Sin in fiction and writing?

[Shin]

When he fell, the citadel was surrendered. . . His recovery was very slow, and doctors and surgeons were summoned from all parts for a consultation. They decided that the leg should be broken again, that the bones, which had knit badly, might be properly reset; for they had not been properly set in the beginning, or else had been so jostled on the journey that a cure was impossible. He submitted to have his flesh cut again. During the operation, as in all he suffered before and after, he uttered no word and gave no sign of suffering save that of tightly clenching his fists.

In the meantime his strength was failing. He could take no food, and showed other symptoms of approaching death. On the feast of Saint John the doctors gave up hope of his recovery, and he was advised to make his confession. Having received the sacraments on the eve of the feasts of Saints Peter and Paul, toward evening the doctors said that if by the middle of the night there were no change for the better, he would surely die. He had great devotion to Saint Peter, and it so happened by the goodness of God that in the middle of the night he began to grow better.

His recovery was so rapid that in a few days he was out of danger. As the bones of his leg settled and pressed upon each other, one bone protruded below the knee. The result was that one leg was shorter than the other, and the bone causing a lump there, made the leg seem quite deformed. As he could not bear this, since he intended to live a life at court, he asked the doctors whether the bone could be cut away. They replied that it could, but it would cause him more suffering than all that had preceded, as everything was healed, and they would need space in order to cut it. He determined, however, to undergo this torture.

His elder brother looked on with astonishment and admiration. He said he could never have had the fortitude to suffer the pain which the sick man bore with his usual patience. When the flesh and the bone that protruded were cut away, means were taken to prevent the leg from becoming shorter than the other. For this purpose, in spite of sharp and constant pain, the leg was kept stretched for many days. Finally the Lord gave him health. He came out of the danger safe and strong with the exception that he could not easily stand on his leg, but was forced to lie in bed.

As Ignatius had a love for fiction, when he found himself out of danger he asked for some romances to pass away the time. In that house there was no book of the kind. They gave him, instead, “The Life of Christ,” by Rudolph, the Carthusian, and another book called the “Flowers of the Saints,” both in Spanish. By frequent reading of these books he began to get some love for spiritual things. This reading led his mind to meditate on holy things, yet sometimes it wandered to thoughts which he had been accustomed to dwell upon before.

Among these there was one thought which, above the others, so filled his heart that he became, as it were, immersed and absorbed in it. Unconsciously, it engaged his attention for three and four hours at a time. He pictured to himself what he should do in honor of an illustrious lady, how he should journey to the city where she was, in what words he would address her, and what bright and pleasant sayings he would make use of, what manner of warlike exploits he should perform to please her. He was so carried away by this thought that he did not even perceive how far beyond his power it was to do what he proposed, for she was a lady exceedingly illustrious and of the highest nobility.

In the meantime the divine mercy was at work substituting for these thoughts others suggested by his recent readings. While perusing the life of Our Lord and the saints, he began to reflect, saying to himself: “What if I should do what Saint Francis did?” “What if I should act like Saint Dominic?” He pondered over these things in his mind, and kept continually proposing to himself serious and difficult things. He seemed to feel a certain readiness for doing them, with no other reason except this thought: “Saint Dominic did this; I, too, will do it.” “Saint Francis did this; therefore I will do it.”

These heroic resolutions remained for a time, and then other vain and worldly thoughts followed. This succession of thoughts occupied him for a long while, those about God alternating with those about the world. But in these thoughts there was this difference. When he thought of worldly things it gave him great pleasure, but afterward he found himself dry and sad. But when he thought of journeying to Jerusalem, and of living only on herbs, and practising austerities, he found pleasure not only while thinking of them, but also when he had ceased.

This difference he did not notice or value, until one day the eyes of his soul were opened and he began to inquire the reason of the difference. He learned by experience that one train of thought left him sad, the other joyful. This was his first reasoning on spiritual matters.

Afterward, when he began the Spiritual Exercises, he was enlightened, and understood what he afterward taught his children about the discernment of spirits. When gradually he recognized the different spirits by which he was moved, one, the spirit of God, the other, the devil, and when he had gained no little spiritual light from the reading of pious books, he began to think more seriously of his past life, and how much penance he should do to expiate his past sins.

Amid these thoughts the holy wish to imitate saintly men came to his mind; his resolve was not more definite than to promise with the help of divine grace that what they had done he also would do. After his recovery his one wish was to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He fasted frequently and scourged himself to satisfy the desire of penance that ruled in a soul filled with the spirit of God.

 

[Shin]

The vain thoughts were gradually lessened by means of these desires - desires that were not a little strengthened by the following vision. While watching one night he plainly saw the image of the Blessed Mother of God with the Infant Jesus, at the sight of which, for a considerable time, he received abundant consolation, and felt such contrition for his past life that he thought of nothing else. From that time until August, 1555, when this was written, he never felt the least motion of concupiscence. This privilege we may suppose from this fact to have been a divine gift, although we dare not state it, nor say anything except confirm what has been already said. His brother and all in the house recognized from what appeared externally how great a change had taken place in his soul.

He continued his reading meanwhile, and kept the holy resolution he had made.

At home his conversation was wholly devoted to divine things, and helped much to the spiritual advancement of others.

• The Autobiography of St. Ignatius of Loyola as dictated to Fr. Gonzalez

'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

By “the poor in spirit” is meant those who are poor in earthly desires, and desire nothing but God. These are poor in desires, but not without affection, because they live contented even in this life; and, therefore, the Lord does not say, “Theirs will be the kingdom of heaven,” but “theirs is,” because even in this life they are rich in spiritual blessings which they receive from God; and thus, however poor they are in temporal goods, they live content with their condition.

They are different from the rich in earthly desires, who, in the present life, whatever riches they possess, are always poor, and live discontented; for the good things of this life do not satisfy our thirst, however much they are increased; wherefore, these persons are never contented, never attaining to the acquisition of what they desire.’

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

‘Then I read the Gospel, and saw there that a great means of reaching perfection was the selling of one’s goods, the sharing of them with the poor, the giving up of all care for this life, and the refusal to allow the soul to be turned by any sympathy towards things of earth.’

St. Basil the Great

‘Let us therefore leave the devil’s deceitful service and take nothing at his hand. For he nothing giveth but trifles; nor giveth half an inch of pleasure without one whole ell of pain.’

St. Thomas More

‘Deny your desires and you will find what your heart longs for. For how do you know if any desire of yours is according to God?’

St. John of the Cross

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[Sailor_Kenshin]

I’m a big reader, devouring books like donuts. And a bit of a writer as well (albeit not a great one!) I’ve always read a wide range of books, and my writings tend to be as varied, from fantasy to comedy to chilvalry and political revolution. I like writing about people, all kinds of people, from all different parts of the wold, cultures, faiths. My characters are Catholics and Christians, atheists and buddhists. Chaste newlyweds and those who didn’t wait for marriage. Angels, the devout, the doubting. Homosexuals who have chosen to live chaste lives, and others who have not.

I’ve always been drawn to these stories, writing and reading, because they had such a wide slice of humanity, showing how ones past, ones faith, one’s sins affect everything about oneself. I don’t, of course, think premarital sex or atheism is right, but I always felt it was merely portraying reality in fiction, and that to ignore and omit things about the world that were not pure would be a flawed portrayal of humanity.

However, today, I was told by a family friend (I don’t know her faith, but I’m fairly sure it isn’t Catholic) told me that to willingly acknowledge sin like this is just as bad as committing the sin itself, and that writing sin has made me sin.

I don’t understand, but I’m trying to. I was never intending to sin- my stories and the ones I love to read are not sexual nor violent bloodbaths. All along, trying to write what I saw in the world, have I been sinning?

As a fellow writer, I don’t think so— unless you glamourize the sin. But maybe that’s just me.

It depends HOW you treat the subject or sin and how you portray it. If you are glamourizing it, or not showing the consequences (because all sin does have consequences), then maybe you are tacitly promoting it.

I can’t really discern that without the details, though. But for example, I’ve read novels and watched movies that drag the reader/viewer through unimaginable filth and degradation with the excuse that ‘I’m just reflecting real life!’

I doubt you do the same thing, but it’s the portrayal of sin without consequence that is walking the tightrope between good work and bad work.

Dean Koontz, to use an example we both know, writes of many evil characters, but you are always clear as to the author’s viewpoint: evil is bad and not at all glamourous.

As a former WORKING author, since retired. do not let certain voices sway you into believing that your fiction must contain filth and degradation (which I assume it does not).

Murder mysteries can be moral, but they would not exist without the catalyst of the crime.

It’s early morning for me so I’m probably not expressing this as well as I could, but I pray you know what I’m getting at.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Let me give you the personal testimony you want so bad. I used to read “bad” “non-catholic” “non christian” books all the time. Did they bring me into a deeper and closer relationship with our Lord?

Reading secular, non-religious fiction isn’t about anything spiritual or moral. It’s about art. It’s like looking at the works of Leonardo and Picasso and trying to learn something you can apply to your own craft.

However, the more I read your friend’s quotes from the saints, the more I wonder if this guy even knows what it means to put a story together. The other two here, I could argue in terms of tastes, styles etc.

This guy? I don’t even know where to start.

The closest religious text that has ever inspired me is not something written by a saint but their biography. Why? Because a biography is also a story.

Lemme give a brief lecture on the elements of fiction: plot, characters, point-of-view, setting, theme, and style.

Now out of these six elements, only one is where all the spiritual and religious stuff you’re talking about applies: theme. The theme though is the underlying messages in any text (not just stories). Thus, you can say that both secular fiction and essays written by saints are capable of having a theme.

With that said, that’s the problem when you’re trying to lecture a writer with all these quotes. They barely relate to anything in the field of fiction writing. Furthermore, the fact that Shin’s post called writing (or any other creative art) a “dangerous vocation” didn’t help.

Well, what do you think? How can one get to Heaven when they don’t nurture their spiritual life…their friendship with God? I know what it’s like to tune into the secular world. Read evil books. Watch evil things on the tv. And it does the exact opposite of what you may think it does.

Seeing evil helps one paint a picture of what it really looks like and no, just because you paint a pretty intense one it means you’re glamorizing it. Trust me, I’ve seen it done. Heck I’ve watched a movie regarding human trafficking and its filled with stuff that would make Shin here faint.

But did I find it enticing? Heck no! I wanted to put all them pimps and pedophiles in that movie and put 'em in Saw-style death traps.

Unlike you Ther, I know myself to be natural (too natural) in seeing all that is wrong. Seeing evil though, compels me to do something to make it right. The same is what I plan for my own fiction.

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

Sin is never fashionable. It is a perversion of the good and true. If it is portrayed, it is always wrong. No anti-heroes, no dark heroes. Simply heroes and villains.

Peace,
Ed

I have to disagree with this. We live in a fallen world, not a cartoon world. Part of our job as artists is to honestly bear witness to the world as we experience it, not as we would like to experience it. Otherwise, we risk a couple things:

1–occluding a clear witnessing eye with delusional wishful thinking
2–setting ourselves up as false moral authorities
3–buying into moral cliches and stereotypes
4–risking the integrity of our work by forcing it to conform to some didactic agenda
5–abandoning the creative necessity of a work (which may require us to peer into dark places) for the comfort of our moral prerogatives

In short, we no longer have art, we have propaganda.

You may argue that all expression has some sort of element of propaganda to it in that some sort of point of view is espoused. Granting the point, I had a professor once who was fond of saying that everything is trying to make us remember or forget something. Everything, he said, was political. I have found, however, that the work that invites me to see more clearly, to feel more deeply, to remember more truly the world and my relationship to it, is the work which I value most, not the work that attempts to make me forget the circumstances of my life in order to present me with some black and white moral wonderland sort of universe which I know does not reflect an honest witness of the world as it is.

So give me Francis Bacon any day, or Rothko. Give me Durer, Caravaggio, Lucien Freud, Holbein, Hogarth, Michelangelo, Braques, Man Ray, deChirico and keep your Precious Moments. Give me Cristobal deMorales, Victoria, Byrd, Tallis and keep your praise band. Give me Ralph Stanley, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie. Give me Joy Division. Give me Jean Genet, Cormac McCarthy, Dostoyevsky, Graham Greene. Give me Seneca, Euripedes, Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Tennessee Williams, Sam Shepherd, John Osbourne, Edward Bond, Sarah Kane. Give me Milton and Blake, Eliot, Ginsberg, Kinnell, Merwin, Larkin. And more and more and more of their ilk who can express a powerful and uncompromising vision of the world.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

 

[edwest2]

Grace & Peace!

I have to disagree with this. We live in a fallen world, not a cartoon world. Part of our job as artists is to honestly bear witness to the world as we experience it, not as we would like to experience it. Otherwise, we risk a couple things:

1–occluding a clear witnessing eye with delusional wishful thinking
2–setting ourselves up as false moral authorities
3–buying into moral cliches and stereotypes
4–risking the integrity of our work by forcing it to conform to some didactic agenda
5–abandoning the creative necessity of a work (which may require us to peer into dark places) for the comfort of our moral prerogatives

In short, we no longer have art, we have propaganda.

You may argue that all expression has some sort of element of propaganda to it in that some sort of point of view is espoused. Granting the point, I had a professor once who was fond of saying that everything is trying to make us remember or forget something. Everything, he said, was political. I have found, however, that the work that invites me to see more clearly, to feel more deeply, to remember more truly the world and my relationship to it, is the work which I value most, not the work that attempts to make me forget the circumstances of my life in order to present me with some black and white moral wonderland sort of universe which I know does not reflect an honest witness of the world as it is.

So give me Francis Bacon any day, or Rothko. Give me Durer, Caravaggio, Lucien Freud, Holbein, Hogarth, Michelangelo, Braques, Man Ray, deChirico and keep your Precious Moments. Give me Cristobal deMorales, Victoria, Byrd, Tallis and keep your praise band. Give me Ralph Stanley, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie. Give me Joy Division. Give me Jean Genet, Cormac McCarthy, Dostoyevsky, Graham Greene. Give me Seneca, Euripedes, Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Tennessee Williams, Sam Shepherd, John Osbourne, Edward Bond, Sarah Kane. Give me Milton and Blake, Eliot, Ginsberg, Kinnell, Merwin, Larkin. And more and more and more of their ilk who can express a powerful and uncompromising vision of the world.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

Hi Mark,

Your list reminded me of college. I quickly learned that I was not being taught how to create art but to create propaganda. All of the student artists were doing the same thing the comic book artists were doing, copying their heroes. But often that meant copying meaningless scrawl and creating a story to give it meaning. I am tired of the lame cleverness and hearing about evil words like didactic.

If you want to be an honest witness then do documentaries.

1. My advanced painting class was nothing but delusional thinking. It was about the instructor sitting down with a student and their latest meaningless scrawl. If the student told an interesting story, the instructor gave him words of praise. If not, he was told “You are not realizing your vision” or similar.
2. I have a moral authority which I want to see expressed in the work I do.
3. There is a wide spectrum of human beings. I ask you, who establishes stereotypes?
4. I don’t mind being didactic.
5. Creative necessity? What does that mean? Writing and drawing are both about communication, and there are rules.

Most of my friends are writers and artists and fortunately, they aren’t interested in lengthy philosophical discussions about what they do. They write and draw knowing their work is meant to entertain and uplift. They are craftsmen.

At our local art museum, small cards had to be placed on the floor next to “serious” art. “Please do not remove. This is art.” They were worried the cleaning lady might spot their art and attempt to scrape it off the floor. After seeing that, I promptly quit college. I realized I was paying for Psych 101 and a half.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

1. My advanced painting class was nothing but delusional thinking. It was about the instructor sitting down with a student and their latest meaningless scrawl. If the student told an interesting story, the instructor gave him words of praise. If not, he was told “You are not realizing your vision” or similar.
2. I have a moral authority which I want to see expressed in the work I do.
3. There is a wide spectrum of human beings. I ask you, who establishes stereotypes?
4. I don’t mind being didactic.
5. Creative necessity? What does that mean? Writing and drawing are both about communication, and there are rules.

1. That wasn’t his point and you probably know it.
2. That does not make you the moral authority.
3. That wide spectrum doesn’t exist in the 50s happy camp you advocate.
4. Of course you don’t mind since you enjoy preaching to a choir so much.
5. The need to be creative? As in, you know, cool? Then again, that’s a bad word for you it seems.

 

[edwest2]

1. That wasn’t his point and you probably know it.
2. That does not make you the moral authority.
3. That wide spectrum doesn’t exist in the 50s happy camp you advocate.
4. Of course you don’t mind since you enjoy preaching to a choir so much.
5. The need to be creative? As in, you know, cool? Then again, that’s a bad word for you it seems.

Your defensive stance is inexplicable. My moral authority is God and I am accountable to God for every word I write.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Your defensive stance is inexplicable. My moral authority is God and I am accountable to God for every word I write.

Yet you are not God so don’t even start to assume you know His standards for judging every individual, much less fiction.

 

[edwest2]

Yet you are not God so don’t even start to assume you know His standards for judging every individual, much less fiction.

The Catholic Legion of Decency is my standard. I’m not talking about you.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

The Catholic Legion of Decency is my standard. I’m not talking about you.

That outdated group is not God either.
Thanks for missing my point, as usual.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

Interesting how you seem to think that everyone misses your point.

Perhaps we get it, rather.

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

Ed, I’m glad you’re willing to engage in the discussion. And I want to say at the outset that while I want to honor your intentions re: creating a moral art, I don’t agree with you regarding its usefulness or its general aesethetic value.

And I’d love to be able to continue the discussion without falling into two pitfalls:

1–mischaracterising what might be called “high art” as the domain of a benighted intelligentsia or the hobby of the foolish denizens of a dismissable academe. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion is, to my reckoning, perhaps the most beautiful and deeply moving work of art produced by Western Civilization. It is definitive, to me. But it’s not the property of intellectuals and academics any more than the Sistine Chapel is the sole domain of art professors. These things are “high art” in part because they recapitulate an entire culture and do so with sublimity and beauty.
2–mischaracterizing “popular art” as merely kitsch. This is a particular sin that I often commit. It’s an injustice to both art and kitsch.

Also, let me confess that my personal aesthetic proclivities tend toward the sublime rather than the beautiful. Give me a violent and turbulent Turner landscape any day over a lacey and twee Fragonard couple pushing each other on be-flowered swings in an overgrown French garden.

But onwards…

Your list reminded me of college. I quickly learned that I was not being taught how to create art but to create propaganda. All of the student artists were doing the same thing the comic book artists were doing, copying their heroes. But often that meant copying meaningless scrawl and creating a story to give it meaning. I am tired of the lame cleverness and hearing about evil words like didactic.

I’m sorry you had such an experience. You’re certainly right that the art world is filled with pretty frauds. I’m very torn by Damien Hirst–I admire his audacity and his willingness to shock, but there’s often very little there there. Gazing at a shark in formaldehyde is thrilling for a few moments. But after that… I often think that in a lot of conceptual art these days, the concept takes precedence over the art. The serious sense of play that ignited the Dadaists, for instance, seems to have left the building entirely.

If you want to be an honest witness then do documentaries.

I think you’ve missed the point here. The purpose of creating something fictional is not to create something untrue or unreal as opposed to a true or real documentary. Fiction, too, is an instrument of truth and conveys reality quite well. Look at Henry James. Graham Greene. The virtue of fiction is that it is a reordering of the data of experience into an image of the world that most clearly reflects a passionate vision of life and humanity as it is lived and experienced by the artist–our encounter with it represents, in part, an expansion of our experiential horizons. Fiction is often better at expressing this vision, at bearing witness, than a documentary.

(CONTINUED…)

 

[lil_flower_luv]

Oh, how I wish I could get through to you, Kyle!! But, I’m sure you remember the Twilight thread, and we went back and forth until it closed. I’m so sorry I don’t have the right words…I keep trying to pray to the Holy Spirit to inspire me. God help me, but I just don’t have the words.

Peace & Blessings
~LFL

 

[Deo_Volente]

(…CONTINUED AND COMPLETED)

1. My advanced painting class was nothing but delusional thinking. It was about the instructor sitting down with a student and their latest meaningless scrawl. If the student told an interesting story, the instructor gave him words of praise. If not, he was told “You are not realizing your vision” or similar.
2. I have a moral authority which I want to see expressed in the work I do.
3. There is a wide spectrum of human beings. I ask you, who establishes stereotypes?
4. I don’t mind being didactic.
5. Creative necessity? What does that mean? Writing and drawing are both about communication, and there are rules.

1–Again, I’m sorry about your art school experience.
2–I’m sure that you do, which is not, in itself a bad thing. Our morals will necessarily affect the sort of art we create because they reflect the values we hold. My point, though, is that beginning to believe that one is a moral authority becomes a great danger to one’s work. I try not to judge the people I write and I am conscious that the worlds they inhabit are very much shaped by own values, loves, fears and prejudices. In other words, they live in flawed worlds and those flaws are my own. If I judge anything in my work, I seek to judge myself, not my characters or their behavior. Because I am conscious of having skin in the game, this keeps me, I hope, honest and helps me avoid a moralising tone.
3–I’m not sure of your point here. Are you arguing that a stereotype or a cliche has an intrinsic artistic or aesthetic value?
4–That’s fine. Personally, I do not care for didactic art. While I love Aristotle’s Poetics and agree that learning is pleasurable, I do not believe that this argues for works of art that have discrete morals to them ala a fable from Aesop. Life, I believe, is more complicated than that.
5–I’m sure you’ve experienced this. There are times when creating something that the work seems to take on a life of its own, demanding certain courses of action, dictating twists and turns, movements and directions than an outline or a preliminary plan could not possibly have foreseen. Art may indeed involve communication, but what is being communicated and the means by which it is communicated may differ from work to work. Bacon, for instance, constantly strove for the creation of “sensation without the boredom of conveyance.” Clearly, something is being communicated, but that something is not necessarily discursive, linear, or purely logical. In fact, it is much more primal and visceral.

Most of my friends are writers and artists and fortunately, they aren’t interested in lengthy philosophical discussions about what they do. They write and draw knowing their work is meant to entertain and uplift. They are craftsmen.

While it should be clear by now that I don’t believe that the primary purpose of art is to entertain or uplift, I do share your admiration of craftsmen. Too much noise and not enough craft is certainly a recipe for an aesthetic plague, soo too is too much craft and not enough substance (which is part of my dislike of Fragonard, and even the Impressionists). Someone like Walton Ford, however, I find deeply moving–there is an intense craft at work, as well as a richness of substance.

To my reckoning, there is a problem when craft is used solely to convey a singular message or meaning that is on par with a concept overpowering a work of conceptual art. Perhaps this is where our disagreement, such as it is, lies in that you don’t see the two as comparable?

At our local art museum, small cards had to be placed on the floor next to “serious” art. “Please do not remove. This is art.” They were worried the cleaning lady might spot their art and attempt to scrape it off the floor. After seeing that, I promptly quit college. I realized I was paying for Psych 101 and a half.

I strikes me that there are multiple problems here ranging from the art and the artists to the audience and the cleaning staff!

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

 

[edwest2]

I like to be straightforward. I’m familiar with the complexities that you speak of, but my maxim is part, use your imagination and write what you know. That works for any time period or genre.

I think you entirely missed the point about the little card on the floor. My Art (Indoctrination) Appreciation Class Instructor tried to convince us that a solid rectangular block of plexiglas with metal rods sticking out of it represented a man’s life. Or my favorite: a spiral of duct tape on the floor at the local museum. Again, a man’s life.

I find that almost invariably, most beginning writers try to copy whatever inspired them. The same with artists. They attempt to use the same turn of phrase or other device, or they simply do writing that mimics the way they think writers write.

I know how stories take on a life of their own and how occasionally flashes of insight (seemingly from nowhere) provide a twist or turn that was unplanned but let’s be honest. Whether you are a writer or an artist, if you wish to be taken seriously then you have to deal with critics. No disrespect intended, critics represent a quasi-religious hierarchy. You can be the best writer in the world and no one knows you, but one day, Mr. Critic has paid one of your works a compliment. The critic’s followers, let’s call them, pay attention in turn. As you move up the ranks of critics, you go from everyday person to someone important. Your writing is labeled important and the adjectives begin to flow. Perhaps, if you are lucky, you will be accepted into the pantheon of the great writers, or be denounced as a commercial hack who does books for the masses and those who read novels on subways. You see?

All of us work from an idea of what writing should be. You have your idea and I have my idea. I prefer to do work that is suitable for the mass market. All I’m saying is that means there is a spectrum of persons and approaches to writing. We all take the approach that suits us. For me, this gift needs to be handled a certain way.

When I use the word stereotype, I’m asking you to consider who defines it. For example, every decade has certain bits of iconography that defines it; a lot of it crude and commercial. You see? Who decides to identify any particular item or belief or mode of behavior as typical for a given time?

Hope this helps,
Ed