Few writers would disagree that words form the basis for all the stories and ideas they want to communicate. However, word choices and the way in which writers put those words together can communicate ideas in a number of ways. The complete sentence tells much more than individual words describe and, if we read carefully, bias appears in the full context of the sentence.
Decisions about syntax, individual words and additional information can be altered so that the basic idea in a sentence is altered profoundly. This means that any event can be presented in a way that will oblige the reader to think differently about it or, to put it another way, the reader will think in a way that the writer intends. Look at the following example.
The US president has a defence capability. The Iraqi dictator has weapons of mass destruction.
Suppose I wrote the following.
The US president has weapons of mass destruction. The Iraqi leader has a defence capability.
Both of the sentences above repeat the same information but the choice of wording has a profound influence on the way the reader views the individual leaders, i.e. who is good and who is bad and dangerous.
Let's look at another example. The piece of information being communicated is:
Surveillance flights in Iraqi air space were ended.
This was reported in one newspaper as:
Iraqi fighter jets threatened two American U-2 surveillance planes, forcing them to return to abort their mission and return to base, senior U.S. officials said Tuesday.
In another newspaper, the information was reported as:
U.N. arms inspectors said Tuesday they had withdrawn two U-2 reconnaissance planes over Iraq for safety reasons after Baghdad complained both aircraft were in the air simultaneously.
As you can see, decisions concerning diction, syntax, and additional further information alter the meaning so that the original idea is communicated and received in very different ways. In my opinion, this is far more worrying than fake news because it happens every day in order to persuade, to hoodwink and to deceive.
However, we fiction writers can employ this technique in order to distinguishing between heroes and villains. There is no need to tell the reader who is good and who is bad but it can be suggested by using (among others) the techniques above. After all, most people—in life and in fiction—aren’t born as evil people. Maybe they were raised to be bad or something in their life caused them to change their views. Whatever the reasons for his/her "badness" let your reader learn about it slowly by using some of the show-don't-tell techniques above.
In the Lion King for example, Scar is not revealed as the "bad guy" immediately. But Scar was heir to the throne until his nephew Simba was born. At first he hides his hatred of Simba and wins over the audience's sympathy with his complaints that life is sometimes unfair. The audience slowly learn of his evil intentions because Scar reveals them through facial expressions. In other words, he shows his "badness," he doesn't tell it.
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