Ah, a break from the agent blogs! This time I found this post-sparker on The Toasted Scimitar, a site I’d highly recommend to anyone writing science fiction or fantasy (can be found in my sidebar). They like to stab cliches like the plague over there. It’s fun. Anyway, this is a blog with multiple posters and Sparky posed a question, should authors feel obligated to relay a certain moral message with their writing?

Now, just to start, I think it’s quite hard to completely shut off everything you know about the world around you and work from a “blank slate.” Even at our vehement urging, pieces of ourselves always end up on our works, whether we want them to or not, whether we realize when we’re writing it or not until we’re editing it but a piece is always there. It can be a personality trait in a character, a physical trait, a hobby, whatever. There’s usually something, however small, that portrays the author in some way.

However, I think if an author is creating a non-Christian fantasy world that functions off of an entirely different set of beliefs, I’d be a little taken aback if a character went against that world’s views in order to express the authors when they very obviously didn’t fit. At the same time, I also don’t want to be preached to and that goes beyond the religious fray. That is, of course, unless I’m picking up a book that’s specifically going to do just that. Then you’d expect it, obviously.

As an author, it’s our job to tell the story and let people come to their own conclusions about whether or not what they read was right or wrong. We shouldn’t be shoving anti-drug messages down people’s throats in fiction pieces or harping on how horrible abortion is in a young adult novel. Really, that’s not our place. Many types of fiction are just not the appropriate place to wear your beliefs on your sleeve. If you’re writing a political thriller, fine. You’re obviously going to take sides in that one and I’m sure it’ll be blatantly obvious. But if you’re telling a story about a girl in a world completely disassociated to our own, don’t preach on about how she views the natives as “savage murders,” especially when she should be fully aware of their existence and, according to that society, fully accepting of their practices. It just doesn’t sit right, at least not for me.

In Diamond Crier, one of the festivals comes with what’s called Bacca at the end of it. In the words of one character, “What better way to preserve life than doing the act that creates it?” For this festival, it’s the Western Wane or, more simply, the autumnal equinox, leading into winter and into yearly death. As a preservation and assured continuation of life when everything thaws, people get their groove on in Bacca style. If you haven’t figured out where I got Bacca from, it’s nicely derived from the Bacchanalian rites from ancient Rome and Greece. Yes, orgies. Yes, this is a YA novel.

How can I have a YA novel and have OMG orgies??? in it? Well, for one, it’s mentioned in passing and only people that get the reference and connect the dots will know what I’m talking about. Two, there’s an age minimum for people to attend but that varies on situations. At the Giver’s Castle where the story is set, the Criers are really the only people they need to worry about and they’re split into the Youngers and Olders, the line of demarcation being 20. Youngers (19 and under) are not allowed at the rites here. There’s much chagrining amongst the older Youngers but they must deal. Also, it’s not a traditional orgy but more of a theatrical show. Yes, there is real sex involved but the acts are performed by performers trained in the rites. Viewers are welcome to join but many, especially the older people, prefer to just watch.

On top of that, there’s a rumor spread amongst the Criers that once a Younger becomes an Older, they get shoved into the giant hedge maze in the park behind the castle with a member of the opposite sex in order to attempt to “further the Crier line.” Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what the Giver is making them do. No force involved, no third parties but if you’re told to go in there, that’s what you’re expected to do. The usurping Giver is trying to bypass the natural order of things (the Crier gift is not genetic and can only be passed on by the real Giver via the world’s magic, sucks for Jev) and while he really does know it won’t work, he tries it anyway. Gotta love ignoring that gut feeling.

So I have two major sexual circumstances in my world that would be wholly unacceptable in our society but are just kind of brushed off in this one. Do I feel I have an obligation to “teach” my readers about “underage” sex? No, that’s not my job. I’m just telling a story but it doesn’t make it easier to tell. I keep thinking, “well, is this too much, would it be publishable, should I tone it down,” because even though they’re things only mentioned in passing, they’re still there and not really in the background. It makes me a little nervous but I write it anyway.

At the end of the day, I say don’t preach if that isn’t what you’re book is about. Tell a story, do it well and that’s the end of that. Most people don’t read to learn a moral lesson. They just read to escape the real world. Kind of hard to do that when the real world’s issues are being shoved down your throat in a place you didn’t expect it to be. I feel no obligation to do anything more than tell a good story. What about you?

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