Eve asked:

I want to write a book based on philosophy. I don't want to be preaching my ideas, I want to explain a
philosophical dilemma or question that is a subject of debate, and then put my opinion forward, but
show how it relates to other opinions and what parts of those opinions I agree with and why.

Do you have any advice on how I should consider setting it out, do you think it would be best to just
tackle a few questions that are related to each other? Do you think I should set it out as a story, or
somewhere in between a novel and a textbook (I don't want it to be like a textbook or a revision
guide!) Also are there any books I should read to research?

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Another of those oldie questions down at the bottom of the list... I guess Eve has given up on this...
but... for some reason this one intrigued me...

Ok. On the face of it, without another 10-20 years of education, what you want is simply ridiculous.
But then I started thinking about Colin Wilson and people like him. So... take a look at some of the
early novels of Colin Wilson: Adrift in Soho, The World of Violence, Ritual in the Dark... neato stuff,
which he wrote in his 20s. Try something like that, if you're able.

Steven Ravett Brown

Advice is cheap, as the old saying goes; and in relation to your question, the difficulty is that you may
not be altogether aware of how big a problem area you're tackling there. However, there are
fundamentally two ways of attacking this issue:

Firstly, you can study works by writers who have done this sort of thing before; and obviously you
would chose those whose writings are truly philosophical, not just argumentative. For example,
Sartre's Age of Reasonand Camus' The Outsiderare in a loose definition "philosophy set in motion"
in a fictional environment. You might use those as role models: read them, and then go to the
secondary literature to get yourself directed to the portions of their more formal philosophical writing
where the same issues are dealt with.

Other novelistic examples are found in many writers who are not specifically philosophers; I might
mention Aldous Huxley and Thomas Mann as a conspicuous examples; but here as there you need
to be well-informed of their philosophical backgrounds to derive profit. And you really cannot go past
the classical examples of Voltaire's Candideand Bacon's New Atlantis.

Then there are writers, very few, whose novels are truly philosophical in an authentic sense, written
by men who were philosophers but never actually wrote a philosophical text, just novels.
Dostoyevsky's major novels belong into this class; and I would go so far as to say that no-one can
claim to be philosophically comprehensively educated without having read at least The Devilsand
The Brothers Karamazov.Joseph Conrad's Nostronomoand Stendhal's The Chartreuse of Parma
might also be said to make the grade, and there are a few others, although by now you might find
yourself with a major reading list to tackle. So perhaps you might alternatively consider Option 2,
which assumes that you possess reasonable literary talent and especially a facility for writing
convincing dialogue.

An obvious starting point would then be to select one or several connected philosophical topics, say
"good and evil" or "the concept of justice" or some topic in fashion today that motivates you. Read
what philosophers have written about them, pro and con, and then put up a few characters whom
you'll have to portray as "embodiments" of opposing trends. The more complex these characters, the
more convincing they are likely to be. I mean by this: ensure that A is not just evil, but has a streak of
unexpected and eloquent compassion about him/ her (for example). The ideas you set in motion,
being exemplified by persons, must not be "monolithic", but shade in and out contingent on
circumstances, events, loves, hates, politics etc. The best example of this sort of thing is again
Dostoyevsky, and you could do much worse (if you're serious) than to read his Devilsfive or six times
and attempt to tabulate the characteristics of the main characters and how, why and under what
circumstances they come out, what conflicts cause their characteristics to change, crack under
pressure, or become modified in one or the other direction.

I must not fail to mention, finally, Plato. Several of his dialogues are the best models ever written.
Especially pertinent in your context would be Protagoras,but Symposiumand Republicare equally
brilliant, though more complex and extended.

Well now: It remains for me, I suppose, to wish you the best of luck and happiness in your endeavour;
and I do expect a mention among your "influences" when you pick up your first Nobel!

Jürgen Lawrenz

Sydney