Writerly Ways
May. 12th, 2019 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cornerofmadnessI didn't think I had the spoons to handle writing thoughts this weekend either until a couple of threads on my Popsugar Challenge. One of the challenges is own voices which I've talked about already and they're also doing Asian/Pacific Islander reads (for own voices) this month (as they did with African American authors earlier in the year).
So here we go. First comes the accusations that reading these authors once a year isn't enough. This I put in the category of you can't make everyone happy and people are going to bitch about everything because we've become a society offended by everything (sometimes rightfully so, sometimes not). My thought is WTF do YOU know about what I read. If you must know I read Asian authors all year (yeah it's mostly manga but still). I'm reading an African author right now even though it's not African heritage month. Shock, people actually do that without hectoring. (And to be fair, if the author's name isn't obviously ethnic I might never know what their ethnicity is because I'm so uninterested in author's lives I barely even flip to the back of the book to look at the bio and blurb. I read Octavia Butler for years, not knowing her ethnicity, though I will admit the publishers back then DID go to lengths to hide it).
But what REALLY bothered me were the people debating if the books they were reading for the various ethnic reads counted because they were depicting these people (in the case I saw today first, Korean) as you know...people. The stories weren't about their struggles being not-white. My first thought was my god do you even realize how stupid and racist you actually sound?
Let me be clear not every own voice author wants to tell own voice stories but if they did there is no ONE way of being something. Not every LGBT story is one of rejection and hate. Not every African American story starts in some ghetto. Not every Mexican American story is about coyotes slipping them past the border. Hell we have plenty enough coming out/getting rejected stories or conversion therapy stories, to the point I've seen many LGBT authors begging for people to write OTHER types of these stories. They want to see positive stories.
Not everyone's story is the same. Two of my dear friends from medical school both did start life in predominately low income Black areas (Philly and Baltimore), both are now successful doctors with kids of their own. Their children's stories are pretty far removed from their mothers and yet apparently if someone were to write a story about their children there'd be someone (several someones from what I've seen) about how unrealistic the story is or worrying it's a cheat.
Sigh. And this is another reason sometimes I feel paralyzed when writing someone who is outside of my own experience because there's a sizeable, vocal chunk of people who think a) they're defending these various groups and b) think there is only one way to be part of the group.
Enough of that. Here are some links
From Betty - The Game of the Name Man naming can be hard and sometimes it can jerk you out of a story if a character has a strange name or in many cases, the only 'normal' name in a sea of fantasy names
Handling Backstory in Dialogue in Your Opening Pages
Critique: 8 Quick Tips for Show, Don’t Tell
How to Plot With the Three-Act Structure
The Final Edit
Understanding Character Representation seems appropriate for this post
Power of the Pen This one is very powerful (and makes me rethink the entire post in a way)
What comes next…how I avoid writer’s block
The Art of Juggling Multiple Writing Projects
The Best Time to Write
Tumbling Down: When Chronic Illness Meets Writing
Writing Tips: How (And Why) To Treat Your Setting Like A Character I'm big on trying this
Know Your Villains
How Novelists Can Say More with Less
Emotion vs. Feeling: How to Evoke More From Readers
Planning Your Story’s Opening Passages
So here we go. First comes the accusations that reading these authors once a year isn't enough. This I put in the category of you can't make everyone happy and people are going to bitch about everything because we've become a society offended by everything (sometimes rightfully so, sometimes not). My thought is WTF do YOU know about what I read. If you must know I read Asian authors all year (yeah it's mostly manga but still). I'm reading an African author right now even though it's not African heritage month. Shock, people actually do that without hectoring. (And to be fair, if the author's name isn't obviously ethnic I might never know what their ethnicity is because I'm so uninterested in author's lives I barely even flip to the back of the book to look at the bio and blurb. I read Octavia Butler for years, not knowing her ethnicity, though I will admit the publishers back then DID go to lengths to hide it).
But what REALLY bothered me were the people debating if the books they were reading for the various ethnic reads counted because they were depicting these people (in the case I saw today first, Korean) as you know...people. The stories weren't about their struggles being not-white. My first thought was my god do you even realize how stupid and racist you actually sound?
Let me be clear not every own voice author wants to tell own voice stories but if they did there is no ONE way of being something. Not every LGBT story is one of rejection and hate. Not every African American story starts in some ghetto. Not every Mexican American story is about coyotes slipping them past the border. Hell we have plenty enough coming out/getting rejected stories or conversion therapy stories, to the point I've seen many LGBT authors begging for people to write OTHER types of these stories. They want to see positive stories.
Not everyone's story is the same. Two of my dear friends from medical school both did start life in predominately low income Black areas (Philly and Baltimore), both are now successful doctors with kids of their own. Their children's stories are pretty far removed from their mothers and yet apparently if someone were to write a story about their children there'd be someone (several someones from what I've seen) about how unrealistic the story is or worrying it's a cheat.
Sigh. And this is another reason sometimes I feel paralyzed when writing someone who is outside of my own experience because there's a sizeable, vocal chunk of people who think a) they're defending these various groups and b) think there is only one way to be part of the group.
Enough of that. Here are some links
From Betty - The Game of the Name Man naming can be hard and sometimes it can jerk you out of a story if a character has a strange name or in many cases, the only 'normal' name in a sea of fantasy names
Handling Backstory in Dialogue in Your Opening Pages
Critique: 8 Quick Tips for Show, Don’t Tell
How to Plot With the Three-Act Structure
The Final Edit
Understanding Character Representation seems appropriate for this post
Power of the Pen This one is very powerful (and makes me rethink the entire post in a way)
What comes next…how I avoid writer’s block
The Art of Juggling Multiple Writing Projects
The Best Time to Write
Tumbling Down: When Chronic Illness Meets Writing
Writing Tips: How (And Why) To Treat Your Setting Like A Character I'm big on trying this
Know Your Villains
How Novelists Can Say More with Less
Emotion vs. Feeling: How to Evoke More From Readers
Planning Your Story’s Opening Passages
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no subject
Date: 2019-05-13 10:14 am (UTC)my God, I think they missed the whole entire point of the challenge. *facepalm*
no subject
Date: 2019-05-13 11:23 am (UTC)I read two of the articles you posted:
How to Plot With the Three-Act Structure
Critique: 8 Quick Tips for Show, Don’t Tell
I'm super pleased and shocked that my UNCLE fic followed the three act structure! I've been mostly writing it by the seat of my pants, but making notes along the way. Yay me for my accidental plotting structure lol.
Show don't tell is such a challenge for me. It really is tricky, but I'm going to hang on to the tips in this article. I also need to work on eliminating passive voice. It is so hard because sometimes passive voice just gets the job done.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-13 03:57 pm (UTC)I'm glad that you found some useful stuff in this bunch. I'm less worried about three act structure than I am in the Show don't Tell. I'm terrible with that too!
no subject
Date: 2019-05-13 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-13 06:38 pm (UTC)I have bookmarked the rest of your post, because I'm finally at the place where I'm ready to once again read about the writing process (for a long time, I was super jaded and bitter about it and thought I'd read/heard it all an in't need any new info), but my eyes are making it hard to read right now. Once they're fixed, I'll have plenty to read about the craft, so thanks for that.
♥♥
no subject
Date: 2019-05-13 06:56 pm (UTC)I feel like such a jerk for saying this but I am not a huge fan of "own voices" reading challenges in general. Whilst I think there is a big need for there to be more diversity in general when it comes to most forms of content (i.e. books, graphic novels, film, TV, etc), I think that reading challenges that say focus on authors from this group or that group kind of miss the point. Content should be created by diverse creators. That said, we shouldn't tell them what content to create. And I think people get so worked up with own voices reading challenges that they have to read content by diverse authors that marks off certain aspects instead of just reading content created by diverse authors in general. And I feel that the push for people to read own voices is more about reading certain types of stories from authors who identify in certain groups as opposed to just reading diversely.
I hope that makes sense.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-13 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-13 07:25 pm (UTC)It's such a lose-lose situation sometimes. I figure for me, I do my best, I do my research, I get my sensitivity readers, I prep for the fall out because there will be some no matter what I do.
It's easy to get jaded about this writing business. Trust me on that one. Once your eyes are better, all of this can be found at my writing links tag.