I believe that good fiction is amoral. The story's the thing, and if you try to force a story to adhere to a convention of morality (and who gets to decide that, eh?) you risk deforming it.

Fiction can carry a moral, certainly. But that's secondary to the story in determining if a work is successful as fiction. Fiction can educate, persuade, inspire - but it has to succeed as FICTION, not as propaganda.

Does anyone want to argue that, say, Uncle Tom's Cabin is a good book? And I'd argue, that, say, Animal Farm is a good book despite its ideology, not because of it. Or C.S. Lewis's Narnia books - they succeed as fiction, not just as allegories. I wasn't raised in Christianity and had no idea that they were allegorical until I was in college.

Do you believe that fiction should be written to support a moral standard or belief system? Do you believe ficton must carry a moral value? What does it mean for fiction to be "moral"? If characters behave in ways that do not align with your morality, should they be punished?

If, for example, you believe it would be immoral to betray a friend (to try to choose a relatively uncharged example), and you read a book in which the protagonist gleefully betrays her friends and is rewarded for it, would you consider that book offensive? Would you refuse to read any more of that author's work?

Do you try to write fiction that's in accord with a particular moral standing? Why? Why not?

Good fiction is amoral.

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Good fiction is amoral.

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I disagree, but probably in a way that you will agree with.

There is always a moral (or theme, if you will). Even if you try to write something that has no theme, that ends up being the theme.

I think you were saying that you have to let a story be itself, and not try to force some external moral onto it. I would agree with that. But the characters are living in a world of some sort, and there will be rules of behavior in this world. I really can't see anyway to get around that other than refraining from placing words on paper.

You are God to your story: you get to decide what is wrong and right. Your audience will consist of people who agree with your choices or are at least not offended by them.

Every story exists within its own moral universe.

I disagree with didactic diatribes of any ilk masquerading as something else.

What makes Lolita full of wonders?

All of Nabokov is wonderful just for the language alone. I keep reading Lolita, though, partly to see how he makes Humbert sympathetic. I haven't figured it out yet.

What is it about the story you find entertaining?

First of all, Beth, I completely agree: Harry Potter is evil. Artistically!

And about morals: I think if you start with a moral and build your story on it, you get a crappy story. (You could start with the moral, maybe, but the story's got to come first.) But if you put the story first, it will probably still have a great moral.

Aristotle said in Poetics that good drama instructs, and is moral. But stories written the second way, do. I don't think they can help it.

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making Humbert sympathetic is only amazing because of the way it works against a traditional anti-pedophile moral framework; without the belief that pedophilia is appalling, Lolita would just be really really good, due to the language, characterization, plotting, etc. It would not be extraordinary.

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So if the moral framework that indicates that pedophilia is appalling did not exist, do you think Nabokov would have still written the book?

Also, is it just the language, characterization and plotting you find entertaining? Or is there more considering Lolita is your favourite of all Nabokov's works? Or does the intensity of your enjoyment somehow rely on the moral framework you mention?

There seems to me to be a giant difference between the religious right denouncing Harry Potter because it is not Christian, and Nabokov making a pedophile sympathetic. Yet both have a moral stance at the core.

Perhaps the difference is that one insists on the infallability of their moral stance, while the other insists that you question yours.

And there seems to me to be a difference between choosing to explore morality through fiction, and insisting that fiction be moral, but damned if I can explain it.

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mor·al·is·tic adj
Characterized by or displaying a concern with the difference between good and evil or right and wrong

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mas·quer·ade    n.
A false outward show, a charade, an involved pretense

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Moralistic is moralistic and not some other thing. It is about scrutinising the goodness or badness of human action or character.

Why do you compare authors to critics?

That said, they do have to be real. Living with realistic consequences of their actions is part of that...but the integrity of the character as a person, someone that has a certain way of looking at the world and responding to it, that is essential.

Most authors simply jerk their characters around the stage like puppets (sorry MR , I'm just using a common metaphor) rather than trying to bring them to life as coherent individuals with their own needs, desires, and goals. Of course, fictional characters are puppets of their authors, but the essence of good puppetry is to make the puppet seem alive in its own right (MR is a good puppeteer, by the way :begging forgiveness .

And as long as I don't feel like the story is preaching a moral I can't accept, I'm okay with it depicting characters that I find both interesting and morally lacking.

That's not amorality. That's an open exploration of the roots of morality, finding out what a thing is before judging it. What is pedophilia, and what does it do to a man and the children he desires? What is totalitarianism, and what does it do to those who embrace it to liberate themselves from other forms of government?

Of course, this kind of exploration in fiction requires truly convincing characters. Conversely, your characters can never be truly convincing unless you allow yourself to explore their actions and worldview without prejudging it. This process is obviously going to be easier when you pick a character essentially based on yourself...to a point.

I understand why what happened happened, but it seemed like if the guy were really moral things would not have gotten as far as they got. But then, Card often remarks something to the effect that it is more moral to be temted and resist than never to be tempted at all.

I'm going to disagree with this on two levels.

First, good fiction almost always has morality to it, even if it is not a morality the reader agrees with.

Second, whether fiction is "good" or not should not be judged solely on technical merit. It should also be judged on whether it has a positive or negative impact on its readers. (Such a judgment will be subjective, but so is judgment of technical merit.)

So, taking Lolita (ahich I have not read) as an example, if the impact of the book has been to increase its readers' tolerance for sexual abuse, resulting in shorter punishment for abusers and a corresponding increase in the numbers of sexually abused children (I don't know that it has had such an impact -- I'm speaking hypothetically) I would argue that the book is immoral, and that whatever its technical merits, it is not good fiction.

Anyway, morals and fiction go together like cake and icing (unless you're my husband, who hates icing). For as long as there have been stories, the stories have been wholly or partially about some value that the creator holds dear.

What moral? Well, there are as many sets of moral codes as there are people, it seems to me. I find that some of the things that are dearest to me matter not to others. For one thing, I value honesty and communication more than most people I know. You won't find me judging people's sexual relations, for example, as long as they are honest, consenting adults. Heck, marry twenty people for all I care as long as they all know about it and are all right with it. (I wouldn't, but that's because I think it's difficult enough with just my husband! )

When I write, my main characters are honest, whatever else they do, because I find this so important. Others may not pick up on it, but there it is.

Morality, whatever we hold that to be, is a part of our lives and is a part of who we are. To the extent that we put a bit of us in our fiction, so goes the morality. Even if you are not writing about a moral.

Also, I think that stories founded on a moral can work, but they have to be about something else, too. If you want to condone euthenasia in your story, if you want to write a story about that, then you have to wait until you also get an idea for another story that can merge together with the euthenasia point.

<Do you believe that fiction should be written to support a moral standard or belief system? Do you believe fiction must carry a moral value?>

Not necessarily, leaning more to the not. As a reader, if I want to read something supporting moral standard and belief systems, I’ve plenty of non-fiction to read from. I gravitate to fiction for an imaginative tale, not a moral lesson. If the two do mix, it better be good. But I’d rather read fiction where the reader doesn’t have some sort of agenda, other than trying to entertain me.

I read the prequel to the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I forgot what it was called, so that should tell you something. I stopped there. My guess is the allegory stifled imagination.

<What does it mean for fiction to be "moral"?>
I’m not sure, nor am I sure I want to read fiction that will teach me a lesson. I don’t mind reading a lesson into it on my own, but I don’t want the writer to do anything but write a good tale.

<If characters behave in ways that do not align with your morality, should they be punished?>

Not at all. I wouldn’t want to be punished every time I failed to live up to my own standards. Most character do not “align”. If they did it would be too much like real life and less like an imaginative tale. It’s interesting reading segments that are from the bad guy’s point of view. Like Doro in Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind.

<If, for example, you believe it would be immoral to betray a friend (to try to choose a relatively uncharged example), and you read a book in which the protagonist gleefully betrays her friends and is rewarded for it, would you consider that book offensive?>

In this example, I wouldn’t consider the book offensive at all. Wrong, perhaps. Not an example to follow. But interesting.

<Would you refuse to read any more of that author's work?>

Not in that case.

<Do you try to write fiction that's in accord with a particular moral standing?>

Why shouldn't it? I mean, I don't like getting preachy either but I a book can contain a moral without getting preachy about it.

In fact, one of the reasons I write fiction is to communicate my thoughts, beliefs, attittudes, and i guess morals to the world. I hope I don't shove my issues down people's throats (it doesn't tend to work, as Chris pointed out) but why can't I intentionally put them there?

If you want to read about morals, you'll read non fiction? Gee, how boring: "Christine's Book of How You Should Behave" Wow. I don't even want to read that, let along write it!

Meanwhile, the number one source on morals in the U.S. and many other cultures is written, in great part, in allegories and praables.

I think we have to look at the result of an author's work. WHAT does it accomplish, what influence does it have? Every story has an influence, whether the author meant to "put their morals out there" or not. It's the same argument professional athletes use-- "I am not a role model." Well, guess what? Their works and the fruit of their labors are out there, whether they like it or not.

I don't believe that any published author does not want their thoughts to be spread out into the world and society at large. If all writers simply had a passion for the writing itself, then why not just scribble away in a closet somewhere?

I believe that all men (and women) want to be understood. We all share a piece of ourselves and our hearts through our work. That is unavoidable.

You can argue that morality is subjective until you're blue in the face. You can also argue that the world is flat and the sun revolves around the earth. It still won't make it so.

~LL

As to the main topic, I think that it's extremely hard (or impossible) to write a story worthy of notice without some sort of moral. I find challenging (and struggling to live up to) an accepted morality to be one of the main things that makes literature interesting.

However, I do not think that a story should be written with the specific intent of proving a moral, that's what sermons are for. The story should be written for the purpose of asking the question, not preaching the answer.

As an example, I was planning a story and I really liked the idea of the main character (who was raised to be violent) becoming a pacifist and sacrificing himself for the greater good and peace and whatnot. This seems to have worked out pretty well (in the idea stage). However, after that I wanted the war to stop because they all respected him so much and everybody lives in harmony (granted this is an oversimplified view of the situation).

It never seemed to feel quite right. Then I realized that it wouldn't happen like this, ever, particularly in the society that I constructed for this story.If I had forced the first plost so that I wouldn't have to sacrifice my morality, it would have killed the story.

It seems to me that rigid adherence to a set of morals is what tends to kill morality tales, not the morality of the morality tale in and of itself.

(I thought about making a statement here about morality, but...yeah)

I don't think it matters whether the morality is adhered to rigidly or not. The problem is when the moral point is allowed to overwhelm the story, forcing characters to behave in unbelievable ways in order to make the point.

In your example, the fact that other characters continue to make war even after your main character's sacrifice is not a violation of the moral point you seemed to be making (that war is wrong.) In fact, you can rigidly adhere to your moral point even if characters do not.

Your characters do not have to adhere to your morality (or the morality of the story.) You can make a moral point using characters who disagree with that moral point.

So I have a character who's very vocal about one side of a certain "morality" issue, because of events in her life. It is a view that I could plausibly hold...but I don't. As a matter of fact, I hold the opposite view quite strongly. The problem (for me) is that people may use the character's opinions to support their own on the (in my opinion) wrong side of the issue. I also don't want to misrepresent my own views, or to make it possible for people to say "oh, Jeraliey believed [this]. Just read [story]!"

The thing is that the issue is not a large part of my book; it's just one of the views that a character of mine thinks is important. I don't want to make a big deal out of it, or make it even a partial focus of my story.

Does this sound like a "suck it up and get over it" kind of situation, or can I do anything about it?

I'm glad the movies aren't starting with Diggory and Polly. Actually, Digory and Polly and Jadis were pretty cool. But I can see how the creation of Narnia couldn't be called subtle.

Another case of moral stifling is putting someone's moral beliefs in jeaprody, but handicapping the less favorable moral value so that whenever someone reads they story they say, "oh yeah, of course [moral] is better than [other moral]. Look how this story turned out...which ties into...

Jeraliey, I don't know if this helps but your predicament reminds me of something that debaters often say, "make your opponent's point better than they would and then refute it." Not to say that you should "punish" your character for holding this belief, but if you are worrying about it coming off wrong, maybe have someone else hold the counter-belief. It could be an interesting tension-builder. Or perhaps you're right and it's such a minor bit of your story that it isn't worth spending any energy on. Who knows?

Jon

P.S. To clarify further on my own story, the point I was trying to make wasn't that war is bad, it was that non-violent pacifism is the answer to violent conflict. I'm not saying that it can't be, but in the context of my story it isn't. Obtuse enough?

Morality is subjective, and so we do need to keep that in mind when writing. This means:
1) People will always misinterpret our work.
2) Our characters morals will never be exactly the same as ours.
3) Decide how important it is to you (the author).

I hope that we aren't responsible for every moral that seems to be proclaimed in our work, because in the last six months I've come up with some pretty questionable stories.

This statement is incendiary and highly offensive!

Probably would be more accurate if it said: "There seems to me to be a giant difference between some outspoken people, probably with a few screws loose, denouncing Harry Potter because it is not Christian, . . .".

Many of us that are of a religious bent and that have been known to vote for members of that gang of crooks represented by an elephant (as opposed to crooks associated with donkeys) actually quite like Harry Potter books -- even with its awful shortcomings!

Imagine how much money Rowlings would have made if she actually knew how to write!

It is usually the lunatic fringe of any group (or perceived group) that get the press.

Oh yeah, and I think that stories written with the primary intent of teaching a select moral generally come off forced and boring. I do like stories that inspire good character and clean living (so to speak), but they have to be REAL (I don't mean nonfiction here) stories.

I also hate long posts. I'll go kick myself now.

[This message has been edited by Lanius (edited June 15, 2005).]

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2) Our characters morals will never be exactly the same as ours

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Reminded me of something I read recently. Quoted from the acknowledgement page of S.M. Stirling's Conquistador.

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And a special acknowldgement to the author of Niven's Law:
"There is a technical, literary term fo rthose who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is 'idiot.'"

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As an aside, that is the first time I have ever quoted somebody quoting somebody. Hmmm....