Swimming up stream

Literature today is full of sex, violence, drugs and swearing. Sometimes trying to write an interesting and clean book can feel like swimming upstream. There's pressure out there to make your writing "gritty" or portray reality.

I was recently reading a book that I was enjoying very much. It's a story of a young girl who was genetically engineered and conceived as a donor for her sister who had cancer. I was really into it until about half way through the book when the author introduced several side character's stories and things they had done in their past. The writing became extremely vulgar. I was saddened an annoyed for two reasons. First because I felt the additions were 100% unnecessary and probably just added to make the book "gritty" and second because I knew I would never be able to recommend the book to a friend.

My favorite books are usually clean (Jane Austen, Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings). I think there's a kind of depth and creativity in them that is lacking in stories that have to resort to gratuitous sex and violence to get people interested. I'm not trying to say that writers should refrain from writing about difficult topics (the afore mentioned books confront evil head on). But I think it can be done in a way that doesn't sensationalize or glamorize bad things. My own personal rule of thumb is to ask myself if something I'm writing would entice anyone to do anything wrong. I also often ask myself why I'm including something. Is it necessary for the story or am I hoping it will sell books. Not that selling books is a bad thing, just that I don't want to compromise and put something in a book that would be a negative influence because I think it might sell more books. What to include in a book is a very personal decision, and only the author can decide what they are comfortable writing about. And sometimes making that decision can be daunting.

I thought this was a funny video about going along with the crowd. Hopefully we're like the first man. :) He doesn't seem to be bothered by the group at all.