There are so many opinions about what writing should accomplish. At one extreme are those who believe that writing should do nothing but entertain. This group is dominated by those who try to write to the market, meaning that they choose their literary topics based on what they think contemporary readers want. Some of these authors are driven strictly by profit (and feel totally comfortable saying so). But everyone in this category is focused entirely on the readers’ pleasure. For them, writing is a way of satisfying an entertainment desire. These are writers like James Patterson.
On the other extreme are those who write to make others aware of social or global situations. They want to raise questions, cause people to think about tough issues, or provoke change in the world. Much of literary fiction falls into this category. Writers such as Khalid Hussain and Jodie Picoult tend to be in or close to this category. They may hope to make a money from writing (don’t we all?), but their writing appeals to a smaller market of those who want to learn about a subculture or unaddressed conflict. There they can grow in their awareness of the world and the lives of those who live in marginalized, disadvantaged, or simply different situations from their own.
And then there’s the majority of the market – those of us who are somewhere in the middle.
Unless you’re on the first extreme, wanting to say nothing to readers but come immerse yourself in this escapist fiction, you probably want to examine some theme. You may have something you want to say about human nature – about the things we fail to understand or the ways we fail each other, and what we can learn – or about how the world works (or should).
But how can you do it without sounding preachy?
Since I’m also in this category, I give this a lot of thought. Here are the three things that I’ve noticed in works by authors who manage to say powerful things without sounding overbearing.
The Power of Balance
If there’s one thing that will make any novel seem preachy, it’s one-sidedness. Let’s say that you set out to write a story about a young man who’s jaded about love. He’s seen nothing but failure – from his parents’ messy divorce, to his best friend’s infidelity. You bake in a mentor character who wants to convince him that faithful love is a good thing, worth fighting for.
Your intentions are great. It’s a good message. But if all your character experiences from the start of the novel is examples of good-ish [hopefully none of them are so unrealistically perfect that we all want to vomit in our own mouths] love relationships and your mentor’s sappy words about fidelity (though I’m certainly all for it), the book is going to smack of preachiness.
Does that surprise you?
We tend to assume that preachiness is always rooted in moral or religious themes. But it doesn’t have to be. Even if your protagonist struggles against these good-ish examples and learns things along the way, most readers won’t resonate with this type of story. It’s too one-sided.
Your protagonist needs to believe that faithful love is good despite the fact that many love stories are steeped in trouble. He needs to learn to see something higher amidst the rubble. Force him to do that. Put him up against the wall until he learns that there’s value even in heartache and difficulty. That’s much harder to write, but it’s what will influence readers the most.
The Other Characters’ Struggles
Along with your protagonist’s struggle to learn this lesson, show other characters waging the same war to a lesser extent.
Do you ever watch television shows like Parenthood? If you have, you’ll notice one thing almost immediately. The screenwriter(s) have created a number of characters, whose lives intersect, but who are all struggling with the same issue: parenthood. There’s power in that.
It’s the multi-faceted nature of the struggle that can speak to so many different types of readers. While your protagonist is faced with a potential new relationship that he doesn’t want and is trying to avoid, think of several other angles he could witness. Maybe his divorced mother is in a difficult second marriage and it isn’t going to improve. Perhaps his best friend – the one who had an affair – is facing the fallout from his decision.
Show as many angles as you can so that readers see the good, the bad and the ugly. But steer your protagonist towards the lesson he needs to learn.
The Implicit Answer
In the end, there should be an answer. It might not be everyone’s answer, but it’s yours – the writer.
I mentioned Jodi Picoult before. She’s a master at exploring touchy, controversial subjects such as gay rights, autism, religious faith, euthanasia, and school shootings. And in interviews she’ll say that she doesn’t know the answer to these things; that she’s exploring them along with the reader. I’m sure that’s true, but if you pay attention to her writing, in the end, she comes down on one side or the other.
And you should. Your character has to land somewhere. But if you’ve done a great job of giving him a lot of challenging questions and options to explore – equally – on all sides of the issue, his choice won’t feel like a mandate for readers. Instead, it should leave them wondering what they might have chosen in his place.
Conclusion
These are the things that I consider when I’m crafting my stories. I tend to lead with my theme – what I want to say in the work – but I want it to be hard for my characters. I want the protagonist (and many of the other characters) to have to struggle with many different ways to look at the issue. That way, when they finally land in the end, readers will have seen why they did so – that they explored the other options and found them lacking.
If you write with a moral lesson, let me know! I’d love to hear how you broach these types of themes in a balanced way that doesn’t leave readers with the impression that you’re preachy.
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