Sensitive Subjects in Fiction

Even if you have never written anything on a particularly sensitive topic, you probably have read articles online or in magazines about them. To name a few that are popular in today’s world:

-          Health care

-          Abortion

-          Gay Rights

My goodness. Facebook has become a battle-ground for those debating how society should treat homosexuality. Say the word and you will most likely offend the entire human race for some reason or another.

I get so angry after seeing countless page-long posts, both at the offenders and the offended. To the offenders: you have a valid opinion, but posting it on Facebook is not going to do SQUAT. Find a more productive outlet. To the offended: “He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool” (Brigham Young).

But that’s not exactly what I want to talk about. It’s already been done to death on every culture-blogging site in the universe.

I’m wondering about a similar issue: controversial material in fictional stories. My question is, should authors adopt the mantra “Go Bold or Go Home,” or should they omit touchy material and try for an alternate subject?

For some, this may not be an option. Their stories may be set during the Holocaust (The Book Thief) or address the murder of innocent children (The Hunger Games). For others, it may be possible to leave out grey-area components and focus more on their characters because the two are mostly independent of one another.

I’d say there are a few factors to consider when deciding what to do:

-          Audience. You probably wouldn’t write a story portraying an evil Nazi as the protagonist and market the book to Jews. Make sure that you are AT LEAST omitting material that offends your TARGET AUDIENCE.

-          Time. Fictional reinventions of the Holocaust probably wouldn’t have sold many copies back in 1945. The event would be too fresh in everyone’s mind, and readers would be right to throw the book into the toilet.

-          Research. How well do you know the subject? This one’s really important because readers can smell ignorance a mile away, and they’ll call you on it (shortly after flushing your book). Elie Wiesel was a prisoner of Auschwitz, so his memoir, Night, is automatically credible. Consequently, it has enjoyed enormous readership and is now requisite material in most high schools.

-          Emotional appeal. If your story is a light-hearted tale about a time-traveler, throwing him into the middle of a concentration camp is going to make a lot of people uncomfortable. If it reads more like a tribute, however, it might just win some loyal fans.

In a story I am currently writing, Christopher Winter is a Freeze Agent, one of many people responsible for keeping the world “on the right track.” The Shadow President literally stops time, allowing Chris and his coworkers to move undisturbed in a frozen world, making changes as they are instructed.

The prologue tells the story of Chris’ initiation into the society, after being kidnapped and dragged away from his father. He’s only eleven, but his assignment has a profound impact: he must let a mysterious man through airport security.

That’s it. Little does he know that the action results in the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11 and the eventual destruction of the World Trade Center.

“What’s going to happen?” Chris asks before all of this. “Won’t that hurt people?”

“Some will suffer,” the division-leader replies. “But many more will be strengthened. It is very, very important that this happens today.”

Afterwards, the story skips ahead ten years, and it’s the last we hear of the incident, except for the pain and guilt that Chris experiences as a result. This guilt is critical. Without it, my protagonist would be the insensitive cause of the 9/11 hijackings, and many readers would despise him. But the internal torture that he experiences combined with the fact that he didn’t know any better makes him human. Not a monster. A lost, confused, and scared child who only wants to get back to his family. A symbol of the 9/11 victims’ heartbreak. Instead of seeming like a way to get money, the story feels sympathetic, and celebrates the way America grew closer together after the terrible crisis of 2001.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong, and as soon as I try to publish the story, a squad of assassins will pull up in front of my house. But those are my thoughts.

Do you think it’s too early to write fiction about 9/11? In general, how do you feel about including sensitive subjects in your writing? How do you feel when you read about them in a book?

Let me know in the comments!

From Concept to Story

Today I paid a visit to the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB.com). It was this week’s most painful experience.

On the very front page, on the featured trailers banner, was my story.

 

Just kidding. It was Wally Pfister and Jack Paglan’s story, titled “Transcendence.” As soon as I saw it, I knew what it would be about. Supercomputers. An anti-technology rebellion. A man uploading his own mind onto a computer in an attempt to save his life.

(Go here for the trailer)

If you were to go into my room, dig through my drawer, find my "Idea-Log," open to page 33, and look at the top margin, you’d see something along the lines of, “Transcendent Artificial Intelligence – scientist uploads brain to computer – gains massive power – society fights back against immorality.”

MY. STORY. I can’t tell you how heartbreaking that is.

On the bright side, the movie looks good. Not only does it feature Johnny Depp and Morgan Freeman, but the story seems deep enough to give the sparkly visuals a good flavor. I commend the writer, Mr. Paglan, on his ability to take an interesting concept and put it in its best light. He was able to do something that I couldn’t, not after years of writing, rewriting, and plot-diagramming. He must be a better human being than I am.

But I’m still whining. This needs to be a constructive experience.

First: What separates his idea from mine?

Well, for starters, the words in my notebook were a skeleton. Not a story. I had a concept that needed setting, characters, relationships. Emotion. From what I gather, Paglan’s story involves a wife that is involved in the whole uploading process. That’s powerful. She’s also his “partner in science” – a nice and relatable dynamic for anyone who gets high on the pure pursuit of knowledge. She is caught between the safety of the world and the life of her husband. An impossible choice.

Duty versus love. Science versus morality. Dichotomies that are intriguing on so many levels.

Second: What is there to be learned from this difference? What do mainstream writers / directors do to bring a concept up to story status?

Let’s see if we can trace a path from the skeleton to the story, starting with, “Transcendent Artificial Intelligence.”

Stories are all about conflict, so we need problems. Problems. What’s wrong with super-intelligent computers? They might turn against us. They might hack our bank accounts or steal our private information and hold it at ransom. They might un-encrypt nuclear launch codes and start a World War III.

Somebody will have to realize this possibility before it becomes a problem. Someone has to speak up. That person will likely amass a fair amount of followers, all believing that the safety of their world is teetering on the edge of a perilous scientific cliff. Because they are desperate, they will resort to violence. Even terrorism.

Anti-tech group. Check.

What’s the other side of the coin? What advantages are there to having genius computers? If every device has access to the internet and its fellow computers, they will be able to compute solutions to humanities greatest problems faster than we could ever imagine. Being the creator of such a device must be exciting. Intoxicating. One might begin to love the computer like his/her own child. Or more than a child.

Love of technology interfering with personal, human relationships? Maternal? Fraternal? Marital?

The computers could find the cure for cancer. They could come up with a perfect system of government. They could unveil the mysteries of God and the universe. They could solve death itself.

Interesting… now death is a token in the game. Is it a race against time? Maybe a father tries to save his son from a terminal illness by creating a super-intelligent computer. But why not twist it a little more?

Maybe we should introduce a villain. Perhaps the president of the anti-tech group? Ehh… he’s just a man, a motivational speaker at best. Leaders are typically not the scary guys. In this case, the leader is probably a political junkie. The anti-tech group will put tension on our protagonist(s) outside of the main good-guy / bad-guy conflict.

So someone else, then. Someone not trained to be a moral leader. Someone adventurous. Someone predisposed to obsession over things like power and creation. An engineer.

Our scientist.

But how can the scientist be the villain? And how can he be intimidating?

What truly makes a villain scary is when they are powerful and unpredictable. This is where the other part of our concept comes in: “scientist uploads brain to computer – gains massive power.”

Our former protagonist now has a mental link to the internet. He can access the whole of human knowledge just by searching his mind. He can perform billions of calculations every second. He is drunk with the power, and quickly becomes a villain. Worse, he is growing too fast to be predictable.

But, then, who’s the protagonist? I heard a quote once that said something like: “The best villains are the ones who are personally related to the protagonists.” The most logical choice, in this case, is a coworker. And then add a little bit of love (emotion-potion) and wallah!

Our protagonist is a coworker and a spouse to the digital scientist.

What’s left? We know that our spouse/coworker protagonist is going to have to choose between the world and her husband. Bu how the heck is she going to be able to do that? That’s a huge choice. In order for our audience to be satisfied at the end of the story, they need to have closure, but we have just introduced a new type of problem: that of conscience. Even after she chooses to shut down the computer, she won’t be able to stop thinking: I just killed my husband. Killed him. Ended him.

She has to realize that it’s okay to let him go, which can happen in a couple of ways. Maybe she finds an old journal of his, in which he proclaims that he would rather die than become evil. Or maybe she discovers that he was evil all along. He hired the anti-tech group to shoot him, knowing that they would be forced to upload his mind to the computer. He planned the whole thing.

Bitter betrayal. And then? Finally. Sweet revenge.

And so there it is, from concept to story. A straight, continuous line. The latter is certainly a lot deeper and more interesting. Now, if only I could do that with my other ideas, I would be a very successful writer!

What are your thoughts?