not to get ‘discourse-y’ but the “fiction doesn’t affect reality” crowd must be in contending for the dumbest liberals on this site… anyone who has a literature or writing degree & paid attention in class (or honestly, anyone who paid attention in high school) can tell you that literature has been used to control & to oppress or to protest for centuries… have they not read about propaganda’s role in maintaining dictatorships? narrative of a life of frederick douglass? shakespeare? elie wiesel? how authors write through trauma? religious texts? it’s abundantly clear that these people don’t read…
& let me clarify something: my intention w/ this post isn’t to say “you can’t write x, because x is problematic” or say “writing x makes people do x” because the issue has far more nuance than that. my intention with this post is to say our fictions & our realities are inherently connected, & it is your responsibility the instant you pick up a pen, open a laptop— it is your responsibility as a storyteller, as a writer— to be conscious of what you put out in the world. how will it affect people? why are you writing this story? why do you want people to read it? why do you want to tell it this way? especially when it comes to depiction of a marginalized group of people, especially when it comes to stories that depict atrocities.
ask yourself those questions. your writing will be better for it.