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Fiction Editor Alan Ackmann describes why designing a story around a moral can sometimes be a risky proposition.

My last blog mentioned that good writing does not judge its characters, and since discussion of this idea has appeared on other sites, I thought I’d make this the first in our series of common miscalculations. In Christian writing, judging characters most frequently manifests as overt moralizing on the writer’s part, so that the understanding readers are intended to take away is not of someone else’s life, but of how to live their own lives better.  The instinct to do this makes sense; God tries to tell us just what we should do, and we Christians try to comply.  Furthermore, the mostly pure intentions of Christian moralizing often amplify the instinct.  While some writers’ heritage still has a thread of “cast the sinners into the fire” fervor, most Christian stories overflow with compassion, their didacticism guiding rather condemning.  Personally, I often sense tension between my literary training (which tells me the writer should be a guiding, invisible hand, rarely sensed and never seen) and my Christian training (which practically mandates didacticism by telling me I should use my gifts to help people know God).  These two goals—one requiring absence, the other presence—seem initially irreconcilable, and I grapple with them as a writer and an editor.  As explained in a previous post, however, I ultimately gauge all aspects of fiction by their effect on characterization, which makes moralizing risky.  Here’s why: 

1. MORALIZING DIMINISHES CHARACTERS 

In its most blatant form, moralizing reduces characterization to allegory, the characters becoming blunt stand-ins for subtle truths. While not exactly medieval—we’ve never gotten a story where the main character is EVERYMAN and best supporting actor goes to a short, stumpy chap named WORLDY POSSESSIONS—many Christian stories still have characters that obviously represent concepts, which places undue attention on the author’s ideas over the character’s lives. One of fiction’s primary challenges should be resisting the instinct to see people as types, rather than individuals, and if a story would be unchanged by renaming the main character “Doubter” instead of Brian, or “Adulteress” instead of Jill, good characterization has not been achieved.  In exaggerating the moral, the author trivializes the people by trying to universalize individual experiences, indulging the fallacious belief that all people experience God the same way, when in fact everyone’s relationship with and knowledge of God is as complicated and particular as their own heartaches, fears, sins, and limitations.  It is true in life, and pseudo-allegorical moralizing sacrifices that truth in fiction.

2. MORALIZING DISRESPECTS READERS

Even with more precise characterization, designing a story around a moral still demonstrates implicit (or explicit) judgment.   The assumption is that some people behave well, some badly, and the author’s job is distinguishing the two.  While some behaviors should of course not be encouraged or condoned, if the goal of fiction becomes shedding light on how people should behave, rather than displaying—honestly, accurately—how they actually behave, the characters become devices in a miniature sermon.  In some contexts, this device can be powerful and useful, and many desolate people have been comforted, inspired, and swayed by rhetorical storytelling.  But while the pursuit is noble, I’m not sure it’s literary. Aesthetically, it seems no different than telling a story about why human rights violations should stop in Darfur, or why you should vote Democratic, or should clean your septic tank occasionally.  It is true that all art, if intelligently conceived and executed, presents some kind of worldview, and it is true that well-executed pieces, in explaining a character’s motivations or actions, have some argumentation.  It still seems to me, however, that the primary motive for art should be portrayal, not persuasion, and that the best art is realistic and honest enough to subtly guide readers towards their own understanding, rather than unpleasantly forcing the author’s understanding down the reader’s unsuspecting throats.

3. MORALIZING CAN CONTORT REALISM

Even when characterization is successful, overemphasizing “message” often leads writers to impose their own will upon characters’ actions, guiding their flawed, unruly creations to peace, or redemption not because they want it, but because the writer wants them to want it.  Having created realistic people, some authors create unrealistic epiphanies, sacrificing plausible psychologies for comfortable ones.  Again, the instinct makes sense: we’re told we should save people, and when our characters become three dimensional, flawed, and recognizable, we want to save them too—regardless of whether that salvation is plausible. But here’s the problem: when we impose salvation on a story—when we prematurely yank our characters from the precipice of their sin; when we wedge our square-pegged realizations into their round-holed souls; when we protect them from (to use Anne Lamott’s lovely phrase) “the ramifications of their less-than-lofty behavior”—the characters’ epiphanies become weightless and false, and since the stories’ evidence cannot support their conclusion, any resonance is muted.  The writer tells readers that things are okay when they aren’t, and astute readers will recognize the unearned ending and not like it.  After all, no reader, regardless of awareness, sensitivities, or attitudes, appreciates feeling misled. 

This does not mean, of course, that stories cannot feature strength, grace, love, salvation, or hope—many of the best stories do.  But the actualization of such events must be organically present within the story, rather than falsely imposed from without.

SO WHAT’S A WRITER TO DO?

Deemphasizing moral is a thorny, counterintuitive move for many Christian writers, since underneath these cautionary tales is the irrevocable truth that our gifts should glorify God.  I submit, however, that writers can fulfill this duty without resorting to cautionary tales and thinly veiled sermons.  And some specific methods of accomplishing this will be this series’ next topic. 

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Miriam Tucker  - Moralizing   |2008-04-04 00:33:07 Very useful analysis. I'm not sure that "deemphasizing moral" is the right term for what good authors should do. A Christian artist is like a non-Christian artist in that his portrayal of reality includes, as Edward Westin put it, "more than the eye sees". And since part of what artists see that others overlook is spiritual we are going to show it but in a manner that is very consistent with what mankind in general can see. The "deemphasized moral" or the organic reality is there in its most artistic and, I think, its most truthful written form. The idea that our primary duty is in portrayal and not persuasion is very helpful. Truth is its own persuasion. Maybe that's also why I instinctively recoil from Christian movies and music that really ladle on the emotional persuasion. Reply | Quote 0   0

Joshua Keel  - Thanks     |2008-04-04 14:40:02 Thank you so much for these thoughts on writing. They've been very helpful to me. Reply | Quote 0   0

Brad Fruhauff   |2008-04-16 01:36:05 Hear, hear! Parents, teach your children the words of a wise man. Write them on post-its and carry them in your lunch boxes. Well put, Alan.  I would echo Miriam, as I take her meaning, in that there is something to be said for the moral power of true, authentic, "good" writing in itself. Rhetorically, one might understandably remain reticent to mention it in that it could get confusing - your point is that writing to the moral usually leads to poor writing. I'd also point out your assumption of realism, which, as readers of the Diner know, isn't the only enjoyable form of legitimate fiction. Flannery O'Connor also pointed out that realists will differ over their beliefs in ultimate reality. I don't think this undermines your point, only adds another layer to consider. Thanks for the post. Reply | Quote 0   0

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