Writing is often a chance to escape. But, if writing contemporary mysteries and thrillers, wouldn’t it be a crime to erase the world in which the characters are interacting?
I do not get up on a soapbox and preach politics, religion, or social issues. But they do exist. If my goal is to bring the people of the pages to life, well then, these people must have beliefs and opinions. They do not live in a vacuum. The characters need to have passion, to love, to hate, and most of all, to live.
My writing often reflects the issues of the Long Past or the Real Now. In Love in a Time of Hate, I take the reader back to Reconstruction New Orleans. Reconstruction always sounded like too humdrum of a title for an era that was defining, tumultuous, brutal, and chaotic. My novel focuses on the fight for social and economic equality that took place at that time and that place. The book is raw, brutal, and pulls no punches. It was a tough time, and my protagonist, Emmett Collins, is fighting for something worthwhile against forces of hatred and oppression.
My contemporary novels, those in the Real Now, take on many social issues. Just a few so far are the impact of Big Pharma, cults, genome editing, Covid, private interest groups, and the separate laws and rules for the ultra-wealthy.
The Not So Merry Adventures of Max Creed has Max and the band taking on a morally corrupt billionaire with aspirations to the presidency with swirling foreign complications. The sequel, EveryThing vs Max Creed, out in May, finds the enemy to be a social media mogul looking to combine his information gathering sites into world domination. Impossible to believe? I think not.
I believe that the popular opinion is that writers, much like a Thanksgiving dinner gathering, should avoid pitfalls of social issues, politics, and religion. The opinion of your protagonist promises to alienate half the readers, well, maybe I offend half the people, but I doubt it is half the readers. Still, it is stepping onto a precipice to take a stance with the opinions and values of my protagonist. But how can they be real people of the pages if they don’t have opinions and values?
My current work in progress is tentatively titled Mainely ICEd. You get the gist.
What say you, readers and writers? Would you rather shy away from the Real Now? Or do you feel that the people of the pages resound stronger and with greater impact for having opinions and values?
About the Author
Matt Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym, before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014 he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries.
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Cost has published six books in the Mainely Mystery series, starting with Mainely Power. He has also published six books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, starting with Wolfe Trap. There are two books in the Brooklyn 8 Ballo series, starting with Velma Gone Awry. For historical novels, Cost has published At Every Hazard and its sequel, Love in a Time of Hate, as well as I am Cuba. The Not So Merry Adventures of Max Creed began a new series this past April. Glow Trap is his eighteenth published book.
Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. Cost now spends his days at the computer, writing.
Thank you for this post, Matt. I don’t shy away from the Real Now in my own work. Some writers are content to do that, but I’d bore myself to death if I wrote a book that didn’t just acknowledge but tangle with current issues, and I’d be bored to death reading issue-less books by other writers. You’re right that a deft hand is vital. No one wants to be hit over the head with the writer’s personal opinions. But it can be done, and well, and I’m glad to be there with you in the Real Now camp.
The Real Now is Real and Now so it is hard to avoid! Thanks for the positive words.
I definitely vote for including the real-real–so many juicy elements that it’d be a shame not to use for fear of ostracizing some.
And sometimes the Real is stranger than the made up!
I echo Brenda’s sentiment here. In my work the real world is very present, with issues of power and privilege foregrounded for the characters. I think otherwise the stakes just aren’t high enough or engaging enough.
My Max Creed Thrillers are good examples. What higher stakes than threats by powerful politicians, ultra-wealthy social media moguls, and the like.
I echo Brenda and Robert – my current WIP has an illegal alien subplot woven throughout.
It is a hard subject to shy away from when it is so deeply embedded in the fabric of the world in which we currently live!
Agree completely.
Thanks! The Real Now is Real and Now!
Big fan, thanks Matt. I read to escape therefore not a fan of ‘soap box’ style of writing.
Sandy Sch (The Reading Cafe)
I have NO idea where that name came from ..futuristically…but hey..to each their own !!
Awesome! EveryThing vs Max Creed should be coming your way soon!
I’m 100% in the real now camp. How can one write anything today and not have our grim reality hand over the plot?
Right? It’d be like a stork burying their head in the ground.
Thanks- great topic!
From one reader’s perspective…
I read FICTION – mostly mysteries, thrillers, historicals- for entertainment and escape, most recently from the omnipresent and annoying opinion anvils of the media and/or the online world.
I read FICTION for the intriguing characters, intricate plotlines, and imaginative writing. In recent years, I have become dismayed and annoyed by a few of my favorite FICTION writers who have found the need to insert personal op-eds into their FICTION. It’s their prerogative, of course; as mine is to regretfully 86 (an old term from my restaurant days) their work.
After all, there are so many books, so little time….
In Velma Gone Awry there is a police raid of the speakeasy, Chumley’s, in Manhattan. 8 & Velma flee out the secondary entrance onto 86 Bedford Street while the cops come in another door. One of possible origins of the term 86 it!
Brenda’s point about “boring myself” rings true – I know you Matt write in different eras. When time has settled some of the passions of a REAL NOW. I love it when I read “BOTH SIDES” of an argument/thought/opinion.
I do like to get into the ‘gray’ areas and showcase that but tend to have my villains be the extreme opposite side of the political spectrum.