Injecting Politics Into Your Fiction

People are passionate about their political beliefs. Writers are no exception, and as artists, might be more passionate than others. So it’s a natural inclination for writers to want to inject some of their political leanings into their fiction.

But is it a good idea? In my own fiction, I try to leave politics out of the equation, meaning, I never intentionally try to make a political point in my fiction writing.

When doing research for this post, I came across an article from one of my blogs called Writing Fiction by Crawford Killian. He has years of experience in the world of fiction, writing and publishing, making him a great source for this topic.

While confessing to politicizing his own fiction, he thinks it’s generally not a good idea:

But fiction is a terrible vehicle for real political propaganda, at least the kind that wants to change minds and incite to action.

That’s because relatively few people read fiction, and even fewer read fiction that seriously challenges their current political views.

And he goes on to say that if a novel is political in nature, it needs to stand on it’s own literary merits first. Crawford gives the example of George Orwell’s novel 1984. The novel is a good book first, and makes it’s political points second.

Crawford does admit that most fiction has some element of politics in it. We are social animals, making it a part of human nature. I think how those political beliefs are portrayed that matters. If one is overly preachy in their writing, it will turn off a lot of readers.

So I write political fiction not to change minds but to try to dramatize what goes on in people’s minds. Whether we vote or not, we’re political. Whether we endorse the status quo or dream of red revolution, we’re political. Even Romeo and Juliet were caught up in violent politics, and so were Frodo and Sam. As Aristotle pointed out, we are social animals. We are therefore political, and a work of fiction without politics would be a truly crude affair that even Stendhal would deplore.

I agree that a work of fiction is not likely to sway someone from being conservative to liberal (for example). As idealistic as that is, probably not going to happen.

When I sat down to write this post, I didn’t realize I had already written something similar back in 2007. My earlier post is called Mixing Fiction and Politics. I took a much more hardlined approach back then that yes, writers should be making their books more political to help steer public discourse.

I guess I’ve softened up since then, or have just taken on more realistic approach to the role politics should play in our literary culture.

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