Witerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

I'm in such a bad mood, I almost didn't want to do this. Everyone harps on how bad FB is (and yeah it is) but my god Twitter is so full of hate, I'd not be surprised to see demons suckling on it. I'm shocked at how many of my friends are on it so often. I come away from it after just a few minutes nigh suicidal (and I honestly mean that. I need to go center myself so I don't spiral out after looking at it). At this point i try to just post what I need to as an author, look for book covers and animals posts and never every look at anything else.


Anyhow, as I mentioned last week I was reading Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee and it got me thinking about some conversations I've been in. We are, in many ways both better and worse, than a decade ago thanks to social media. Representation and diversity have made advances. On the other hand,it feels like we're drawing even more lines between ourselves than ever before (example, both on today's twitter, on a Native American list I follow were multiple tweets about how everything a white person said is deluded and hateful and on another a #happydisabledperson rather than asking for retweets going on attack about how we only care about race and sexuality but not disabled people.)

I've talked about how everyone is expected to write diversely but when we do we're attacked for getting it wrong or telling someone else's story (and okay yes there are some stories that really aren't OURS to tell. We need to recognize that but not every time we use a character other than our own identity are we getting it wrong).

But there's a flip side to this trap, but it's just as much of a trap. Just because we have an #OwnVoices author doesn't mean they want to write just their own damn voice. The above mentioned book is by an Indian author and is set in 1920s India where Gandhi and his movement are at the forefront of the story (this would be an example of Not My Story for me) so I went into it expecting of course an Indian detective but not so. The main detective is white who vacillates on the morality of British Colonialism, who is protective of the young Indian detective working with him but on the other hand can't be bothered to learn how to pronounce his name so calls him Surrender-Not instead of Surendranath.

After realizing I had fallen into the trap of expecting an Indian author to write only Indian characters, I set those preconceived idiocies aside and enjoyed the book. Other reviewers, on the other hand, were pissed that he hadn't chosen to do only Ownvoices.

On my author lists, a non-binary, ACE author I know was upset that people expect them to only write ACE non-binaries. They want to be able to write whatever kind of characters they want. And don't we all? On this blog alone, I have people of African descent who write non-PoC characters, lesbians and bisexuals writing het relationships, cis-gendered heteroes writing LBGT stories.

I still believe any author who puts in the effort to study the characters they want to write should be able to write them. I believe getting sensitivity readers is an excellent (maybe even mandatory) idea. that even with that, there are stories that we are NOT the right author to tell it (like Smoke and Ashes).

OwnVoices has its place. Right now one of the publishers I work with is having an ownvoices open call. I'm not that voice so I move on to the next thing. On the other hand if that is all you want then DO an open call like that. Don't decide after the fact you're only publishing Own Voices. I'm honestly creeped out by publishers asking for a head shot like I'm an actress before I even submit a story to them. Another person I know was rejected for not being OwnVoice (which they actually were) because a publisher had made a judgement call without asking.

In our quest to bring in more voices, we're on the edge of strangling them all.

So yeah a bit of a heavy post this week. Have some links to make up for it.

From around the web

Writing Your Own Life Story

What Are Your Readers Thinking?

15 Sure-Fire Ways to Lose Your Readers

Collecting and Editing Our Short Works for a Book-Length Manuscript This interested me

From Betty

Finessing a Story

Book Marketing Tips Introverts Will Love

On the Importance of Having a Community And this is why I spend 2 hours on the road a couple times a month to be with my community and why I miss them when they're not there

Biting the Bullet — Tracking my Writing Habit

The Differences Between a Crime Novel, Mystery Novel and Thriller Novel

Six Common Villain Mistakes, and How to Avoid Them A good one (and the caption under Kylo's pic slayed me, so true)

Burnout – A Feminist Book about Stress: An Interview with Emily and Amelia Nagoski This is good for all of us

How to Create Conflict by Discovering Your Character’s Objects of Desire

What's the Problem? The Four Classic Conflict Types

Writing Tips: 8 Ways To Take Your Book From Good To Great


What is Flash Fiction?

Six Unsatisfying Character Arcs

Comments

[all_choseny]

I read a few of these articles and they were really good. One of the things that I ask myself as a reader is what is the main character thinking/feeling? It really bugs me when. I read fiction that is dialogue heavy with very little descriptors. I found myself writing like that earlier this year because in rp people want fast returns. But in fiction writing, I need to know what they think of their situation and other characters. I now find fic that is mostly dialogue lacking and it often loses me unless the dialogue is good.

[cornerofmadness]

In my writing critique group I have two men who write nothing but dialogue and never get into what the characters are thinking. I call them on it every time.

I write dialogue first but I go back (even though it's often very time consuming) to get into the characters heads.

I'm with you on this.

[enemytosleep]

Interesting that this topic came up when there is a relevant post circulating on Tumblr about the several ways the public are policing authors who write diversely and/or on subjects they have not personally lived through. This post articulates why that policing is a problem (it specifically speaks to fanfic, but of course it all applies to publish works as well as it generally discusses writers and their stories). So don't read if you need to move on from the topic, but it's here if you or anyone else here is interested in some discourse in support of authors writing fiction outside of their real life experiences.

http://a-big-apple.tumblr.com/post/184193316906/for-the-people-who-are-out-there-fighting-the


Do please take the time to center yourself. The sorts of folk you speak about are not worth it.

[cornerofmadness]

Hey, a big apple. I miss their posts. Thanks for this.

This policing is dangerous. I get where some of it comes from. A lot of these groups have been stereotypically written as jokes or as idiots or otherwise in a bad light. That said you can't judge someone by the sins of their fathers. Nor should we lock out people from these groups who want to write outside their own experiences.

[enemytosleep]

My personal philosophy with all things in life is that if you are pursuing something with respect to the source then there is no problem. I love learning and improving, and you can only expand your perspective and your world view by experiencing everything, first or second hand.

I've had people give me shit for having Thai script tattoos. They clearly assume that I'm doing the White People™ thing where they get an Asian symbol tattoo and have no idea what it means or any real understanding of the culture it comes from. Your obviously know that I have spent close to a decade dedicating my life to muay thai, can read/write the language, and have spent good chunks of time living there as well. People are so quick to judge though.

[cornerofmadness]

I agree but so many don't. Sigh.

People are quick to judge I'm sure you have had people making judgments (because again everything White People do is wrong, which I suppose is a taste of our medicine where so many decided they were SO much superior to everyone else)

[thenewbuzwuzz]

"I'm honestly creeped out by publishers asking for a head shot like I'm an actress before I even submit a story to them. Another person I know was rejected for not being OwnVoice (which they actually were) because a publisher had made a judgement call without asking."
Yiiiikes

[cornerofmadness]

Scary crap

[spikedluv]

I've talked about how everyone is expected to write diversely but when we do we're attacked for getting it wrong or telling someone else's story (and okay yes there are some stories that really aren't OURS to tell. We need to recognize that but not every time we use a character other than our own identity are we getting it wrong).

I've been wanting to talk to someone about this! Everyone wants diversity, but I've seen posts on Tumblr that say, 'but don't tell our story,' and I'm like ??? What does that mean? If we can't tell their story, how are we supposed to include diverse characters?

[cornerofmadness]

Yeah no one has any answers. All we want to do is play the blame game. Now to me, I take the don't tell our stories like this. I can write a story with Non-Whites if I'm plugging them into a story where truly the race (gender, orientation) doesn't matter. But I would not want to write a story about growing up poor, Black in 1930s Southern America. That is definitely not my story and while maybe I COULD research it well, maybe it's best I let someone else tell that one.

It's a lose-lose situation.

[spikedluv]

*sigh* Yeah. But it seems to me that means we can't make any of these diverse characters our main character unless we only plan on telling part of their story. If we're going to just plug them in, they can only serve as background characters. Which seems to go against the call for diversity because then people can complain that they're not mains. It really is a no-win situation.

[cornerofmadness]

I know. If I ever stopped writing professionally this might be the nail in the coffin.