Moral whether you want it or not by Eric Beetner

 Do you often/sometimes weave a moral message into your writing, or do you think that's awful, and something that should never be attempted? Can you recommend good examples of books that do one or the other?

I absolutely weave a moral message in my books. I don’t think you can write crime fiction and not do it. The basis of the genre is morals – often the breaking of them, often different interpretations of them. I try not to be overt about it, but you can’t deny that if an author is depicting criminal or immoral behavior, then they invariably come to some sort of conclusion about it.

I try very hard to not ignore the consequences of violence in my books. That alone takes a moral stand. It would be very easy to write about violence and mayhem and not ever see the results. It’s like those 80s action movies where enemies by the dozens are dispatched by Chuck Norris or Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger and they just sort of fall off screen with a disembodied scream and we never see them again. I think that’s a bit irresponsible.

Not that writing about moral issues has to come down to a prim and proper definition of what is or is not moral. Especially not in crime fiction. Take Richard Stark’s Parker character. He’s the hero, the main character in a 24-novel series and someone readers undoubtedly root for, and yet, he’s a criminal. He does immoral things. But he does them within his own set of moral boundaries. He has rules and lines he won’t cross, and for this we can forgive his criminality in most cases. He’s justified in his own actions, so we can read along and not feel like we’re compromising our own morals by enjoying the ride.

I think anyone who writes about the police or other law enforcement is usually taking on a moral message. Most often it is as simple as “crime doesn’t pay”, but when we know the lead in the story is an upstanding person based on their career or whether they carry a badge, then morality comes along with that. It’s baked in just by virtue of the fact that your character is pursuing a job we all agree is morally good.

It’s hard for me to single out any book or series to recommend because I think all crime fiction has a moral message. Maybe the flip side of this is to look at something like Jim Thompson, who wrote about many amoral characters. Pop 1280 or The Killer Inside Me make no pretense that their main characters are anything but monsters devoid of any moral compass whatsoever. And it can be fun to wallow in the muck and the mire while you watch those terrible people get their due in the end.

It’s why so much of Noir fiction has what some consider a “bleak” ending. I disagree. If characters die in the end, even if most characters die, it’s usually after breaking that moral code from which there is no coming back. They are getting justice, but not through the courts, usually. 

So, moral lessons abound in crime fiction. I don’t know about you, but if I ever found a bag of cash I would never keep it. Not because of some moral backbone I have, but because I’ve read enough stories to know it is not going to end well. I learned my lesson in a book.