Thought fragment – possibly turned into an interlude chapter in the thesis…
And the argument raged. One side didn’t mind killing anything in the womb. The other side didn’t mind killing everything else. And in the middle, trampled by many feet walking both ways, was a battered cardboard sign, written in children’s crayon, saying, “Who would Jesus bomb?”
Joshua Alan Doetsch 
what is wrong with being didactic?
It’s heavy handed (sometimes lazy), certainly not sublte – the literary equivilant to throwing a rock at someone’s head. And on the besides, it’s not usually an effective way to persuade someone. Have a character, or the narrator directly tell someone something…and they will fight it.
Better to have a story that is a story, first and formost – it should be that before it is ANYTHING else. If you can weave in some meaning, some message, in that, then that is a bonus (and will likely work better than a direct “the moral is” bit).
That’s not so say characters themselves can’t be didactic, unsubtle, and vindictive.
ahhh. ok. i thought you might have something against teachers or something :). one time, dr h gave us a phrase in greek…something about don’t strike the teacher…and didactic was in it…it mademe laugh.
Wow…Josh is so smart…I like the big words…