How to write without offending anyone

JoBird - you need one of these -

Like everybody said, don't worry about it. North Korea will probably ban your book and put you on a blacklist. So say goodbye to your chances of North Korea book signing tour.

JoBird said:

It's hard for me to understand the consistency of your argument. It "should not" have been written, but . . . you don't think it "should not" have been written in terms of banning it. See the huh? part of your position?

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It seems perfectly plain to me. In fact, looking at it from a different angle, it's probably a distinction you make on a regular basis - when talking to other people.

I support freedom of speech, for instance, and I rather suspect that (as a writer) you do too. Yet I imagine there are still times you've regretted saying something to another that you feel, in hindsight, should not have been said. I don't think many people go out of their way to, for instance, say something thoughtlessly hurtful to a loved one. That doesn't mean we all haven't done it occasionally - and had it done to us.

Jail and a stiff fine down at the local courthouse is not an appropriate reaction, though - the state doesn't have to ban something and impose consequences for breaking that ban for people to decide that thing should not be done.

JoBird said:

A lot of people find Heinlein's work to be sexist, and, try as I might, I always have trouble understanding.

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I think the bit in Friday where we learn that rapists rape women because they're just so darn pretty sealed it for me.

Buffysquirrel said:

I think the bit in Friday where we learn that rapists rape women because they're just so darn pretty sealed it for me.

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Wasn't there a bit in there where the protagonist was being raped repeatedly and she was just lying back and thinking about how stupid the interrogators were for thinking it would upset a well trained professional like her?

Or maybe that was another Heinlein book.

JoBird said:

Roxxsmom, an example of a petition to stop something from being distributed: OSC's issue of Superman. Quite a few people signed that petition, and the media attention caused the illustrating artist to walk away from the project.

The petition happened because people disagreed with Card's political position. It's unlikely that Card's politics had anything whatsoever to do with the story he wrote.

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You've veering into the "Should we separate the artist from their work?" argument. Some say yes, some say no, but in any case, boycotts and public condemnation still aren't censorship.

Largely, it seems that our disagreement is one of semantics. It's hard for me to understand the consistency of your argument. It "should not" have been written, but . . . you don't think it "should not" have been written in terms of banning it. See the huh? part of your position?

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That's because you seem to read some desire for enforcing my will into "shouldn't." If I say "You shouldn't do ____" yes, it means I think you are wrong and making a bad decision, but it doesn't mean I don't think you should be free to make bad decisions. But you also get to suffer the consequences, which may be criticism, public condemnation, even people not wanting to financially support you.

Roxxsmom said:

Wasn't there a bit in there where the protagonist was being raped repeatedly and she was just lying back and thinking about how stupid the interrogators were for thinking it would upset a well trained professional like her?

Or maybe that was another Heinlein book.

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Heinlein is like the literary version of Godwin's Law.

(And I can't resist - that part of Friday didn't actually bother me (the whole point was that she was both literally superhuman and considered herself to be merely a tool) - but if you can read I Will Fear No Evil and say Heinlein didn't have some serious Wimmin Problems, well, I don't know what to tell you.)

Roxxsmom said:

Wasn't there a bit in there where the protagonist was being raped repeatedly and she was just lying back and thinking about how stupid the interrogators were for thinking it would upset a well trained professional like her?

Or maybe that was another Heinlein book.

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That's the one. She meets one of the rapists later, hears the excuse above-mentioned and actually *marries* him.

Buffysquirrel said:

I think the bit in Friday where we learn that rapists rape women because they're just so darn pretty sealed it for me.

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Or was it the part in Stranger where a woman says that 9 times out of 10, when a woman gets raped, it's partly her fault? (sadly, many parts of society still seem to think this. Or it's fully her fault. Le sigh)

but if you can read I Will Fear No Evil and say Heinlein didn't have some serious Wimmin Problems, well, I don't know what to tell you.

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That book was just...bizarre.

JoBird said:

Roxxsmom, an example of a petition to stop something from being distributed: OSC's issue of Superman. Quite a few people signed that petition, and the media attention caused the illustrating artist to walk away from the project.

The petition happened because people disagreed with Card's political position. It's unlikely that Card's politics had anything whatsoever to do with the story he wrote.

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I've been following this only in drips and drabs on Twitter, but it looks to me like there was a not unjustifiable fear that the story would incorporate/promote his politics.

I think the word "offend" in this discussion is probably a mistake. The moment you talk about causing offense, you get about a million voices reading the script in unison: YOU CAN'T AVOID OFFENDING EVERYONE SO WHY TRY BESIDES YOU GOTTA OFFEND SOMEONE OR IT'S GONNA BE BORING blah blah blah blah blah.

Oh, and also the Proud To Be Politically Incorrect brigade comes out.

And the disingenuous chestnut of equating 1) the offense a lesbian reader feels when the author kills off all the homosexual characters except for that one gal who just needed to be forcefully argued into sex by the right man, and 2) the offense a homophobic bigot feels when the author depicts same-sex romance as a normal, matter-o-fact thing that happens. As though, because the bigot gets offended by an egalitarian text, all offense were necessarily a petty thing that the author shouldn't distract her muse with.

As though the presence of offense taken were sufficient proof that offense can't be justified.

It's like there's this idea that the inevitability of offending someone somehow means we just give up, throw our hands in the air, and stop worrying about stuff like checking our privilege where it applies.

It's always your choice. Censorship doesn't enter into it. The dreaded PC Police doesn't come into it. If you want to write from the position of SOMEONE'S GONNA GET OFFENDED NO MATTER WHAT I DO SO WHY BOTHER WORRYING ABOUT IT, go ahead. But I'm guessing you don't. I'm guessing that when you wrote, "The last thing I want to is offend someone" you meant something like, "How do I write a story about North Korea blowing up the US, without my novel looking like racist propaganda?" and the best answer I can think of is, "Treat your North Korean characters with as much three-dimensionality and humanity as you do your US characters."

If it's too much trouble to treat all your characters like real people, because you subscribe to the idea that secondary characters needn't be 3D, then I'd recommend not compounding this philosophy with "And all my primary characters that I do care enough to flesh out and give full agency to? That they're all straight white men is just a coincidence, y'all."

No one is merely a product of their race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender identity (and etc.). Remembering that and putting that understanding on the page will go a long way toward heading off legitimate offense. There's no reason you can't write a novel in which North Korea blows up the US and brings on a nuclear post-apocalyptic future. But make all your characters real people no matter which country they're in or how much melanin they've got or what shape their eyes are. Show them all making human decisions based on human needs and having real human reactions. Don't privilege white US citizens as being Real, Default Humans[TM] while writing all your North Korean characters as stereotypes. And if your beta readers come back to you with, "This part came across as a bit racist," for goodness's sake, listen.

Question your assumptions. Read widely of fiction and non-fiction outside of your immediate experience. Treat all people like people. Don't write lazily. Distinguish between offense-taken that indicates an opportunity for your growth as a writer, and offense-taken that indicates a reader who Just Doesn't Get You.

I mean, sometimes "Haters gonna hate" is a perfectly good response. Sometimes a bigot will see your fully realized brown-skinned characters and fully realized female characters and irrationally conclude that you hate white men. Haters gonna hate.

But if you end up writing, for example, a book that purports to address racism by turning it back-to-front but in effect just treats a whole bunch of existing racist stereotypes as objective fact, maybe the offended people are actually onto something? Maybe you can do better next time? "Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

Not all offense is created equal, is what I'm saying. Sometimes offense really is rooted in a keen sense of injustice, and that's worth bothering about avoiding. Don't perpetrate injustice, basically.

kelliewallace said:

The last thing I want to do as a writer is offend anyone.

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On the opposite end of that spectrum is George Bernard Shaw: "The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people."

As with most of life, reality lies somewhere between the extremes.

One day I'm going to find the context in which he made that remark, as I suspect, in context and consideration of GBS' penchant for sarcasm, there's more to it.

NicoleJLeBoeuf said:

And the disingenuous chestnut of equating 1) the offense a lesbian reader feels when the author kills off all the homosexual characters except for that one gal who just needed to be forcefully argued into sex by the right man, and 2) the offense a homophobic bigot feels when the author depicts same-sex romance as a normal, matter-o-fact thing that happens. As though, because the bigot gets offended by an egalitarian text, all offense were necessarily a petty thing that the author shouldn't distract her muse with.

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Well said.

Mr Flibble said:

Or was it the part in Stranger where a woman says that 9 times out of 10, when a woman gets raped, it's partly her fault? (sadly, many parts of society still seem to think this. Or it's fully her fault. Le sigh)

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Ugh! The last election we had over here sure made that clear. Sadly, it's not just sexist old men either. There are women who really seem to want to believe this, maybe because they can delude themselves that there are some clear-cut rules they can play by that will make them "safe" from being raped.

Now, it is possible to have a point of view character who thinks and says such things in a story (I'm reading a novel right now where one of the pov characters is a sexist and homophobic jerk, and I'm vacillating between finding him annoying and finding him amusing), but there are also ways an author can subtly (or not so subtly) get across that this character's views are not the overarching narrative position of said book.