First, thank you to everyone who replied on my other thread, you were all very helpful.

And now I was wondering if I could pester you all with another question. I'm in the middle of my second novel, I won't bore you with the entire plot but the basic set out is a single woman in her twenties who has had a very difficult family life (alcoholic mother, aggressive sister, absent father) starts an affair with a married man. Obviously it goes much deeper than that, but I recently gave the first two chapters to a friend of mine whose one complaint was that she didn't feel she could connect with the heroine because she started the affair knowing the man was married.

Obviously this is an ethical topic, so I was just wondering how other people feel about it. I have tried to make the character someone the audience cn feel sympathetic towards, and it is clear from the beginning of the book that the affair is no longer taking place, so my question is : would you immediately dislike/find it difficult to connect with a character who knowingly starts an affair with a married man?

I hope you can help me, and I hope this was the right place to have this topic. Please tell me if it's not! (I'm still new/learning the ropes!)

Angie, this reminds me of something I read in a ‘how-to-write’ book. (can’t remember which) A writing class tutor set his pupils an exercise and the work they submitted was so tame he asked them ‘Are you all waiting for your mothers to die?’

He meant, of course, don’t restrict your writing on the basis of what your close relatives and friends think. You have to experiment, explore, push the envelope.

Your friend, while having a valid opinion, is not (I assume) geared up for commenting on a piece of writing. Express your thanks, but don’t let your friend’s personal morals interfere with your scope as a writer.

Dee

I would tend to agree with Dee. If people can't be challenged by black marks on a page then where else can they be challenged? But to tackle the ethical issue, surely it is the man who has the ring on his finger, and not the MC? If you want to make your MC more sympathetic then perhaps you might want to explore why the affair ended and what interpretation of the marriage she was given at the start. Best

Friends can be so lethal like this, if they're not writers themselves, specially if they haven't read the whole thing. Assuming you are developing your MC's character and motivations to make sense of her behaviour, I wonder if your friend would have said something different if she could have read it all. It also says a good deal about her: it is a subject people feel very emotionally about in all sorts of different directions. But no situation is that black-and-white when you really look at it, and really looking at it is what novelists do. So don't wait for your mother (or friend - Dee, I love that story!) to die, but go for it.

I once kicked off a plot with the text of a postcard. One of my best friends looked at a few pages while I was opening the wine, and said, 'It's not full of letters, is it? I hate novels with letters in them.' I didn't put another letter in a novel for 5 years. But there are long letters, absolutely central to plot and structure, in this novel, and I regret my years of abstinence, as I missed out much learning and experimenting by not trying them earlier.

I suspect the moral is, don't give anyone work in progress unless they're a writer themselves, and be very careful who you pick to read it at all.

I heard Paul McCartney the other day, talking about how he'd gone into the studio one day all psyched up to record a baseline for a track, feeling positive and focussed and ready to fly, and his producer said, 'oh by the way I think that other track is crap.' And Paul - even Paul - couldn't play the baseline of this song which was fine. He felt all self-conscious and nervous and couldn't get into it. I know the wrong kind of criticism knocks my judgment and therefore confidence askew, but I'd never have thought it of him! We're in good company.

Emma

Emma

I heard that about Paul McCartney and was surprised too. Too bad about your friend's comments though. Two nights ago, I watched Stephen Spielberg (sp) being interviewed about his role in the screen adaptation of Colour Purple. He said that one of the reasons why he decided to direct it so quickly was that it was a moving story that was easy to read because it was in a series of letters. And it won the Pulitzer!

Interesting about Spielberg. On the face of it, you'd have thought letters would be particularly awkward things to make a movie out of. And what about 'Birdsong' and 'Possession', (not to mention my novel, which I wouldn't dream of doing of course)? I'm very into parallel narratives, and of course letters are a kind of instant, mini parallel narrative.

My friend's still a good friend, so it didn't do me much harm. But I thought the McCartney story showed how anyone's creative self - however experienced and however little they have to prove - is a delicate creature, easily knocked off balance. It's not necessarily precious or silly to guard it carefully.

Emma

Emma, that story – I'm in the midst of packing up all my books so, as I sort them, I’ll try and find the one I got it from and let you know.

Dee

Dee, yes please! It's such an important idea

Emma

Personally, I like to deal directly with these very issues - the issue of demonisation. The issue of what or who decides 'this person is good' and 'this person is bad'. Currently, I am doing it in a dark fantasy context, taking so called 'villains' and portraying them in a positive light. In my previous novel, I seek to justify several acts of violence. I like tarred characters and exploring how people can become defamed by one simple mistake, a mistake that colours their whole life. It is a theme that absolutely fascinates me and I'm glad you raised it.

If people want to read their safe little books, with their safe little cutesy-poo characters who never make a mistake, never trip, never fall - then more fool them, I say. Personally, nothing puts me off a story more. It isn't believeable, and I'll tell you why - everybody is fallible.

A character without a weakness or a smidgeon of shame? There is nothing more boring. Nothing more done.

I like to remind people in my writing that everybody makes mistakes, nobody is perfect and everybody deserves a second chance - within reason. But I like to float that idea and court that controversy.

Who is the judge here? God? Yourself? The Government or media? Nobody knows anything for sure.

Our world has been based on black and white parameters, and go-with-the-crowd morality. That's something I want to challenge head on, and I think it's admirable you have a non-perfect (by fairly weak social standards anyway) MC.

This need, I suspect, comes from having watched too many people forgive much, and never be forgiven. from being keenly aware of the 'I'm allright Jack' attitude, social cruelty and glaring lack of compassion in mainstream quarters of society. The media for one, te government for two, fashionados and corporate bullies for three and four - and all the fools influenced by them.

Good for you for pushing the button! Too many people just don't DARE.

JB

Even out and out villains can be attractive, in the sense of compelling - look at Edmund in King Lear. At bottom of these and related arguments is one of - what are we trying to do with our fiction? Change the world, suggest improvements, or just explore how certain things really are? How obliged are we to promote or at least fit in with principles that we basically approve of: anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, anti-colonialism, anti-fat, anti-ageism. Or should we defend the proposition that we're writing about particular people, and no one has a right to expect our work to sign up to any socio-political attitudes? Are happy endings the opiate of the people, or papering over the cracks, or a necessary vision of how things ought to be? Or just true, so why not, since we enjoy them?

Emma

I don't subscribe to being PC in my work, and I definitely don't subscribe to happy endings.

A happy ending is usually some other character's unhappy ending. It is fortunate, but I've always thought, as someone crawls away from the wreckage, that it is hardly happy.



JB

I'm not sure I'd agree with that. An ending can be happy for now, not necessarily to anyone's cost. I'd agree that what Cassandra in I Capture the Castle calls 'a brick wall happy ending' won't really do.

Emma

I'm being flippant and self referential, Emma. There are happy endings out there - even in real life I suppose - though the term 'endings' is a bit of a non sequiter anyway, right?

JB

Sorry, I missed the joke - I'm suffering from a sense of humour lapse after being told off by Terry so comprehensively.

Emma

<Added>

With my two-stranded novel, I found that I couldn't bear to make both strands end unhappily, and it was too cheesy to end both happily. I tossed a coin, and as always, then realised what was the right decision.

Emma

Emma can you say what your novel is about or is it hush hush till publication?