Writing Advice: Sincerity

From Brathor: “Recently, I've been trying to write a couple things with a more inspirational tone. I'm finding it difficult to write that in a way that feels authentic. I'm also finding that there are fine lines between being inspirational and being cheesy, and between being optimistic and acknowledging the reality of a bad situation. Some questions might be:

How do you approach writing in a way that feels sincere, especially when aiming to inspire?

Are there any techniques you know or recommend to avoid coming across as overly sentimental or forced?”

As it happens, I have a story just recently out in which I struggled with those same questions: “That’s a Good One,” read by the fantastic Rob MacWolf over on The Voice of Dog. The story is about a comedian who discovers that speciesist jokes sell enough to make him famous, and what he does with that knowledge. The story cycled through a couple endings, a darker one that I felt was more honest, and a hopeful one that felt a little cheesy to me. I won’t spoil which one I settled on, but maybe I’ll talk about it when it’s been out more than a day so I’m not spoiling it.

But the point is that this is a real question, especially as I hope more of us will be trying to write hopeful, inspirational stories. So I’ll talk about how I deal with this issue, and hope some of the things I say can be helpful to y’all.

The first thing I make sure of is that whatever I’m trying to say is something I authentically believe. It’s really hard to write inspirationally if you don’t believe what you’re writing; that is the definition of insincere and people will pick up on it. So you have to find the thing you believe in. I have always written about queer rights and the right of a person to whatever identity they choose because those are strong beliefs of mine.

Next I make sure that the story I chose to tell feels like one that properly conveys that message. It doesn’t have to be set in our contemporary world; “The Left Hand of Darkness” is a great queer/feminist work set on a different planet. But the setting and struggles of the characters have to be resonant with the message you want to send. That’s all very vague so I’ll be more specific: If by inspirational, you mean “something that will help the reader navigate their own life more successfully and possibly encourage them to take positive action,” as I do, then it’s hard to write inspirationally with a “chosen one” narrative, which explicitly states that you have to be The One in order to be the hero. Harry Potter was the subject of a prophecy; Luke Skywalker was born into a powerful bloodline¹. What you want to do is put your character into a situation the reader can relate to in their own lives. This doesn’t have to mean entirely literally; in The Tower and the Fox, Kip the fox joins a school of sorcery that had been previously only open to humans. Most readers will not know what it’s like to be a fox, let alone one joining a humans-only magic school, but they can probably relate to the idea of being someone in a space that has something they want but where they are not welcome.

Next, your characters have to be well realized. This is some advice I’m going to give in any writing advice piece, but here it is especially relevant. If your hero seems super well adjusted and unbothered by the obstacles in their way; if your villain is a mustache-twirling straw man; if your supporting cast are monolithic in their beliefs and attitudes, then it will be harder for your readers to relate to the characters and situation. Returning to The Tower and the Fox, there are a couple Masters at the school definitely prejudiced against Kip, one unreasonably so, but they also have their own other interests and reasons for that prejudice. The headmaster worries about his school’s reputation and doesn’t think Kip can be an accomplished sorcerer; other masters think animal-people are dirty or just less than humans. Some are open to changing their minds; others aren’t. There isn’t a villainous villain who monologues about how he wants to murder all the animal-people; there are people who wish them harm because they believe the animal-people are doing them harm. Again, the more realistic the beliefs, the more the motivations can relate to people in the reader’s world, the more the inspiration will land.

The last thing I pay a lot of attention to is the resolution of the story. This, I think, is where people really get worried that it’s going to seem cheesy or insincere, but if you’ve set it up properly as described above, there’s much less chance of that. When working on the ending, I try to make sure that the realized gains feel realistic and worthwhile—not too big or too small. Can Dev and Lee reshape the bigoted attitudes of professional male sports in one book series? Probably not. Can they gain more security in their own relationship and maybe change the minds of a few friends? Yeah. That feels reasonable and also worthwhile.

Here is where your beliefs come into play, because what you think is realistic and worthwhile may not jibe with what other people think. So what? They’re not writing this story; you are. Part of being inspirational is convincing people to sign on to your beliefs, so don’t moderate them to try to appeal to what people already believe. There is going to be a touch of cheesiness maybe to any hopeful narrative, but I think we are moving out of the era where any sincerely expressed sentiment is cringe. I think people are realizing that we need sincerity and hope and inspiration. And if they don’t…maybe when they read your story, they will. If you believe we can dismantle capitalism with items we already have in our kitchen cupboard, please write that story. I want to read it!

To sum up, I guess: be relevant, be real, and be true to yourself. And here’s the last thing I want to tell all of you. If you’re worried that you’re doing this imperfectly, that it’s going to come off insincere or cheesy? Write it anyway. I want more hope, more inspiration, more good feelings. And if you don’t get it right this time, try again.

1. The Star Wars saga’s wrestling with the “Chosen One” narrative has been interesting to watch, and written about in more detail than I’m going to go into here (Luke Skywalker is the image on Wikipedia’s “Chosen One” page, which has more references you can follow). Luke is the chosen one in the first series and has a straightforward(ish) arc; Anakin is the chosen one in the prequel trilogy where Lucas attempted to play with a corruption of that trope; Rian Johnson tried to democratize the Star Wars universe in “The Last Jedi” by claiming that Rey wasn’t a chosen one, but a normal person who had made the decision to become a hero, only for J.J. Abrams to kick that idea down the stairs and lock it in the basement in “The Rise of Skywalker.”