlein, the great sci-fi writer, had Libertarian proclivities, and Orson Scot Card has been pegged as a homophobe (I only know the guy from Ender’s Game and its sequels, the first a good story, the others not so much). Some of these sentiments are bound to creep into their fiction. I suppose the less that happens, the better most people will find their storytelling. I take a bigger risk: if something occurs in real life, it can and often be in fiction. Better said, maybe it should be fiction. Fiction shouldn’t be pablum. The flip side of that coin is that it still has to be a good story.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve read a few cozy mysteries and historical romances and even reviewed them—is Fanny Hill one of the latter?—but I enjoy them about as much as a mindless sitcom. I think good fiction should challenge the reader. I might disagree with the author’s point of view or even the themes she includes in her book (gender neutral intended again), but I prefer that to zero-content fiction. There’s too much of that around already in TV, movies, and video games. Let’s give fiction some content that makes us think.
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Coming soon! Gaia and the Goliaths has environmental issues as a theme, but Chen and Castilblanco still have to solve a crime. #7 in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” starts out with the murder of an environmental activist on a street in Manhattan. As the detectives pursue the investigation, they discover that the activist’s boyfriend is also a target. His activity overseas leads to the conclusion that there is a conspiracy involving an American energy company, a Putin surrogate, and an old nemesis. This new novel will be available in all ebook formats.
In libris libertas!
