Author Bias
Posted by Peat
How about another reader letter? Francesco writes:
Hello,
My name is Francesco and I have to say I am a fan of your books. Saying so I have decided to choose your books for a project I have in my tenth grade Honors Lanuaged Arts. Through out the year I will have to look at your books through a couple different aspects that we will discuss in class.
For the first quarter of school it will be New Historism. New Historism is a lens that people look at writing and say the all writers write their books with some sort of bias. From what I have read I could not see any, so I decided to ask you. In your books is there some sort of bias ideas that you put in there? Maybe not on purpose but something that reflects your view on the world that devoloped through out your life?
If your could get back to me you would be a great help.
Thank you.
Francesco
To which I replied:
Hi Francesco,
So sorry for the delay, but I just moved my home/office and am a bit behind on my correspondence.
I am not sure it is possible to write without any bias at all. Everyone is influenced by their own personal experience and world view. I have spoken several times about how being in NY on 9/11 had a big impact on my art.
However, that said, I do work very hard to minimize the effects of that on my writing, presenting as fairly as I am able all sides of a problem before my characters act, so that the onus to decide if those actions are right or wrong falls more on the reader than the narrator.
Hope that helps.
Thanks for writing!
Regards,
Peter V. Brett