How to deal with moral/legal subjects in writing?

Many authors have written works which challenge political and ethical norms. These usually won't get you in trouble unless you were to make explicit claims about real people or organisations which are not substantiated, and thus you could be taken to court for libel or defamation.

For example, the Church of Scientology is notorious for suing anyone who publishes anything it doesn't like. Lawerence Wright's 'Going Clear' was banned in the UK due to the unfair nature of English libel laws.

Many books have challenged established values without incurring much wrath. Implementation varies from indirect metaphors in fiction, to fictional characters expressing specific political ideas, to explicit denouncement in non-fiction.

Friedrich Nietzsche published works which couldn't have been more critical about established Christian values. 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' takes a narrative form, while 'Beyond Good and Evil' is polemic. This didn't get him in much trouble as he wandered about Europe in the late 1800s.

Ayn Rand's philosophy was just as critical, and in interviews she explicitly said her intention was to get rid of America's Christian and nationalist values. Her magnum opus was 'Atlas Shrugged', which is a work of fiction used as a vehicle to transport her ideology.

George Orwell was an influential English writer and socialist, who admitted that everything he had written after his involvement in the Spanish Civil War was against Stalinism and for democratic socialism as he understood it. '1984' and 'Animal Farm' are his most famous works of fiction, while he had also written non-fiction extensively. For example: 'Homage to Catalonia', 'The Road to Wigan Pier', 'On Writing', 'Notes on Nationalism', etc.

While examples like '1984' or 'Atlas Shrugged' are explicit in their depiction of a subject the author wants the reader to appreciate, and 'Animal Farm' is an obvious metaphor for the same purpose, other works simply use the author's intention to underpin the writing. Consider Fyodor Dostoevsky's 'The Idiot', which is an examination of how living life according to Christian principles in contemporary (then Imperial Russian) society causes many problems.

I sincerely doubt your subject matter will be as controversial as you think it is. Vladimir Nabokov's 'Lolita' for example is a very risky topic nowadays, and yet is considered a literary classic.

The only obvious example I can think of to the contrary is Salman Rushdie's 'The Satanic Verses'. His story about a character barely distinguishable from the Islamic prophet Mohammad led to Rushdie having to go into hiding after receiving death threats left right and centre, not least of all from the then supreme leader of Iran.

It's also worth considering that our understanding of controversy is skewed by availability heuristic. That is, we only think of the most obvious cases and don't also consider how many potentially controversial things did not become infamous. Especially considering how hard it is to get noticed as an author anyway!

One case in point is how blasphemous Americans and Europeans somehow manage to bother Muslims in the Middle East, like the Salman Rushdie case. But similar things which happen in unexpected places do not register. Qurans have been burned at protests in South Korea, but nobody seemed to care.

In conclusion, do what you like... unless you somehow manage to write a story which is extremely critical of both the Church of Scientology and Islam simultaneously. Then you may have to go into hiding. That or use a pseudonym. The risk of suffering serious personal consequences for publishing something risky are low. Especially for unknown authors.

posted over 5 years ago

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inappropriateCode‭

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In your comment to @tryin, You say "It is a non-debated social perception the character would be fighting."

I am not a lawyer but I believe in the USA at least, and possibly elsewhere, there actually are some of these that you can get into trouble for; should your work be judged child pornography for example, or thinly disguised fiction promoting violence against sitting politicians, or promoting the murder of people in a certain profession like abortion providers or defense attorneys. Or promoting violence against a **class* of people, like gays, blacks, illegal immigrants, etc.

I also believe that when it comes to fiction, there are laws of intent when it comes to identification: So if you intend to argue some politician should be assassinated, it makes no difference what you name your character, if a jury agrees that your description of this character and their actions is intended to portray a real-life individual and can't mean anybody else -- they can hold you liable.

But I am not a lawyer, if you want to argue for breaking some existing law that prevents physical violence or retaliation, I'd get it vetted by a lawyer, or a publisher's lawyer. If you actually are arguing against laws like the speed limit or caps on interest rates or even prostitution (which is legal in many modern countries) that don't harm specific identifiable people, my guess is you are fine, there are no specific victims or classes harmed.

If you intend to self-publish, I'd consult an attorney first.

posted over 5 years ago

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Amadeus‭

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Since you’re explicitly asking about legal fallout, rest reassured you that you’re most likely going to be fine, even if your book may rub readers (and/or authorities) the wrong way.

Short of inciting actual violence or libelling actually living people/corporations, you are unlikely to face any legal repercussions for arguing against a law. This is what freedom of speech is literally all about.¹

In fact, even some books that have actively incited illegal actions have gotten away with it, notably Steal This Book and The Anarchist Cookbook (the latter being an extreme example, since it contains descriptions of how to make explosives

¹ Despite the rather long list in that article, the exceptions to this rule are really rather few. The most notable restriction on freedom of speech in the UK that is not incitement or libel is probably the blasphemy law, and most of that was abolished in 2008, and further weakened in 2013.

posted over 5 years ago

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Konrad Rudolph‭

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Making political, moral or legal arguments in novels can always get you backlash, especially when it is obvious who or what you are criticizing. If it is a topic with particular passions/people behind it (e.g. gun laws in the USA, dictatorship in dictatorships, Tiananmen Square in China) that you do not want the attention of, I would recommend leaving it alone for your own safety and peace of mind.

That being said, it is always possible to remove the actual morality/legality of the situation by change the scenario in which it is presented. For example, if you are speeding through the desert at a speed limit of 30 mph due to some weird law, criticism of speed limits will appear valid.

You could also represent it as a characters opinion e.g. "Why are you going so slow?" "The speed limit says 30", "We are in the middle of nowhere!".

You could also create a proxy of the topic you want to address e.g. there is a special race of people who have weird religious traits and prone to attacking people who don't believe in the same thing as them (depending on the time frame, it could be almost any religion).

There is nothing wrong with a novel that uses a premise that is wrong or twisted in our real world and explores what happens.

posted over 5 years ago

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Shadowzee‭

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Shadowzee makes some excellent points in their answer, so I won't talk about those.

Ideally, when arguing against a long-standing tradition/law (like speed limits), you would have some good arguments, something beyond "I want to go fast". You can use the setting of your story as a vehicle for those arguments, but beware: this can get preachy.

You can go to two extremes in the setting - a world where speed limits are insanely rigid and low, and everyone (especially the MC) suffers for it, or a utopian world where there have never been speed limits.

You also need to give your MC a good reason to be against speed limits. This is easier with human rights issues - if you're writing about gay rights, make your MC gay, etc.

But you can also try something like - A sign declaring the speed limit fell and killed the MC's younger sister (more comic), or a very uptight cop stopped the MC who was speeding to the hospital, and his sister died in the backseat(more serious).

If you show the audience many good reasons why the speed limit should be abolished, you are presenting a proper argument. Audiences tend to side with the MC/ narrator anyway, so you have a bit of an advantage.

Again, this will get preachy. Hopefully your whole novel isn't about this issue, or it's a much much meatier issue with many sides to explore.

Assuming it's a debate with multiple sides, I'd actually recommend using your world to explore the entire argument, even the sides you disagree with. You can use the power of the MC to tell the audience which side is 'right', but I think this is a much fairer way to represent a debate and has a lesser chance of seeming preachy.

posted over 5 years ago

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tryin‭

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I don't get only supporting the freedom of the kind of speech you like. If speech needs defending, it's probably because it's upsetting someone. (Neil Gaiman, The View from the Cheap Seats, The PEN Awards and Charlie Hebdo)

As @JRE points out, if you're challenging the status quo, if you're pointing a finger at something that you perceive as unjust, or ugly, or wrong, and saying "look here", somebody is going to be upset. And, as we know, free speech in our world still needs defending, meaning somebody will try to get you to shut up.

Books as uncontroversial as Harry Potter got burned by groups that were upset by them (source). In China writers are getting imprisoned because the government found what they're writing upsetting. (Example 1, Example 2). In France a certain group found Charlie Hebdo's comics upsetting, so they killed 12 people and injured 11 more. That's the nature of the beast.

Frame challenge: consider how much poorer our world would be if Bulgakov and Solzhenitsyn and Liu Xiaobo and Victor Hugo and Erich Maria Remarque, and countless others all the way back to Socrates, all asked themselves "how do I not upset anyone, and suffer no fallout for what I say"? What would our world be like, without all of those men chipping at the status quo, pointing out wrongs, effecting change? I don't think I'd want to live in that world.

Thankfully, in our world, if you are lucky enough to live in what is called "The Western World", the laws take the side of Free Speech. Censuring books and imprisoning writers is seen as a bad thing. Sometimes people even support the freedom of the kind of speech they don't like.

Publishers might decide they don't want your book, but that's another issue entirely. You're always free to self-publish, or just make your content available online.

posted over 5 years ago

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Galastel‭

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