Ravenous Beauty: A Writer's Workshop

I had a good chat with Marmot this weekend. We talked about numerous parts of writing (including how criticism is rarely objective, how we're basically stating our own preferences/opinions as some great standard--covered in my critique of Dreamscream's "May Nothing But Happiness Come Through Your Door"), but I'd like to highlight this part here:

Marmot noted how people will slam a book on Amazon if there is immorality presented in the book. The one star reviews of Love in the Time of Cholera and Lolita are there because of "underage relations." We both disagreed with that standard being the end-all. I believe Flannery O'Connor did a great job of showing sin in her violent stories, as did Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray. The immorality didn't need to be condemned by the narrator. The prose conveyed the point.

From there, we disagreed on the importance of morality in a story. For me, I think it's incredibly important, as most conflict stems from a difference in moral standard. Plus some of my favorite scenes in Les Miserables (the full, grueling slab) was where morality and oaths has pitted "good" people against one another. The tension was fantastic.

So what about you? Where do you rank the importance of morality in stories?

I think it's important that your main character have some sort of morality the reader can get behind, even if he sometimes stumbles (okay, especially if). But the surroundings and situations he's placed in can be as depraved and morally-reprehensible as you care to make them.

I agree. First thing that comes to mind from your description is Cormac McCarthy.