You Scream And He Twists, As If He's Trying To Run, Even Though Hes In The Air. A Net Shoots Out, Catching

You scream and he twists, as if he's trying to run, even though he’s in the air. A net shoots out, catching him perfectly. He wails as it captures him, yanking him back. He slams into the wall and thrashes, struggling desperately to release himself. The guards help you up and, as you watch Jr being dragged onto the wall, tears running down his cheeks, it clicks. ‘He’s a werewolf…’ Terror immediately grips you. They can’t find out. They can’t put him down there. He’s not a monster. He’s not going to hurt anyone. What if they find out who his family is? You pale, your mind immediately going to Jr’s little brother. He wouldn’t last a DAY in there… You whirl on the guards, “We’re so sorry! We just wanted to see the city!”, you break down crying, unable to hold yourself together, “Please don’t punish us! We’ll go back to the city! We won’t come back anymore! We promise! Please-” “Calm down ma’am.” You sniffle and the guard continues, “We’re just gonna take you in, get you tested, to make sure you’re not wolves. But you DID break a major law. This is going to hold a hefty fine.” Your eyes flick to Jr. He’s curled tightly in on himself, trembling violently. Why the Hell did he have to come up here when he KNEW he was in so much danger. What kind of idiot, BEING A WEREWOLF, would go to the one place he SHOULD BE AVOIDING. You start crying all over again, “Please, we’re not werewolves! We’re just dumb kids! We just wanna go ho-ome!” I’m sorry ma’am, if you’ll just come with us, we’ll test you real quick, then set you free…” When it becomes obvious that bawling isn’t getting you out of it, you start fighting desperately. You can’t let Jr be taken. Why had you been so stupid!? Why hadn’t you just MADE him stay in town. Why didn’t you just FOLLOW THE RULES? The guard slams you to the ground and you let out a cry. “Please stop fighting ma’am. This’ll only take a second. If you’re clean, you have nothing to fear…” And like that, you’re dragged inside the tower.

You glare, “Shut up,” but can’t stop yourself from hugging him. He stiffens, but then wraps his arms around you, “Wow I never thought I’d miss such a little brat so much…” You laugh, but it’s a little strangled as tears pour down your cheeks. Jr holds you for a little while, letting you cry, then pulls you gently off him, laughing, “You’re getting my shirt all wet…” You laugh too, “Sorry…” You sniff, “I’m so glad you’re ok…” Jr laughs, “Me too…” You wipe your eyes and laugh again, relief making you light hearted. Jr’s dad clears his throat. Jr looks at him, “Can she come in?” His dad glares, “You want me to let a STRANGER in MY house?” Jr glares, “Yes. She’s a friend of mine. I trust her.” His dad snaps, “You know what trust does? It gets you killed…” Jr snaps back, “Yeah? And what about YOUR friends? Do they just NOT COUNT?” The door opens and you jump, looking over at it. A woman walks out. She has black hair with purple streaks and a cold expression. You shrink a little. Somehow, she’s scarier than Jr’s dad. She glances at you, then Jr, “Jr, honey, what’s going on?” Honey doesn’t sound very friendly coming off her tongue… Jr shrinks a little, “I… Wanted to let my friend in…” She gives you a once over. Unspoken words sear your tongue. Maybe if you were braver you would say something. But you're not, so you stand muted, just staring at her. She turns back to Jr, “Why? You’ve seen her already. You’re not THAT close are you?” Jr studies the ground, “No… But I haven’t seen her in a long time. She probably has a lot of questions…” Oh yes you do… A LOT. Like how did his dad manage to get him out of there? And how does he stand his mom? Suddenly, him being such a jerk makes a little more sense… His mom laughs, “Questions about what? Son?” But son sounds like an insult, and now you’re getting angry. Jr looks up, glaring at his mom, “Like EVERYTHING. We haven’t seen each other in MONTHS! I haven’t seen YOU in months! Does the first interaction we have HAVE to be a fight?!” His mom softens, “You’re right. I’m sorry. Let her in.” His dad looks at her, “WHAT?” She glares, “I said 'let her in'.” His dad frowns a little, but shrugs, “Alright…” ‘Nice to know who’s in charge here…’ You think to yourself as you walk in.

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I have to agree. I write and many of my works are BASED around the complexity of human nature and how indecisive "right" and "wrong" are. I come from a Christian family and had considered writing Christian books, but ran into the same block. With Christian books there was this expectation for it to be perfect and clean and pure. It's simply unrealistic. I don't believe in completely good characters or completely bad characters. All of my characters have some flaw or another. I don't believe in a perfect world and the most gripping and intriguing stories I've read have been about people with demons and internal struggles of their own. Personaly, I think the ideology of a perfect character is, well, childish. The world is so complex. You can't put people in categories of "good" and "bad". Maybe a few, but the majority is in the smudgy grey area in between. And those are the ones I'm most interested in. How they think, how they act, how would they react in this situation? You don't know because they're not automatically going to do what's "right" or what's "wrong". They have their own ideals, instincts, and impulses. That's what makes us human and that's beautiful and interesting and I'll never stop being amazed by how complex people are as a whole.

I’m really nervous to write about this but

When I was younger, I read a lot of Christian books. In high school, I wrote a paper on Christian literature, specifically, what it is about Christian literature that makes it often flatter and less compelling than other genres. I’m not saying it all sucks, but I am saying that somehow, I’ve noticed through my life that Christian books suck more than their secular counterparts on average. I found them to often be juvenile, one-dimensional and derivative, and I didn’t think it had to be that way. I didn’t think that being Christian made a book bad, but I observed that the genre was stuffed with a lot of bad books, and the bad books were far worse than bad books outside the category. 

I’m not intending to start a discussion about Christian literature; I’m not alone in feeling this way or noticing this phenomenon if you believe it’s a thing. Online, you can read a lot of articles discussing the same thing: that Christian lit tends to be lower quality. So I wanted to know why. 

To answer the question, I looked at interviews of Christian authors and submission guidelines for Christian publishers. I wished to understand the intent behind writings in the genre and what might lead to the difference in quality. And what I found was very illuminating. 

Essentially, many Christian authors and publishers feel that: 

1. their books have a responsibility to promote morality in their readers, and authors are somewhat responsible for the moral fiber of their readers  

2. there has to be a strong delineation between “moral” and “immoral” behavior in books 

3. many topics either can’t be addressed at all or must be very clearly pointed out as “bad” if they are 

4. certain topics and ideas ought to be brought up in a book and pointed out as good as part of the purpose or meaning of the book

The conclusion I came to was that these ideas were resulting in flat, one-dimensional characters and dull plots. The responsibility of promoting moral integrity, and having to make absolutely sure that nothing you write could condone or promote immoral behavior, was of paramount importance. 

And what that caused was preachiness, one-dimensionality, a lack of compelling moral conflict, flat characters, and intellectually numbing stories. 

Why am I talking about this? 

Because a lot of the ideas I’ve been seeing spread around in writeblr and in the online writing and reading communities as a whole are identical. 

A lot of the posts I see online now about writing are almost exact echoes of the ideas I wrote about in my paper. 

Nowadays, I see posts constantly urging people to think about why they want to write their stories, and whether they are good or helpful or edifying. I see authors being slammed for not condemning characters with disgusting beliefs hard enough. I see people being dragged for liking characters that are not morally and ideologically pure. I see posts telling people to approach any difficult topic with extreme caution and crisp, unmistakable condemnation. Media is widely vilified when its fandom becomes toxic or nasty, assumed to be at fault for the moral fiber of its fans.

I see authors and publishers advertising their books as “feminist”, as if that makes any sense at all (is the author feminist? Does it just handle female characters well? Are the characters feminist? Is it focused on women’s issues?). I open a book and see poorly-integrated lines of dialogue dropping ideas about prejudice or gender that seem like a Tumblr post or part from a nonfiction book on racism inserted directly into a character’s mouth. I don’t think feminism is bad. I think feminism is great. And I don’t think talking about prejudice or gender is bad. I think these things need to be talked about. I definitely don’t think these ideas can’t be expressed in fiction. On the contrary; I think fiction is one of the best ways of expressing important ideas. 

But, I see some kind of preoccupation with the ideas your writing promotes, prominently including the idea that you must promote and you must condemn certain ideas, and that everything you write makes a statement about morality, and you’re responsible for edifying your audience and making them better people. And it’s really, really familiar. 

The conclusion that my paper came to is that you can’t clean up the reality of humanity. You can’t make the messiness of existence crisp and clear so you can feed your readers the ideas you want them to absorb bite by bite. You can’t have light without darkness, and you can’t have either without shades of gray. 

In life, racist people will not always be obviously horrible. (Even though sometimes they are…) Sometimes they will be people who love their spouses and kids and are generally “nice” and adopt dogs and love kittens, and they will still be racist. Sometimes even “good” people will say or do racist things and have to realize their mistakes and then make mistakes again and have to realize THOSE mistakes. Sometimes getting out of ideas you grew up hearing is long and difficult and you have to catch your brain repeating them even years after you tried to change. Racism can be passive, subtle, it can exist in people who are “good” in some ways. Sometimes people make progress toward changing but still have problems. How do we show this in books? Is it an author’s responsibility to solve all this and sort out everything? 

Is it racist for a racist character who is seeking redemption  to not have entirely overcome their prejudices by the end of a book? Is it the author’s responsibility to make sure racist behavior in the book is clearly labeled? Is it a reflection of the author’s views if a character says something racist? 

Note that I’m asking these questions. I’m definitely open to and would like perspectives from other people on this, people of color foremost and especially. The idea I am exploring is, does giving an author the responsibility of making sure their book clearly and unequivocally promotes certain ideas and condemns others impair them? Could it make it more difficult to address the ideas they want to? 

When I analyzed Christian literature, the conclusion I had to reach was that it does. I found christian lit as a whole to be excessively black-and-white, simplistic, shy of tackling anything with complexity, and almost dishonest about human nature. Is there an analogy in this situation? 

In life, relationships aren’t always pure and unproblematic. People don’t fall neatly into “people who have never done anything to hurt their partner” and abusers. People can sometimes have problems in their relationships and have to change their behaviors to preserve their relationships. Relationships have difficulties and arguments. Sometimes a person needs to change or become better in order to have a healthy relationship. Sometimes a relationship can be unhealthy without being abusive, and sometimes relationships are abusive. Must the author draw lines about “toxicity” and “problematicness” in super clear neon spray paint so people know the difference? 

These arguments come up about all sorts of morality-related things in books. And on some level I agree, you shouldn’t promote racism, and you should be careful and sensitive about portraying some things, but I am also extremely apprehensive about certain aspects of this culture that has sprung up. 

It’s really almost totally identical to what I noticed about Christian literature, and imo there it has done a lot of damage. I don’t really believe that authors are totally past being responsible for damage their ideas do, quite the opposite. But there is this expectation of dictating what’s bad and what’s good on a very clear level. 

That was part of the problem i noticed in Christian literature, the teaching of ideas rather than forcing readers to consider them. 

I’m not trying to talk over anybody at all, esp with things about racism, I’m white after all. And I really urge and ask my white followers and people-who-see-this-post to listen to the opinions, ideas and feelings of people of color who reply on the topic of racism. What I really want is everybody to consider this: is it an author’s job to make sure all “bad” and “good” things in their book are clearly delineated? If not, what is the best practice for an author? If not, might this cause problems? The culture I am seeing in the writeblr community seems to hold that it is, and rejection of redemption for villains, morally ambiguous situations and characters, addressing of complicated topics, and portraying anything “bad” without making absolutely certain that it’s clearly wrong is growing. 

Personally, I have a bad feeling about it. 

Thoughts? 

The next few months pass in a blur. You and Jr’s brother go to the wall often, so he can see Jr. Unfortunately, you don’t HAVE any powers, so you can’t go over the wall. You wait outside instead, and he tells you how he’s doing and delivers messages back and forth. School seems almost pointless, but you do it anyway, not paying attention to anything you’re doing. You don’t even know if you’re passing any of your classes. You don’t really pay attention to much of anything, except visiting and frequently questioning Jr’s brother on how things are going with his dad. Sometimes you think you’re annoying him with so many questions, but you can’t exactly do anything else, so you’re left to worry and ask questions… You’re about to go insane with not being able to do anything when you see a car driving slowly down the road. Cars are fairly rare, considering how expensive they are. Most people walk everywhere. Everyone moves out of the way and your heart stops when you glance through the window. Jr… He’s slumped in the passenger seat, head hanging, dirty hair laying limp, covering his face. He’s still in the same clothes he went in, but they’re ripped and filthy. He’s skinny, not healthy looking. You run after the car, following it all the way to his house. You feel tears of relief burning your eyes. He’s ok… Well… Not really, but he WILL be ok… You run up to it when it stops, not even flinching when his dad steps out of the car. You stop at the passenger door, but his dad pushes past you, “Who do you think you are?” You flush, “Oh… Sorry… I’m… A friend of his… I’ve been really worried about him…” His dad snarls, “Well he doesn’t feel well right now. Come back later.” You glare, “I want to make sure he’s ok.” “He’s fine.” “I don’t know that-” “Dad…” Jr’s voice cuts across the argument and you realise he’s opened the door. You and his dad look at him at the same time. He says, “She’s fine. She’s a friend…”, stepping out. He’s a lot stronger than he looks. He’s thin and dirty and his eyes are bloodshot, but he doesn’t seem to have any problem standing. He smiles at you, “I didn’t expect you to be so worried about a monster…”

Jr glares, “Look down there! Tell me what you see! Where is ALL that food going then?!” “How do you know this? Who told you about this?” Jr swallows and looks away, then looks back, “I had a friend… He was a changeling. He got put in there, but he used to sneak letters out to me...” Your heart speeds up a little, “Used to?” He nods, looking bitter, “They found out. I had got to where I came up here often. I watched it happen…” Your heart jumps to your throat and you barely get out, “Watched what happen?” He points, “They dragged him to the edge of the city. Shot him in the head. They just left him there for the clean up crew to pick up…” You turn your head away. There's so much to process… You look back at him, “I don’t understand. Why would they be MEAN to them? I understand containing them, but it just doesn’t seem realistic that they’d just torture an entire species unnecessarily…” Jr shrugs in defeat, “It’s easier to control a broken people, rather than a thriving nation. If they were strong, they could break out. Better to beat them down and starve them and let them die…” Tears prick at your eyes and you turn away quickly, looking back out, “But there are children out there…” Jr snorts, “Baby monsters you mean? Well, I mean, I’m sure at least half are werewolves. The rest are changelings, mimics, anything that can transform into a wolf. Even if they’re in full control while changed. Even if the moon doesn’t affect them. If any wolf DNA is in you, you’re classified a monster.” You blink away your tears. You will NOT cry in front of Jr. Though this IS horrible. You wish there was some way you could help them. But you know storming around yelling at people isn’t going to change anything. You have no powers to speak of. You’re probably the closest to human that exists. You don’t even have super speed, one of the most basic powers out there, that almost everyone has.You wouldn’t stand a chance against anyone. You’d just end up in jail, stuck, or dead, and then REALLY not stand a chance… Helplessness wells up in you and you lean over the wall, trying to distract yourself. You look for anything interesting. Livestock, trees, anything that's not the people. You can feel Jr's intense stare burning into you. You refuse to look at him. Suddenly a strong gust of wind sweeps by and you scream as it knocks you off balance. You topple over the wall, limbs flailing. “NO!!!” Your desperate wail is snatched away by the wind…