Writing with a social concience.

I've read an excellent 'young adult' book called Junk, by Melvin Burgess. Every teenager should read it before they consider taking any kind of drugs- it really shows what the consequences are, without being preachy in any way, just telling it like it is, and I think it's based vaguely on the author's own experiences. Funny thing was that when it got published there was a big fuss made, that Burgess was corrupting youth and encouraging them to experiment in dangerous ways and how terrible it was, blah blah blah. I don't get any of this, because it was clear to me that anybody who decides to try heroine after finishing that story must be out of their mind. But like I said, it wasn't a preachy book at all, there wasn't a moment when any of the characters said 'I wish I hadn't tried junk that time,' or anything like that, which would have been unbelievably cheesy. The reader could see for themselves how messed up the junkies' lives had become. It was great because I don't like it when authors set out to argue a point, I prefer it when they set out to tell a story that'll make people think. When it comes down to it, it's the story that's the most important thing, not any message that's being put across.

I think Trainspotting was like that. The book (and the film) really showed the scuzzy end of drug-taking. No one could accuse Welch (is that how you spell his name?) of being preachy, yet he still leaves us with the impression that this is nowhere we want to go.

In the sense that people care about other people? I think they do, they just dont show it very well. I like to write about real life (imagined) sequences where people have to sort themselves out. And the caring does matter.

Writing with a social conscience is the only reason that I DO write. For me, the whole reason of my own writing is to address certain issues and to explore certain problems. It may not be a writer's job to provide answers, but for me it's certainly important to help to direct people towards the right questions.

Yes like them two replys; i just think there's not enough writers doing this or maybe i am not reading enough new stuff. Do you think trainspotting was written with a social concience voice behind it.

Maybe not entirely for that purpose, but there are some great chapters in it, like the chapter where Spud is trying to get his head around his racist elder relative, or the chapter about Renton's brother's funeral. Also I think, by it's adherence to dialect and lack of romanticism, Welsh was trying to show something. You can write a book about Junkies without including most of the stuff that Welsh put into Trainspotting.

Courttia Newland is a current writer with a social conscience. I sure there's some others. I agree Irvine Welsh is probably one.

I used to write very much with a social conscience. I figured I could write from the street, and I wrote to shock but would have a hard-hitting message at the end of it. Many people may not like this style, and that's their choice, but my heart was 110% on the side of the reader. I really, really wanted to write material that could help in some way or leave a message. A few months ago I read two pieces of mine at an ABCtales event. I went on rather longer than I should have on that occassion, but we won't talk about that. The pieces were about my time spent in South-Central L.A., where the Bloods and the Crips have their homes. The pieces were written with shock value, for they are autobiographical, but one finished with a huge anti-war statement while the other finished by debating choices and belief. As to how well this works, I don't know. I'm hardly the best writer on the site. But a lot of my writing follows this style - offering advice if you like, from a real-life viewpoint. If I can make good, so can anybody else. If I can find positive choices in crap situations, then so can the reader. My hero and inspiration in this style was Ben Elton, who could keep an audience laughing for 15 minutes and then suddenly hit them hard with a statement like, "And that's why 16-year-old girls have to suck salesmen's dicks for their next fix, and that's wrong!!!" More recently, I've been writing poetry with no social conscience at all. But I would like to get back to writing with a conscience. (Good thread, Stephen, although I'm not too sure if I've phrased my contribution the way I intended).

It has to be good writing first. Otherwise no one will care, or even bother to read to the end. The social conscience element needs to come from the story and not be grafted onto it. If the writer starts off to make some point, it can often read like a polemic, which are extremely boring. Still, Dickens wrote stories with a social conscience in his days, and he was, and still is, widely read, because they are good stories, not because of the political points he scored. These kinds of messages are usually lost on me, but that's another topic.

I like to put people in a spot and have them make a decision but it's usually the wrong one. As for putting a message across, well that's not my job. First and foremost I want to entertain and tell a story that people can relate to, this will ALWAYS mean there will be some moral choices to be made because that's life but I don't want to push things down the reader's throat. I present them with a situation or a dilemma and let the character do his/her own thing. I looked at my current novel and in the seven chapters thus far written there has been: murder, rivalry, male rape domestic violence bullying masturbation unrequited love manhood (and it's attainment) obesity/food obsession the list goes on but none of it is a particularly big deal to me, these things just happen in the story. They're not moral issues I want addressed so you can think about them in your own way or pass over them and get on with the story.