Quick background: I was scrolling through Wikipedia, doing research for an SCP that exists in Iraq because archaeology when I ran into the article on the city of Mosul. At first I thought about using the city as a semi-throwaway reference for location, but then I remembered that there is an ongoing battle to retake the city from, well, it's Iraq, take a guess.
I don't know if I have the skill as an author to properly represent the destruction going on there, involving both the human beings and the artifacts of historical relevance. As a fiction community focusing on faux-bureaucratic documents and a globe-spanning bureaucracy, occasionally it becomes necessary (or at least convenient) for us to address ongoing events. However, when it comes to events such as national tragedies or armed conflicts, it's easy to write fiction that comes across as political without author intent. And, if mishandled, it can skew reader understanding of the real events and depict real, living innocent people in a negative light (or depict living morally reprehensible people in a positive light).
Obviously, there are a couple extant works on the site involving current events (the sad clown refugees come to mind), so this discussion has already been ongoing in some form. And, it's probable that a couple threads similar to this one already exist. But basically, the short version is, I want to know the community's ideas and advice re: writing fiction that involves real, currently living people undergoing/existing in damaging, dangerous, and tragic situations (such as the citizens of the above-mentioned Mosul).
So, please share your thoughts.
