Paws and Prose: What is A Writer’s Responsibility?

One of my university modules looked at whether an author is responsible for what they write and to what degree. Is a writer responsible at all, or does the death of the author apply to all? What exactly is a writer’s responsibility?

It was definitely an interesting module, we have been looking at authors like Oscar Wilde who believe that writing is just art for art’s sake, Faulkner who believed it was personal and universal and Orwell who believed it was political.

We delved into the portrayals of Jews in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Look Who’s Back and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. The class came to the conclusion that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was not offensive because the story drew from Rachel Bloom’s experience in the Jewish community. It was her own personal perspective. However, there was a mixed feeling between the other two.

At the end of the module, I came to the conclusion that writing was a degree of all three.

Universal Issues

Every story needs universal issues and themes. Imagine a story where there was not at least one of these:

• friendship
• romance
• death
• bullying
• coming of age
• transition

That is not a full list of universal themes — the list is endless, but it gives you an idea. Without themes like these, a story is dull and hardly a story at all.

Harry Potter is a story with a large theme of growing up, transitioning schools, death and friendship. The Hunger Games has themes of love, family, death. Game of Thrones has probably everything on the above list.

Without these themes, there is no story because a character has nothing to egg them on. It is also unrealistic. They are universal themes for a reason, at some point in our lives, we have all or will all experience many of these themes. A write of passage. So I feel that it is a writer’s responsibility to make sure that a story has universal themes.

Art for Art’s Sake

A story is also there to be admired for its cunning words and beautiful craft, whether that is on the page or on-screen. Wim Wenders Alice in the Cities explores the beauty of storytelling. It’s an art.

If we just had the universal issues alone, then what we would have was nothing more than a pile of statements. And I don’t think that is in our nature.

From the moment we could, we sang ballads to remember stories and battles. We made them into art. We told stories on the walls of caves using pictures. Again art is used to express ourselves, but they don’t miss the universal themes either. I’m sure a lot of cave drawings had the story: “man killed by a bull.”

Early forms of writing started as pictures and symbols. And even if we are writing articles, we want it to be stunning. Use the write words so that the reader can see the beauty of our craft. Similarly, if we wrote only in stereotypes, stories would be boring and predictable. There would be no need to read them because we know what will happen. Writing vast characters makes a story beautiful in it’s own way.

As a species, we are creative. We need art for art’s sake, but that doesn’t mean we do not intertwine it with universal issues. They’ll be part of the story’s core. We, as a writer, are responsible to write stories that are beautiful and engaging.

Most English-speaking people … will admit that cellar door is ‘beautiful’, especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful

J. R. R. Tolkien

Political

Along with universal issues, politics come into the story’s core too, whether we are aware of it or not.

Now, I know J.K. Rowling has outed herself as a transphobe, but it does not change the fact that the Harry Potter books are political in their own right. They speak against racism, whether that is the blood of a wizard—which some characters value based on family line—or Hermione’s attempt to free the House Elves. I also mentioned that the books had universal themes, and I’d imagine everyone would agree that the world she built could be discussed as art.

1984 speaks out against a government with too much power. And, despite believing he was writing for art’s sake, Orwell’s Portrait of Dorian Gray has some strong homosexual vibes. Orwell’s time was extremely dangerous for anyone who was not heterosexual so the mere fact that he hints at sexuality is a political move. It also discusses the dangers of vanity and has universal themes such as love and death.

I find it amusing that Orwell wrote this book to prove you can have a story with no responsibility but has a great moral at the end.

Authenticity

Authors are certainly responsible for authenticity. Poor writers will stick a mobile phone in a story when mobile phones had not been invented. Sometimes, this is fine if it is an alternate world and you can explain this, but if it is set in our past, it is laziness.

I’ve read books where characters were locked out of a room, suddenly to appear in the room with another character locked out. This shows poor editing and proof-reading. It was clear that at some point the one who appears in the room was going to suffer the same fate as the character out of the room. The author forgot this and missed it in proof-reading but it affects the authenticity.

Stereotypes also affects the authenticity. If characters are nothing but their stereotypes, they lack depth and the story can become boring. The author’s voice is lost—if it ever appears.

So, I feel all writers should research what they can and try their hardest to avoid stereotypes. By researching their setting and by writing dynamic characters, a writer’s piece becomes authentic and gains a voice.

Death of the Author

Another subject that can touch upon the writer’s responsibility is the death of the author. This, in summary, means that once a book or story has an audience, the author is forgotten. It is up to the audience to determine what a story means.

For example, a meme of a Hogwarts transgirl able to use the girl’s stairs in Gryffindor Tower. This is what the audience wants it to mean, regardless of J.K.’s views, and so this is what it means.

Again, I think this is something that cannot be avoided when it comes to writer’s responsibility. Every reader will have a different experience with the text, and their experience is likely to change in rereads. Their own points of view are likely to be different from the writer and that is absolutely fine.

I am not your mother

A friend and I built on this theory with one of our own, which my friend coined as the “I am not your mother” theory. There have been books and films which have been deemed too violent. I have heard from another student that Stephen King pulled one of his books because there was proof a student was inspired to commit a school shooting.

However, as each individual reads into things differently, is that really King’s fault? I don’t know what this student’s conclusion was as I have not researched into it very much, but I watched Game of Thrones and I am not out there with a sword, killing people. I’m not collecting people’s heads on spikes just because I watched The Last Kingdom. And I don’t think I am a faery just because I read and watch a lot of fantasy dramas.

You cannot count for idiocy.

What is a writer’s responsibility?

I feel while writing the story, a writer has a responsibility to write for the art’s sake, to write universal issues and to discuss political topics. However, once it has

For my essay, I looked at stories that have a disabled protagonist, including on-screen. I wanted to see whether the protagonist has a personality out of the stereotypes while also contributing to the four parts of writer’s responsiility

I enjoyed rereading Amy and Matthew and Katy as well as watching films and TV shows such as Atypical, The A Word and Me Before You. Although it was not possible to cover everything in the essay.