Orson Scott Card describes two truths. When describing the illusion of truth he describes how a reader surrenders himself to the writer's controlled tour of life experiences of some interesting characters, there is a connection between the surface details of the story and the reality the reader knows in their own life. He then describes the substance of truth, that no matter how many lies a writer tells, his own most deeply held beliefs about good and evil will inevitably appear in his work.
When justifying evil in fiction i find these two truths to be an honest reality. When i'm reading, as i love to do, i will use books to escape into another world. I will compare the ideas and situations to my own life and quite often relate to the ideas i'm reading. I enjoy being another person and going through their struggles and watching them come out victorious on the other side. We all struggle in life in one way or another and by reading about others and feeling their fears and sorrows i can then celebrate in their joys. Without understanding the evil and bad we can never truly celebrate and enjoy the good as it should be.
Without truly understanding a point of view or belief, one can not accurately write about it in a way that readers will connect with. I don't see how someone can really write about something in a way that a reader would connect with, without having real feelings and experiences related to it. Because one would have real feelings connected to it, the writers ideas would be intertwined into their writing. I would never be able to accurately write about something that i had no opinions or beliefs about, what then would i write, and even if i tried it would not be convincing. I completely agree with Orson Scott Card when he says that it is impossible for a writer to convincingly violate his own conscience in his fiction.
Evil is a natural occurrence in life, if not depicted in writing, no one would really connect with what they are reading. We may not as individuals really be evil, but we have all experienced it to different degrees. I don't think that we really enjoy reading about evil, we enjoy the confidence and success that we gain from conquering it.
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In my opinion,Card was off just slightly. It is not so much evil that sells, but conflict. As you said, it is not the evil itself, but the triumph over it that people enjoy.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is very difficult to write about something without having relatable truth to contribute. While I think there is room to make things up while writing fiction, I think without a solid dose of understanding for a certain topic, it is only a matter of time before a reader loses their interest. I think that there must be evil in literature because we all know there to be in evil in our every-day lives. That is something that makes the happy endings happy and the story worth while, because there simply wouldn't be a reason to call it a happy ending without some sort of struggle or obstacle to overcome.
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