SE: I'm not sure if influence is possible; nor am I sure I want to influence people about much of anything, since that presumes my vision of the world is somehow superior or more complete -- and such conceits affect one's writing in unwelcome ways. There are certain elements that drive my work, however, and they seem to derive from my notions of what it means to be a writer of fiction. In learning to get inside the heads of characters, no matter who they are or what they do, one ends up walking in a lot of shoes, some of them decidedly uncomfortable, and yet, with enough diligence and ruthlessness at work, the most powerful message that hits me as a writer (and, one hopes, the reader, too) is that there is more than one side to things -- to anything, in fact -- and moral judgement can only be reached (if one chooses to do so) once some kind of understanding is achieved of as many sides as possible. Now, that being said, I am no fan of 'moral relativity' wherein one shrugs off, say, female circumcision, simply because it's some culture's tradition to conduct such butchery. Screw that. But the mindset behind such an activity (to extend the example) is always contextual, and it's that context that I find intrinsically interesting. (Which is why I explored it in the fourth novel in the series.)
It's often commented that my stuff is all shades of grey rather than black and white, and I guess that sense comes from what I said above; but that's not the same as saying every character is similarly grey -- the effect is an overall one, rather than a specific one. Most of the characters I come up with have pretty fixed notions of right and wrong, they have a moral centre, in other words, whether consciously recognised or not. But in coming at something from more than one side, the reader is left free to choose which one they'll favour. The thing is, story-telling is, at its root, a form of communication intended to entertain. The subtext stuff, if there is any, generally reflect the story-teller's own obsessions. That probably can't be helped, but it's not the same as saying it's all secret code intended to brainwash the reader.
