My characters kill people so I don't have to.
Nov 21 Update: the series has been cancelled prematurely.
So titled because of this post. Hey, I like carrying a rough metaphor through, okay?
If you’ll indulge me for a moment, there are some things I have to get off my chest, and it may be lengthy and something I regret, but this is my page so, well, here we go–whatever, I do what I want.
So FYI: there are no writing police. There are readers. And if you want their time and money (and, like, actually care about people, but let’s try to play on your sense of career-preservation), you have to make an effort to not harm them with what you write.
That’s the short version. The long version is that as people (rightly) grow more vocal about the way they are portrayed in books, you’d better start caring more about what you put out in the world. If representation furthers stereotypes, that is actively harmful to groups as a whole. You probably should not harm people, I am pretty sure that’s Humaning 101. So what does a writer do when she wants to be accurate in what she writes? She hires an expert. In this case, they are often called “sensitivity readers”, but make no mistake, you are paying for expertise.
Now, I am addressing this post specifically to white women writers because a. I am one of you, so maybe you’ll listen to me, and b. I am continually fucking baffled by how this is such a difficult concept for us.
White women writers: you have read a book by a male writer who couldn’t write female characters. All of you have at some point in your life. Female characters with no nuance, who were either a virgin or a whore, who had no agency, no complexity, and existed solely as props. Or an entirely male cast with women completely erased from existence. Every. Single. Woman. Has. You read those books and you didn’t understand how that male writer could get it so wrong. You didn’t understand how he saw women that way. You saw how that portrayal echoed how women were seen outside of fiction as well, which threw so many more barriers in front of you. You silently seethed and said, “My god, if he’d just found a woman to read his fucking book that could’ve been corrected before it even got to the reader!”
Congratulations: you just wished that male writer had a sensitivity reader. Or an editor who had the sense to point out the misogyny or sexism in the book. Or that the male writer had actually spent time around women, listening to women, and attempted to understand their perspective.
If you have any area in your life where your experience is considered “other”, where you are marginalized or outside of the default perspective, you should understand this concept.
Here’s an example from my own experience: some years ago I read a well-praised book that had a bipolar secondary character that was wrong on just about every level I could think of. The writer got the medication wrong. She got the symptoms wrong. She treated this character–whose illness is a real thing that kills 15% of the people like me who have it–as a prop for the plot, victimized and brutally cast aside at the end.
There’s this notion that if something “offends” you, the problem is you, and you should get over it, but the problem is that it ignores what “offends” really means, and that is: harms. That book harmed me by furthering stereotypes and the stigmatization of my illness. It told non-bipolar readers that people like me are irrational, clingy, violent, and hurt others. Every bipolar person who read that book was reminded that it’s that much harder to speak up about their illness, to let friends and family know what it’s like for them, and encouraged them to see themselves as damaged, useless props in someone else’s story.
That writer could’ve reached out to people with the disorder and psychologists. Or even quietly read the blogs and forum posts of others to get a sense of what stereotypes are out there and avoid them. The editor could’ve said, “Maybe you should double check your research here.” But no one did, and that book made it into my hands, and I was sickened by it.
If you can understand that, if you can understand the frustration when you’ve read books by male writers with shit female characters, then it shouldn’t be a stretch for you to understand what people of colour, trans people, gay/lesbian and bisexual people, disabled people, fat people, are all saying. No one is policing anyone else’s writing. But when you write a book that misrepresents or entirely erases people (and yes, erase is just as political as inclusion), your readers–your audience, your customers, the people you expect to pay your bills–are going to speak up about that. And all anyone is asking for is for you to do your fucking research. (And if you think THIS is policing your writing? My god, try writing about guns and watch out when a gun nut reads your book.)
When you are writing outside your experience, and someone with that lived experience reads it, they are going to probably say things that make you uncomfortable, and you want to avoid that discomfort. I get that–most of us like to avoid discomfort. But that discomfort pales in comparison to actually being harmed. It also sucks when we get edits back and find out the plot jumped the shark, the grammar is an assault on the English language, and the main character’s name changes three times, but as writers who want to put out the best book possible, we swallow our pride and go to work fixing that stuff. You pay experts to help you see and fill in your blindspots–they’re not the fucking police, whether they’re a content editor, a Latin expert, or POC checking your rep of African Americans.
Do you want to be like that oblivious male writer who thinks he knows everything but actually wrote a shit book filled with shoddy characterization? No? Then do the things you wish he’d done to improve the representation of people like you in his book.
And maybe start by realizing you are not actually the victim here.
No one is going to arrest you because you wrote harmful stereotypes and lazy cliches about real people, however, there are consequences for it. That is not the same as policing you; it’s your audience exercising their rights to both have an opinion and express it as well as potentially not buy your book.
You have a hell of a lot of power as a writer. So what are you going to chose to do with it?
Like many writers and publishers, I received an email yesterday from independent distributor AllRomance eBooks (that also has a publishing arm) informing me that they’re closing.
In three days.
Oh and they can’t pay me from this quarter. But they’ll give me 10c on the dollar if I agree to it as a settlement and don’t pursue legal action.
No, really, that is a thing actually suggested. Here, look:
We will be unable to remit Q4 2016 commissions in full and are proposing a settlement of 10 cents on the dollar (USD) for payments received through 27 December 2016. We also request the following conditions:
1. That you consider this negotiated settlement to be “paid in full”.
2. That no further legal action be taken with regards to the above referenced commissions owed.
I wonder what Skyla thinks of that?
You know what, though? Of course they’d go that route. Of course they’d decide that the ones who shouldn’t be paid are the writers. [ETA: I am sure it’s entirely possible other staff isn’t being paid as well.]
Because writers are the last ones to get paid. Everyone takes their cut and if something’s left over, we get it. If someone has to go without payment, it’s us.
You know, I’m also an editor and cover artist. And I like getting paid–in fact, I fucking insist on getting paid. But I also recognize that I would not have a job as a cover artist if someone didn’t write the fucking book in the first place.
Publishers. Artists. Editors. Marketing departments. Distributors. The producers of e-readers and devices books are read on. Typesetters. Printers. The dumb fucks running piracy sites who make money from ads on their forums.
This entire ecosystem exists because writers write books.
Distributor doesn’t want to pay? That trickles down and the writer ends up without money, and they’re expected to shut up and accept TEN CENTS ON THE DOLLAR ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME LORI JAMES???
How about no. How about you fucking pay me my fifty-fucking-dollars because that can pay for a three month supply of one of the cheaper meds I’m on. How about you honor your fucking contracts.
You avoiding bankruptcy is not my fucking problem. Money comes in, sixty percent is owed to other people? Put it in an account and don’t fucking touch it until you pay people what is owed!
I spent an hour and a half last night with increasingly strong alcoholic beverages trying to remove the fifty-odd titles I oversee from distribution. While the site frequently crashed. As of right now, I have nothing for sale at ARe–had anything sold today, it’s clear from their email I wouldn’t have even been entitled to my fucking ten cents on the dollar anyway.
What burns me even more is the number of writers I’d recommended ARe to. They’d paid on time, they ran a lot of free promotions, and they’d been good to me. So I talked them up, I encouraged self-publishers I know and work with to distribute through them. But this lack of transparency and outright fraud is fucking bullshit. [ETA: Multiple authors are now reporting their royalties reported today are lower than they were for the same period yesterday. If you have work at ARe, download your reports and screenshot ASAP.]
So no, ARe, I will not be agreeing to your bullshit settlement offer. Much like I said to a closing publisher when they tried to pay me in unsold books instead of money: NO.
Incidentally, Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, Nook, Smashwords, and GooglePlay all do pay me, and if you have holiday money to spend, please consider picking up a book or seven. Bloodlines is still on sale for 99c. I also sell eBooks direct on Payhip–which pays me immediately–and Solomon’s Seal can be picked up for 50% off through the end of the year with the coupon code 2016ISTERRIBLE which you’ll find at the bottom of the page.
I also have Patreon with Patrons of Snark getting lots of cool stuff–everyone pledging by the end of the year will get thanked in Odin’s Spear.
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.
I have tried so very, very hard not to get into this. The whole FSoG thing just makes me tired and has since it first came out, so I mostly ignore it.
But of course, if something irks me, eventually I’ll find my way to my blog about it.
With the movie coming out and everyone watching/hate-watching it, every single day there are a dozen new opinion pieces on it. (And this post, btw, is not an opinion piece on the books, movie, etc, but on one segment of the conversation about the subject.) Besides the usual batch of “this story not only depicts wrong BDSM practices and abuse, it normalizes/romanticizes it, and that’s a bad thing” ones, there’s been a sharp push in the other direction.
“It’s a touching love story and I’m sick of people telling me I can’t enjoy it.”
“I loved the book, it’s just a LOVE STORY, and all these people are screaming about abuse, which it’s not.”
“I can enjoy whatever I want and I’m tired of people making me feel bad about it. I’m taking a stand.”
I just…
I…
Okay, I have one question.
Is this really the hill you want to die on here?
You have survivors of rape and abuse with the courage to come forward and say, “Look, here is a thing that is problematic in that it resembles what I went through, and maybe you should think about what you’re condoning when you call it a ‘touching love story’. That’s contributing to a dangerous narrative.”
And…you want them to be quiet about this? You think they should stop talking about this? Because you…don’t like them making you feel bad?
Again…is this really the hill you want to die on here, people? The one you’re on while defending something a marginalized group is pointing out has problematic content that hurts them?
The one opposing domestic violence survivors???
Here’s the thing: no one is taking the book away from you. No one is saying you can’t have fantasies. No one is saying you can’t love it. But you loving a thing does not erase the potential harm it’s doing to other people, and your vocal support of it with no caveats about the problematic nature of it hurts others. Your fantasies are also someone else’s reality and they’re telling you, pretty clearly, that it’s painful for them to hear you talk about how this horrible thing they went through just sounds AWESOME.
Look, I like lots of stuff with problematic* elements, especially stuff I loved in my childhood.
Take Crocodile Dundee. I saw that in the theatre as a kid. I own the DVD now. Watching it as an adult…hmm, wow, there is some frighteningly awful transphobic content in this movie. Huh.
Do I still like the movie? Yes. Being a cis woman who has not experienced transphobia, I am in a privileged position of being able to separate the bits that I recognize are contributing to a harmful narrative of trans women from the rest of the film that I like. If a trans woman raises the point about how it dehumanizes her and helps support a culture of hate that threatens her life, well, I ain’t gonna argue with that. She’s right. I can still like a lot of the movie while recognizing the harm it does to other people. And I’m not going to defend transphobia in the film simply because I like the rest of it. In fact, if you tell me I’m a bad person for liking the film because of problematic content in it, I’m not going to get butthurt about it but seriously contemplate your position and my privilege.
Defending Crocodile Dundee is not a hill I’m prepared to die on.
Now, back to FSoG, I do not think one movie or book is likely going to directly hurt someone (unless you throw it at them).
I think women are pretty savvy and I don’t worry about them reading FSoG and suddenly falling into an abusive relationship. I give women–even impressionable teen girls–a hell of a lot more credit than that. I don’t necessarily think merely watching one sexual assault against a character in an 80s film is going to directly lead to everyone assaulting women, or that every man ever who watches a single rom-com is going to believe harassing a women will make her fall in love with him.
But these stories do not exist in a vacuum.
When the overriding culture we live in idealizes, normalizes, and romanticizes violence against all women–when people are arguing about what does and doesn’t constitute consent–THAT is what is dangerous. And the culture is made up of all the tiny little seemingly harmless things we say and do on a daily basis. When a domestic violence victim says “This is the most horrible thing that ever happened to me” and everyone around her shouts “OH IT’S SO ROMANTIC”…you see how that’s a problem? And when they tell her to shut up because they like this “touching love story” and don’t want to hear her criticisms? You think that’s perhaps not the most empathetic approach? Maybe? A little?
Believe me, if you’re tired of hearing about how this story you like is harmful to people, imagine how tired DV survivors are of hearing about how romantic it is.
So see this post by Jenny Trout, as it articulates everything I’d want to say but get too ragey to get into, and “I Dated Christian Grey” at The Mary Sue, and instead of getting defensive/feeling attacked, try to listen to what survivors are saying.
And, again, question whether or not silencing them for your comfort is really a battle worth fighting.
/Skyla out. This’ll be the last I say on the subject–I have shit to do.
* My definition of problematic is when something is played for laughs or idealized without any awareness of its harm, or normalizes something harmful. Showing a man reacting offensively to a trans woman is not necessarily problematic if it’s depicted as a bad thing. Showing a man reacting offensively to a trans woman and playing it for laughs absolutely is. Likewise, depicting an abusive relationship is not necessarily problematic if it’s depicted as bad thing. Depicting an abusive relationship as romantic/ideal is. In both cases, though, even depicting bad things as bad can mean contributing to a harmful narrative and should be done with care. These kinds of conversations are important to have.
Writer of urban fantasy, thrillers/mysteries, and horror.
Fifth-generation crazy cat lady. Bitchy feminist.
So tired all the goddamn time.
My characters kill people so I don’t have to.