User blog comment:Gilgameshkun/Thoughts on Stephen Murphy's writing/@comment-995426-20160511171722

Stephen Murphy is probably one of the more controversial TMNT writers there's been. If you haven't heard of him, he used to write a lot for Archie TMNT and for Tales of the TMNT volume 2. And his recurring themes are moral stories about environmentalism and social justice.

So what do I think? To be honest, it's kind of a mixed bag.

I'm originally from a low coral atoll in the Pacific, so global warming is a pretty damn important topic to me. And I think social justice is something people shouldn't forget about, as a matter of humane principle. In this respect, it's not a bad thing to write stories that convey these messages.

On the flip side, I can see how Murphy's morality values can be handled...really inelegantly. For one thing, he's not very subtle. I mean, some anvils do occasionally need to be dropped, but there's unsubtle, and then there's really unsubtle. Another issue is that, in what appears to be an eagerness to get a certain message out, his writing opens itself to plot holes when he tries too hard to make a story fit a certain context.

How would I write better? Well, I'm not sure I'm qualified to say how. I mean, I have ideas, but I'm not sure how effective they would be. Basically, I don't believe in trying to jerk at visceral emotions like guilt or shame. I know people are often not so concerned with logic and reason as I am, but I just don't feel comfortable trying to manipulate someone into doing the right thing. Instead, I would prefer to gently appeal to someone's intelligence, compassion and altruism using empirical well-researched facts and realistic good examples. There are always going to be people who were never going to agree with you, and there are always going to be people who were very likely to agree with you; if you write a message that is so inelegant that its tone puts off undecideds before actually teaching them anything, then that message is destined to fail.

All in all, I believe Murphy's writing means well, and many of the topics are genuinely important. But sometimes his writing's execution could be a lot better than it is.

Also, I love his Professor Obligado stories, and I hope he finishes them someday.