This week I’m riffing off Tom Kie’s post from yesterday. I’ll have to make this short and sweet because I’m already a day behind some important things because my grandson dropped by yesterday and we had to “play trains” together.
My simple explanation is that social commentary is an almost unavoidable part of crime fiction. We’re talking about people in stressful situations with violence as the driving factor in the plot, so social commentary just happens as the storyline unfolds.
The issue for me as a reader is when the social commentary is layered onto the plot. Simple test: Can that part of the storyline be dropped without creating any insurmountable plot issues? If you can answer yes, then it’s egregious. Basically, it’s the author pontificating — likely rightly so — about something that they feel strongly about.
However, adding social commentary to a plot is easy if it’s made a driver of the plot. Say a character is a exceptionally vocal proponent of stopping climate change and is killed, likely because of that stance. An author is then free to talk about this. If the character is just left to rant about the dangers of climate change but this really doesn’t have anything to do with the central tenet of the plot, then it’s quite likely a vehicle for the author to pontificate.
And I’ve seen many a promising novel go down this path. I generally don’t finish them.
So there’s my 2¢ on this subject. Please weigh in if you will. Comments on Type M are always welcome, in favour or not in favour!
