People don’t like messages in fiction, for some reason. They think they’re preachy and didactic.
I disagree.
I’ve always been fond of message-driven fiction. Some of it can be preachy and didactic, sure. But I’m thinking of stories where the messages are far subtler. Kurt Vonnegut’s Deadeye Dick, for example, showed 12-year-old me that a government could actively harm its people as a side effect of doing what it thought was right (bomb testing). The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick, taught me at 12 that there was a world beyond our own; it might be drug-induced psychedelia, or it might be a cosmic, religious experience. In a way, the distinction didn’t matter. Reading Dick’s 60s fiction was like going on a drug trip.
12-year-old me had his mind blown on a regular basis reading science fiction.
I like to put messages in my stories. Subtle ones. Here are some examples:
In Talio’s Codex, one of the underlying messages is that culture is downstream from law. The idea of ‘downstream’ came from Andrew Breitbart’s doctrine that “politics is downstream from culture.” I couldn’t be more opposed to Breitbart politically, but I always thought that was a poetic saying. My novel explores the idea that the way the law is formed shaped how the people living under it think and act. In a scene late in the book, Talio voices this concept out loud:
“Look,” Talio said. “A society’s culture comes from its laws. The things that tell us what we can and cannot do. What we should do.” He hunted for an example. “If you want to encourage scholars, you promote mandatory education. If you want to encourage couples staying together, you outlaw divorce. Or penalize adultery.”
“Like taxes,” Vinne said. “Excise taxes on wine. So damn high. They do it to make people drink less. Heartless monsters.”
Talio nodded. “A similar idea. Taxes and spending on the one hand, laws and sentencing on the other. You can tell what a society values by what it encourages. And what it discourages.”
In The Library at Eventide, would-be hero Garris is up against a wily pirate, Penscome, who is quite happy to use the magical flowers Garris is planting to consolidate their power…all the while claiming they are doing it for the benefit of their world. Garris has to decide whether to help them, for better and for worse. There are no speeches about the matter, but it’s definitely explored, along with the challenges of the caregiver/care recipient relationship, especially when it’s a romantic one.
Messages? I’m all for them. In some ways I think every author slips them in whether they think about them consciously or not. A happy ending is its own message, as is a bittersweet one or a tragic one. The characters in a story live in a universe whose rules are dictated by the author.
No matter what’s going on in my life, I try to stay on the hopeful, optimistic side of messaging. In the 1960s you might have called me a secular humanist.
So if you read my work, you’re going to get some messages. You probably won’t even notice them, but they’re lurking in the background. If you listen carefully, you might hear them.