Proof, again, that a having a platform does not a good fic make.

It came to me in my inbox, and Paul finally told me to stop ranting about it because "It was bad, deal!"

But, I had serious "dude, you so don't understand these characters" moments along with the "platform fic bad" moments.

Oh, of course, wrod! The problem with platform fic itself is that it flattens and caricatureizes the characters [say that three times fast! & I'm pretty sure I spelled it wrong, too] to suit its chosen message until the entire thing is just a travesty of a piece of writing.

See, if you have to write it, you should at least choose a character that suits your platform.

And make the circumstances realistic. IJS.

But, you shouldn't write it, cause, well, bad.

Sometimes I lament the fact that I haven't developed a really big god-complex.

I'm just saying.

LOL, Shrift.

"Platform" is a term I hadn't come across before in the context of fic. So I had to open the link and click on the headers. And now I understand. Art is not driven by politics. No, that's not right. You can certainly have political art, but the art and the emotion should come first and the politics should inform it, rather than the other way around.

I've written two stories in which strong female characters ended pregnancies. Oddly enough, I was flamed for neither one, and got into some interesting conversations with people as a result of them. But I didn't write them because of my personal belief that a woman is free to choose what happens to her own body. t sigh

It is actually possible to write good platform art - putting the poltics first and the art second. It simply requires that you have tremendous talent as an artist and that politics be your overriding passion. George Bernard Shaw . Brecht, sometimes. Lorraine Hansbury. Sean O' Casey. Brendhan Behan. But these are exceptions to a mostly correct rule.

Okay, that's bad..I didn't get far before I abadoned it.

I dunno, Gar. I'm rereading Grapes of Wrath right now, and while it's definitely a political novel, it's first a novel. It's a story about people. Even Animal Farm and 1984 and Brave New World were about people first. (Well, okay, AF was about animals first.)

If I can't see the people for the politics, you're going to lose me. I won't care. Political essays I can get elsewhere, and unless they're wrapped pretty seamlessly into the narrative and driven by character and plot, they're just going to piss me off.

It's a story about people. Even Animal Farm and 1984 and Brave New World were about people first.

As is a lot of politics. I think it's possible to make good art with political motivations, but you have to be a really really really good artist to do it.

I'm with Suela on this one. Great political art may have a platform, but the reason it works is that it is art first, politics second. Always.