◆ Fiction enriches us

🔹 It’s okay to create or engage with fiction about whatever topic, theme, or idea that you want to. 🔹It’s okay to create or engage with any fiction you want to for any reason. 🔹It’s okay to enjoy any fiction for any reason. 🔹You do not need a “good” or “pure” reason to create or…

◆ You don’t have to perform disgust

You don’t have to apologize, or perform authorial disgust, for dark, violent, sexual, cruel or problematic topics in the fiction you create. Fiction does not exist to teach an audience a moral lesson. You as an author are not required to be your audience’s moral teacher. You can have bad things happen– you can have…

◆ It’s a fantasy, not a reality.

When people– and especially young women– are attracted to “abusive” and “controlling” and “violent” male characters in fiction– The fantasy is not about being abused, or controlled. The fantasy is about a partner who is devoted to you, who takes care of you, who will defend you, to a larger than life degree. And because…

◆ The Literary Value of Smut

Let’s talk about how to think about the artistic merit inherent in smut and pornography. Smut and porn have the same amount of artistic merit and worthiness as every other kind of fiction, and can be interrogated in the same way. What emotions or mood does the creator try to evoke? Does the creator focus…