Originally published on ebdawson.com
Isn’t ideology just for religions? No. So what is ideology and what does it have to do with your story?
In short, an ideology is any system of ideas. Every single story has an ideology, whether the author actively crafted it or not. This is more than just worldbuilding. You may have a religion in your story. Great. That’s only ONE aspect of your story’s ideology. You may have politics in your story. That is another aspect of your story’s ideology. Religion, philosophy, politics, magic, character arcs, and themes can all be aspects of ideology.
Another way to put it is that ideology is the epistemological and metaphysical rules you set for your story. Your reader can’t explore your world for themselves. You are their guide. In a sense you have to set up a truth system for them so that they can make judgments on the characters and the plot. What is real? What is true? What is moral? Are there universals and absolutes in your story or is everything relative to culture, country, or individuals? What are we supposed to believe about warfare? Are we supposed to take it at actual weight (gruesome, horrifying) or is it just a metaphorical tool that you are using to tell a different story? (Band of Brothers vs. The Chronicles of Narnia)
One of the biggest mistakes I see in indie books is contradictory ideology. But it’s also becoming much more common in traditional publishing and major films.
Whether you want to admit it or not, ideology is inextricably linked to the author. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing and it definitely doesn’t mean your story has to be dogmatic. In fact, when you are actively aware of your ideological biases, and the ideology of your story you are in the best position to temper them.
Nor do all authors stay within their own ideologies. The beauty of fiction is that you can explore ideologies that are not your own. This is especially true of speculative fiction. I don’t have to believe aliens are real to write a story in which they are. BUT if aliens ARE real in my story, that will affect what my characters believe about reality/religion. (If I am writing Christian science fiction, for example, I have to decide how these aliens came into existence: did the same God who created humans create these aliens? And if so, do they have souls the way humans do and can they receive salvation the same way? Or did God create humans, but set evolution into motion on these other planets?)
Most contemporary stories just borrow from the real world. They paint reality as it is. Their characters reflect the different beliefs of our world. But when you get into speculative fiction and start changing the rules of reality, you have to be aware of the ideological consequences. (But even contemporary stories often change “the rules of reality” in order to tell their stories. More on that later)
Let’s look at our first example:
Pushing Daisies
Glossed Over Reality
Set in a world that is a lot like ours, but not fully. There is a fairytale feel to it, set up not only by the narration, but also by the over-the-top colorful visuals, and by what is left out of the story. We don’t see a lot of the stressful elements of “real life.”
Supernatural Element
Add in the supernatural element. Ned, the baker, has the ability to bring dead things to life with the touch of his finger. Whether or not resurrection is possible in our world will depend on what you believe. But in this show, it is a reality.
Perspective on Death
One of the key features of this show is its facetious take on death. First of all, there is no afterlife. This is established by Ned’s conversations with the dead people he resurrects (usually only for one minute at a time). They don’t report getting pulled out of heaven or hell. They awake with their last memory still present in their mind as if they had just fallen asleep. Their bodies are often comically deformed by their dramatic deaths, and the macabre is made comedic. Plus the banter between Ned, Chuck, and Emerson Cod and their dead clients is witty and funny.
The message is clear: you aren’t supposed to take death too seriously in this show. It is a highly stylized, hyperbolic, fairy tale, modern murder mystery show. And it is such a fun ride because the writers stay within their own boundaries.
Now, I would guess the writers of the show were materialists because of the strong undertone that dead means gone and there is no soul, a person is their body, and nothing more. However, it’s a story that can be enjoyed by people with many different worldviews. I am not a materialist. I believe in the soul’s existence after death. But I don’t have a problem going along with show’s ideology, because it works within the confines of the story. It’s not supposed to be a commentary on reality. It’s a fun exercise of the imagination: “If this world existed where nothing happened after death, and a pie maker could bring people back to life for one minute, he could work with a detective to solve murders and it would be great fun.”
One of the big lessons from Pushing Daisies is that crafting your story’s ideology is often about knowing what you have to avoid in order to make the story work. You will not hear any heated discussions about the afterlife, or souls in the show. They do have religion in the show as a monastery plays a prominent part. But serious questions of faith are avoided altogether. Though I don’t always love the way they portray the monastery or the nuns, it really isn’t the focus of the show, and it still is pretty funny.
Now let’s look at a show with a similar ideology that had more inconsistencies.
Psych
I know I may get some flack on this one because so many people love it so much. And I love it too, for the most part. But there were a couple of episodes that irked me a lot because they completely went back on their own rules.
Psych is very obviously meant to be set in the real world: Santa Barbara, California to be exact. But the premise of the show is similar to Pushing Daisies in that death is not supposed to be taken very seriously. If it were, Shawn would be a real jerk, and the tone of the show would be a lot more like CSI: dark and heavy.
There is a slight suspension of reality that allows the audience to be entertained by the murder mystery element instead of horrified and traumatized.
Even though characters often point out that Shawn’s reactions are immature and inappropriate, we still think he’s hilarious. But if he existed in real life and behaved the way he does, we wouldn’t think it was so funny.
It’s dramatized. It’s ridiculous. It’s goofy and you don’t take it too seriously.
That’s why when they tried to insert some “serious” episodes into the show, it really jarred me. After being completely irreverent about the (often gruesome) deaths of so many people, they would suddenly insert an episode where death is taken seriously because someone Shawn loves is in danger.
Now I get that part of Shawn’s character is his emotional detachment. But it felt like a rude trick on the audience. Because every serious episode almost made me feel bad for laughing at all the irreverent episodes. For me, it felt like the rules changed. The serious episodes felt like “this is real life/what if this happened to you?” while all the other episodes were supposed to be detached. You weren’t really supposed to empathize too much with the victims in the other episodes, but suddenly you were supposed to empathize in the few serious ones.
I’m probably a lot more sensitive to this than other people, but I still think it’s a fair critique.
I’m going to give one more quick example of a story with inconsistent ideology.
A Series of Unfortunate Events
(the Netflix show)
Highly stylized. A sort of steampunk/modern setting with locations that often look like ours, but definitely aren’t. Again, death isn’t supposed to be taken too seriously. This show spent the first two seasons establishing the villain archetype for Count Olaf. He is evil to the core. He is over the top. There are no softening, human sides to him. We love to hate him.
Then in the third season, they suddenly tried to make him misunderstood. “Nobody is completely bad,” I think Klaus says at one point. What? It’s as though we’ve been viewing a movie in black and white and suddenly the writer pretends it has been in color the whole time. It hasn’t. It’s been in black and white, and to try to deny that it’s been in black and white is disrespectful to the audience, who has invested emotions in the story.
“That’s not ideology,” you say. “The writer just started with archetypes and decided to make them more complex later.” But it is also ideology. Outside of this story, I agree that you can find good in people. I put aside that ideology for the sake of the story, and embraced the story’s ideology: that this archetype character is truly evil. And when that got twisted around it left me feeling confused and betrayed.
Let’s say this loud and clear so everyone can hear:
If you want to change the rules and ideology part way through, write another story.
(This is a huge reason why large franchises become battlegrounds. The story ideology changes. Some fans like the changes, others do not.)
Conclusion
No matter what your ideology is, your story has a unique set of rules that you want your reader to accept in order to best enjoy the story. When you break them, when you contradict yourself, it will throw the reader out and make them feel confused and betrayed.
If your story is founded on dualism (light versus dark) and archetypal characters who represent the dark and the light, don’t muddle things by making the Light characters suddenly morally suspect (*cough cough* I’m looking at you Star Wars). If that is your plan from the beginning then you aren’t really writing a story on dualism and also you need to FORESHADOW it from the beginning, so the reader is prepared.
If your story is supposed to show the evils of war and demonize a culture that derives entertainment from bloodshed, don’t glorify and romanticize combat and turn bloodshed into entertainment for your audience. (*cough cough* Hunger Games)
If the entire premise of your story is that the heroes have to face the consequences of the last movie, don’t suddenly give them a solution that will make everything better.
Honestly, this is just the tip of the iceberg, but I hope it has got you thinking. In magical fantasy, creating clear rules for your magic system and sticking to them is essential. To me, having a consistent ideology is just as important. The average reader may not be able to express why they didn’t like the ending or a certain plot choice, but they can often sense when something is wrong.
E.B. Dawson 