A familiar tool found in any sea worthy pirate’s pocket is a trusty compass. It helps chart a destination, and keeps the ship on a desired course for the next keg of rum. A writer is not unlike a pirate. We have goals, and outlines we follow in order to meet a desired destination.

Internally I carry a compass of my own. It has been internalized in me since I was a small child. I have a moral compass, and more often than not, it guides me in daily decisions as well as what I choose to write.

I‘m not morally perfect, and I‘m not trying to blog a sermon, but I want to raise the question of morality in writing.

I have found that the more I write and work toward a goal of completing a WIP, the more concerned I become about what I write. I find that more often times than not, my writing self becomes at odds with my moral compass. I find freedom in writing, and to put restraints or limits on writing can remove all liberty of expression. Although I am writing to please me, what I write has the possibility of influencing a great number of readers. I want the freedom to write, but I want to convey the right message. I feel as a writer that I have a certain responsibility to represent who I am in the words and scenarios I choose to write.

Writers display certain morals in the characters they create. As writers, we have discussed creating characters that we dislike, or we allow our characters to do and say things that we normally would never convey in our own lives. The freedom to create our visions is the joy of writing. However, character creation is only a small portion of our influential writing potential. We can also influence readers through dialog, violence, and sexuality. We cannot censor what age groups have access to our work, and maybe that is not an issue to most writers, but we are responsible as individuals for what we write. Romance novels are not found next to self-help books, and religious philosophy at Barnes and Noble. We are not writing romance to save the world from moral corruption, but even a love story has the ability to influence potential readers.

Do you write with a moral compass, or does morality even play a factor in your writing style?