In A New World Where Writers Are Presidents, Politics Functions Through Fiction: New Short Story by Focus on the Family



The election last night was a HISTORICAL FIRST: a man who made his fame initially through writing good books is now the President of the United States.But is the right-wing going to take this lying down? No! They are human beings, too, with the same murderous pride, the same love of justice and values--and the same urge to create.In the rules of formal dueling, the aggressor invariably chooses the weapons of engagement. President-elect Obama has chosen literature.His opponent--Focus on the Family-- shall do no less. Conservative science fiction--on the march!Focus on the Family, suddenly forced into the position of dissenter, has responded like all dissenters: they have turned to fiction. They have written a short story for the delight of a new America. " Letter From 2012 in Obama's America ," apparently written by committee (or at least credited to committee), is narrated by "A Christian from 2012," upset at the sweeping changes that the Obama presidency sweeps into power over the course of its first four years. Among these:- The Supreme Court has voted--- The Boy Scouts of America have disbanded,- Doctors are forced to provide artificial insemination for lesbian couples--or they could face- The military is, in a twisted form of affirmative action!- A 2011 decisionThe airwaves are littered with filth! Nothing can anymore be banned, nothing controlled!- Terrorists have swarmed from the mountains of Iran, completely overwhelming Iraq! Their bombs have gone off in two major American cities! Which two?have- Wicked Russia has retaken all of the former Soviet satellite countries--- Now that the poor can get free health care, the rich must wait two years for their cancer treatments!- The rich--are no longer rich! Since taxes on them have increased so much, everyone who earned more than $200,000/year has closed their business--All heavy industry has collapsed! Atlas has shrugged! The breadlines swell!- Conservative talk radio no longer exists, since the Obama-backed FCC now requires equal time representation on the airwaves for all viewpoints! Conservative radio listeners, so they stop supporting conservative talk radio altogether!- Homosexual activist groups, in a coordinated terrorist denial of service attack, have stopped large bookstore chains and Amazon.com from carrying Christian books!We at the Fiction Circus applaud Focus on the Family's decision to finally court the vast fiction-loving electorate, to seek out those crucial, tremulous single-issue fiction voters even in the rat holes and tenements where they survive. And just as we at the Fiction Circus appreciated all of the feedback we received on our brief attempt to seize power during the early days of the American financial crisis, Focus on the Family will surely appreciate the writerly advice that we offer them on this, their freshman effort at fiction writing.This is the biggest flaw in this entire story. The power of fiction is the power to show someone what it would actually be like to live in the world you have created. As it stands, Focus on the Family's effort is just a catalog of terrible events. Think how much more exciting it would be if we really *saw* those events unfold--Isn't that a better way to show people how realistic and convincing your scenario for America's future is? Isn't that a good scene? If you would like to use this scene in any of your future fiction, please send $5 to:The Fiction CircusBasement Hole #17Long Island City, NY 11106A good fiction writer is faithful to two things: his own visions, and his responsibility to conjure those visions in the mind of his audience. This means not only sensory details, but emotional and intellectual context. If you haven't done the work of teaching the reader to see through your eyes, your perspective will not be convincing or interesting. Your fiction will fail.This passage, for example, presents problems.Now, you and I are adults, Focus on the Family.know that of course it's a complete travesty that men who have broken the law are, in the year 2012, sitting in jail since the secret documents in which they have confessed their crimes are now public. We know that crime must remain secret and the guilty unpunished. But your crazy liberal readers may not know that it's a bad thing for people in power who have broken the law to be in jail!To solve this problem, you might have written a scene like the following:The price for this one is $10 because it has a sex scene in it.Who is this Christian from 2012? I want to know more about him--or her! When did this Christian first know he or she was a Christian? When did he or she lose his or her virginity, or did they? What is his or her socioeconomic status? Age? Favorite color? Could they at least be eating something while writing the letter, and maybe the letter gets stained with food and tears, and they're mad about it because now that the economy has collapsed since all of the wealthy people have stopped creating jobs, food is scarce? (That way you can show the character's favorite food, as well as include some sensory details.) Maybe at the end of the story they say they're going to eat the letter for fiber? Maybe the story ends with Russian Al-Qaeda shock troops breaking in with Obama's head on a pike, saying I REPENT through his damned, necrotically-animated lips, and he quickly writes GOD BLESS AMERICA before they run him through? Wouldn't that be rad? $15.I could go on, but I think you should just put this piece away for a while, Focus on the Family, then come back to it in a few months and see what you think you could improve about it. Sometimes you have to take some time away from your writing to really see it for what it is.In conclusion, Focus on the Family:Thank you for your submission to the Fiction Circus. We regret that it does not meet our publication needs at this time. We wish you luck on finding a publisher for this story, as well as with your writing career.Sincerely,The Editors