Oh, you guys.

You guys, I have OPINIONS on something, and I’ve brought out THE GIFS, so you’d best run away now.

A couple of weeks ago, writer friend Adrienne Jones brought up the CleanReader app at the Evil League of Evil Writers, and initially I thought it was a parody because it sounded just so fucking ridiculous, but apparently it’s not. So I ranted a little and kind of forgot about it.

Chuck Wendig brought it up today, and then all had a good time swearing and ranting on Twitter. I highly encourage you to read his thoughts because it clearly lays out everything I want to say and saves me from having to repeat it. He addresses a thing I’d like to raise as well:

Look at their website, where on their blog they note that author Mark Henshaw “…makes it a point to write well enough that he doesn’t need to include profanity in his writing.”

Oh, no you didn’t.

Conflating quality with a lack of profanity?

Oh, hey, I get reviews like that! Like this one.

Let’s ask Agent Scully what she thinks:

Wait, that wasn’t enough.

Better.

Let’s ignore the fact for a moment that people knowingly pick up books with graphic violence and sex, and yet object to the f-bombs. Hypocrisy aside, it is such a tired argument. Yes, good writers can find inventive ways of saying things, but I would also argue that great writers use whatever words are available to them if it’s the RIGHT word. Sometimes that right word is “motherfucker”, thank you very much.

Also? If us lowly writers have to use profanity because we cannot write well, WHY DO YOU WANT TO READ OUR BOOKS IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE? Surely they are otherwise poorly written and not worth your time, since the only quality books are the G-rated ones.

Lilith Saintcrow takes on the idea of word choice as well in her exchange with those running the app’s support email:

Your app substitutes one word for another books according to some “cleanliness standard.” I find it disingenuous in the extreme for you to claim otherwise, when I have gone to your website and seen how the app works in your very own words. It also does change the meaning of phrases and text, by substituting other phrases and text. This is shown on your very own website. That it is the user choosing a “cleanliness level” is beside the point, especially since your “cleanliness” levels have a specific and prevailing “Christian,” “evangelical,” and, I should add, very 1950s McCarthy rubric.

If I wanted to use different words in my works, I would. I chose and choose the words in each book carefully, and they are not to be abridged or altered without my explicit consent. Your app might conceivably fall under the rubric of a “translator” program, but if my works are translated into a foreign language I work with the translator where possible, and am (this is very important) paid for the foreign-language rights. By not contacting the authors in your database (since your “list” of titles is indeed a database) and not giving them a chance to opt out of this bowdlerization (I presume you have Google, please look that up) you have committed an extremely grave error, compounded by your incredibly tone-deaf responses in social media and even in this email thread.

*purr* I’m not as coherent, I would’ve just been sending this over and over again:

Also:

See, I love Lilith Saintcrow for a great many reasons, but not the least of which is her personality as a writer. I’m sure there are some writers who don’t put a lot of thought into things, but I’ve worked with her and I know how much care and attention she puts into each and every word she chooses. I respect the hell out of that because I do the same; I will spend half an hour debating a comma placement. And if I use profanity? There’s a good fucking reason for it.

The makers of CleanReader are insisting that altering the words does not change the text or meaning of the story, but that assumes that certain words are gratuitous and/or interchangeable. For an example, see this Storify of tweets while someone ran an erotic romance novel through the app.

Example:

The real sentence is “I want to put my cock in your pussy you sexy bitch.” #CleanReader #LivingInSecret

— Jennifer Porter (@JenniferRNN) March 10, 2015

Another of the sentences from #CleanReader read which amuses “I want to put my groin in your butt you lovely witch.” #LivinginSecret

— Jennifer Porter (@JenniferRNN) March 10, 2015

So…we’ve just gone from penis-in-vagina sex to anal sex, and this has “cleaned” the story how, exactly? And you’re telling me the context wasn’t altered at all?

And I guess that would change this bit in Exhumed:

…to:

It’s easy for me to bring up my Zara books and that character’s profanity, because she’s rather known for it by this point, but that’s not the one that immediately comes to mind.

No, it’s the book I wrote about a nun.

Ryann spends the entire book not swearing. Not saying so much as a goddamn. She is uncomfortable with the language some of the other characters use. She goes through terrible things, seeing the loss of friends, comes to question everything she was raised to believe, and finally reaches the end of her rope with this:

REPLACING THAT WITH “HECK” COMPLETELY MISSES THE POINT. “Hell” is, literally, the only word that would do there. She had to say it, at that moment.  And you know what? Readers fucking CHEERED when she did, and I giggle every time. That one little “hell” had more impact than anything else she could’ve said.

This app was used with the Inktera bookstore, through Page Foundry, which my books were distributed to by Smashwords. I’ve since gone and opted out, and today Mark Coker announced all Smashwords books would be removed from there, because:

Under the terms of our agreement with all retailers, retailers don’t have permission to alter the words of our books.  In my judgement, by shielding readers from words, it represents a change to the book that neither Smashwords nor our authors have authorized

Good man.

Some of my work was distributed there through Draft2Digital as well, and I’ve since opted out that way too.

What is the point of reading if you need to sanitize it to fit your personal sensibilities? Why would you want to escape into another world if everyone there is going to think and act like you?

I don’t like movies where pets die. So…I choose not to watch movies where pets die. PROBLEM SOLVED. It means I don’t get to enjoy John Wick, but I’ve got a whole host of other films I can enjoy instead.

If you don’t like my motherfucking language, don’t read my motherfucking books.