"I'm Offended!"

       There are two topics I try to avoid writing about and/or discussing even with family: religion and politics. I do this because there’s never a clear winner, and it can lead to some heated debates. However, after reading an article tonight, I’m bringing out the soap box, and discussing a political view that irks me. It seems in today’s technology driven, connected society everything is now deemed “offensive”. This bothers me because as a writer, I try to avoid most taboo subjects, but it seems no matter how hard I try, something in my stories can be labeled objectable. As they say, it’s impossible to please everyone, but pissing people off is a piece of cake.

      Why does this bother me? As a writer, some of us will push sometimes the envelope, and add our personal views about some forbidden subject into our works. In every story written, there’s some political, religious, society view in the pages, rather it’s the main plot point or subconsciously weaved into the story. We can’t help it because we are e putting our heart and souls into every letter on the page. Does this mean we should worry about every sentence typed might upset someone? I say no because if we did that, we would never write a single word.

      This also makes you wonder about genres that are out there for the shear purpose to shock and awe, such as erotica and horror. Other genres, such as sci-fi and fantasy can contain political and religious views within their chapters. Should all of them be banned? I say no. What might sicken one person will be enjoyed by millions. If you don’t like the genre and/or the subjects in a single book, don’t read it. Let’s quit raining on everyone’s parade because you don’t agree with the story the author has penned.

     I honestly feel like that if I wrote a best selling novel where every character was a gray blob with names of kitchen appliances, someone on the web would deem it repulsive because gray denotes skin tones. Yes, I feel in my heart we’re getting to that point. A novel full of non-descriptive locations and characters will be insulting to someone. There’s no mention of race, religion, creed, etc, but because there’s one mention of color, it’s protested because of the color gray. I could even change the characters all to atoms, and protested because it promotes science.

      If this madness doesn’t end, I envision a future all forms of communication will die off. The human race will be afraid to say anything fearing someone will attack them because of one single word that made them feel insulted. We’ll would be communicating through emojis so nothing can be taking the wrong way. Far as books, every character would an it named The, and there’s no dialogue at all between them. No worldly views, no taboo subjects, only pages full of Wingdings.

    My final thought is this: I do censor myself, but I refuse to censor myself to the point of worrying about who, if any, I will offend. I will write the story as I see fit, and it contains a subject that might shocking to many people, I will post a warning or something. After that, it’s wide open writing till the story is crafted the way I intended it to be. After that, I won’t remove a single word worrying about how it might be seen once released. That’s the beauty of writing. It’s an art that makes one think about how a fictional world mirrors the real world, the good and the bad. Until next time, stick to your guns and write the story you want to tell.