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26/4/17 23:13I wish there was as much socially conscious amateur criticism of literary fiction as there is for SFF; I mean, with the way things go, probably a fair amount of it would be "depicting a bad thing is bad," and most of the rest wouldn't get much further with the things that I'm wrestling with than I have, but. I feel like I'm stuck, sometimes.
I'm deeply ambivalent about what kinds of moral responsibilities fiction writers have. (I'm pretty certain about my the kinds of responsibilities I feel wrt my own fiction writing but that's a different ball of wax). And at the same time, I don't think that the discomfort I feel about story X is a matter of technique. I don't want to be prudish, I don't want to say that some subjects are off limits.
But if you're asking your readers to follow you through some dark places, I think you've got to think about whether you're giving them enough light to get out again.
I'm deeply ambivalent about what kinds of moral responsibilities fiction writers have. (I'm pretty certain about my the kinds of responsibilities I feel wrt my own fiction writing but that's a different ball of wax). And at the same time, I don't think that the discomfort I feel about story X is a matter of technique. I don't want to be prudish, I don't want to say that some subjects are off limits.
But if you're asking your readers to follow you through some dark places, I think you've got to think about whether you're giving them enough light to get out again.