Casting Light

Yesterday I had brunch with a group of friends, several of whom were writers. All of us are working on mysteries or thrillers at the moment. One of them mentioned that she was struggling with the whole idea of writing about murder. She felt that by writing a murder mystery, she was somehow aggrandizing the idea of killing.

Unsurprisingly, the other authors disagreed. We talked about how all fiction has to do with examining both human nature and the human condition and that murder mysteries make us dig down and look at what might motivate the most craven acts of violence and the most brave acts of searching for the truth. We talked about how mysteries almost always seek to right the wrong of violence, to restore the balance of the world, to maintain justice.

I'm still thinking about this today on Martin Luther King Day. His beautiful quote about only light being able to chase out the darkness touches me every time I hear it. I do think it is what all authors try to do. We try to shine a little light into the world. Whether we write to entertain or to edify, we are always trying to shine a light on who we are, how we are the same and how we are different.