Fiction Writing Is Not About Telling Lies For Fun and Profit
I’m writing fiction again. And from this side of my life, it feels so much the same, yet so much different.
Something’s grated at me for years and it’s the idea that horrible people can be great writers and that fiction is a bunch of lies. I’ve always questioned this. There’s a famous book called Telling Lies for Fun and Profit by Lawrence Block. I’ve heard countless writers say this to get laughs from writing audiences. Most of them are men. I’m a veteran of the famous “Let the lady speak!” panel at a World Science Fiction Convention (four men plus me — and they all yelled at each other for half an hour straight until a woman in the back stood and said in a loud, firm voice, “Let the lady speak!” and everyone clapped).
Sturgeon’s Law says “90% of everything is crap,” and by this, sci-fi writer Ted Sturgeon really meant 90% of sci fi was crap, along with 90% of all other books.
The sci fi I grew up with was didactic. It was meant to indoctrinate readers into the worldview of the writer and in that aim, it was very successful. Countless people today have a worldview formed by the 60s and 70s sci fi writers. We’re awfully lucky that not every single person creating these imaginary worlds was bad. I imagine Gene Roddenberry was a pretty darn good guy.
If there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a liar. As television’s Dr. House famously said, “Everybody lies.”
So of course I lie, but I strongly prefer not to. If I have a choice between saying something supportive or saying something harmful for no good reason, then I’ll always choose being supportive. Or silent. My Bampy always told me “If you can’t say something good, don’t say anything at all.”
So I think the people who have so strongly emphasized that fiction writing is about lies and money don’t know any better and maybe they don’t know what kind of ride they’re on. Who gets on a rollercoaster hoping it will crash and decapitate them?
I cannot bear Harold Bloom and find his worldview, literary canon and general oeuvre harmful and wicked, but I think he was…
