Dalton Cortner
asked
Graeme Rodaughan:
How do you go about accurately portraying morality and moral dilemmas within your writing?
Graeme Rodaughan
Hi Dalton, you pose an excellent question, which I will treat in two parts.
[1] Portraying morality accurately.
Morality, like any other characteristic of a character's personality will be portrayed by their choices and actions under stress.
As in real life, our own characters are not on display in any real sense when we are at rest in a safe place.
The circumstances surrounding the character's choices must be filled with personal risk and high stakes. Then their choices and actions become rich in meaning and provide explicit information about who the character is.
Note that personal risk and high stakes are two different things. Putting your life at risk to rescue your wallet from a mugger is vastly different from putting your life at risk to rescue a child from a burning house. both have personal risk, the second has much higher stakes for failure.
[1.a] Demonstrate moral character by displaying character choices and actions in the presence of personal risk for high stakes.
Repetition of response displays depth of character and allows for emotional (can be positive or negative) engagement by the reader. If the responses are inconsistent than we do not know who the character is. He lies one minute, tells the truth the next, and then lies again - who is he?
[1.b] Establish and maintain moral character through consistent responses.
As in real life, people are mostly not all good/evil or all good/evil all the time. So we need to add nuance, and add it consistently. For example, a character (such as a spy) may typically use deception as a weapon, and yet never lie to one trusted person. A pacifist may eschew all forms of violence, and yet act with great and sudden violence when their child is under extreme threat. This creates nuance and is more like real life.
[1.c] Portray a nuanced moral character by setting clear boundaries around specific moral choices and maintain those boundaries consistently.
As in real life, people undergo moral evolution for the better and for the worse. The way this is done, is by breeching previously defined boundaries. The key here is that once breeched, they will forever be breeched. There is no going back. (But there is going forward - see next point)
[1.d] Evolve a moral character by breaking boundaries. Once broken there is no going back. (Think Anakin Skywalker, even though he is redeemed at the end of Return of the Jedi, there is no undoing of the murder of the Padawans.)
Leading on from the previous example. The evolution of a moral character can be in both directions. If someone has risen, then can fall, if someone has fallen they can rise.
This is handled in the same was as for point 1.d via breaking and setting boundaries for behaviour. This has to be used carefully. For a character like Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, there are only two transistions in his life. The first is the fall, cemented with the murder of the innocent Padawans, and the second is the rise (redemption) when he defies and kills the emperor to save his son. If such major turns are more frequent, we end violating point 1.b and have an inconsistent moral character who no (or very few) readers will engage with.
[1.e] Nuance the evolution of moral character with a small number of major shifts.
Given that moral character is only forcefully and comprehensively displayed in moments of personal risk and for high stakes, it follows that moral evolutions, when they do occur, will occur under those circumstances.
To summarise, accurately portray the moral character of your characters by setting defined boundaries that are consistently maintained and displayed in moments of personal risk for high stakes. Evolve the moral character of your characters over time by a small number of specific and well motivated shifts or outright destruction of the previous boundaries in moments of personal risk for high stakes.
[2] Portraying moral dilemmas.
Take everything written under point [1] above as a given.
There are two types of moral dilemma. Choosing between competing goods (the greater of two goods) and choosing between competing evils (the lesser of two evils).
This is a very exciting question, as it directly impacts narrative structure. For example, you could place a powerful moral dilemma as the inciting incident of a story, where the protagonist makes the wrong choice and then must redeem that choice - and there is immediately gifted to the author, the powerful motivation driving the protagonist to the end of the story.
(But I digress...)
Put your moral dilemmas at the center of the high personal risk, high stakes circumstances that are driving the characters choices.
The characters choice in the dilemma than strongly reveals their moral character.
[1] Portraying morality accurately.
Morality, like any other characteristic of a character's personality will be portrayed by their choices and actions under stress.
As in real life, our own characters are not on display in any real sense when we are at rest in a safe place.
The circumstances surrounding the character's choices must be filled with personal risk and high stakes. Then their choices and actions become rich in meaning and provide explicit information about who the character is.
Note that personal risk and high stakes are two different things. Putting your life at risk to rescue your wallet from a mugger is vastly different from putting your life at risk to rescue a child from a burning house. both have personal risk, the second has much higher stakes for failure.
[1.a] Demonstrate moral character by displaying character choices and actions in the presence of personal risk for high stakes.
Repetition of response displays depth of character and allows for emotional (can be positive or negative) engagement by the reader. If the responses are inconsistent than we do not know who the character is. He lies one minute, tells the truth the next, and then lies again - who is he?
[1.b] Establish and maintain moral character through consistent responses.
As in real life, people are mostly not all good/evil or all good/evil all the time. So we need to add nuance, and add it consistently. For example, a character (such as a spy) may typically use deception as a weapon, and yet never lie to one trusted person. A pacifist may eschew all forms of violence, and yet act with great and sudden violence when their child is under extreme threat. This creates nuance and is more like real life.
[1.c] Portray a nuanced moral character by setting clear boundaries around specific moral choices and maintain those boundaries consistently.
As in real life, people undergo moral evolution for the better and for the worse. The way this is done, is by breeching previously defined boundaries. The key here is that once breeched, they will forever be breeched. There is no going back. (But there is going forward - see next point)
[1.d] Evolve a moral character by breaking boundaries. Once broken there is no going back. (Think Anakin Skywalker, even though he is redeemed at the end of Return of the Jedi, there is no undoing of the murder of the Padawans.)
Leading on from the previous example. The evolution of a moral character can be in both directions. If someone has risen, then can fall, if someone has fallen they can rise.
This is handled in the same was as for point 1.d via breaking and setting boundaries for behaviour. This has to be used carefully. For a character like Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, there are only two transistions in his life. The first is the fall, cemented with the murder of the innocent Padawans, and the second is the rise (redemption) when he defies and kills the emperor to save his son. If such major turns are more frequent, we end violating point 1.b and have an inconsistent moral character who no (or very few) readers will engage with.
[1.e] Nuance the evolution of moral character with a small number of major shifts.
Given that moral character is only forcefully and comprehensively displayed in moments of personal risk and for high stakes, it follows that moral evolutions, when they do occur, will occur under those circumstances.
To summarise, accurately portray the moral character of your characters by setting defined boundaries that are consistently maintained and displayed in moments of personal risk for high stakes. Evolve the moral character of your characters over time by a small number of specific and well motivated shifts or outright destruction of the previous boundaries in moments of personal risk for high stakes.
[2] Portraying moral dilemmas.
Take everything written under point [1] above as a given.
There are two types of moral dilemma. Choosing between competing goods (the greater of two goods) and choosing between competing evils (the lesser of two evils).
This is a very exciting question, as it directly impacts narrative structure. For example, you could place a powerful moral dilemma as the inciting incident of a story, where the protagonist makes the wrong choice and then must redeem that choice - and there is immediately gifted to the author, the powerful motivation driving the protagonist to the end of the story.
(But I digress...)
Put your moral dilemmas at the center of the high personal risk, high stakes circumstances that are driving the characters choices.
The characters choice in the dilemma than strongly reveals their moral character.
More Answered Questions
Marie
asked
Graeme Rodaughan:
In all of the books, there are high emotions running rampant throughout the series, especially during the book Dragon's Den as so much happened within that book. Was it hard to write the things that happened to the characters in Dragon's Den as compared to the previous books?
Michael
asked
Graeme Rodaughan:
Why has this not been made into a Netflix or Amazon Prime show?!?!?! It absolutely should be!
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