"Terrorist-Coddling Warmongering Wall Stree-Loving Socialistic Godless Muslim ____"

As you can probably guess, the title of this post is a reference to President Obama, the 44th President of the United States.  But this post is not about him, or even the government.  It is about perception.

The title is a quote--the cover of the September 6th edition of Newsweek.  It began with "The making of" and ends with the word "President."  The magazine then goes on to paint Mr. Obama as 'The Illustrated Man,' a reference to Ray Bradbury's 1951 book by the same name in which a time-traveling witch covers the man's body in images.  Those images tell tales and make it difficult for the man to hold a job.  He says, "I'd like to burn them off."  But he can't.  Newsweek makes the analogy to President Obama in that "his enemies...have been busy for three years painting Obama as some kind of alien threat," and, just as the Illustrated Man struggles, the President cannot seem to shake the accusations.

Regardless of your political persuasion or feelings on the questionable adjectives given to the U.S.'s current President (though I will state for the record that I don't believe in the Kenyan birth certificate and I also don't think calling him a Muslim is an insult--the latter being a real sticking point for me in all of this controversy), you have to admit there is a problem with perception.

What is True or Factual is not necessarily what is Believed.  Rumors aside, multiple people can read an article about the President and take away many different things.  The same is true in life--witnesses don't always report the same observations about one event.  For example, we attended my son's soccer game Saturday and will readily admit he had trouble listening to the coach.  That being said, it's the U5 league and we aren't that concerned about whether he really learns the game, so much as that he has fun and enjoys exercising for sport.  At one point, Jake and another boy ran down the field behind a boy from the other team.  We saw them all swinging their little arms, but it didn't appear to us that they were actually fighting.  The coach then lifted Jake up, squeezed him to his body and carried him away, holding him in that position while he spoke with Jake.  Once he was set down, Jake ran to us on the sideline in tears.  To our perception, the coach's reaction was far from acceptable and did not fit the situation.  But, as my husband and I discussed how to deal with it, a parent next to us pointed out that the kids had been hitting each other and the coach was just separating them.  Our eyes widened.  We hadn't seen it that way at all!  We were ready to admit our child's fault in not listening (and had seen the coach react strongly to this in the past), but the swinging arms by three children did not constitute a fight in our minds, especially given the happy looks on their faces and the lack of furrowed brows.

I did not write this post to make my case in the soccer situation, though it feels good to write it all down.  My point is that perception may or may not be reality, and how this impacts what you write.

When you write, do you take into account how it might be interpreted?  Do you ask yourself, "Will making the MC a bit slutty insult readers to the point of not reading my book?" or "Does this joke go a bit too far, even though the character saying it is not supposed to be liked?"  Or, do you write what you want regardless, and hope the critics and the public will swallow it all?

Perception.  Truth.  Facts.  Believing.  These are all loaded words.  And there is no Right Answer, just your perception.