Fiction - Where should we draw the line

Where do you draw the line?

Our world is full of conflict, cruelty and trauma. Stuff we are confronted with, in graphic detail, most nights on the television news. In fact telecommunications ensure that we all know about them, often as they happen.

When I wrote my trilogy, ‘A Child’s Eye View’, ‘Graham’s Gang’ and ‘Help Out House’, I was keenly aware of the sensitivity of the subject, for there can’t be many topics more dreadful than children living under threat.

I attended a christening recently, where one of the guests, who I knew slightly, joined our group and in due course, announced that he would, could and should never have any cotter to do with anything that included child abuse.

Since his statement came out of nowhere, having nothing to do with preceding topics, I realised he was aiming his comments at me, or rather my trilogy. Yet there was nothing malicious or critical in his manner. I suspect it was rather a case of avoiding mention of the books, with a pre-emptive declaration that he hadn’t bought one and had no intention of doing so.

At a conceptual level I totally understand his view, but I’m a little saddened to come across such ‘distant’ perspectives.

The great majority of people who have read the books have been startled by how much they enjoyed the experience, yet no-one has dwelt on the core subject and the same applies, for the most part, to the reviews posted on Amazon. Conversely, almost everyone said how much they enjoyed meeting up with and following Graham, the accidental hero who is given a remarkable gift which he uses to help kids facing danger.

Murder, rape and all manner of cruelties feature in crime, mystery and thriller fiction, yet while most civilised people find such things abhorrent, books of that genre continue to be best sellers.  I suggest that the reason we like reading them lies with the knowledge that mysteries are solved, killers caught and the good guys win. Well, I do, at any rate.

In following my main character, Graham, the reader will ‘befriend’ a champion for needy children. To have a hero is one thing, but to find one that so many have identified with is something I’m quite proud of.

A retired Head Teacher said to me recently, “I wish we’d had a ‘Graham’ when I was teaching.”

Which brings me back to the first question, which might otherwise read as, ‘What are the rights and wrongs of fictionalising a sensitive topic’?

Natural laws dictate that for every force or state there has to be an opposite. Black or white, rough or smooth, high or low, positive or negative and good or evil.

It goes without saying that wilful child abuse lies in the latter category and should appal any civilised person, but it happens; it’s a fact of life along with genocide, murder, rape,… well, I don’t need to go on. But we have  to believe that the forces of good are stronger and that is the underlying theme of Graham’s Chronicles.

So, and these are only my views, but;

1. I believe it is wrong to fictionalise the success of such a sensitive topic
2. I believe it is necessary for us to believe such things can be beaten and the perpetrators called to account.
3. I believe we benefit by addressing them.

In short, and in a bad, bad, world, the good guys should win. Let’s continue to believe that.