Promoting controversial opinions in a work of fiction

Question

I'm writing a first person novel and main character has highly controversial views, many of which the majority of people would probably consider immoral. Would a character with controversial attitudes be a no-no for a reader? Or maybe a publisher?

Of course, it maybe possible that his attitudes instead will be received with interest or maybe even awe, but I'm not sure on this. In either way, I still think such a novel deserves a shot.

In summary, I'm afraid of a bad reception. I don't want to change the character much, he is like Zarathustra was for Nietzsche: A mouthpiece for my own beliefs and attitudes. What techniques could improve the likely reception, to make the novel and the main character more attractive? How can I prevent confirmation bias and other biases in the readers in such cases? What kind of structure should a writer use for this purpose?

Answer 1

A work of fiction that exists only to promote a particular point of view is not actually fiction, but rather a polemic. Some of these have been successful and influential, from Plato to Rand, but they tend to have a different audience than fiction, and are read primarily for their ideas rather than their artistic value. Your best bet, in this case, may be to position your work primarily as a piece of philosophy. You may indeed have only limited interest from publishers and readers because of the nature of your ideas, but some make take you seriously because of the honesty of your approach.

On the other hand, if you want to make this a real, living, work of fiction, then having a character be your mouthpiece is a bad idea. People will find it preachy, and reject your book as a creepy form of propaganda. Instead, you'll need to build a book the same way anyone else does, with fully developed characters, plots and settings, and let your philosophy just be part of the background material that informs everything else. As a writer with strong viewpoints, it's nearly impossible to believe your philosophy won't find its way into your writing, even if you aren't forcing it in.

Among my favorite books are those that espouse political philosophies I don't share (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) or center around characters whose moral choices or commitments I disagree with (Lolita, Boys of Life) or that contain controversial moral claims I find questionable or specious (Dhalgren), yet what makes them work for me is that the writer has allowed the book to live for itself. You don't have to agree with them to engage with them. On the other hand, nothing turns me off faster or harder than a book or a movie that self-righteously demands I agree with something I find immoral, or that hagriographies an immoral person as a hero to emulate. In fact, I don't like such works even when I agree with them.

Answer 2

Are you familiar with G.R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire? It used to have some characters whose moral compass was strict and noble. They had a tendency to die, and leave a huge mess around them - mess that cost more lives. On the other hand, more Machiavellian figures created order - killing a few now, so a lot more would get to live later. The whole series seems to argue that idealism is harmful, while morally grey actions are often the best thing for everyone involved, and for innocent bystanders.

Song of Ice and Fire is extremely popular, in part because of the controversial stance it takes. So you needn't be afraid that controversial ideas would turn readers or publishers away.

How do you write controversial ideas well? You write them with integrity, you present their internal logic, you show how and why they might be considered valid. You challenge the accepted order of things, the way Socrates did. You show where the standard order of things fails. You do not present either side as an exaggerated caricature of itself, a "straw-man". You show the pros and cons of each side of the argument, the consequences each worldview leads to. Using all those tools, you make the reader think. Readers (at least some readers) like being made to think.

Answer 3

In some sense you are talking about an anti-hero; a hero that has qualities or attitudes the audience may think are bad, but put up with because the guy is intent on accomplishing something else that is an obvious good.

This is the key to making your MC acceptable instead of alienating: Despite their weird belief system, their mission in this story is to do something unambiguously good, either for humanity in general or one person in particular.

That is pretty much the whole trick. In the 1994 movie "The Professional", a brutal hitman kills all kinds of gangsters and (corrupt) cops, but we like him anyway, because he chooses to save and protect a 12 year old girl.

It is possible to have some attitudes and actions that are in fact IMO irredeemable; in particular torture, rape, and murder of innocents for the fun of it.

But I will grant the imagination of others may exceed mine, if it can be done, the negatives of the MC must be outweighed by some positive thing they are doing in this story, something nearly all readers will agree redeems them.

Answer 4

I have two ideas about this.

First: If your desired outcome is that readers agree with your (your character's) controversial positions, you're writing propaganda and as such the way to avoid rejection is to see if you can identify sympathetic publishers ahead of time before submitting your manuscript. This would tend to select for sympathetic readers as well.

Second: If your desired outcome is for your work to be perceived as a provocative work of fiction, without the specifics of the controversial positions getting in the way too much of a reader enjoying the work as just speculations on those positions, then, it definitely is possible to present almost any controversial position as a fictional element which it's up to the reader to react to.

What I'd recommend is to not treat this protagonist as your Mary-Sue, but instead let what happens to them in the story proceed in a realistic fashion.

Answer 5

Would the reader have done different?

In a book I am reading, the main character just committed mass murder on a gigantic scale. They sunk two innocent ships — a merchant vessel and its escort — to protect their family.

From the perspective of everyone else, this was a hideous crime... dozens of families losing their loved ones to an act of needless brutality. There is no question at all that from the other perspective, the protagonist is a villain of the worst order.

But as a reader, we are never treated to that perspective, we are only give the protagonists's view. And given how they ended up in that situation, a combination of — by no other label — piracy, and a big oopsie during the heat of battle... the protagonist is not left with any other choice, unless they expect to get mercilessly hunted down and have their whole community — and their family — eradicated.

So the way to bring this to the reader is to go up the path that leads the protagonist to their decisions, step by step, in such a way that the reader feels that they would not have done any different, lest they put themselves or people they love at great risk.

Answer 6

Chris Sunami's answer best gets at the root of the problem: what you've described is a rant wrapped in the covers of a novel.

You're writing a first-person novel for the primary purpose of advocating for a wide variety of unrelated ideas that are broadly not well thought of. That sounds like the makings of a screed, not a novel. If people aren't interested in hearing your arguments in favor of, say, peeing "in some lawgivers' faces," they're going to be equally uninterested in hearing an author-insert first-person character make those arguments on your behalf.

What conceivable story includes all of: pedophiles and childlike androids; killing and kidnapping to prevent a war; a desire to "pee in some lawgivers' faces"; a friend's sister afraid to have sex with an older boyfriend; drug users who want to use drugs but can't; and an even longer list of positions too long to enumerate in your question? Were all those things honestly chosen because they're all opinions that are necessary to best tell the particular story you're looking to tell, or because they're all views you happen to hold and you want to advocate for them?

You're telling a story first and foremost. Figure out a good story first, rather than trying to cram every one of your unpopular opinions into one character in one story.

Answer 7

There´s a few tropes to do this. Read the works of notorious nazi Joseph Goebels to learn more (seriously). My personal favorite is the Ralph Kane aproach: a secondary character that had the same principles as the main, but takes those as a zealot up to 11, making the main look nice and sound by comparsion.