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Huckleberry Finn has been one of the five most debated books for years when it comes to suppression (along with Of Mice and Men and Catcher in the Rye).
Go back and read William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner and you can recognize that this has been going on for some time. I'm fairly damn liberal, but if creators cannot make stories about identities other than themselves, I have a problem with that. Storytelling gets pretty boring if you can only write about identities that you represent 100%.
Yeah, like what if I want to write a story about an alien that doesn't even exist (like ET) seriously, people are losing their grips with reality. First they complain that not enough diversity is in books, comics movies TV shows, etc. Someone even asked J.R.Martin why there is not enough diversity in fantasy type stuff like LOTR and Harry Potter, and his response was because mostly white people wrote them. People were kind of mad about that answer. Now they are mad because people are writing about subjects they can't identify on a personal level?
Wow, I had completely missed this new frontier in social justice. Apparently white authors may no longer create fictional characters that are non-white. And this is already a settled matter, to the point that people who disagree are in danger of losing their jobs.
How many great stories would never have been written if this rule was in force?
The social justice warriors are just getting started! They have now taken over the Democrat party and are largely responsible for the hollowing out of it. The major gains the GOP has made could be reversed if Democrats returned to their senses, dumped the social justice rhetoric and returned to common sense.
Wow, I had completely missed this new frontier in social justice. Apparently white authors may no longer create fictional characters that are non-white. And this is already a settled matter, to the point that people who disagree are in danger of losing their jobs.
How many great stories would never have been written if this rule was in force?
OMG! I'm a published author (in non-fic) and currently writing my first fictional short story, and discovering that it goes, it flows, I'm high on realizing that my non-fic + my long history as a bookworm + my A+ English grades in school + my life experience translates into a facile ability to write fiction...
And now you're telling me that there are political correctness rules I have to learn too?
Dayam! It's a good thing that I am a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-racial, GLBT friendly sort of man.
Hell yes, I don't mind supporting my personal lack of prejudice into writing gigs, especially if that's what sells. FWIW that's what I'm reading too (urban fantasy, sometimes urban romantic fantasy). Gay people or different races are just opportunities to create more interesting characters, and for me an opportunity to show them all living in cooperative acceptance without prejudice.
Hell, urban fantasy even involves non-human races! Mixed species romances? Hell yes, I'll take that on, and if my characters don't fall in love them my writing is fubared.
My current piece has a leading character a woman, myself being a male writer. I don't want low hanging fruit, don't want the easy way out. I've even chosen a locale (UK) that I've never visited. I'm piling on the challenges because I know that if you learn heavy lifting then the easy stuff will be ... easy!
I'll take any assignments I can get, I'll accept any "on spec" that my queries gather. The harder the assignment the better I'll like it! All I can say is, "Bring it!"
The only thing I don't do is politics. Not unless it's witch on vampire on fae politics. Otherwise they can stuff American partisan politics.
Huckleberry Finn has been one of the five most debated books for years when it comes to suppression (along with Of Mice and Men and Catcher in the Rye).
Interesting choice of books; classical books! And what, these books are now... controversial?
Woah! If that's the case how could literature change so quickly since I took the classes myself?
Are we re-writing literature now, perhaps as we re-write history to become more politically correct?
Just what the hell are they teaching in schools today? Micro-aggressions 101? How to cry alt-left style?
Jeez. Give my fiction. I'll create the worlds I like and eschew the mess our real world has created.
There's a reason people enjoy fiction: escape. Escape from all the BS of real life. If I wanted real life I'd watch the fake news.
Hmmm... I've got a feeling that could become problematic, if not now then within a year or two, unless you can pass as gender fluid or something.
What, men are not allowed to use women as principal characters; women are not allowed to use men as principal characters?
I'll guarantee you for sure I'm not getting a sex change operation just for political correctness. I know who belongs on top in bed, thank you very much. (It's women, if they want. I aim to please my mates!)
What, you don't think that an author of one gender can write a story or novel from the POV of the opposite gender? Have you ever read any multi-POV novels?
What next? Weekly gender changes? Plug-in interchangeable genitalia?
Are men allowed to write only about men? Is that what you are trying to tell me? That I am forbidden to write about women characters?
Sheesh! I thought we settled this in about the 17th-18th century. You remember then? When authors were men and female authors had to adopt male noms de plume to be accepted?
Are we back to that again? Is this deja vu all over again? I can tell y'all right now that anybody who thinks this can insert it in their auditory canal!
BTW I am GLBT friendly although I discriminate in "sleeping" only with women. I'm a man. That's what I do.
What, men are not allowed to use women as principal characters; women are not allowed to use men as principal characters?
For now, it still seems to be acceptable, barely, but you must proceed with caution, and it helps to establish your intersectional credentials, as this guy does:
Quote:
When I finished the thing, and finally started discussing it with editors and agents, everyone asked the same question: why would a man write a novel about women?
I understood that question was a way of asking: had I managed that all-important empathy? If a writer fails to get a character, a scenario, a turn of phrase just right...
Much as I tried to push forward in my work, I couldn't help stopping every so often to ask myself whether I was mansplaining...
An awareness of the benefits that have accrued to me as a consequence of being a man is helpful in life and in art. If writing really is empathy, then understanding your place in society might actually help you achieve it. Of course, I also understand what privilege I lack as a gay man, an Indian one, one who is preoccupied with raising children, one whose children are black. I think this understanding about who I am helped me write about people who aren't like me.
I thought of the book I set out to write, at times, as almost an act of drag...
But if you're just a straight white guy don't even think about it. It's 2017.
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