Not sure what to title this question

[Gwendolyn]

So, I'm a writer at heart.

I've been writing stories since I was 7 or 8. I used my mum's old typewriter until my family could afford a computer in the late 90s.

However, one thing I worry about is whether or not, as a Catholic, I should only be writing stories that convey "good" or "orthodox" messages.

The stories I wrote don't have Catholic morals and they don't usually have anything to do with faith at all. I'm not writing romance or erotica/word-inappropriate content, but sometimes the stories involve characters who are completely secular or characters who lose belief in a higher power.

Do writers have to worry about causing scandal to people by what they write, even if they are telling stories about characters who are nothing like themselves? On the one hand, I just think, "It's only a story." And they are only stories. But there is another part of me that, of course, fears I could be condemned to hell for writing stuff that is less than moral, or might cause others to formulate a certain worldview that isn't in line with faith.

Think of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - that's the kind of story I'm thinking of. Religion is presented as extreme and soul-crushing, people are used as objects and pawns, people disappear at the drop of a hat if the regime finds them somehow in contempt. Feminist undertones (or overtones, depending on how you read it).

Personally I'd love to just go with, "It's only a story", but there is a part of me that will always wonder anyway.

What do you think?

 

[Michie]

I think there is a fine line. As much as people hate to admit it, they are influenced by everything that is presented to them. From the 30 second commercial on up.

Some authors will write a sort of disclaimer before the story.

But the author's job is to present stories. Even if they are polar opposite of their personal beliefs & views.

You could run it by your priest or spiritual director.

I would think it would be about the place you are in personally when you write it.

 

[Memento Mori]

I would say it's never just a story. There's a reason Plato's perfect society censors artists and storytellers. The stories we consume are always performing "inception" on us. That said, I feel like this question is more about your personal fears than the philosophy of art, and I'm not sure how to address that.

 

[Gwendolyn]

I recently read a book that I thought was very good, but again, it was critical of religion and showed extremism at its worst. It was extreme on purpose, to make a point, but it really stuck with me. Didn't change my views, but I can see impressionable people reading it and thinking, "SEE, RELIGION IS BAD."

I don't want to be "that author", the one who overtly pushes beliefs through her tales, but I cannot say that I will never have a story walk into my head which deals with immorality and such. The one I am working on now involves a young woman beginning a whirlwind affair with an older, married man. It isn't a happy tale, but the woman's emotional journey doesn't exactly end with her getting herself to church and loving Jesus instead.

 

[Michie]

I recently read a book that I thought was very good, but again, it was critical of religion and showed extremism at its worst. It was extreme on purpose, to make a point, but it really stuck with me. Didn't change my views, but I can see impressionable people reading it and thinking, "SEE, RELIGION IS BAD."

I don't want to be "that author", the one who overtly pushes beliefs through her tales, but I cannot say that I will never have a story walk into my head which deals with immorality and such. The one I am working on now involves a young woman beginning a whirlwind affair with an older, married man. It isn't a happy tale, but the woman's emotional journey doesn't exactly end with her getting herself to church and loving Jesus instead.

Well not everything has to have religious overtones. There are many stories out there that we have learned from or enjoyed that don't. If you got a story brewing then you can write it & send it out to publishers.

If your lucky it will get published. If you write from where your characters are at & not any hidden emotions of your own, it should be ok. It's pretty easy to distinguish authors with agendas compared to authors that have an actual story to tell.

 

[MKJ]

Well, I think that a story has to be true on some level to be good. But not all stories have to be perfectly true to be worthwhile. I really enjoyed the Golden Compass trilogy for example, which in many ways is a non-Christian reinterpretation of parts of Christian mythology. It is also very harsh on the institutional Church in its alternate reality.

I think that Pullman made some very true observations about institutions and their psychology, many of them applicable to the Church, and I think his alternate theological model is interesting and also somewhat representative of our age and presented in an interesting and imaginative way - it made me think about that way of understanding the world differently and I think with more insight. It drew out a lot of the implications of that worldview, if that makes sense.

I'm not sure if you are asking about something like that - writing a story that explores a different worldview and draws out its implications? I think that is possible to a degree, and I don't think it is immoral. If your vision is clear than you should be coming to some real understanding of what that perspective looks like.

A story about a man with no faith, for example, can say something true about what it would look like to live in a world without God. i don't think every story needs to cover the whole gamut of Christian truth, you don't have to somehow say "and if you believe in God it will all be better".

As far as having stories with immoral acts or people or whatever, I can hardly imagine a worthwhile story that would not include such things in some way, and it is certainly possible to have a story with a Christian message - about the healing power of forgiveness say - that includes considerable horror and lost people.

I also think that stories that are about your own thoughts impressions and insights are generally ok, even if they don't clearly point to the Church as "the answer". Unlike Plato's poets, I am guessing you are not claiming divine inspiration. Plato was critical of the poets for telling lies - telling lies is not the same as relating observations, experiences, and thoughts.

Something to consider that might put your mind at ease might be the types of stories written by other devout Christians. There are some like Lewis and Chesterton which do set out to give a fairly explicit Christian story or message. Then there are some like Sayers which are more fun. But there are plenty - Dostoyevsky or Flannery O'Conner who do explore in depth dark and difficult themes. In fact I'd say that most of the greatest Christian fiction writers of the modern period use stories which have deep ambiguities.

 

[FullyMT]

I think as long as it is clear that some groups/people are a caricature, that is OK. For example, I read The Confession by John Grisham recently and there are some REALLY bad examples of religion in it (although, there is also example of good religion). Write it for yourself, at least as a form of self-therapy, then ask a few others to take a look, and then go from there.

 

[Rebekka]

Don't write moralities. I don't turn to fiction to teach me a lesson about good and evil; if it does, it is by accident. Good literature can be immoral, amoral or sometimes moral, if done subtly and in good taste (for example, the Narnia books are over-the-top christian - I like them, but there are better-written books). What interests me is good literature, not good morals. Talent is a gift from God. Or from the devil. In a perfect world, I don't think there would be art. (Think about it.) How boring would that be?

Advice from a heretic with heathen tendencies, by the way.

 

[Michie]

You think a perfect world would contain no art? No creativity? Seriously?!

 

[Rebekka]

No good quality art that gives you a kick in the stomach and turns your world upside down, no. All we would do is praise God and obey him, right? No place for artistic weirdness.

 

[Michie]

No good quality art that gives you a kick in the stomach and turns your world upside down, no. All we would do is praise God and obey him, right? No place for artistic weirdness.

LOL!

Given God is the creator of all things good... things we cannot comprehend... I have no worries about challenging & interesting art.

I work in the field & the weird, kick you in the stomach art is mass produced. Boring.

Are you one of those people that think we'll sit on fluffy clouds playing the harp or something?

 

[Gwendolyn]

Don't write moralities. I don't turn to fiction to teach me a lesson about good and evil; if it does, it is by accident. Good literature can be immoral, amoral or sometimes moral, if done subtly and in good taste (for example, the Narnia books are over-the-top christian - I like them, but there are better-written books). What interests me is good literature, not good morals. Talent is a gift from God. Or from the devil. In a perfect world, I don't think there would be art. (Think about it.) How boring would that be?

Advice from a heretic with heathen tendencies, by the way.

I am the same way. My stories are never moral tales. Full of broken characters struggling to make sense of their broken lives. There is always a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel, but it is never something as obvious as God. Maybe other saving graces - love, mainly.

 

[Michie]

I am the same way. My stories are never moral tales. Full of broken characters struggling to make sense of their broken lives. There is always a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel, but it is never something as obvious as God. Maybe other saving graces - love, mainly.

God is love. The perfect kind anyway.

 

[Rebekka]

LOL!

Given God is the creator of all things good... things we cannot comprehend... I have no worries about challenging & interesting art.

I work in the field & the weird, kick you in the stomach art is mass produced. Boring.

Are you one of those people that think we'll sit on fluffy clouds playing the harp or something?

Mass produced art cannot kick you in the stomach.

God is artistic, we can't compete. In a perfect world, we wouldn't criticise God. We would only make boring affirmative "art". Also, in a perfect world there wouldn't be ugliness. We need imperfection and ugliness to appreciate beauty.

Well, the harp idea doesn't sound appealing.

 

[Michie]

Mass produced art cannot kick you in the stomach.

God is artistic, we can't compete. In a perfect world, we wouldn't criticise God. We would only make boring affirmative "art". Also, in a perfect world there wouldn't be ugliness. We need imperfection and ugliness to appreciate beauty.

Well, the harp idea doesn't sound appealing.

What I mean by mass produced is the majority of them out there creating things our of ego instead of creativity & actual talent. They are trying to produce what they consider edgy or offensive for all the wrong reasons.

Why would you critcize God in a perfect world?

It's not like brainwashing. We just can't comprehend it.

You can't compare it to what we are in now.

Thats like saying we need evil to determine what is good.

I don't see how an imperfect world could be any more interesting than a perfect one where everything would be limitless.

 

[Chrystal-J]

I write fiction and I'm able to slip in Catholicism, even if it's only a slight part of the story. I may have a wild tale to tell, but I usually try to show that God is the only way out of that situation. The trick to having it come off as "real" as opposed to having it seem staged or trite is to have the characters as realistic as possible. If someone's a criminal, then they may stay that way till the end (unrepentant), but others in the story may grow closer to God as a result of the unrepentant person's actions.

 

[MikeK]

I am the same way. My stories are never moral tales. Full of broken characters struggling to make sense of their broken lives. There is always a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel, but it is never something as obvious as God. Maybe other saving graces - love, mainly.

...and, judging by the movies that the Vatican has on it's "best" list, that is enough. There can be swearing, violence, truly evil people, and heroes who are not affiliated with the Church.

We have lots of miraculous, fantastic tales of Saints. You won't be able to write fiction better than the story of 18' tall St Christopher, so why try? Do your own thing. Make realistic characters, and maybe try to stick a moral in where people aren't expecting it.

 

[Michie]

You might be interested to read this Gwen.


Can an agnostic be divinely inspired? "Babette's Feast" is a Eucharistic allegory from an unlikely author...
You probably know at least a little about Danish baroness and plantation owner Karen von Blixen-Finecke. She was the heroine (Meryl Streep) who had a passionate but ultimately doomed love affair with a free-spirited big-game hunter (Robert Redford) in the 1985 romantic drama Out of Africa. She was an author who wrote under the pen name “Isak Denisen.

 

[Brooklyn Knight]

I'm just going to say this, if you're thinking about implementing feelings, bring this metrosexual, homosexual, any sexual stuff, bring other sorts of debauchery that has occurred with the werewolf and vampire genre in the last 20 years, I hope you, the writers/directors of Underworld, The Southern Vampire Mysteries, True Blood, Twilight, etc., be placed on a ship out in the Pacific and be bombarded with nukes from every country that has them.

If that's not what you are considering, then God bless!

 

[Fantine]

I tend to dislike any book or author that beats me over the head with its message.

As a writer of fiction you are telling a story, and the reader is interacting with the story, discerning his own messages and themes based on his life experiences.

Subtle messages are OK--heavy messages turn fiction into preaching.

From what I have seen on OBOB, I believe you are a person with solid values, and I think that any story you told, even as it was interpreted in many ways by many readers, would subtly convey many positive messages.