I’ve been thinking about creativity and art a lot in general recently. This came mainly from an interview with Neil Newbon while he was at EGX. He was, of course, talking about Astarion, the arrogant elf vampire he voice acted and mocapped in Baldur’s Gate 3. A character I latched onto very strongly (along with most other female presenting gamers I’ve seen) while the male presenting gamers I’ve talked with generally stabbed him the first scene they found out he was a vampire.
And Neil said he was happy whenever people had any kind of strong reaction to the character, good or bad. Because art is supposed to make people feel things. It’s not up the artist to dictate what that is.
Now as a writer of fiction, I do try to dictate, but I also understand my intention is not going to be everyone’s interpretation. Eventually my novels will be released for public consumption (not that I have experience with this on a large scale yet) and then it’s for those public to decide.
I saw the above interview around the same time as one of Chuck Wendig’s posts, referencing a piece of ‘fanmail’ he’d gotten about a recently published book. The email, among other things, complained about the ‘politics’ in the book, to which Chuck replied, “Anyway, this is your reminder that all art is political and who gets to write the art and who is included in the art and who gets mad at the art — that’s all part of the politics of a piece. Like it or not. Thinking you can keep politics out of art is like thinking you can keep a fish alive out of water. It has to swim there even when it doesn’t realize it’s swimming there. Just because the fish doesn’t know what water is doesn’t mean the water doesn’t exist.”
All art is a reflection of the artist. I remember as a child hating when my English teachers would demand I see a certain message in the ‘classics’ we read. That stories should just be. What I didn’t realize at the time was that just the fact that certain books were considered classics, and certain books were read in school, and the messages therein were pushed, was all a part of the politics. I mean how many ‘classics’ did you, going to school in America, read that were written by someone other than a white male?
Now that I’m older, more experienced, and am paying attention, I can’t not see it. And I know my own politics and opinions and morals come across in my own books, because I’m human. The novel I finished most recently was very influenced by COVID and American politics (mainly 2016-2022). Both of these things have had a severe and lasting impact on the way the world occurs to me.
And part of that was an awareness, an actual understanding deep in my soul, that there are some people with whom I will never get along and never agree, even if I believe the basic nature of humans is good. This means that attempting to please everyone is impossible, and that most definitely includes with my chosen art, writing.
Because one of my main goals, when it comes to my writing, is to interact with people’s interpretation of my stories. Like I am super excited about the idea of fan fiction/fan art of something I’ve written. I’ve actually said before that if my work ever got adapted to film or TV, I would be fine with them changing things, because it’s basically just another fan fiction. And I want to get that first review or piece of mail that hates my story too. I mean I’m sure part of me will be crushed by it, because I have a fragile artist’s soul, but at the same time, it is still a strong reaction to art that I have put out there in the world. And that’s what I want.
