Creative Writing and Sin

[edwest2]

Yes, good role models in stories are needed. I hope everyone finds the following helpful:

w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_29061936_vigilanti-cura.html

Best,
Ed

 

[CRATUS]

But the problem is that life is morally grey to some extent: even the best of people do less-than-honorable things on occasion, and even someone who leads a sinful life can still do something good.

I think this is very truthful. It is not just black and white.

 

[edwest2]

People need very good role models, even in fictional stories, and these stories need to contain values, not morally ambiguous heroes. As Catholics, we’re called to a life of virtue. My co-editor reminded me after handing me the last manuscript I edited: “No profanity.”

People wonder why things “change.” People promote an “it’s all good” or “do your own thing” culture where every form of behavior is considered neutral or acceptable. In our stories, we’re going to make it clear that there is a right and wrong. Oh sure, certain characters can do the wrong thing but it will not be presented as a good thing or neutral thing.

In our own way, we are going to model behaviors in our stories with characters that are a lot more black and white than anything out there today - referring to secular fiction, especially TV and movies.

Ed

 

[Kevin12]

Thank you for this excellent post. Yes, the arts should lift us up and teach us!

The fact that the arts should uplift us doesn’t mean that the kind of black and white schmaltz people a lot of people on this thread seem to think of as art is actually the right way to uplift them. There are all sorts of Catholic writers like Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy and Graham Greene who wrote in the very “literary” style that so many of you seem to abhor, and wrote stories that some interpreted as morally ambiguous or even nihilistic when the message bellow the surface is in fact profoundly Catholic.

 

[Dorothy]

The fact that the arts should uplift us doesn’t mean that the kind of black and white schmaltz people a lot of people on this thread seem to think of as art is actually the right way to uplift them. There are all sorts of Catholic writers like Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy and Graham Greene who wrote in the very “literary” style that so many of you seem to abhor, and wrote stories that some interpreted as morally ambiguous or even nihilistic when the message bellow the surface is in fact profoundly Catholic.

Flannery O’Connor is a favorite of mine; she is thoroughly Catholic and loves her brothers and sisters in Christ who are not Catholic. Some may need “cliff notes” to understand what she is getting at.

Literary styles not only uplift, they also teach.