Watch out, that's my head you're bashing!

I've come home to box up stuff from my old room in my parents' house, but like most times I visit, I have ended up sitting in the cold front room on my parents' computer wasting time on the internet. It's a good thing I got Sunday off- I always spend my first day here doing nothing.

So, I'm going to take this time to spew a little. Today's topic is how much I hate it when writers forget that they are telling a story and start shoving some philosophical or religious dogma down my throat. There is a fine line between writing a story that means something and writing a parable. When the story becomes merely the peripheral trappings for an author's belief structure, I cannot suspend my disbelief and invest myself in the characters and their struggle. The intent of writers like these is to sucker me into believing in their doctrine by writing a story that shows how perfect and right their beliefs are. Ironically, I instead disconnect from the story and feel only scorn for their underhanded tactics.

The most recent author I've come across who does this is Terry Goodkind. He is an objectivist (following in the footsteps of Ayn Rand), and writes a fantasy series called the Sword of Truth. I actually enjoyed the first few books, because although I could see the elements of objectivism he was weaving into the story and his characters, he managed to keep everything balanced. On the surface it was a story about a young man discovering his past and taking on the responsibilities he has inherited, but it was also about the strength and dignity of the individual, the benefits of equality in relationships, and loyalty. It was a commentary on how a society can become undermined by believing itself responsible for the welfare of the rest of the world. (This is a complicated issue, and my own beliefs differ slightly from the objectivists on this one)

But that was just in the first three or four books. A little in Soul of the Fire, but certainly by Faith of the Fallen, his characters became flat and uninteresting, the story cyclic and overdone. He began proselytizing, first using the dialogue of the characters, then the internal monologues, and finally the voice of the third person narrator. I never finished Naked Empire, and have no plans to read Chainfire, or any other book in the series. Somewhere along the line he forgot one of the most important creative writing adages- "show, don't tell."

This is actually something I worry about when I write my own stories. I want them to mean something; I want them to make a statement about life and mankind's journey and what it means to be human. But at the same time I don't want to alienate people by becoming preachy or overbearing. I want to show them what I think, not bash them about the head with it. For this reason I always ask people I trust to read my stories before I've finished doing revisions. I know, for example, that my best friend will not pull her punches in telling me what she thinks. I just created a community over at livejournal for artists and writers to get honest critiques, and I'm hoping that will be another forum for me to get the occasional slap in the face when I become overbearing in my work.

That's all for now. This room is freezing and I can hardly feel my fingers and toes. Off to read some more of The Fabulous Riverboat.