A novel is not a lecture and you shouldn’t use it to lecture the readers on current politics, no matter how right you think you are or how much you think the majority of people agree with you.
Recently I’ve been reading an author I last read in the nineties. Partly because his series has obviously reverted and he brought it all out in ebook. and there are books I could never find before. You see, I discovered that series when it had already gone out of print. Back in pre-history we used to pay the used bookstores to do a national search and find the books, and some of the books we couldn’t find.
So I binge read the science fiction series. It has one of the stupidest premises ever, but if you ignore the fact the war is not a strict and arbitrated thing ever, the series itself is a crazy fun ride, and the characters are engaging and amazing.
So, after I read the series, I read a fantasy series (David Eddings, starting with Pawn of Prophecy) which I might or might not have read in the eighties but I don’t remember.
The only other series Eddings has in ebook — and it’s easier for me to read ebook for fiction since I carry the all over, and it’s easier to just carry the kindle — I don’t particularly care for.
I’m in the end stretch of Rhodes to Hell, and I’m trying to do this week’s chapters of Witch’s Daughter and of course No Man’s Land is still ripping through my brain, while becoming more insanely complex at the same time. This is the part of the book where I usually come to my husband and say “this book is toooooo smart for me” and cry.
Anyway, as you can imagine when I’m like that, I’m not in the mood to try to get into new series by reading five or six that don’t work, and I don’t want to just go back to the low-demanding Jane Austen fanfic.
So I went back and found the first writer, the one I read back in the 90s, had a new series out. And I got the first book.
I’m not going to say it rocked my world. He has one obsession that is as weird as my obsession with Kit Marlowe, and he shoves it everywhere, whether it make sense or not. In this series it’s kind of a background, and it could be worse. The characters aren’t as engaging as in the last book, but they are human enough.
And then suddenly on page 100 he makes a joke about a current day political figure.
Note this is something that takes place 100 years from now. And the political thing he picked is unique. I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly feel like making jokes about, say Taft. And I can growl about Woodrow Wilson, but I don’t know anything about his private life before or after becoming president. And note that I am a political junkie and a history junkie.
If I were on the run from assassins, and in the middle of a mess, the last thing I’d do is pause everything to tell you that “detail of Warren G. Harding’s life” was so stupid and made him the worst human being ever.
So, count this as two mistakes. First, it was jarring as all get out and out of character. Second, I’m going “Dude. Even if I agreed with you, I’d cringe, because this smells like a Tourette’s outbreak. As in ‘I hate this guy so much, I have to put my hatred where it doesn’t belong.’” But the truth is I don’t agree with him.
And I bet you there’s a good number of people who would otherwise love this book who similarly don’t agree with him.
Okay, so I go “Give the dog a bite, and to be fair, a lot of science fiction writers are crazy.”
And I go back to reading the book.
Which is when he again, completely unnecessary in what he’s talking about, drops what I’m sure he thinks is a snarky burning issue of today, but which is in fact a massively overhyped issue of today. (Note, if you’re burning to know what it is, yes, I’m going to go there on my blog, though without naming the author because honestly, he’s just doing tribal signaling.)
Okay, that was stupid, but I knew from his first series that I actually loved that his connection to reality is at very best tenuous, so, give the dog two bites.
… And then I hit four pages: FOUR SOLID PAGES in which he’s a propos nothing forcing an event that neither advances nor delays the plot but which breaks out to lecture us in the stupidest way possible about this thing that he’s sure is make or break.
And yes, of course, much sciency, too important to let go. Except that even within his lecture it makes no sense whatsoever, and even skimming I keep thinking “Do you think? In any sense of the word? Or are you just spinning up random numbers and going “All the people who read me will of course agree with me and think how much smart, very sciency I am?”
This would be like my taking four pages to lecture you about soemthing I think people really should maybe care about. Stuff like studying history, say. I mean I think you should learn history, but I’m not going to stop a book, in the middle of a tense scene to have my character be pointlessly quizzed about history so I can tell you how not being taught history makes society worse and blah blah blah.
And that was enough.
I skimmed to the end and read the end. And it was okay. But even though he has another 4 books in the series, I can’t bring myself to buy them.
Part of the problem is not even that he doesn’t agree with me. Yeah, that’s part of the problem, but even if he agreed with me those lectures would have popped me out of the story, because they didn’t proceed naturally out of the story. They stopped the story to lecture me.
I’ve read with some eagerness lectures that fit the story. Mostly lectures on made up science, or future science, or why the author thinks the situation in the book would be much worse, or– whatever, based on some scientific of historic thing, on some statistical likelihood or some detail of some science I never had any interest in.
And that is so even when when I disagree with the author, or it has a political hint I don’t like, if it fits in the story and it makes sense, I will maybe huff at details of the lecture, but I’ll lump it and come back for more.
So, your — or at least my — take away from this:
1- you are not a lecturer. If there’s a topic you care that ardently about and you really think is life or death (and who would think that, when– never mind) write a non fiction article. Do a series of lectures. Stand on the street corner screaming the end is night.
I don’t care, but do not drop it in the middle of your novel. Because people didn’t buy your novel for you to give them your super-urgent lecture.
2- Particularly don’t do this when it makes no sense whatsoever to give them a lecture or a piece of political snark from what would be 100 years before for the character.
3- Particularly don’t do this when you’re going to go on for four pages, repeating “information” most of your readers — and guys I’m sixty — got pounded into them in college at the latest. If they weren’t convinced then, they’re not going to be convinced in the middle of a chase scene which you interrupted to lecture them with these old arguments. And if they’re already convinced, why are you interrupting the novel to lecture them? Precisely?
Anyway, that’s it. Refrain from climbing on the podium and clearing your throat and giving that lecture.
You’re a fiction writer, not a lecturer, much less an evangelist. Yeah, you can sometimes cause people to rethink their long-held ideas. But to do that you have to be sneaky and make your story immensely interesting.
And above all, don’t repeat “arguments” that they can hear anywhere because they’re the establishment position.
You’re an entertainer. Entertain!
Mad Genius Club 
40 responses to “Don’t Lecture”
[…] could sing WATERMELON at the top of his voice. This, of course, is a craft error and I covered that here. It is a writing mistake. Which is why I did that on that […]
Two faults in one: lecturing, and treating the time that he was writing in as privileged. This can be bad even when it’s just a pop culture reference.
True, in The Vixen War-Bride, the main character references Hogan’s Heroes but he does make it clear that he was doing a broad, historical overview of coping mechanisms when he happened on it.
Jokey pop cultural references that should make more sense to the reader/watcher than the other characters are enough of a trope that I only roll my eyes a little, especially if the makers go to some trouble to make it specific to certain characters. DS9 having a whopping four(1) human(2) characters invested in mostly(3) 19th-20th c. history and popular culture was maybe a bit much, but we are talking about Deep Space Island of Misfit Toys; possibly Starfleet views people with such backward-looking interests as a trifle suspect.
(1) I’m counting Eddington’s fascination with Les Miz here. A couple other characters kind of study up on the book as part of the process of hunting him.
(2) Jadzia Dax shows some familiarity with Arthurian legends, but those legends have been around long enough you would expect them to linger a few more centuries, and the Daz symbiote and its hosts have had on-and-off contact with humans for a hundred-plus years.
(3) You could make a case that Bashir and O’Brien are more general enthusiasts for historical reenactment and maybe wargaming, with an emphasis on heroic battles against long odds: Brian Boru, the Alamo, Battle of Britain. Sisko comes from what is apparently still a strongly defined subculture in 23rd century Louisiana, and his historical interests are stuff kind of adjacent to that and/or his love of baseball.
Sorry, should have been a response to Mary’s comment.
Worse still are pop-culture references where the characters CAN’T understand them. Breaks the fourth wall entirely.
Moby Dick and War and Peace would both sometimes go into these lectures. At least they were both in character, but when the narrator would start into one of his crazy uncle ‘whales are fish’ rants, or Tolstoy would wander off into a university lecture on troop deployments, I was just as happy I could flip through those sections without having to care what was in them.
It would have been one of Dante’s rings if I’d been reading those on assignment.
I’ll be honest, I was way more invested in the Whiteness of the Whale and How to Butcher a Whale chapters than I was in the actual characters.
“National church” ? Is this argot, or did Otto Korruptit slip in and do your prose dirty?
I expect that was “search”. But “. . . the end is night.” was even funnier.
Yep.
search. No. I was just typing while other people were talking. Weird stuff happens.
I’ve been doing a lot of quasi-phonetic typos too.
Heck of a book, to have gotten two posts out of. I’m morbidly curious about the identity of the author. Any clues?
(I totally understand why you don’t, BTW)
Nothing turns me off more than when you can tell that a (CURRENT YEAR) political point was clearly shoehorned into the story. If it was because they sincerely believe that (possible) or their editors required it inserted (which I can believe in this sad day and age).
Example, I’ve been trying out the Rivers of London series to get around my lacking a good Dresden Files or The Laundry fix lately. The most recent two books had very clear “oh, racism is all right, as long as it’s brown (the protagonist is a mixed-race African/British male) on white” subtext and text involved. Oh, and “trans is good, especially if you’re doing it to smash the patriarchy and crack some eggshells.”
…series dropped.
I’m trying to figure out how to make it clear that the current DEI/Girlboss regime is a terrible thing in my YA novel concept and the only thing I can think of so far is to lump it all under a single, terrible concept-nihilism. And use historical examples to add context to the more recent examples.
If you’re going to have a lecture, at least make it interesting, or at least in context to the story (my favorite example is the Baby Cooper Dollar Bill story in the War Against The Chtorr novel, followed by the story about what happened when one writer was pushed a little too far…). Gives context, allows for world-building, and there’s some very inadvertent irony and humor in it.
Yeah, I had the same feel about the last Rivers Of London novel I read. Pity, because up until then I was really enjoying it.
It was a really interesting concept, and I was enjoying the slow burn “the magic is coming back” and how you could pull off keeping it out of the public eye. (Mind you, I’m only surprised that the British Civil Service, which has been fighting a centuries-long war to take control of things from Parliament hasn’t stuck their oar in yet…).
And then, clearly shoehorned in Barbara Streisand. There was one scene in an earlier story where Peter slaps down a chav for trying to be “racist.” But that was in context, and it showed that the chav was an idiot.
Some of the latest edits….very much no. Lecture.
Show, don’t tell.
Show them using some of the Current Powerful Hooks to attack people– preferably in formats like “[list of historical examples], Nazis went after the Jews, Socialist went after the ‘right’, activists always demonize those who stand against htem, because what htey stand for isn’t strong enough to win fairly.”
That is the current plan so far, and making it clear that the current Girlboss, yay! regime is just another mask worn by an old, old enemy of humanity.
Who the heck pretends to be Dick Deadeye to make folks listen to them, right?!
For folks not familiar:
he’s a character from HMS Pintafore. Main thing is that he could say the sky is blue and everybody would jump down his throat denying it, and the good guy could say the sky is polkadot pink and there’d be a chorus of “well, that’s an interesting point, we should listen to him.”
I remember a book that I read a few years ago that had humans active in the Solar System and so far “all was peaceful”.
I don’t remember much about it (including the author) but I remember this scene where two Intelligence Agents, one American the other wasn’t American, discussing something relevant to the book’s plot.
But the non-American Agent “jabs” the American Agent about that former actor who was the American President who “almost Started WW3”.
That’s “funny” is that the non-American Agent was an Agent of the Soviet Union and that former actor’s actions lead to the end of the Soviet Union. :lol:
The author had to make a Jab about Reagan and at the time he wrote the book, he couldn’t imagine that the Soviet Union could peacefully die. :lol:
I was just remembering so many books in the late ’80s and early ’90s that kept having the Soviet Union standing well into…well, about now.
Boy did they get at that prediction wrong…
Do you know who could lecture without it seeming like a lecture? H. Beam Piper. The man could make points about politics and economics in an entertaining manner. Read Oomphel In the Sky (https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/20649) to see what I mean.
Heinlein too, to a great extent.
Well, Starship Troopers. My late wife said it was a great book if you skipped over the lectures.
Meh. The lectures made sense and were necessary to the full picture.
What you’re describing is the reason I don’t buy books anymore. That hectoring quality, those little zingers they can’t help themselves from sliding in there. Guns cause crime, you know. Poverty creates criminals, you know.
That, and the unrelenting negativity. Evil people doing evil things to each other, no. I’m done.
I do admit, in my own work, having Alice Haddison scream at the president. We don’t hear what was said, but we were gifted the knowledge that he needed to change his pants afterward. (Yes, -that- president. Not the orange one, the other one.) Then there was the time the Joint Chiefs were introduced to the divine werewolf and a nine-tailed kitsune, on the occasion of the ceremony at Arlington Cemetery on Memorial Day. Come to pay their respects to the fallen, you know.
Giant spiders have been seen frolicking on the front lawn of Parliament as well, culmination of an affair involving Her Majesty’s Black Bag Squad and some rather ill-advised arrest attempts. Hilarity ensued, as well as some threats delivered with such exquisite courtesy the target didn’t understand they’d been threatened until later.
There’s really no need to mention politics when you can drag the miscreants out and subject them to their just desserts using comedy. It’s fiction, right? Have fun, at least.
Just what are these books of yours? Especially the one with the ‘divine werewolf and the nine-tail kitsune’? I think I’d like to take a look at them.
IIRC The Phantom writes under the name “Edward Thomas” and the first book in that series is Unfair Advantage.
Thank you! I’ll go hunting for them.
Thanks for the plug, Paul. ~:D
The wares of Edward Thomas writer can be found at Amazon if you dig really hard, and at my blog:
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/
The book is called “The Discarded Shoe” and is not yet published, so I have here a snippet:
“Very good, Major Lawrence,” said the General, feeling on slightly firmer ground. “Will you and Ms. Aella be so kind as to introduce me to your company’s VIPs?”
“Sure!” said Aella cheerfully taking the General’s arm, to the alarm of the Secret Service and the General’s aid. A subtle head-shake from the Major convinced them to back up a trifle. “Demons, space aliens or saints, General? Or George, he’s mostly human. He’s on his best behavior today, he even left the dragon part of him at home.”
“The Major has been talking about demons in his reports, let’s start there.” The General played along with the gag, allowing himself to be led along. The feeling of being out of control returned as Aella walked right up to the tall, bony wolf woman. She was wearing a deep green kilt of Black Watch tartan with one end thrown over her shoulder, the leather baldric for her Claymore over the other shoulder. Her black-soled bare feet looked oddly appropriate with the ensemble.
“Madam Guruh, may I present General Ashford Burke, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of the United States military,” said Aella easily. “General Burke, this is Guruh, the Vengeful Wolf.”
“Good morning, Madam Guruh,” said the General, looking Guruh resolutely in the eye. “Thank you for attending our memorial service.” He held out his hand for her to shake.
“I greet you, Ashford Burke,” she said, yellow eyes looking into his, taking his measure. She gave a bow suitable between equals, then shook his hand carefully. “My apologies if my court etiquette is incorrect, good sir. It has been long since I mixed in royal circles.”
The General glanced at the huge hand that engulfed his, the coal-black palm calloused and thick with muscle, the back thickly furred, the fingers clawed like a wolf’s paws. Those claws looked extremely businesslike, and sharp. He looked back up at her face, the obvious intelligence of her gaze, her ears perked forward expressing interest and a certain predatory intent. As if she were thinking about biting him but had decided to refrain because it might be rude. “I’ve read about you in Major Lawrence’s reports. We’ve had some questions about all that.”
“You mean the demons,” said Guruh nodding at the Major, who had tagged along behind Aella. “I helped young Thomas write that report. He understated the case considerably. I denuded my world of demons and the necromancers who raised them. I battled them for countless years before my death, and my fall into the shadows. I chose to take my revenge upon those evil ones there in the dark realm instead of seeking my reward in the light.”
“You mean Hell,” said the General flatly. “You went to Hell. And escaped?”
“Perhaps it was the Hell of your religion, or perhaps not,” said Guruh, ears moving forward to a more dominant position. “The stories are not always true, General. In the shadows there is only darkness, a place to hide. What makes it evil is the dwellers in its deep places. They prey upon each other, stealing sustenance and power, growing huge with evil and fell deeds. There did I hunt and slay them in their myriads. The greatest of the Dark Ones I crushed in my grip, leaving him broken and crying in his dead city. Yea, even the vast all-destroying worms fell to my claws. But I did not escape. I was haled forth from that place of suffering by my beloved Erwin, then brought here to your world by George McIntyre, whose Valkyries surround us here today. And here, by the grace of the Gods, I remain.”
“Not what I learned in Sunday School, ma’am,” said the General a little weakly.
“Indeed,” agreed Guruh, flicking her ears with humor. “I have had some few conversations with priests of your religion the last while. Many are quite concerned that my existence and powers overturn some of their strongest beliefs. But then they say the same of Aella, whose birth and existence defies their catechism.”
Aella gave him a wink and a winsome hair toss. “We robot girlfriends are all sorts of trouble,” she said cheerfully.
I feel like I have to add, I’ve spoken to people who get offended if a book doesn’t lecture you about The Great Evil Of The Moment. In that one fantasy series I’ve mentioned here before, one guy is constantly furious that it happens in a multi-racial (species?) society with a race-based three-tier caste system, but aside from occasional moments by this or that character to complain about it, mostly when it gets in the way of them doing what they want, its not the main focus of a mostly light-hearted romantic adventure story.
I’m avoiding mentioning the name here because the guy I’m thinking of follows me all over the Internet to lecture me on how wrong I or anyone else is for liking it. I doubt you’d appreciate that being dragged in here.
I have read writing advice that says you must make it clear in story that Bad Thing Is Bad. Because your readers have no consciences without it, apparently.
Nod.
There was one story set in Ancient Egypt as told by an Ancient Egyptian.
He was telling the story of his life to be read by people like himself.
At one point, he stops his story to “defend” slavery.
It almost threw me out of the story because in his world/time nobody would question the existence of slavery.
So why would he feel the need to defend slavery?
Obviously the actual author felt the need to tell his readers that his character lived in a time/place where slavery was a fact of life that wasn’t really questioned then.
I absolutely agree with Sarah. Even though it was current day events and politics that triggered me to start writing, those things would massively out of place in the universe I have created. And not just because of the time period I’m currently writing about.
I suppose, however, that if I ever write any science fiction in that universe, I will need to come up with some explanation of what the Republic of Texas was doing during the Crazy Years ™. 🤣
LOL
But I saw what you did to Lyndon Baines Johnson! [Very Big Crazy Grin]
I enjoyed that, too.