![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberdreams) wrote2017-07-23 10:52 am
Writing - a discussion
I was on tumblr the other day and I came across some writing advice in the form of a long list. I didn't make a note of the blog I was on, or copy the list itself but basically, it went along the lines of:
By all means, include African Americans in your story - BUT do not presume to tell their story, it is theirs to tell.
Include Native Americans in your story but do not presume to tell their story, it is theirs to tell.
Include gay men in your story but do not presume to tell their story, it is theirs to tell.
Include transgender characters in your story but do not presume to tell their story, it is theirs to tell...
and so on.
I'm sure you get the gist, and the point they were making.
At first sight, I was nodding in agreement - this is merely an extention of the old adage 'write what you know', isn't it? So yeah, I could see some validity in what they were saying. But then I got to thinking. Surely, by the time I'd eliminated all the categories of people in their list whose stories I was not qualified to tell by dint of being who I am, the only protagonist remaining for my stories would have to be a short, fat, middle aged white woman.
Who the hell wants to read about me? I (and everyone else) would be reduced to self insert fic, which I abhore.
I feel suddenly I'm sounding like a Daily Mail reader, but surely this is political correctness gone mad.
Or am I missing something here?
Feel free to pitch in!
no subject
You know, I've read or browsed through a lot of books based in Russia (or fictional world based on Russia), and if they weren't written by an actual Russian, they don't know their head from their ass. That goes for Valente, too, who did amazing research and still got it all wrong. I'm sure you've seen lots and lots of books try to be British and end up utterly stupid. Even though my culture gets fucked up, I like that it's not a sacred cow. I want people to be curious about Russia and write about Russia, and if they fuck it up, we can point and laugh, just like we point and laugh at any book that screws up something royally. Movies NEVER get medicine correctly. It's like a precious unicorn when they do. But medics don't have moral outrage parties on tumblr about how the civilians/muggles (both excellent terms for non-medical people) exploit our lives' work and use it as a setting for cheap melodrama while butchering everything that goes into being a medic AND actually making our daily jobs harder by creating these false ideas. I never ever want to see some, IDK, medical justice warrior generating butthurt and outrage on social media by pointing out what clown had gotten nursing or doctoring ass-backwards on TV. And those clowns DO make our jobs and lives harder. Prime example is resuscitation. Every asshole to ever make a show/movie about a miraculous impossible rescue needs to get punched in the face in the ER by an angry family member (occasionally high, occasionally armed) and then sued.
There's some argument floating around there about colonized cultures and historically oppressed whatevers. I think this kind of double standard is a very slippery slope and I refuse to get on it.
People get shit wrong all the time - medicine and Russia, same as gayness and Thailand. But lack of historically recent oppression by a western power doesn't entitle you to respect, so we just point and laugh. I'd rather point and laugh. I don't want my culture to be taboo and untouchable for anyone except the enlightened. Get curious about it. Write it and get it wrong. Then we can talk about it and learn. But if we're too afraid to even speak about a subject lest we cause butthurt, then how will we ever learn anything, or learn to see points of view and opinions different from our own? Even within the same culture, there are vastly different perspectives on the same topic. "Only I know the truth about A because I'm a member of A, and you STFU" is incredibly ignorant. It's not about teaching others about your culture but rather about basking in your special and unique snowflake status. There is no correct way, even within the same culture. I want the conversation. I want to see other people's perspective on their culture as well as my own. And I'm not gonna get it if I put a barbed wire fence around the entire subject and attack every "other" who dares to approach it.
no subject
Hmm. I am being reminded of another reason I preferred writing fantasy. There you can take issues and explore them without people jumping up and down because some aspect of their life or culture has been offended, Not that I've been widely enough read to have anyone jumping up and down about my writing for any reason!
Was that link to #2 supposed to lead to something of interest because it didn't seem to work.
no subject
I tend to think people need to get over themselves, but I'll admit to being in the (marginalized?) minority on the issue. We can laugh and poke fun at stupid mistakes. But we prefer to frame it as ~hurtful. Keep framing yourself as a precious, marginaluzed victim, and it'll never end.
no subject