Recent events at a high school in Florida
have caused many in our nation to hit the pause button and take a long hard
look at current culture and how we, as individuals, are contributing to the
direction our society is headed. As always, there are conflicting claims. Many
are pointing fingers of blame at guns, politicians, law enforcement, mental
health care, and today’s violent culture. Not being a politician, social
worker, or lobbyist, I’m unqualified to speak to any of those issues.
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First, let me start with a word about
murder mysteries—that genre in which the primary plot revolves around the
taking of someone’s life. Not all murder mysteries are created equal. Some
murder mysteries focus on the puzzle of solving the murder case (cozies is one
subgenre that does) while others focus on the violence of the murder or murders
(serial killer mysteries). For that reason, it is incorrect to assume that all
fans of murder mysteries love graphic violence or that murder mystery writers
promote violence.
For example, ICE is my twenty-first murder
mystery. I have been a fan of mysteries since childhood. I cut my teeth on the
Bobbsey Twins and Hardy Boys. I was reading Agatha Christie and Erle Stanley
Gardner murder mysteries by the time
I was teenager. Yet I can’t be in the same room when my husband is watching a
horror movie. Ironically, while I make my living orchestrating murders for
novels, I can’t stomach watching a werewolf stalking and killing his prey
during a full moon. I cannot stand gore.
Some subgenres under the mystery genre
focus on the puzzle of solving the murder while others emphasize the violence
of the crime. Some detectives, whether they be amateur or professional, seek
justice for the victim by having the perpetrator pay for his or her crimes.
Yet, some authors will allow the killer to escape justice for whatever reason,
whether it be in the name of a political or social statement, art, or in order to
provide a follow-up book.
Maybe it’s my own sense of justice that
makes me angry when I read a murder mystery only to have the killer walk away
free at the end. Many writers and readers declare such endings as realistic
because all too often the murderer does escape justice—to which I declare, “If
I wanted reality, I’d watch the news. I read to escape reality.”
That’s me. Not all readers are me.
Remember, I’m the murder mystery writer who can’t be in the same room where a
werewolf is decapitating a couple of college students who got lost in the
countryside during a full moon.
There are a lot of readers who love books
where the killer escapes … or where the focus is not so much on the puzzle of
solving the murder but on the violence of the crime—the more graphic the
better. The excitement of the brutality of the crime gives these readers a
rush. Are all those readers psychopaths who need to have their Second Amendment
right stripped away? I don’t think so. (Some people would argue that since I write murder mysteries that I’m a
psychopath.) If there wasn’t an audience for such books, then authors who pen
such mysteries wouldn’t be on the best-sellers lists because there wouldn’t be
a market for their books.
The wonderful thing about living in the
United States of America is that our First Amendment gives each citizen the
freedom to read—and authors the privilege to write—books where the killer not
only gets away with his crimes, but is even portrayed in a favorable light.
Believe me, if anyone tried to take that freedom away from any author, I would
be the first one in line to challenge them.
The problem with censorship is determining
where to draw the line. Everyone has a different threshold beyond which he/she
declares a book too violent. As someone once said in regards to censorship,
“Pornography is in the eyes of the beholder.”
For this very reason, artistic censorship
is not the answer to curbing violence in books, movies, or television.
In reality, the answer lies with the
creators of such works taking on the moral responsibility toward their audience
by not encouraging or endorsing senseless violence for the sake of art, fame,
or money. In general, writers started out as readers and having been readers,
they are fully aware that their work can potentially influence people.
Just because writers have the freedom to write books where the
protagonist, not antagonist, but
protagonist is a homicidal maniac or psychopath, does that mean they
should? For any author to assume that what his or her work doesn’t have the
power to influence the audience, whether it be in a positive or negative
fashion, is not only naïve, but irresponsible.
As a child, I wanted to be Nancy Drew.
Then, I wanted to be a female Perry Mason. In recent years, the television show
CSI made science cool. According to
various sources, there was over a ten percent increase in students majoring in
science, particularly forensics, due to the popularity of CSI, Bones, and other
crime programs.
It goes without saying that any sane
reader, movie goer, or television viewer knows that violence and murder is
wrong. But, as we have all sadly learned, there are mentally unstable people
out there who idolize the wrong people for the wrong reasons.
The best example is Dexter, the television series in
which the protagonist was a serial
killer. But he was a good serial killer because he only killed bad people. Even
so, around the globe, innocent people died violent deaths in the hands of
Dexter fans as a result of the popularity of this fictional show. Among the
victims – a boy strangled his ten-year-old brother because he reportedly wanted
to know what it felt like to kill.
Now, I can hear many writers arguing that
mentally or emotionally disturbed readers would have committed their acts of
violence eventually even if they hadn’t been exposed to books glorifying a
psychopathic maniac. They would claim, “If it wasn’t Dexter who inspired these
crimes, it would have been another character in another author’s book.”
Maybe.
Even so, writers do have a moral
responsibility to their audience and our culture as a whole to not encourage
violence and murder by depicting spree killers, mass murderers, serial killers
as positive role models and their violent acts as cool.
As an author, I want to be able to look in
the mirror and know that I am not sending the wrong message to my readers by
glorifying senseless violence and the bad guys as heroes. By
doing that, I’m doing my little piece in making the world a better place for
everyone. I encourage other writers to do the same.
Lauren Carr is the international best-selling author of the Mac Faraday, Lovers in Crime, and Thorny Rose Mysteries—over twenty titles across three fast-paced mystery series filled with twists and turns!
Now, Lauren has added one more hit series to her list with the Chris Matheson Cold Case Mysteries. Set in the quaint West Virginia town of Harpers Ferry, Ice introduces Chris Matheson, a retired FBI agent, who joins forces with other law enforcement retirees to heat up those cold cases that keep them up at night.
Book reviewers and readers alike rave about how Lauren Carr’s seamlessly crosses genres to include mystery, suspense, crime fiction, police procedurals, romance, and humor.
Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She lives with her husband, and three dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.
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4 Comments
Very interesting read. I hadn't ever considered murder mystery books as part of the "too much violence on the media problem." Thanks for opening my eyes to this ethical issue.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment, Sharon. This is an issue that honestly most writers would not consider too important. After all, as the artists, we do know the line between fiction and reality. Most of us know how fragile life truly is. Tragically, not everyone is aware of that fragility, and it is those we need to keep in mind when writing our books.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your piece on the responsibility of fiction writers to society. I, too, recognize the responsibility of writers as I am one. But your take on violence in fiction and its effect on society is worth more discussion. We talk about the effect of television and film all the time. But not books. Yet, a well-written book is as vivid as a story seen on a screen.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI love to hear from you. So feel free to comment, but keep in mind the basics of blog etiquette — no spam, no profanity, no slander, etc.
Thanks for being an active part of the Writers and Authors community.