So, right now, I think I may be able to guess what many of you are thinking, which is, upon looking at the title: Hey, didn’t we just read this like a week or two ago? To which I say, yes,  almost.

For those of you who weren’t yet thinking, but now have looked up and noticed the similarities in the title, yes, it’s almost the same topic. In fact, there’s only a single word of difference.

See, a few weeks ago, I wrote an article about contrasting an author’s morals versus a character’s morals, talking about some of the difficulties new authors—or really any author—could run into while writing a story that contained characters with viewpoints or beliefs that disagreed with the authors. And, though you should probably go read that article if you want the highlights, the conclusion was that you shouldn’t be afraid to write characters who are not you that you disagree with, though there was the additional caveat that you should consider theme, and whether or not that character will detract from the theme you’re instilling into your work.

Then, a short time later, I wrote another post, this one discussing theme, message, and the difference between the two. It discussed how theme could become message, how message could distract from an otherwise good book, and how you could help keep the balance between having a theme without becoming message fiction.

Well, today we’re combing those two topics, bringing everything back around for another look. Because we’ve talked about characters having different views/morals than an author, and how that’s okay. We’ve also talked about the difference between theme and message, and how to try and hit that balance between “there’s a point” and “this is the point and you will accept it.” So now, with both of those in mind, we’re going to blend  them together a bit and tackle a slightly different question (to wit, two word’s worth of difference, which can go a long way).

Today, we’re going to talk about author morals once more, but this time how they relate to the theme of your story, the morals that it presents and ascribes to. We’ve already declared that it’s okay to have a character that you personally disagree with, but what about a theme or a moral? Should that same logic applied to characters that you disagree with also extend to the very themes of what you write?

Some of you, I gather, have already reached an answer. Or to be more accurate, I should likely say answers. See, the reason that this is a topic in and of itself is because right now, in the US particularly, but likely extending in small amounts to other writing regions as well, there is a “progressive” movement that argues quite vocally that “Yes, an author should write themes—or with these movements, more accurately messages—that they disagree with.” They use a variety of arguments, from “It’s the author’s duty to write what the public wants, and we’re the ‘public,’ so therefore they need to write what we want to read” to “An author is only limiting themselves if they only write morals that they support”—usually followed by a list of their “demands” for what the author should write instead.

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