[LMB] [OT] STD/fanfic

[Elizabeth Holden]

--- Marna Nightingale <marna at marna.ca> explains more
about Auden's comments:

> He is in general arguing against loading moral
> responsibility onto writers, as well as against 
> writers presuming to be moral guides, so.

Hmm. I think a written work can be a moral guide; the
writer should not be.  (Exceptions would be, I
suppose, in writing sermons, which is a specific kind
of writing, and other didactic works.)  I think
morality (and moralizing) has its place in fiction
*if* it is an honest part of the writer's vision. For
instance, I like to think that my stories present a
positive view of sex: that reflects my own moral
outlook.  But it can only be expressed within the
fictional structure of the story, it can't be tacked
on as a lesson in the middle of the prose.

> Ah, here we go, with apologies for previous
> unclarity:
> 
> "It is not the duty of a witness to pass moral
> judgment on the evidence 
> he has to give, but to give it clearly and
> accurately; the only crime of 
> which a witness can be guilty is perjury. . . . "

Yes. I still think that fits. If I wrote something
pretending to moral attitudes I did not feel, that
would be wrong - in Auden's words, perjury. And it's
done by letting the evidence speak for itself.

> But in my experience, long complex 
> dishonesties tend to betray themselves via lack of
> internal consistency 
> and/or evidence of handwaving 

The most dishonest trick I can think of offhand in a
novel - and I can think of several that have done it -
is to set up an elaborate social situation, have an
observer in the story say, "But that wouldn't work,"
and the protagonist/viewpoint character, "But it does
work, as you can see" - an argument totally
unconvincing to the reader, who is not within the
fiction of the (no doubt propagandizing) narrative.

namaste,
Elizabeth