CONTROVERSY: How Do You Write It?
Trauma, Culture, Sex, Politics - How Do You Balance Honesty and Warmth?
Welcome book lovers 💛and book makers.
On today’s Sauce drop episode 4, we are talking CONTROVERSY. Controversial topics have this way of making you shift uncomfortably, “Should this be said out loud?” “Is that not too much information?” “How did the author coin this?”
Well today we’ll hear from an Author.
How She gracefully moves around these topics.
We have with us Author Semiloore Dare-Atunse (Author of This Seat Is Taken).
Every author who tells the truth eventually hits the same wall.
The topic that makes your editor nervous. Your family call you. Your readers fight in the comments.
So how do you go about it?
• How do you write about pain and still leave room for hope?
• How do you write about politics without sounding like a speech?
• How do you critique your culture without outsiders using it against you?
• How do you write about sex without losing the humanity of the characters?
Hello everyone, my name Semi and I’ll be speaking to some of the questions in today’s discussion.
First; you should know that I love to write stories about young people; meaning teenagers and young adults stories and you would know that it is impossible to write these stories without talking about pain or trauma.
In recent times; the kind of trauma and hurt that a young person carries has been getting so much spotlighting lately and you just start to wonder; is anyone normal at all? I kid you not; I have no answer to that; I’m not normal, hehehe
And because we must address these issues; these stories must be told. My debut novel spotlights the drastic differences between the effect parents hope comparison has and the effect it actually has. And the hope part? It comes from talking about it, from writing about that. Because the hope is that we do not carry this trauma to the next generation and to the ones after them and after them and the ones to come. I don’t know if I’ve given a perfect answer but I’m sure that everyone certainly understood what I mean
Politics is physicality for me. And so there’s no way it’s going to sound like a speech. In simple terms; politics for an average Nigerian like you and I isn’t in the policy making or manifesto and what not. It’s in the effect that it leaves. My current novel that just got released; THIS SEAT IS TAKEN, a student political novel fully expresses this thought of mine. And I think everyone should pick it up and read😅
@semi Hi Semi 💛
I love how you said politics is the effect it leaves and not the speech.
That’s exactly how it feels to an average Nigerian.
I haven’t read THIS SEAT IS TAKEN yet, but now I may need to😅
I hope you see this but I’d like to know does writing it help you process how politics affects young people too?
And how do you write it Without making feel like a lecture or looking like the same old story?
At the moment; I haven’t actively written any book with spice but I think sex is demonized. I’m a Christian so I especially understand how the church, society and moralists have created this agenda about sex. God created sex in the first place. And he created it for humans. HUMANS! So how can you say that writing two characters having sex takes away their humanity? Very very flawed and narrowed minded perspective if you ask me
@semi so you think when people complain of a book being too spicy they might actually be talking from a place of demonizing sex?
@thebookpolitics not at all. I was answering the question how to write spice without removing the characters humanity.
it is very possible that someone that complains that a book might too spicy could have a flawed perspective on sex; it is also possible that a book has so much spice or smut that it lacks any structure or plot. At the end of the day; we all have our tastes.
@semi @thebookpolitics
I guess it all comes down to intention and balance.
But can I ask what if sometimes the reason it feels “okay” to someone is because their standard has actually shifted?
Like not every “I’m fine with it” means it’s actually fine.
How do you feel we can tell the difference between personal taste vs something that’s truly too much?