Hello, writers. Until just now, I couldn’t get dKos to load, so this is written in haste.
It’s been hard to write this week; hard to focus on anything, for most of us, while this horror has been perpetrated on our southern border.
Probably not coincidentally, at least three people have asked me this week if my politics interfere with my book sales, or if they disturb readers. One of the people who asked was an unpublished writer who wanted to know if I thought his politics would keep him from getting published.
I guess I don’t mean politics. I mean being outspoken about one’s political beliefs, particularly online. In my experience, at least 9 writers out of 10 are liberals. When I first started WO! ten years ago, it was very much on my mind that I wanted to help liberals become published writers. At that time I didn’t yet realize the degree to which the literary field slopes left. I don’t think I’ve never known an editor or agent who wasn’t a Democrat.
But many writers feel they ought to hide their politics to avoid offending readers. In these times, it’s hard to hide your politics.
What I told the man who wanted to know if being outspoken online would hurt his chances of being published is that what’s really necessary is to demonstrate that one knows how to behave professionally and decorously. Especially if you’re new and trying to make a good impression on the gatekeepers of the industry.
But being completely apolitical at this particular junction in our national life is itself likely to offend people.
I mean, when kids are being kidnapped and shipped who-knows-where by our government, a writer whose online chatter is all about dogs and baseball can come across as a bit of a creep.
(As for whether being outspoken about politics has ever come back to bite me, the answer is no. The only book for which I’ve gotten any backlash at all has been Hope Chest. It’s sold a lot of copies, and inevitably it has ended up in the hands of a few people who don’t like that one of the characters is a card-carrying socialist. But honestly, their indignation seems to be good advertising as far as I can tell.
The truth is, a writer could be boycotted by every single Trump voter, and it wouldn’t change his or her sales figures.)
What do you think? Should writers keep their politics to themselves?
Try this, for Tonight’s Challenge:
A callow youth and his or her stout companion have arrived, for what seems like the hundredth time, at the Startled Duck. There they must enter and ask for the whereabouts of the Dread Least Grebe. They’re not sure they’ll be well received.
Put yourself as much as you can into the mindset of a conservative. Write the scene as a conservative might write it. (But please don’t write anything racist.)
Questions to consider: Is this kind of writing hard to do? Does it work?
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