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All writers put something of themselves into their stories, but some of them go just that little bit too far. For them, the real point of writing is not to shape worlds or create characters, but to express the Big Important Truths that are close to their heart.
This is certainly not always a bad thing. Done well, this can add an extra layer of meaning and resonance to a story. Done poorly, it will just result in the audience rolling its eyes and giving up. Even done well, an unfortunate result of the Author Tract is that some people will dismiss perfectly good stories simply because they disagree with the author's viewpoint. Even those who agree with the author may tune out if the author begins to lay it on too thick.
Of course, what is and isn't an author tract is highly subjective. Asking the author to not have an opinion on anything is absolutely absurd, and demanding that the author has to appeal to everyone is equally absurd. Sometimes Preaching To The Choir is a good thing, as the reader may agree and not know there is a choir to be preached to, depending on where he or she grew up. Art for art's sake is nice, but sometimes so is knowing that somebody shares your opinion on a subject.
These are often filled with Author Filibusters and Strawman Political characters.
Note that this only applies when the entire universe and characters have been created to put forward the author's viewpoint. If an existing fictional universe or character has been altered to create a medium for a tract, then it's due to a Writer On Board. If the author's just filling up their story with stuff they like, that's Author Appeal.
Contrast What Do You Mean Its Not Didactic. May overlap with You Fail Economics Forever.
Examples:
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Anime
Comic Books
- The works of Alan Moore frequently stray into Author Tract territory, most notably Promethea, which was a 32-issue series explaining Moore's views on the nature of magic and V For Vendetta which was very much a vehicle for his political views.
- To be fair concerning Vendetta, Moore was also trying to show the bad parts of Anarchism and the good parts of Fascism so that the readers could make up their own minds. The creators of the movie did not take this tact as closely to heart, unfortunately.
- Steve Ditko's comics, which attempted to mix superheroic action of a street-level variety with Aesops on various principles derived from Ayn Rand's Objectivism.
- Reginald Hudlin in charge of Black Panther; Africans are good and genetically superior, white people are evil, marry within your race, etc.
- Lest we forget, Jack Chick is famous for creating his "Chick Tracts", which have thin stories whose only purpose is to provide a framing story for an illustrated extract from The Bible and/or rant about how the Pope secretly rules the world and Dungeons And Dragons is a Satanic indoctrination tool.
- "Why We're Here
 " is a parody tract in the style of Jack Chick's works, but instead of being based on Christianity, follows the conversion of someone to The Cult of Cthulhu, complete with supporting quotations from the Necronomicon.
- Don't forget to listen to this while you read it.
- This parody uses the Chick tract format to promote Marvel Comics instead of Christianity.
- A site specifically devoted to parodying Chick tracts can be found here.
- "The Truth for Youth" by Tim Todd are comics done in Japanese style artwork. They're like Chick Tracts, but a bit more sane. It's pretty odd to read about Japanese-style characters talk about the evils of porn.
- One Chick tract explains where the idea came from — Communist China found that Western children loved reading comics, so they decided that easy-to-understand comics would be an excellent medium with which to indoctrinate the people.
- That said, basically every piece of official publication in Communist dictatorships is an example of this trope.
- An alternate, and equally apocryphal origin story for Chick tracts, suggests that they were inspired by "Tijuana bibles" — similarly pocket-size, staple bound amateur comics of the '30s and '40s, which featured very Lawyer-Unfriendly Cameos of licensed characters engaging in pornographic acts.
- Well, the "Communist China" pamphlets was the explanation Jack Chick gave in one of his tracts, and it's highly unlikely that a bluenosed fellow like Chick ever looked at a Tijuana Bible.
- The Invisibles was basically created as a way for Grant Morrison to explain his experiences with extraterrestrial contact and magic.
- Warren Ellis has specifically stated that Transmetropolitan is basically him venting about his various opinions on politics and consumerism, with the main character being a sort of author surrogate. This is particularly notable in the issue where Spider Jerusalem takes on religion, which doesn't even end properly—the issue concludes with him dressed up as Jesus, tearing up a sort of religious convention in a mall (While giving a long speech about why religion sucks, of course) and getting tackled by security. No mention is made of it afterward.
- Transmetropolitan actually does this right, as Spider is just unsympathetic enough to avoid being a Mary Sue 'I am right, you are wrong' type of character. You are left free to disagree with his individual likes and dislikes while sympathizing with his basic humanity, as many characters within the comic itself do.
- Many of the characters close to Spider constantly complain about what a horrible and unpleasant person he is, frequently abusing and taking advantage of him when he's blitzed on whatever drugs he's managed to come up with. At one point, one of the characters closest to him gets sick of his crap and leaves; but later returns and comments that the worst part of working with such a bastard is that he's the good guy, and actually making a difference.
- Preacher. Duh. "Uh, it's kind of preachy." "What part of the title confused you?"
- Much of the work of J. Michael Straczynski's work is infused with Aesops derived from the author's political beliefs, with storylines implying that the contemporary U.S.A. is just a shade away from being a fascist state with only people like him heroically standing in the way.
- One of the reasons William Moulton Marston created Wonder Woman was to convince everyone to come under "loving submission" to a world matriarchy. Oh, and bondage is highly enjoyable.
- Comically subverted by Grant Morrison when he literally shows up in Animal Man to (among other things) mention that he feels, his own, writing for the book has become too preachy and contrived.
- Blankets is a beautifully-drawn, emotionally engaging love story which uses the backdrop of a conservative Christian upbringing as parallel to the passion of teenage love - until the last chapter, when the love interest unceremoniously disappears and the comic becomes a vehicle for Craig Thompson's personal grudges against Bible-belt conservative Christianity. It was very jarring and out of place in what was until then a tale of romance spun against alternate interpretations of the New Testament.
- Your Mileage May Vary. It really depends how you see the book—from one point of view, it's about the three kinds of love Craig feels: romantic love for Raina, familial love for his brother, and religious love for God. By the end of the story, all of those have been broken down, replaced with more nuanced feelings, drawn in finer strokes. He'll never love anyone as simply as he loved Raina, and he drifted away from the straightforward love he had for his brother (symbolized by them drawing on the same page). Drifting away from his childlike view of religion (but not from religion entirely—he specifically states that he's not an atheist) is part of the same growing-up theme.
- Dave Sim's Cerebus eventually came to be dominated by Sim's viewpoints on the evils of feminism and his rather unusual take on the Abrahamic religions. An entire story arc was dominated by the title character reinterpreting pretty much the entire Torah.
Newspaper Comics
- The Boondocks (also the animated TV show version). Often expresses the feelings of Aaron McGruder on race, entertainment, religion, and politics. Be warned however, that some of that is also just Huey being Huey. This is subverted, however, by Huey being the character that often voices McGruder's beliefs, making it difficult to distinguish what the character thinks, and what the author thinks.
- Ummm... Author Insert?
- And, in fact, Michael Caesar's role insert a bit of realism or Lampshade Hanging to make the tract less Anvilicious or provide a more temperate view.
- Bill Watterson admitted that he wrote a lot of his troubles with the syndicate into Calvin And Hobbes, as well as his opinions on comics, film, TV, commercial and other industries, humans' role in nature, art, and general philosophy. Fortunately, he was a good enough author to not let it get in the way of characterization or humour.
- I would imagine that writing a six-year-old would make this easier — despite his vocabulary, Calvin tended to see the world in much the same way as other children his age, with simple black-and-white answers to everything, and the notion that just because you can't prove in a debate that you're right, doesn't make you any less right.
- It also helped that Watterson was also not above making himself the butt of the jokes - for example, much of Calvin's rambling about art was actually directed at Watterson's own beliefs.
- Doonesbury is really just Gary Trudeau telling people what he thinks about politics day-in and day-out, with occasional asides for other things.
- Mallard Fillmore is the same thing, only with a pro-conservative/Republican position, as opposed to Doonesbury's liberal/Democrat take.
- Actually, in its later years Doonesbury has become as much about exploring the gigantic cast of characters' lives as it has about politics. About half the strips these days are just about the wacky adventures of Zonker, Uncle Duke, or whoever Trudeau wants to focus on this week. The other half can get quite preachy, though.
- Mallard, meanwhile, is ALWAYS an author tract, because in contrast to Doonesbury, which has hundreds of recurring characters, Mallard only has two: the duck himself, and his liberal strawman editor. And since both of them are just representatives of opposing viewpoints, there's no real "character" there to explore.
- After its creator's conversion to born-again Christianity, BC became notorious for its pro-Christian sermonizing, including one infamous Easter strip showing a menorah transforming into a cross (Word Of God (ahem) was that this was merely his way of expressing a new religion
overthrowing replacing obliterating coming into its own). Which may seem weird given the apparent setting, but there was a story in around 2000 or so that puts forth the idea that the setting was not prehistoric but rather post-Rapture.
- With the Hart's grandson, Mason Mastroianni, in the writer's seat, the preachiness been dropped and the strip has returned to gag-a-day format. There was a strip ("Hey, I found this paper from 2004...") that implies B.C. merely takes place After The End.
Live Action TV
- Saturday Night Live sometimes has this happening, most likely because the host differs from week to week. Christina Aguilera hosted in the midst of her "Dirrty" phase, and about three-quarters of the sketches where she played a central role (either as herself or someone else) had her character lecturing the others on how she chose to express herself as a woman (i.e. don't call me a slut just because of how I dress or dance). Some sketches in this style were Anvilicious, others were anvilicious but got the point across with a good punchline.
- The West Wing varied a lot over time - the writing staff was mostly Republican in later seasons, leading to things like Arnold Vinick being the better candidate in the Season 7 election, to the point where he would have won had actor John Spencer not died, forcing a last-minute rewrite.
- Of course, The West Wing looked positively non-partisan when stacked up against Sorkin's follow-up, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, which took the preachiness and turned it Up To Eleven. And then squared it. This was parodied in the early episodes of 30 Rock, with Lemon ranting about something, then getting confused about the statistics before concluding, "I gotta read more."
- MacGyver pretty much turned into a show protesting societal wrongs after a couple seasons. The most glaring was probably the one that opened with a warning about a graphic portrayal of a de-horned rhinoceros, then spent about half its running time explaining the poaching in Africa and ended with Richard Dean Anderson as himself narrating about what can be done about it. Very Special Episode, indeed.
- Boston Legal frequently involved the writers concocting a storyline that would allow James Spader to sue and deliver increasingly lengthy closing arguments. Frequently lampshaded.
- Russell T Davies is a mild case, for sufficiently flexible values of "mild". While he does tend to harp on about homosexuality and atheism a lot, he does do it well and rarely cops out.
- Joss Whedon touches on his existentialist views in the the Firefly episode "Objects In Space", through Jubal Early. Joss goes into much deeper detail in the episode commentary.
Music
(Given the large number of protest songs and other musical agitprop, this probably should only list notable or extreme examples)
- The album Firestorm by filk musician Leslie Fish is intended as a set of instructions for surviving after a nuclear war. Many of her other songs are author tracts on the subjects of religion, anarchism, and civil liberties.
- System of a Down lost a lot of their fandom after their concerts became political talk-downs instead of politically charged music.
- Rush's Rock Opera 2112 is essentially a hard-rock adaptation of Ayn Rand's Anthem, and a number of the group's other songs reference Objectivist ideals, such as Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, The Trees, and (appropriately enough) Anthem.
- Not for nothing is the track 2112 known as 'the best Objectivist novel ever written'.
- Their much later album, Roll the Bones, particularly the title track, can be seen as an Author Tract repudiating their earlier Objectivism, or at least softening it greatly; and propounding more of a "life is random, you deal with what you get" attitude, incorporated with a strong anti-religion/superstition message.
- In the 2000s, it has become chic to produce remixes of existing songs (protest songs in particular) containing soundbytes from the creator's political candidate of choice. This editor recalls hearing a version of Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth mashed up with a John Kerry speech in 2004, and 2008 has seen a will.i.am-produced hip-hop remix of several Barack Obama speeches.
- "Long Leather Coat" by Paul McCartney, issued in 1993. If you are not in animal-lib, you will get chills listening to this.
- Several of John Lennon's works from '72 and '73. "Woman Is the Nigger of the World." There is even the Nutopian National Anthem—which is silent...
- The entirety of Green Day's "American Idiot" album was one long Take That against the George W. Bush administration. One song on the album, "Holiday", which despite already being an Author Tract manages to still have an Author Filibuster where the song stops for the singer to Strawman Political Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Bush directly through spoken word, complete with pulling a Godwin. Kind of a shame, depending on one's opinion on politics in music, because the music itself was enjoyable enough.
- As if the album itself wasn't heavy-handed enough, Armstrong once talked about adapting it into a movie. No kidding.
- Much of Sinead O'Connor's early work, particularly in concert, consisted of "think of the children" laments worthy of Sally Struthers, and anti-Catholic tirades, culminating in her career-derailing destruction of Pope John Paul II's photo on Saturday Night Live.
- Although given what we now know about the Catholic Church's abuse of children [1] [2](which was the main point of her protests) she was (a) right on the money and (b) raised the issue long before it was widely known. Some Anvils Need To Be Dropped?
- "Diary of an Unborn Child" is an anti-abortion Author Tract that would possibly have been more effective had the titular protagonist not embodied Sickening Sweetness and Nightmare Fuel in equal measure, making its eventual demise more of a relief than anything. And then it starts singing.
- Not to mention that in trying to be strawmannishly Anvilicious, the creator portrays the mother as literally quaking in fear at the very concept of her child, implying that she hates it and despises it. Of course, if your unborn fetus was chirping at you about every stage of its development in a Chipmunk-esque voice, it might scare you, too.
- Subverted by Alice Cooper. Despite being a Republican and Christian, he is vehemently against mixing his beliefs with his songs, both because he feels that rock is the antithesis of politics and because he doesn't think people should be looking to musicians for guidance on who to vote for.
"So when I see all these rock stars up there talking politics, it makes me sick. If you`re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you`re a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we`re morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal."
- Likewise, this editor gained a whole new sense of respect for Elvis Presley after hearing about a reporter who asked for his opinion on the Vietnam War; The King politely replied with "Ma'am, I'm just an entertainer," and he left it at that.
- Neal Morse left his Prog Rock band Spock's Beard after becoming a Christian. His "Testimony" album is pretty much the story of his conversion, although he tends not to be didactic and simply calls it "my story."
- Early Chicago had a lot of these. If it's penned by Robert Lamm, expect this trope (also, expect a lot of vitriol aimed at the establishment). Exemplified by "A Song for Richard And His Friends."
- Toby Keith's early albums were a mix of fun or melancholy country tunes, of above-average quality. Now they are mostly raucous instructions on blind patriotism, bible-thumping and how he's better than everyone.
- Just about all the music of Canadian far-left band Propaghandi is like this, although it's gotten to the point where they spend so much time at their concerts ranting to the audience instead of actually playing music, that their fans have been known to yell at them to shut up and play.
- Parodied with a hint of deconstruction by Tenacious D in the song City Hall, where the duo take over the world - first, they legalise pot, then they try to reduce pollution with an absurd and impractical tube system, then they start to lose steam, showing that rock stars aren't really the type of people who you should take political advice from.
- Most of the work of the Cranberries is about their political views stemming from The Troubles. Even their international hit song "Zombie" ("It's been the same old theme since 1916") is a cry to Please Think Of The Children and stop the fighting.
- While normally Bob Dylan puts enough subtlety in his protest songs that you could naively assume they were made purely for the artistic merit, he didn't even try with "Neighborhood Bully". This Troper clicked on it on You Tube, heard the lyrics, and immediately knew exactly what point Dylan wanted to make thirty freaking years ago. UGH.
Video Games
Web Animation
- The online flash series Broken Saints is deeply immersed in Author Tract, all taken Brooke Burgess' new-found (as of the original writing) philosophical outlook on life. He also makes no secret of his political views, particularly as regards the relationship between the U.S. and Iraq post-Gulf War I. One of the main protagonists is an Iraqi "freedom fighter" who is struggling to balance his desire for justice against the Western invaders and the peaceful teachings of his religion. It is worth noting that the series was well under way before 9/11, and was almost completed before the second Gulf War.
Webcomics
Western Animation
- South Park often devotes episodes to be heavy handed over the top Author Tract, with Strawman Political.
- Ducktales occasionally delved into this territory, although it was generally done well and in a manner that could educate kids on issues they might not otherwise learn about until they were older. Some episodes dealt with themes such as capitalism vs organized labor (showing the importance of responsible management, without totally demonizing, when Uncle Scrooge lost his memory).
- Seth MacFarlane has bluntly stated that American Dad, a show about an extremely stupid conservative CIA agent and his family, was created primarily out of his frustration at George W. Bush's re-election in 2004. However, despite its overtly political premise, it has generally been far less preachy than the Family Guy episodes that have aired during the same years. An episode focused around Bush, while showing him to be pretty stupid, actually had him portrayed as a pretty decent guy who ends up delivering a heartfelt message to help Stan be more forgiving and supportive of his daughter.
- It probably helps American Dad that the extremely stupid conservative CIA agent's daughter is pretty much an equally stuid liberal college student. It's just more fun to point out the absurdities of both sides.
- On the topic of Family Guy, Brian ("Well, we're off to a good start.") has become more of a way for the writers to preach their values and take jabs at ones they don't like, though Brian himself has been shown in show to be an arrogant, possibly racist alcoholic hypocrite (see his selling out his values to get his terrible book published) while still at least not an idiot.
- Similarly to the Family Guy/Brian example, a writer for The Simpsons admitted that the creative team has deliberately made Ned Flanders, in recent seasons, less of a "turn the other cheek" Christian and more of an intolerant Moral Guardian, as a protest against the growing influence of, well, Moral Guardians in Bush's America... nevermind the Moral Guardians were led by Al Gore's wife (and just as virulent) around the time the show started. Much of this has been viewed as Character Derailment. Flanders was de-Flanderized in The Movie, though, being portrayed as a genuinely caring guy who just has some annoying quirks.
- A more annoying cause of Author Tracts is Lisa who, as the show has gone on, has become the focus of plots that are basically an excuse to have her take on some new world view (Buddhism, veganism, environmentalism, etc.). While the causes she supports are generally worthwhile, the fact that the plot seems to require all the other characters to become total jerkasses before eventually apologizing to her makes it harder to like them in other episodes. An obvious example is the disgusting behavior of Homer and Marge when Lisa became a Buddhist, acting as though she'd converted to Satanism. They never acted this way about Buddhism again and it barely gets a mention in other episodes. There's even a later episode in which everyone is shocked that Bart becomes a Catholic. He never thinks to remind anyone that his sister left the family church as well.
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