Give What the Story Demands

Truth is important. The expression of truth, from my mind as an artist, is a crucial ingredient to literary realism. I’ve already mentioned that I like my stories to be as realistic as possible so they’re believable and relatable. A quote from V FOR VENDETTA always comes to mind when I think of the truth in terms of art: “Artists use lies to tell the truth.” Literature has a tendency to exaggerate for dramatic purposes, but that’s no excuse to dismiss the lessons it can teach.

One of my university’s general requirements included classes in communication. Of that, there were two halves. First: English composition. Simple, understandable. Everyone should know how to piece together a well-written document. Like it or not, that’s something required of many occupations. Regardless, as a writer, any class demanding volumes of written work is heaven.

Second half was speech communication.

Ouch! (ruuuuunnn!)

Public speaking is not my strong point. Anxiety builds up over the idea of standing in front of even a small group of people with the purpose of holding their attention for a designated amount of time. All eyes on me, expecting me to not only know stuff, but worse–express it without blunder.

In different circumstances, I’ve learnt to overcome this particular anxiety. Still, I faced this requirement with dread. Thankfully, my uni offers options. I chose introductory journalism. If the obligation was public speaking, I might as well choose an enlightening path–the lesser of two evils.

Of my 4.5 years in uni, that journalism class remains on my short list of those most beneficial to survival in the “real world.” While the point of the class was to develop and improve public speaking skills, the subject matter taught me much about the evolution of media.

The class covered many topics, of which my favourite must be censorship. Of course, everyone’s entitled to his own opinions, wherein lies the controversy.

I mentioned back in February how I believe sensitive subjects should be included to a point. If it works for a story, by all means, use it. It’ll make the story that much stronger. If someone has issues with it, that’s a problem she must deal with by censoring herself. Don’t engage is mass censorship, however, simply because select few have strong opinions against a topic.

We’re all capable of deciding for ourselves what we can or cannot tolerate.

The inclusion of sensitive and taboo subjects carries the potential to teach us. It allows us the opportunity to be more educated in our own decisions. A way for readers to connect to the story, but only if used intelligently. It all comes back to that: use what’s needed to tell the story as it must be told. That may lead to questionable content debates and/or land your story on the “banned” shelf . But looking at the authors and titles already there, I personally see that more as an honour than punishment.