Editing Writer (section)

==Controversial writing==
[[File:Old Man with Water Studies.jpg|thumb|left|250px|[[Leonardo da Vinci]] {{Circa|1513}} ''Old Man with water studies''. In the [[Royal Librarian (United Kingdom)|Royal Library, Windsor]]. Thought to be a self-portrait, showing Leonardo's writing and drawing.]]
Skilled writers influence ideas and society, so there are many instances where a writer's work or opinion has been unwelcome and controversial. In some cases, they have been persecuted or punished. Aware that their writing will cause controversy or put themselves and others into danger, some writers self-censor; or withhold their work from publication; or hide their manuscripts; or use some other technique to preserve and protect their work. Two of the most famous examples are [[Leonardo da Vinci]] and [[Charles Darwin]]. Leonardo "had the habit of conversing with himself in his writings and of putting his thoughts into the clearest and most simple form". He used "left-handed or mirror writing" (a technique described as "so characteristic of him") to protect his scientific research from other readers.<ref name=Leonardo>{{cite book|title="Leonardo's Manuscripts" in Leonardo de Vinci|publisher=Reynal and Company, in association with William Morris and Company|location=New York|pages=157|edition=Authoritative work, published in Italy by Istituto Geografico De Agostini, in conjunction with exhibition of Leonardo's work in Milan in 1938 (re-edited English translation)}}</ref> The fear of persecution, social disgrace, and being proved incorrect are regarded as contributing factors to Darwin's delaying the publication of his radical and influential work ''[[On the Origin of Species]]''.

One of the results of controversies caused by a writer's work is scandal, which is a negative public reaction that causes damage to reputation and depends on public outrage. It has been said that it is possible to scandalise the public because the public "wants to be shocked in order to confirm its own sense of virtue".<ref name="Wilson & Wilson">{{cite book|last=Wilson|first=Colin|title=Scandal!: An Explosive Exposé of the Affairs, Corruption and Power Struggles of the Rich and Famous|year=2011|publisher=Random House|author2=Damon Wilson }}</ref> The scandal may be caused by what the writer wrote or by the style in which it was written. In either case, the content or the style is likely to have broken with tradition or expectation. Making such a departure may in fact, be part of the writer's intention or at least, part of the result of introducing innovations into the genre in which they are working. For example, novelist [[D H Lawrence]] challenged ideas of what was acceptable as well as what was expected in form. These may be regarded as literary scandals, just as, in a different way, are the scandals involving writers who mislead the public about their identity, such as [[Norma Khouri]] or [[Helen Darville]] who, in deceiving the public, are considered to have committed fraud.

Writers may also cause the more usual type of scandal – whereby the public is outraged by the opinions, behaviour or life of the individual (an experience not limited to writers). Poet [[Paul Verlaine]] outraged society with his behaviour and treatment of his wife and child as well as his lover. Among the many writers whose writing or life was affected by scandals are [[Oscar Wilde]], [[Lord Byron]], [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], [[Albert Camus]], and [[H. G. Wells]]. One of the most famously scandalous writers was the [[Marquis de Sade]] who offended the public both by his writings ''and'' by his behaviour.

===Punishment===
[[File:Tyndale-martyrdom.png|thumb|Engraving depicting the death of [[William Tyndale]]]]
The consequence of scandal for a writer may be censorship or discrediting of the work, or social ostracism of its creator. In some instances, punishment, persecution, or prison follow. The [[list of journalists killed in Europe]], [[list of journalists killed in the United States]] and the [[list of journalists killed in Russia]] are examples. Others include:
* The [[Balibo Five]], a group of Australian television journalists who were killed while attempting to report on Indonesian incursions into [[Portuguese Timor]] in 1975.
* [[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]] (1906–1945), an influential theologian who wrote ''[[The Cost of Discipleship]]'' and was hanged for his resistance to [[Nazism]].
* [[Galileo Galilei]] (1564–1642), who was sentenced to imprisonment for [[heresy]] as a consequence of writing in support of the then controversial theory of [[heliocentrism]], although the sentence was almost immediately commuted to [[house arrest]].
* [[Antonio Gramsci]] (1891–1937), who wrote political theory and criticism and was imprisoned for this by the Italian Fascist regime.
* [[Günter Grass]] (1927–2015), whose poem "[[What Must Be Said]]" led to his being declared ''[[persona non grata]]'' in [[Israel]].
* [[Peter Greste]] (born 1965), a journalist who was imprisoned in Egypt for news reporting which was "damaging to national security."<ref name=bbc-crisis>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25546389 |title=Egypt crisis: Al-Jazeera journalists arrested in Cairo |work=BBC News |date=30 December 2013}}</ref>
* [[Primo Levi]] (1919–1987) who, among many Jews imprisoned during World War II, wrote an account of his incarceration called ''[[If This Is a Man]]''.
* [[Sima Qian]] (145 or 135 BC – 86 BC) who "successfully defended a vilified master from defamatory charges" and was given "the choice between [[castration]] or execution." He "became a eunuch and had to bury his own book ... in order to protect it from the authorities."<ref name=Battles>{{cite book|last=Battles|first=Matthew|title=Library – An Unquiet History|year=2003|publisher=William Heinemann|location=London|isbn=0-434-00887-7}}p40</ref>
* [[Salman Rushdie]] (born 1947), whose novel ''[[The Satanic Verses]]'' was banned and burned internationally after causing [[The Satanic Verses controversy|such a worldwide storm]] that a [[Fatwa|fatwā]] was issued against him. Though Rushdie survived, numerous others were killed in incidents connected to the novel.
* [[Roberto Saviano]] (born 1979), whose best-selling book ''[[Gomorrah (book)|Gomorrah]]'' provoked the Neapolitan [[Camorra]], annoyed [[Silvio Berlusconi]] and led to him receiving permanent police protection.
* [[Simon Sheppard (activist)|Simon Sheppard]] (born 1957) who was imprisoned in the UK for [[inciting racial hatred]].
* [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]] (1918–2008), who used his experience of imprisonment as the subject of his writing in ''[[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]'' and ''[[Cancer Ward]]''—the latter, while legally published in the Soviet Union, had to gain the approval of the [[Union of Soviet Writers|USSR Union of Writers]].
* [[William Tyndale]] ({{Circa|1494}} – 1536), who was executed because he translated the Bible into English.