Month: April 2024

What is our moral responsibility as writers?

This is a subject that I’ve touched on a few times recently. But I realized I’ve never done a whole post about it.

Which is strange, because I think about this a lot. Like, probably more than I should.

To what extent are we as writers morally responsible for the actions of people who consume our content?

Books have gained infamy for inciting violence and bad behavior. Violent video games were blamed for school shootings. Music is blamed for promoting promiscuity and gun violence. Well, only rap music is ever blamed for that. Country music talks about sex and shooting people all the time. Ben Shapiro never has anything bad to say about those performers.

This is a topic I thought a lot about after writing Quiet Apocalypse. When I was writing it, I just wanted to write a scary haunted apartment story about a clever witch and her attempts to stop the apocalypse. It was only afterward that I realized it might be seen as an anti-abortion message.

Which was never, ever my intention. I am pro-choice all the way and regularly donate to the Brigid Alliance.

So, am I to blame if someone uses Quiet Apocalypse as an example of anti-abortion propaganda? Are any of us responsible for people who use our fiction as an excuse to do awful things?

No, we’re not. And if you, like me, have these concerns, I hope that today’s post will help you put them to rest.

People who do bad things are just looking for an excuse

It is the sad reality of our world that some people are going to do terrible things. They’re going to be bigots, they’re going to bully others. Sometimes they’re going to shoot up innocent places. Even holy places.

But these people didn’t get this idea from reading a fictional story. Not a single mass shooter was a perfectly well-adjusted member of society before they played Call of Duty, and now they’re shooting up a nightclub. Drug addicts weren’t clean and sober, then read Alice in Wonderland and started dropping acid.

The desire to do those things was there before the fiction was consumed. And while this fiction might speak to a dark part of them, it didn’t build that dark part from nothing. To say otherwise is to scapegoat storytelling so we don’t have to look at the deeper societal failings that lead to drug addiction and gun violence.

There’s a ton of WWII fiction, and yet there are still Nazis in America right now

We are surrounded by WWII stories. Any streaming platform is bound to have countless movies and TV shows about the war. And there are hundreds upon hundreds of books about it. Some of my favorites are Maus, Number The Stars, and Jacob the Liar.

Nowhere in any of these stories are the Nazis the good guys. And, in case this needs to be said, that’s how it fucking should be. The Nazis are not now, and never will be, the good guys.

And yet, somehow, we have modern American Nazis. Proudly marching around with swastika flags and tiki torches.

How did this happen when our society is flooded with fiction that demonizes (rightly) the Nazi agenda?

Well, there are a lot of reasons why this is happening. People with far more understanding and education than me have researched this issue and published in-depth work regarding it. But I think we can safely say that it wasn’t the massive amount of WWII fiction. It seems to be despite it.

So if all of this work has been done with Nazis as the bad guys and it hasn’t deterred modern Nazis, why do we assume that pro-violent material will cause violence?

There is no way to tell how people are going to interpret your fiction

Lewis Carroll never wanted anyone to associate Alice in Wonderland with drug use. Homelander from The Boys was never supposed to be a good character, but some on the far Right in America have rallied around him. Rage Against the Machine has always been political, and yet somehow people have missed the message.

We just have no way to tell how people are going to perceive our work. No matter how clear we think we are with our message, someone can still take it the wrong way.

This isn’t because people are dumb. Well, not entirely. It’s because people see the world through their own experiences. Our perceptions are based on every experience we’ve ever had, the society we live in, and the lessons we were taught as children. And no matter how compassionate and empathetic we are, we can never see the world through someone else’s eyes.

We are never responsible for the actions of other people

This is something that I struggle with, coming from a high-control religious group. The sort of group that teaches girls to dress modestly so that we are not stumbling blocks for our brothers. We were taught that we weren’t supposed to go shopping on the Sabbath, because we were then causing other people to sin by working on the Sabbath. We were taught that we would be missionaries in our everyday lives if we lived the gospel well enough and devoutly enough.

I was also told by my grandmother that I should fast and pray so that my mother would stop smoking.

That’s a lot of responsibility for other people that was placed onto my very young shoulders. And yes, deconstruction has been a journey for me. There’s going to be a post about this soon.

So I get it. I get what it’s like to feel guilty because of what other people do. But we are never responsible for other people’s actions. Unless you are intentionally inciting violence and hate, it is not your fault if people commit violence or are hateful after reading your work. You are responsible for you. That is it.

At the end of the day, it’s good that we as writers are concerned about the impact we have on the world. It’s good if anyone worries about that. But we cannot allow our fear of other people’s reactions to silence our work. All we can do is tell our stories to the best of our ability, and hope that they inspire good and not hate.

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Nova is available for preorder now on Amazon. Check it out.

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I will never write anything as good as this!

Recently I read a fantastic book called Mister Magic. You can read my full review on Haunted MTL here.

This book sent me into a tailspin for a couple of reasons. The first one was that it dealt heavily with the Mormon church and religious trauma. But the second reason is the one I want to talk about today.

I will never, as long as I live, write anything as good as this book.

I will never write anything as good as The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. I will never write anything as good as The Stand. I will never write anything as good as American Gods. These are all works of art, and I am just not a good enough writer to come up with anything so breathtakingly creative and wonderful as these books.

Writers are readers first. People who want to write stories usually want to do this because we love stories. And we love good stories. So I doubt I’m the only writer to look at a great piece of writing and think that my paltry contributions are nothing in comparison.

But, of course, if I let myself be bogged down by this, I’d never write a single word again. And I think some people would miss my work. I know I would miss it.

So what do we do when we feel like this? Well, here are some of the things I’ve been reminding myself of. Hopefully, they’ll help you too.

Art is subjective

It’s important to remember that everyone’s tastes are different. The same book can keep one reader up at night while being a sleeping pill to someone else. And every single book I mentioned as being works of art has one-star reviews right now on Amazon. And as amazing as it is to realize, you might write something that someone else likes better than you do. You should always be your work’s biggest champion, but someone else will probably be your work’s biggest fan. The flip side of this is that the work that you love, might not be for everybody. Maybe some people love it. Maybe some people hate it. But no book is really perfect, and we should probably all take our favorites down of the pedestals we’ve so lovingly placed them on.

You can always get better

It’s probably not fair of me to say that I will never write anything as good as those books. Because, frankly, I might. I’m always trying to get better. I want to write better, more creative, and gripping stories. I honestly feel even now that I’m just coming into my stride as a writer, yes even after writing and publishing eight books.

Writing requires talent, but it also requires learning and practice. We practice every time we sit down and tap on the keyboard just the same as a musician practices at a piano. We are learning, we are growing. And we can, if we want to, write something as amazing as our favorite books.

Not everything has to be a work of art

Works of art are amazing. A fantastic book can be moving, and life-changing. It can save us when we’re in our darkest hour. It can inspire us to change the world, or just be better people.

But we don’t always consume content that is amazing or life-changing. My life was not even a little changed by Rick and Morty, or any book by Philippa Gregory. But I love those a lot. I’ll go nuts over a Philippa Gregory book because it’s fun to read. The same can be said for most of the books I read or shows I watch.

You can write something just because you think it’s fun. You don’t always have to set out to write the next Great American Novel. You can just write something good. That’s okay, encouraged even.

Besides, I’m willing to bet that the people who write those great books didn’t set out to write something that was going to be world-changing. They had a good idea, and they wrote it to the best of their ability at the time. Sometimes that means we end up with trash. Sometimes that means we end up with art. Sometimes that just means we end up with something that passed the time and helped us enjoy our lunch break a little more.

All of those things are okay.

Your work is your own

I was raised with a mindset that I’m still trying to unlearn. It sounds good at first.

You are already doing better than a lot of people. You right now, wherever you are, are doing better than a lot of other people. Your book is better than other published books. If your book isn’t published yet, at least you wrote a book. That puts you ahead of people who are still working on theirs. If you’re still working on yours, at least you’ve started. That puts you ahead of the people who are just wishing they could write a book but haven’t yet bothered to put pen to paper. And all the way down to the poor scrub who doesn’t want to create any art at all and just wants to watch Real Housewives after work in peace.

There are two problems with that. One, we do not gain our worth from creating things. We are inherently worthy of love, acceptance, joy, and peace without ever making one single thing. But two, if this theory works one way, it works the other way. If you haven’t started your book yet, people who have are better. If you have started your book, people who have published theirs are better. If you’ve published your book, someone’s book was more popular. And there is always going to be someone more popular. Someone else will get a bigger advance, sell more copies, get a movie or TV adaption faster or with a bigger budget.

So instead of comparing your art and your journey against anyone else, compare yourself to where you were yesterday. Compare this project with your last project, and see how much you’ve grown. So I don’t need my current book to be better than Mister Magic. I just need it to be better than Nova.

I hope that you write something today. And even if it’s not as good as you want it to be, I hope you like it. I hope it’s good. Because just by existing, it’s already good enough.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love what we do here, you can support us by liking and sharing this post. You can also support us financially on Ko-fi.

Nova is available now for preorder! You can order it now on Amazon, and read it in full now on May 17th.

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Read Nova before it’s gone

Hey guys! Just popping in here to let you know that I’ll be pulling Nova from the site on Thursday, April 25th in preparation for the book’s launch. So if you’ve been waiting to read it, now is your time.

Here’s a link to the prologue to get you started.

And if you want to get the book in actual physical form or e-book form, your time is coming. Because Nova will be launching on Friday, May 17th.

I want to thank everyone who’s read Nova so far. If you can, please consider sharing it on social media. This helps a ton in getting the word out.

Thanks again.

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Is your character a good person?

Anti-heroes become more popular with each passing year. And I’m not referring to heroes with negative qualities like Tony Stark or Deadpool. That’s an example of a character who has personal failings, but still overall does heroic things.

No, I’m referring to characters who are bad guys. Dexter, Hannibal, Ray Donovan, The Joker. These are all characters who are not seeking to do good in the world but are hurting others based on their selfish wants.

Lots of bad guys are getting their stories told. And I love this, even if the execution isn’t always fantastic. The Joker was a fantastic movie. Cruella, not as much. But it was still interesting to see the world from her perspective.

While I wouldn’t be thrilled if my fiction content was full of bad guys, I do love that we are seeing more and more of this. I do think, however, it takes a bit of creative bravery and imagination to write these sorts of characters. Writing Jim Gordon is easy, and makes the writer feel good because he’s doing everything just like we hope we would do. Writing The Joker is harder because he’s doing everything we’re disgusted by.

So, this sort of character is worth some consideration.

Bad guys are cathartic

Still picking on The Joker, I mentioned that most of what he does is disgusting. But some of what he does is also cathartic. There’s a part of us that roots for him when he abuses bank owners and politicians. When he’s punching up, terrifying, and abusing people in power, that’s great fun. It allows us to get some of our anger out. No one’s too upset when The Joker is harassing Bruce Wayne’s rich buddies, I’m sorry to say. So, that always feels like a good time.

No one is ever the bad guy in their own life. Or are they?

Most of us would consider ourselves good people most of the time. But, not all of us. Some people genuinely do not like themselves. Some people feel like they’re trapped making a series of bad decisions over and over again. They’re hurting themselves and the people around them, and they do not know how to stop.

Even if you don’t feel like this all the time, we’ve all felt like it some of the time. We have all not liked ourselves. We have all made stupid, selfish decisions. We have all struggled.

In that case, a character who’s doing the same sort of thing can be inspiring, if they eventually pull themselves out of it. When that character who’s spiraling asks for help, goes to therapy and gets away from the life they’ve been living, that should inspire all of us. Because we can always choose to be better tomorrow. It’s not easy, but it can be done.

You can explore the different morality levels

There’s bad, and then there’s bad. One good example is the title character in Lucifer. He openly encourages people to give in to their most selfish desires. Cheating on their spouses, drinking too much, and gambling. All the things we know we shouldn’t do, but they feel so good in the moment.

And while this is damaging, there are worse things. Murdering people, for instance.

Bad characters can give an example of moral hierarchy. Dexter, in the first episode, killed someone who serially abused and killed children. Lucifer tracks down murderers.

I think these bad characters give a good example of bad things because they hurt us, and things that are bad because they hurt other people. While neither is good, one is worse.

Your bad guy can learn a lesson

This isn’t a necessity. I think some of the worst fiction is created under the guise of teaching a moral lesson. The story should come first, and you don’t have to give any moral lessons at all if you don’t want to.

But if you want to give a lesson, then using a bad guy character can be a great way to do it. Let them heal. Let them grow. Let them have a breakdown moment and come back a better person.

Let us see that, in this dark and scary world, someone really can get better. That’s going to be a genuinely uplifting story every time.

But what about the morality question

So, what if you don’t want your bad guy to be redeemed? Are you endorsing bad life decisions? What if your fiction encourages someone to do something bad or wrong? Are you responsible?

Honestly, this could probably be a post all on its own, but I’ll try to keep it brief today. Our society loves to blame fictional stories for actual atrocities. And I absolutely call bullshit on that.

The guy who killed John Lennon didn’t do it because he read Catcher in the Rye.

The shooters at Columbin didn’t do it because of violent video games.

Ted Bundy didn’t kill people because of porn.

These were people who were just looking for an excuse to do what they already wanted to do. And they were going to find one. We as artists cannot blame ourselves for the actions of others unless we are actively condoning and inciting violence in real life. Otherwise, if someone watches Rick and Morty and then thinks it’s okay to become an abusive alcoholic, they probably didn’t need that much of a push.

So write what you want to write.

In the end, remember that we are making art. We are making a character, not moral decisions for other people. We are not preachers, teachers, or advisers. Our job is to tell a story that only we can tell. And that means that your characters should be as bad, or as good, as you want them to be.

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