Hate my work, hate me...possibly

the_epic asked me if, as a writer, I worry about being judged as a person for my writing (and subject matter, by extension).

Answer: Yes, I do. Why? Because writing is a moral act.

Does that mean there are things that we just SHOULD NOT write, if we are decent people? I think so. I think we SHOULD NOT write erotic stories about raping children. We SHOULD NOT write the equivalent of blood libel stories.^* We just should not use words to dehumanise other people. We might also have a positive moral duty to use literature in life-affirming ways.

Or not. If you don't buy that, try this: writing requires empathy and a working conscience. Morality may not impose any restrictions on what we write, but the act of writing is not going to produce anything worth reading unless the writer is capable of moral thought. We need an understanding of how real people actually feel (both the strong and the weak, the victims and the oppressors) and a sense of justice, the fitness of things.

A story contains a moral world. In the world of Hannibal (the movie), it is okay for Hannibal to murder whoever he wants to. He doesn't receive comeuppance, and it is never implied that he is in the wrong. Morality is a part of the willing suspension of disbelief; what is right or wrong in the story is under the control of the writer/narrator. We feel betrayed when a writer uses this control to create a moral world that we find repugnant. It makes us feel all ooky.

Can we judge an author based on the work? It would be difficult and probably doomed to failure, but I don't think it's an entirely stupid idea. Most bad stories are just technically bad -- the author is immature, incompetent, or too lazy to do a good job. Some horrible abortions of fiction are more clearly the result of narcissism and other personality disorders; a few are actually offensive. Morally offensive books are memorable; you probably remember the very first book you ever read that really pissed you off and gave you the creeps.

I also think an author can WRITE perfectly decent stories and still LIVE an immoral life. The reverse is not true, I don't think. Anyone who wrote truly horrible things would not be invited to my dinner parties or allowed to pet-sit my cats. Because of the ookiness.

So that is my answer, and that is what I think of people who write Family Guy darkfic for non-ironic reasons.

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^* Blah blah disclaimer. Yes, Lolita is a good book, yes I'm sure there are good books written around the blood libels. I'm talking about writing that fails to problematise morally repugnant things, and you know it.