Moralizing in Books
Think twice before you moralize in your book. Ditch "sharing is caring!" and go for a more nuanced message. Here's how.
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Transcript for Moralizing in Books Video
Hello. I am Mary Kole with Good Story Company. Today, we are talking about moralizing in books, one of my favorite topics.
So I deal with this primarily with picture books. Everybody gets a really good idea for a picture book every once in a while. And they think, "Oh, there's something that I need this child to know." That is not a great position to start with when you are writing a picture book. Unfortunately, it's the most common position a lot of people start with. But needing to impress something upon your reader usually leads to heavy-handed writing, writing that is a little bit obvious, writing that states the theme and writing that comes in for an unsatisfying ending because the ending is all about hitting the reader over the head.
Now, the opposite of moralizing in books is trusting your reader. But how can we, as writers, trust our reader to get what we're doing if we don't necessarily trust ourselves yet. This is a big question and I think this is why so many books get really heavy-handed when it comes to the stuff that matters. Of course, the stuff that matters is your theme if you're writing a book for older readers or the outright message of your book if you're writing for younger readers.
I would like to impress upon you that readers are much more capable of discovering what you mean than a lot of writers give them credit for. And I would like to further push you a little bit to do what you're doing, trust that you're doing it, and then reading is an interactive process, right. You put the words on the page but the story has actually been created in the reader's imagination. Then you pass the baton to the reader who is great at their job because they are a reader. They have the title of “Reader.” And let them take your story the rest of way home because your story is not complete, just as the manuscript on your computer. The completion happens when it comes alive in somebody else's imagination.
And so, when you moralize, think about it this way. You rob the reader of their joy of discovery, that discovery process, the sort of interactive element, where they get to put on their detective hats and figure out your story, figure out your theme, and extrapolate the message for themself. And if you've, sort of, spoonfed it all to them, they're gonna have a less robust experience with your creation. So, I would say, every time that you reach for an explanation...This happens in novels. This happens in picture books. For example, she scowled because she was dissatisfied. Lob that second part off and let the reader extrapolate the character's feelings based on the clues that they've been given. Avoid any impetus that you have to explain what you're doing. This is especially important when it comes to theme, to the message, to the very end of the book.
And when we think about moralizing in books for our youngest readers, you have to keep in mind the experience that your preschoolers, your elementary school kids, your toddlers have all day, every day. They are being told what to do by their parents, older siblings, faith leaders, teachers, babysitters, everybody tells them what to do all day long. And so, they don't turn to books for more lecturing. It's a really easy way to not only turn off your reader potentially but also any literary agent, any publisher that's evaluating your manuscript for potential publication. If they see you say something along the lines of "And Jenny learned that sharing is caring." That's gonna be a big red flag for your manuscript because it tells them you may not trust yourself to do what you've set out to do. You certainly don't trust your reader and it's not necessarily putting that young reader of your picture book, your early reader of your chapter book first, because you're not necessarily considering their experience so consider their experience. They're told what to do all day long and avoid that urge that you have to really make the message clear. Your writing will be more open to interpretation but that's how it's supposed to be when we want to really engage our readers.
So in any category, for any audience, for any age, I would really, really encourage you to think twice before you moralize in your book or before you explain what you're doing. And that is the process that starts with learning to trust ourselves and learning to feel a little bit more confident in the writing that we are doing and getting across what we intend, so a little bit of a pep talk today.
My name is Mary Kole with Good Story Company. Here is to a good, non-preachy, non-explanatory story.
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