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Originally Posted by FlorenceArt
A message is not the same thing as a story. There are many things that can be transmitted with writing, and the best are not necessarily messages. Really good books are about ambiguity, questions suggested rather than answered. A "message" is the exact opposite of these things.
I don't like an author trying to force their opinions on me, whether I agree with them or not. Of course it's worse if I don't agree. When I get the feeling the authors has a "message" to deliver, it means they are is trying to force their political opinions into the story, regardless of whether they fit or not, and without subtlety. Suggesting is one thing, voicing an opinion once in a while is OK, but not if it's taking over the story.
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Yeah, I do understand that the two are different. I don't know, maybe I'm not mentally defining message the right way?
For example, wouldn't a romance novel's message be: no matter how independent (or not) a woman may be, marrying some guy and having his babies is the only way to true fulfillment? I guess I should add something about being "in love" in there, but really the books aren't about love. They're about sex and marital harmony.
I think every fiction book has a message.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FlorenceArt
That's a great analysis about Atwood! I hadn't consciously realized that but it's very true about the role of men in her books.
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It doesn't mention books anywhere in it, but, a while ago I read this really great essay online about male and female gamers (people who play roleplaying games) and it helped me crystallize a lot of thoughts knocking around in my head that related to male/female-conflicts in roleplay.
It also happens to relate really well to this topic (probably because both books and roleplay are story-driven). The original article seems to have gone missing, but here's a tiny link to my Google Document archive of it in PDF:
http://tinyurl.com/2ebdgbr
I think it would be really constructive if a female writer would read it over and possibly write a sister essay on how to design effective female characters in fiction. The roleplay article is more than a little heavy-handed in the delivery, but the fundamental points are spot-on.
Getting back to Margaret Atwood, I find her (close to) unique in how strongly she writes in a feminine (rather than feminist) voice. The only other writer I've found is Ann-Marie McDonald (also Canadian).
I think in some sense all readers have gotten used to the idea that female characters can be subordinate to male characters (not in a relationship sense, but in how they shape the development of the story). It's not "shocking" for anyone to read books where female characters are props for the male characters. But it's incredibly rare to switch the roles and have the males as peripheral characters while the entire story revolves around the social and sexual politics of the females.