I read a comment stating that authors should not preach in fiction books. I found that a rather interesting statement, not least because I did not agree with it. The commentator suggested that all the author was doing was reciting monologues through characters on whatever subject concerned them, be it race, sex, religion, etc. I know that some writers in the past have been guilty of what might be termed 'preaching' because they have a certain point that they want to push and they lack the skill to do it in a subtle fashion, but this is not true of all scriveners.
In all of my books I have presented arguments on subjects that interest me, but there's the catch; they are all arguments, not sermons. An argument needs a minimum of two sides, therefore, two people. In Eugenica, I tacked the subject of eugenics and examined how it devolves into dysgenics, the negative form. I did this by holding a fictional international congress of eugenics at which the various views of eugenicists were presented. It began with the original positive intention of improving the human race and developed into the later dysgenic approach seen in Nazi Germany. I am opposed to eugenics for various reasons, not least being a disabled person, and I wanted to express my opinion on the subject, not as a long and boring monologue but as a series of arguments that the reader could consider for themselves. I was not preaching, I was, in my opinion, educating people on the subject.
Other authors have done the same thing. Charles Dickens influenced social politics in Britain during the 19th century through his writings. Emile Zola did the same in France and Mark Twain in America, and there are many more examples from other countries. Their very success raised them to the status of international writers and influencers. A good story does not exist where all the characters either do not hold a single strong view or, even worse as it seems to reflect the current world that we are living in, are afraid to express it. A reader does not have to agree with everything that the author writes, just be open-minded enough to consider what is being said. If they really do not agree with a particular theme of a book, they can simply close it, put it down, and never read it again. That is their prerogative. I do not accept, however, that simply not liking a subject, or disagreeing with someone else's interpretation of it, is grounds for dictating to writers what they should or should not present to the reading public. If the reader has freedom of choice in their reading material then the author should have the same liberty concerning subjects they write about and which style they use.
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