Agenda
If you are a long-time reader of this blog--I mean going back nearly three years . . . then you know once in a while I reference being slammed on a board associated with my publisher. The person who slammed me didn't denigrate my writing--just my "agenda." She felt my book The Roofer should have come with a "warning label." Like most things on the Internet, it kind of digressed, on the thread, into a free-for-all, at times nasty, about censorship, but at the heart of it, this woman didn't agree with writing about child abuse, didn't believe the statistics on child abuse . . . and felt writers like me had an agenda.
She didn't mean it as a compliment.
At the time, I disagreed. Vehemently. I was so outraged that someone felt I deserved a warning label, not for language but content. I was insulted. Hurt. Took it personally. We're all adults, I reasoned. And if you read the back cover or page one, you knew what you were getting. Not every plot twist, no. But murder. Now, I'd be a lot more likely to walk away.
And to agree. Oh, not with the warning label. But what she called an agenda, I call my themes.
I think a writer can make a BIG mistake in trying to be all things to all people. My characters are very imperfect and will remain so. No halos on their heads.
My "agenda" is that good people can make horrid decisions when backed into a corner. And "bad" people--even murderers and thieves--sometimes love their family with a ferocity that looks very much like how much I love my own kids. My agenda is that child abuse happens even in white-picket homes. That men in suits can be rapists. And that the alcoholic itinerant handyman could very well be a hero waiting to emerge. My agenda is that the world would be a better place if people stopped judging . . . particularly when they haul the Bible into it. The Bible is a beautiful piece of writing--and may well be how I choose to live my life--not that it's anyone's business and THAT is precisely the point. My agenda is that some things are unforgivable, but if you choose--CHOOSE--to forgive, and not just mouth the words, it can be freeing. But that's not the ONLY path to freedom--just one. My "agenda" is that, in the end, I believe God doesn't care WHO you love so much . . . as THAT you love. Michael and George in Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven are a BEAUTIFUL love story. My agenda is just because you contributed a sperm to a baby doesn't make you a father. Same goes with egg and mother. The words MEAN something.
I realize now that . . . all along I have had an agenda. It's there, in all my books. I don't think I am trying to "convert" people to my way of thinking. But I suppose if someone wrote me and said they thought of gay people differently because of Michael and George, that would be all right by me. In fact . . . I got several such emails after the book was released and each of them made me feel as if there was a tiny bit less hatred in the world because of something I wrote. Maybe THAT is my agenda.
So . .. do you have an agenda?
She didn't mean it as a compliment.
At the time, I disagreed. Vehemently. I was so outraged that someone felt I deserved a warning label, not for language but content. I was insulted. Hurt. Took it personally. We're all adults, I reasoned. And if you read the back cover or page one, you knew what you were getting. Not every plot twist, no. But murder. Now, I'd be a lot more likely to walk away.
And to agree. Oh, not with the warning label. But what she called an agenda, I call my themes.
I think a writer can make a BIG mistake in trying to be all things to all people. My characters are very imperfect and will remain so. No halos on their heads.
My "agenda" is that good people can make horrid decisions when backed into a corner. And "bad" people--even murderers and thieves--sometimes love their family with a ferocity that looks very much like how much I love my own kids. My agenda is that child abuse happens even in white-picket homes. That men in suits can be rapists. And that the alcoholic itinerant handyman could very well be a hero waiting to emerge. My agenda is that the world would be a better place if people stopped judging . . . particularly when they haul the Bible into it. The Bible is a beautiful piece of writing--and may well be how I choose to live my life--not that it's anyone's business and THAT is precisely the point. My agenda is that some things are unforgivable, but if you choose--CHOOSE--to forgive, and not just mouth the words, it can be freeing. But that's not the ONLY path to freedom--just one. My "agenda" is that, in the end, I believe God doesn't care WHO you love so much . . . as THAT you love. Michael and George in Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven are a BEAUTIFUL love story. My agenda is just because you contributed a sperm to a baby doesn't make you a father. Same goes with egg and mother. The words MEAN something.
I realize now that . . . all along I have had an agenda. It's there, in all my books. I don't think I am trying to "convert" people to my way of thinking. But I suppose if someone wrote me and said they thought of gay people differently because of Michael and George, that would be all right by me. In fact . . . I got several such emails after the book was released and each of them made me feel as if there was a tiny bit less hatred in the world because of something I wrote. Maybe THAT is my agenda.
So . .. do you have an agenda?
Labels: themes
posted by Erica Orloff at 6:35 AM
33 Comments:
If I have an agenda I don't know it. I hope if its anything its to encourage people to keep an open mind. I think most of my main characters are strong women who accept everyone for who they are.
Is that an agenda?
Hi Aimless:
Well, according the person in the little Internet battle, yes. :-)
And I think that is a fine agenda.
E
Small minded and petty. Can't believe the audacity of the ignorant sometimes...
My agenda? I don't know. I think I keep coming back to the theme of self-acceptance from self-loathing.
Not that I've ever suffered with THAT issue. ;)
Hmm. At first I went "Agenda? Who me? Pshaw."
Then I finished my coffee.
I do have a strong thread of forgiveness and acceptance--of self and others--running through everything I write.
But for the most part my 'agenda' is still sweetness and light. That perfect love CAN be found in an imperfect world. I like reading and writing things with a strong dose of everyday reality. Which I know will forever leave certain doors locked. Many readers cling ferociously to unreality and happily accept 4-6 books a month: Sheik/prince/ceo+beautiful blond, sheik/prince/ceo+beautiful redhead etc. etc.
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, but being auto sent books they haven't chosen has given some readers a very narrow view of what 'romance' is, so a book with more realistic content shocks them.
I suppose agenda is also "theme" and there are definitely some in my work, although I think writers are probably better off not starting with themes, but "recognizing" them after they write them so they can enforce them in the final rewrite. Books that start with a "theme" or "agenda" tends to feel like polemics, but then again, that's my opinion.
Also, although as a person who regularly deals with statistics (and pretty much lives by Mark Twain's quite: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.") will happily admit statistics are questionable at best, a person who comes out and says "child abuse doesn't happen and all those statistics are bullshit" has got a problem and is potentially dangerous to society.
In my opinion.
heather:
I see beautiful, beautiful!! women struggle with that, and that is as powerful a theme as any.
E
Hi Lainey:
I agree. The tricky thing is at the time, MIRA really represented romance, didn't have a lot of cutting edge stuff--now . . . much edgier content.
E
Mark said it. Child abuse happens. The statistics for sexual abuse are horrifying, but it's rarely talked about.
I suppose my themes would be self-acceptance and emotional healing. Almost all my characters have some wound needed healing. (That's not very original, though.) And it wasn't until maybe two years ago when I started to make sure I wasn't writing "likable" characters, but real characters.
It takes some bravery, I think, to let one's characters make the wrong choice, or be real in an unpretty way. It's actually what I first liked about Brett Battles' The Cleaner. He let his main character talk down to his assistant. It was real, but many authors would have had him being nice and helpful to their assistant, you know?
Hi Mark:
I agree. In the woman's defense, it's not that she didn't believe it occurred--but that it was as widespread as I believe it is. As I have witnessed it is, even among my small circle of friends, in their pasts.
Beyond that, too, she felt it was exploitative . . . that the "fad" at the time was for heroines to have these dark, abusive pasts. I disagreed. It's not a fad. It's a reality, and writing about it is the right of every author to mine reality for fiction. I think people who are uncomfortable with something are more apt to be dismissive, to call it a "fad." Even the idea of sexuality, permissiveness, even gay relationships . . . some poeple will feel it's some exploitative fad to have it now explode in fiction (such as erotica). My thought is "it's about time" that all genders and sexualities and so on find a voice.
E
Spy:
I'll have to check out that book. I agree!! I know that I got some flack on Cassie Hayes in Spanish Disco because she didn't fit a mold at the time. And the language issue (she cursed a lot). But it's a little too easy to write the perky perfect heroine. My job is to make the bitch likable. ;-)
E
Hah! I love that, "make the bitch likable." :-) There is nothing that will make me put down a book faster than the cliche of a kindergarten teacher who loves every single moment of her job and never loses her patience. So many writers use the teaching profession to say, Lookee! She's a teacher! She's a wonderful person!
Let me throw up now!
spy:
All of my heroines except for one that I can think of (Georgia Ray in Blues Goddess) have been horribly bitchy. Maybe I have permanent PMS.
E
Erica, I didn't think of this till recently believe it or not. I just wrote my stories. My agenda would be everyone has a story, and it plays an important part in their growth. Some people view the world through a very small lens. It'd be great to encourage them take the blinders off for a moment. I like contrast, and characters provide that. I'll always write from the heart, and hope my readers get out of it what they need.
What a paranoid society{{{ekocknird}}}we live in. I would be appalled if someone{{{selurnatas}}}suggested that I have any agenda other than{{{daedsiluap}}}to entertain.
Hi Ladonna:
I think the longer we write, the more we see themes emerge. Mark is right . . . setting OUT to write them can lead to clunky writing or polemics. But keep at it long enough and we start to see things emerge.
E
Jude:
I would never accuse you of such a thing. LOL!
E
I think every writer needs an agenda, or they shouldn't be writing. It brings power and conviction to the stories we tell.
Smart:
What a powerful thought. Thanks!
E
I guess if I have an agenda or a theme it's that we can change our lives by our choices.
I don't argue with people like the woman who talked about your agenda. You can't change the mind of people who are wallowing in their ignornance and want everyone to jump into the mud with them.
Hi Edie:
I agree. That's why if it happened today I would have just let it go.
I like your way of putting it though. :-)
E
LOL Jude. For a second I thought I was missing some secret writer code.
and by the way, we all know your only agenda is a {{ecnavda erugif xis}}
Lainey:
I know. {{stunsieduj]]
E
I can't imagine writing without some kind of agenda emerging from the words. It happens automatically. A story without a theme/agenda is not nearly as satisfying or memorable as one with.
I never really thought about "agenda" before. Mostly I try to go with throwing bad situations at the MCs and then letting them use their best judgment to figure out how to cope and get past it.
As far as your adversary on the forums... well, they are going to see only their POV until they choose not to see it. There is nothing you can say, no facts and figures you can provide that will make a difference for some people.
All you can really do is just let them be with their opinion and move on. In a world of infinite possibility, some will never choose happiness.
I suppose in my writing, the theme or agenda is that we are not who we are by an accident of birth, but by how we choose to live our lives and treat our fellow beings. In fact, my protagonist makes roughly this statement in the third book "Destiny's Bride". My protagonist at an earlier time in his life committed a horrible atrocity in the process of righting a great wrong.
I can't imagine our personal worldviews not creeping, or in some cases stomping, into our writing, even when that writing is fantasy.
They have not, Erica! I never thought that, not once. I will grant that you probably know them better than I do, (and I haven't read Spanish Disco yet) but I don't have that recollection at all.
Hi Suzanne:
Definitely. That's why, I think, books like To Kill a Mockingbird live on forever.
E
ewoh:
That always amazes me, but I definitely think there are so people content to go through life angry and unhappy.
E
Hi JLK:
I couldn't agree more (which frightens me). ;-)
E
Spy:
Well, Cassie in Spanish Disco is the bitchiest of all. But I also don't think Billie Quinn suffered fools either.
E
Erica, I like your agenda. Also I'd rather someone be deeply offended by something I write, than have no reaction at all, because if you've pissed someone off, you've hit a button close to home. You got someone passionate about something.
I much prefer it if they are passionate on my side rather than the other side, but too many people live complacently.
I'm not really sure what my agenda is. I know I like to see how different characters use power. That's a theme I play around with. Sometimes in light hearted ways, sometimes in pretty dark ways.
Hi Zoe:
I know what you say is logical . . . but as someone who chooses "the Middle Path" (Buddhism), I sometimes get uncomfortable with people reacting so strongly. But it's inevitable, I suppose.
E
hehehe Erica, I didn't say you had to beat someone over the head with a big stick. :P You can still practice ahimsa.
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