Lara's Wanderings

I am not afraid of writing uncomfortable scenes in my books, but I do have a problem with articles, short stories, and books that relish the ugly. I struggle to read the publications I submit my writing too because I often feel dirty, disgusted, or horrified by what they choose to publish. There is no wonder that they don’t publish my work. With a world in despair, I want to help my readers find hope and I find this obsession with the horrors of life distressing

I once read a New York Times Best-Seller book on writing that irritated me so much I didn’t bother finishing it. As you know, I don’t post negative reviews on my blog, so the title of that book won’t be anywhere on my site. The author of this book was functionally saying that good writing needed to make you uncomfortable or be so deep that you don’t understand it. This idea leads to inventing disturbing situations and presenting them as real for the sake of making your readers squirm. That is nonsense! We are acting like all writing should be horror writing. Still, I am convinced this is what much of the publishing world thinks.

I think the reason this is so prevalent is that many people don’t understand what make a classic novel or short story so great. I mean the classics that everyone knows, not the random elite novels that seem intelligent but no one has read. Classic novels were read by the educated and the middle class equally and loved because of the way it connected to the core elements of human nature that we all share. It made us uncomfortable because it cause us to question preconceived notions of reality, ethics, or our own biases. They don’t preach to us and do not end causing us to despair over life. The vast majority encourages us to improve ourselves or to reach an ideal even if the main character is tragic or ends poorly. Writers of the past, even if dealing with despair or depression, often had a philosophical belief that the world was getting better or wiser and that humanity was redeemable. We do not have that philosophical assumption today, and the consequence of that is unbearable.

So why do today’s writer’s relish in the ugly? Some do it to makes us feel like our lives are not so bad in comparison. This is a very horrible motive in my opinion. Happiness does not come by competing with others and especially in competition with such low standards.

Some also do it to express their own pain or frustration, but if it ends in the midst of horror or despair, I worry about the author. Catharsis is a myth. If one is just expressing pain without trying to find healing or resolution, they will only increase their pain and spread it to others. I say this in light of a publication rather than personal journaling of in the area of therapy. This what I perceive many short stories and poetry deriving from.

The last reason I think people wallow in the ugly is a false sense of sympathy. This reason seems to be the most common because it is the most politically correct thing to do. It drives me crazy! Having Hispanic family who have dealt with racism and personally having gone through a variety of traumatic experiences, I absolutely hate when people project onto me feelings about an event that I do not feel. The elite publishers, in the name of diversity, find minorities who parrot their narrow view of the world and focus on their negative self-pitying stories of defeat with sudo-empowerment by being angry about it. Anger is not a sign of power. It is a sign of pain, brokenness, feeling of insecurity and vulnerability.

A sign of power, true power in the face of racism, pain, ugliness, bullying, abuse, and all the horrors of life is peace, forgiveness, and love. The beautiful things in life often grow from the ashes of what came before. Wounds heal. Abuse must be dealt with, not just identified. When we tell a story in which we or the main character is powerless, we have contributed to the corporate gas-lighting that keep people stuck in abuse.

It drives me nuts how popular books with abusive love interests are. I am amazed at how the common writing advice for today says to continually have conflict in every scene as though the only conversations human beings have are arguments. We as a society don’t even know what healthy looks like anymore. We imagine that the mirage of a healthy relationship is some bland featureless robot of unemotional interactions. We justify the ugly we know because at least our lives are interesting.

Is it so bad to have healthy relationship and dealing with a foe together?

I long for a book that is beautiful. What I mean is that virtue wins with colorful interesting characters who accept their uniqueness in truly healthy ways. I want a place that is lovely and a family who are my ideal. I want a true hero I can cheer for rather than an anti-hero. I want to put the knight back in shining armor and on his white steed. I want an empowered princes who is both beautiful and able to take care of herself. I want real love that is selfless and noble. I want dangers that reflect my fears, and an ending that says all those fears can be conquered.

Focusing on the ugliness of the world is not reality or any more reality than the beautiful. When we separate one from the other, we are not portraying the full human experience. Things are bad often because we intuitively know they are supposed to be good.

Check out my young adult fantasy fiction novels HERE for something optimistic and fun.

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