Offensive mistakes writers make

[Ursa major]

Yes. But the issue I have isn't about the relevance of any particular article, it's that if I went through a lot of them, I'd still come away with the same general points -- that characters should be rounded, not stereotypes, so that a reader could easily imagine them in situations outside the story; that if one wants to include real-world things and ideas that are outside one's experience, one should research it properly and seek out people who know the subject and are willing to help; that one should do one's best to avoid clichés; and so one -- that I could find elsewhere, but without all the superfluous baggage and the need to wade through that baggage to get to the useful stuff.

We are trying to be good writers, not people simply on the planet to increase the traffic on sites that deal with writing in passing, as a by-product of a different agenda entirely.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

I do honestly think the tone of the whole thing went too far. I mean, I stick to what I said before-don't shy away from anything potentially offensive, but don't go out of your way for it, either. It would be like this:

Don't let your conscience get in the way if something truly important is on the line in a situation, like your life, but don't totally disregard it, either. If you get attacked by a dog, and it is a situation that could result in you getting seriously injured or killed, don't be afraid to use sufficient force to defend yourself. But on the other side, don't just start randomly attacking innocent animals for the heck of it.


The point is, on the writing point of view, don't ruin your entire idea if such events as described can sufficiently build it up. But don't throw in a violent rape followed be evisceration just because you can.



Also, the point about use of food to describe skin color...there is a sort of issue to that. And it is simply that for Caucasians, skin tone doesn't actually have a vast array of variety, honestly, that could compare with food color. Milky or cream are really just jet white, sometimes with a hint of yellow. But, in the exception of those of extremely pale complexion, like albinos, such descriptions of white people are actually rather inaccurate, while plenty of foods actually are darker in color, from ranges of creamy coffee to chocolate to black cherry to licorice, and those colors are more widely seen amongst people of Hispanic or African based heritage, or Middle Eastern, or Aboriginal, or certain Asian cultures, though amongst some Asian cultures some can have a paleness. Actually, for many "white" people, it can be easier to describe them by hair and eye color, as most who fall under other ethnicities don't actually have much color range to their hair and eyes. If you describe someone as having red hair and green eyes, for example, then the assumption will be that they would be white, and you avoid the food color comparison completely.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

People getting offended at the xir/xe thing just makes me laugh. Ava Jae might be gender queer for all you know and uses it out of habit, just like here in the west country we tend to refer to everything (including inanimate objects) as 'he.'

I'm glad you laughed, Mouse, because (as is frequently the case) I was kidding. I can't actually recall ever being "offended" by anything, which I'm sure just proves the PC movement's stereotyping of my "white privilege".

I don't think I have any right to be offended by anything that doesn't happen to me, personally, and when something has happened to me, personally, "offended" is not the word I would use to describe my reaction. P***ed off, maybe.

Why is it, may I ask, that food colors are supposed to be so bad for skin-color descriptions? This all reminds me of shopping for paint and trying to figure out what the difference is among off-white, beige, taupe, eggshell and antique. White people aren't white, black people aren't black, and food is a universal even though we all eat different foods. I'm not sure what food color my skin might be, but it wouldn't offend me if someone figured out what it is and said so. Bread, probably. White bread.

Trying to come up with a crayon color for a character's mocha-colored or caramel-colored skin would be an exercise in futility, and hilarious to boot, particularly given the fact that crayons are named mocha and caramel (not to mention lime and lemon and blueberry, and is orange a color or a food? What color are your aliens?). Perhaps we should all use HTML color codes or Pantone numbers. (I *think* that the writer of the article meant that white people are called white and everyone else is tagged as food-colored, which is indeed a sloppy writing thing.)

(ETA: about a page and a half of posts were posted while I was writing this, so I'm way out of date already.)

Forgot I wanted to mention something else, too. A couple of years ago, I sent one of my WIPs (WsIP?) to a couple of people here, for some opinions. One was bothered by something, and the other wasn't. The something that bothered one was that my time-traveling kids decided to test their newfound time-travel device by going to New York City on 9/11. They didn't actually stay long enough to see anything, for other reasons, but the point was that it wasn't necessary at all. It was an historical moment that they thought of (one of them is a history buff), but it was superfluous to the plot, and it bothered someone who had known people who died that day. I don't know anyone who died that day, and to me it was simply another piece of history -- the kids go to many places and historical times in the course of the book -- and didn't mean anything in particular. But I can see how it might bother people to use it in a meaningless way, and because it didn't matter to the plot, I replaced it with something that was actually better, a concert in Central Park.

On the other hand, I don't think there has to be a reason for whatever color or sex or anything else a character is. I don't see how it has to be necessary to the plot before we place a particular type of character in a situation. People simply are whatever they are, and things happen to them. I wouldn't say "ok, it's not necessary that this character be white, or gay, or disabled, or whatever, so I'll change it because it bothers someone." The character is whatever I saw him to be when he appeared in my mind. If it turns out later that he needs to have some other characteristic, then yes. But not just because somebody doesn't like it. (I think I may have managed to contradict myself in this paragraph, but it makes my head hurt to try and navigate this Mobius strip that is my brain.)

 

[End of Time]

Do you know what is offensive?

People demanding that you are going to write something they want you to write, because if not, you're going to get labeled a racist.

What is also offensive is that you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. Apparently minorities aren't really human, they're aliens that you have to study like an animal in a zoo.

Instead of telling people what they can't write, maybe show them what they should write... by writing it yourself or promoting the people who already fill up your quota of correctness. Oh wait, arm-chair/slacktivist/social justice warriors don't actually do anything, they just sit around and get offended for other people, call others racist, and be general lethargic pests about it. Why do something productive when you can't just b*tch and moan from the sidelines telling people they are secretely horrible.

 

[Hex]

Luckily, I don't think anyone here means to do that, End of Time. I think most people are either sympathetic towards the thrust of the article, or irritated by the tone of the article.

My feeling is the conclusion here is that we should try to write well-rounded and well-thought-out characters (I think you're right that suggesting people from other cultures must be put under a microscope and intensively studied before we can write about them makes things sound kind of dubious).

People are diverse, and I don't think you need to know that 30% of Scots have an interest in badminton and gardening (I made that up) to write a character, and is it different for people who are not Scots?

I loved TDZ's post on skin colour descriptors because I was wondering that too -- so my character has skin that I think of as the colour of dark honey and I'm struggling to find ways to describe it otherwise that aren't really flat and dull. If comparison to inanimate objects is a bad thing, then I can't describe it by reference to crayons (!) and I reckon people could complain if you compared skin colour to animals ("he had the slightly off-white complexion of a palamino stallion...").

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Well I went to the source for my skin colour - the pantry. My skin colour is in fact toast - on the number three setting of my machine that goes to ten (I wanted one that went to eleven but that's a whole other story!)

Now how do I work that into a story? Especially a fantasy where they don't have toasters?

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Brian G Turner]

To keep things in perspective, I thought I'd post a real-life example I came across this weekend.

I was given a free copy of Jay Kristoff's Stormdancer at Worldcon, and thought I'd check out the online reviews to see if it might be worth reading.

This review was on the main book page at Amazon:
Amazon.com: E. Smiley's review of Stormdancer (The Lotus War Book One)

Two key criticisms raised in that review:

1. Male gaze
2. Bad research

Both are issues of bad writing - the first because the author forgets all about POV issues - which is supposed to be a basic technical point in the craft of writing.

The second because the admits he knows nothing about Japanese culture, other than from reading Akira and Wikipedia.

Now, despite these apparent flaws, the majority of readers enjoy the book - two-thirds of the ratings are for 5 stars, with an average of 4.5.

Readers are forgiving of technical writing errors. And Jay Kristoff is a Western writer, writing for a Western audience, who no doubt share a lot of his ignorance and biases. How many of us know enough about Japanese language and culture to spot his errors?

Yet there's no evidence of a campaign to have Jay Kristoff condemned as either sexist or racist. And by all accounts, his book is a commercial success.

But here are a couple of questions to ask yourself:

- If you were the author receiving these criticisms, would you wish you could have addressed them?

- Male authors write female characters who routinely fixate on breasts. How much longer do you think these sort of POV errors will be forgiven? Especially when women readers are increasingly vocal about what they will accept?

- Western countries are becoming increasingly ethnically diverse. Additionally, Western culture is becoming global culture. All of which means readers come from a divergent range of backgrounds and interests, and are looking for themselves in characters. As a writer, are you looking to write for this larger audience? No? Did you know that India is about to become the world's biggest market for English-language fiction?

 

[Nick B]

Wow, does that woman have issues? I describe skin colours when relevent, i have people of many skin tones because they are post human and geneticaly engineered, so yes i will say that people have XXX skin or fur or whatever, i also describe some accents or use words that sound different. There are also people of varied sexuality and everyone is treated in exactly the same way, including being killed. There are insults, praises jokes and everything else that happens in real life too. Anything else is contrived and false.
People seem afraid today, scared that someone may take offence. It is more racist/sexist/anythingist to try and avoid all this.

 

[Toby Frost]

I must say that I find all the buzzwords smug and irritating. It makes the whole business sound like a bingo card: "Male gaze! Mighty whitey! House!" Not that I doubt the sincerity of the original article, but it does sound like office-speak at times.

 

[Ursa major]

I don't see how it has to be necessary to the plot before we place a particular type of character in a situation.

More than that, I think it would be odd if one tended to do that. I know that real life isn't necessarily the best template for dramatic fiction, but except for the obvious -- one meets children and teachers at school, one meets people with certain skills at work -- the people one meets have nothing to do with the "plot" of one's life. They arrive, or not, in one's vicinity by whatever is driving their own lives.

People simply are whatever they are, and things happen to them. I wouldn't say "ok, it's not necessary that this character be white, or gay, or disabled, or whatever, so I'll change it because it bothers someone." The character is whatever I saw him to be when he appeared in my mind. If it turns out later that he needs to have some other characteristic, then yes. But not just because somebody doesn't like it. (I think I may have managed to contradict myself in this paragraph, but it makes my head hurt to try and navigate this Mobius strip that is my brain.)

I'm not sure you're contradicting yourself: sometimes we can't always foresee what skills/characteristics a character will need (or need to develop) when we first set out. But then people we know often have attributes and interests of which are aren't aware -- and that surprise us when we do find out -- until the subject pops up. And unless what the story requires is really very specific to a type** of person, the character that must demonstrate an attribute can really be anyone. To deny a character this would be to impose a stereotype on them: they can't do X because they are Y.


** - To use a silly example, one would expect someone who has won medals for tap dancing probably needs to have, say, both legs.

 

[mosaix]

To use a silly example, one would expect someone who has won medals for tap dancing probably needs to have, say, both legs.

You haven't been reading my latest WIP have you, U.M.?

 

[Ursa major]

Of course not.


*cough*

​

 

[Null_Zone]

Change "offensive" to "annoying" and I can agree with quite a bit of that list, but by God I hate artificially created attempts at gender neutral pronouns.

 

[HareBrain]

by God I hate artificially created attempts at gender neutral pronouns.

I instinctively agree, but if an elegant solution is arrived at, I'm quite willing to overlook its artificiality. (Sometimes, when using they/they're, it's impossible to avoid confusion as to whether the singular or plural is meant, which itself is inelegant.)

I can't help suspecting, though, that whoever came up with Xir or whatever is a Scrabble buff who just wants more valid uses for "X".

I'll add that I haven't read the article because, frankly, I've stopped caring about this kind of thing. (Though not enough, apparently, to stop reading this thread. Weird.)

 

[Kissmequick]

Yet there's no evidence of a campaign to have Jay Kristoff condemned as either sexist or racist.

Er, actually there was a massive hullaballoo about it in several places I frequent.

 

[Nerds_feather]

To keep things in perspective, I thought I'd post a real-life example I came across this weekend.

I was given a free copy of Jay Kristoff's Stormdancer at Worldcon, and thought I'd check out the online reviews to see if it might be worth reading.

This review was on the main book page at Amazon:
Amazon.com: E. Smiley's review of Stormdancer (The Lotus War Book One)

Two key criticisms raised in that review:

1. Male gaze
2. Bad research

Both are issues of bad writing - the first because the author forgets all about POV issues - which is supposed to be a basic technical point in the craft of writing.

The second because the admits he knows nothing about Japanese culture, other than from reading Akira and Wikipedia.

Now, despite these apparent flaws, the majority of readers enjoy the book - two-thirds of the ratings are for 5 stars, with an average of 4.5.

Readers are forgiving of technical writing errors. And Jay Kristoff is a Western writer, writing for a Western audience, who no doubt share a lot of his ignorance and biases. How many of us know enough about Japanese language and culture to spot his errors?

Yet there's no evidence of a campaign to have Jay Kristoff condemned as either sexist or racist. And by all accounts, his book is a commercial success.

But here are a couple of questions to ask yourself:

- If you were the author receiving these criticisms, would you wish you could have addressed them?

- Male authors write female characters who routinely fixate on breasts. How much longer do you think these sort of POV errors will be forgiven? Especially when women readers are increasingly vocal about what they will accept?

- Western countries are becoming increasingly ethnically diverse. Additionally, Western culture is becoming global culture. All of which means readers come from a divergent range of backgrounds and interests, and are looking for themselves in characters. As a writer, are you looking to write for this larger audience? No? Did you know that India is about to become the world's biggest market for English-language fiction?

Great example, Brian. And I think those questions are important ones to consider.

Regardless of how one feels about the "tone" of the blog post, substantively it's suggesting ways to make writing look less crappy to significant (and growing) proportions of the market. I don't think it gets some of the issues quite right, but at other times it does.

And regardless, in the end it's saying "go back, look at your WIP, think about these issues and see if you are doing any of these things, then decide if you want to keep or alter them now that you've thought about how people other than yourself may look at them."

 

[JoanDrake]

Q is queer it has been sneaking back onto the acronym recently to cover anyone not covered by the other four. T is just Trans and covers all transfolk.

I was told Q is for "questioning" indicating someone who is not sure of which sex they like most and/or identify with, but I could be wrong.


No joke, I really dislike "The Big Bang Theory" because it depicts physicists and engineers as a bunch of socially inept losers who are obsessed with either Star Trek and/or Star Wars. Most of the heavy scientists I know are very gracious people

 

[TheDustyZebra]

** - To use a silly example, one would expect someone who has won medals for tap dancing probably needs to have, say, both legs.

Or, at least, to have had them at some point in life.

by God I hate artificially created attempts at gender neutral pronouns.

I instinctively agree, but if an elegant solution is arrived at, I'm quite willing to overlook its artificiality. (Sometimes, when using they/they're, it's impossible to avoid confusion as to whether the singular or plural is meant, which itself is inelegant.)

I can't help suspecting, though, that whoever came up with Xir or whatever is a Scrabble buff who just wants more valid uses for "X".

I'm firmly on both sides of that, as well. Despite my knee-jerk response against the contrived "xe" and "xir", I can sympathize with the desire to find gender-neutral pronouns. Not only can I see that there is a need for them, with increasing numbers of gender-neutral or -doubled people even in our own world, not to mention any alien ones we may invent or be discovered by, I also despise the use of "they" and "their" for singular purposes. I use them when it's necessary, of course, in the absence of anything else, but if something (as HB puts it) elegant were to come along, I would approve.

And if it helps at Scrabble, so be it.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Er, actually there was a massive hullaballoo about it in several places I frequent.

I don't normally visit those dark places.

What I meant was that there was no campaign on Amazon to have the author tarred and feathered. I'm sure I've seen that before in reviews.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

We could always start one. I haven't seen a good tar-and-feathering in ages!