How To Write About Bad Things

When we confront immoral behavior in characters, consider how you want to approach it. It may be more interesting to "explain" the behavior -- how it works, why it works, what it does, what causes it, what it effects -- rather than simply say, it's wrong, things shouldn't be like that. For example, racism "worked" because it was very, very effective at granting some people access to incredible emotions, such as pride, and deepening other people's emotions in a negative way, such as shame. Often literature is more about these emotions and the experience of them than it is about just having as 'react' to the injustice of it.

Another way to handle it is to address it "as literature." Why is this immoral behavior in the story? What does it do to the main character? How does it drive the "plot" of the story? What was the author thinking when he or she included it?

Another way to handle it is to speculate on the meaning of the behavior. By speculate, I mean just that: riff, or consider, or guess, or "suggest" the possible meaning of the actions. Try to explain it in a way that makes others think. The trick is less to be "right" than to use the evidence from the text to suggest something interesting -- in this way, you can be a literary writer yourself. The kinds of thinking we value is that thinking that "creates" meaning. This is interpretation. To make one thing another - to explain something in terms of something else. This is a highly valued skill way beyond an English classroom.

This skill puts a premium on you developing new imaginative capacities. It also helps you to sound "original."

As you read over your analysis, how many people would agree with you? Ok. How many people would basically say what you said? How can you start to say "new" things?