Good writing doesn't solve all problems

[sqbr]

Off metafandom, a very good post : I Didn’t Dream of Dragons. An indian fan (and possibly writer?), deepad, talks about her experience reading sff in english about european people in an european world, and how a lot of the arguments white american etc authors make about "Writing the Other" are flawed. EDIT: She responds to some common criticisms here.

EDIT: Disclaimer 4a applies *sighs at self*

Something she said which touches on a topic I've been thinking about for a while is "I have spent a lifetime reading well-written books with nuanced characters that hurt me by erasing or misrepresenting me".

One of the axioms a lot of creative types seem to work from is that their only priority should be The Art. Great Art broadens the soul and civilises society etc, so an Artist should not let themselves be swayed by worries about social responsibility/hurting people's feelings etc. Any times questions like this come up they are either dismissed as making false assumptions (which is often true: playing violent video games does not in fact make you a murderer, and it is very hard to predict what effect if any a work will have on the population as a whole etc) or it's argued that these consequences only happen as a result of bad art, and the solution is to work even harder at making True Art. Which is what the artists were doing anyway, how convenient.

But this simply isn't true. For a start, no work is perfect, and unless you particularly concentrate on an individual flaw, making your work better may just result in improving other aspects. Something can be Fine Art while still being deeply flawed. As in the examples deepad gives, pretty much every single "Classic Novel" that mentions POC at all does so in a racist stereotyped way. Most Great Works don't do much better on class, gender, sexuality etc. And of course as any slasher will tell you a lot of the time these voices are erased completely.

Given that all works are flawed, not all flaws are equal. Plot holes may be annoying, but they are not equivalent to racism or other prejudice, and implying that they are, and that there's no reason to specifically try to avoid them beyond generally improving the quality of your work, is insulting to the people who suffer as a result.

You might argue "Ah but writers like Dickens were writing in an unenlightened time and laboured under all those racist/sexist etc misconceptions". Well guess what, so do we. And unless we make a concerted effort to rise above those misconceptions and prejudices it will be reflected in our writing.

You can write a genuinely complicated, subtle character who you see as a Real Person who is still offensive and reflective of prejudiced attitudes. The most obvious example is having them act just like "you" (white/male/american/christian etc) when in context they should have very different attitudes and behaviours. And if you're starting from flawed assumptions this can counteract your characterisation: if you were to write an australian Aboriginal character as a cannibal who rode around on the back of a kangaroo then no matter how well written they were it would still be hurtful to australian aboriginal readers.

Another obvious issue is that "good" is a relative term. If you deep down believe that women are irrational and get angry about random things for no good reason all the time then you won't have a problem with stories where this is the case. But I will find it unbelievably annoying.

EDIT: Since I don't think I made it clear: like I said, every story is flawed, and that's ok. And that means even if you specifically try not to use racist stereotypes or what-have-you you might (in fact probably will) end up doing it anyway. I'm not saying give up and don't write, or that perfection is required! Do your best and hope you're doing more good than harm, that's all we can ever do. I'm just saying that certain flaws are more important than other flaws, and should be focussed on in particular, and not just because they make the book less artistically valid. That's all.

Also: some sorts of stories actually rely on stereotypes etc. Traditional high fantasy, for example, is built on a lot of pretty sexist and classist tropes. Writing such stories "better" from an artistic POV may actually mean making them worse from a feminist etc POV.

That doesn't mean they shouldn't be written, though as I discuss here nor does it let the writers off the hook.

Comments

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

I find your examples deeply flawed. Characterisation is based around background and motivation; a woman who 'gets angry about random things for no good reason' is an example of a terrible character, simply because her motivations are inexplicable beyond 'she's a woman'. Similarly, an Australian aboriginal who is a cannibal but has no particular reason to be so is a terrible character, in exactly the same way that a white character who was a cannibal 'just because' would be terrible. Neither of these is an example of 'good writing with racist/sexist misconceptions', they're just examples of bad writing that also happen to betray prejudiced views.

One thing a lot more stories need is contrast in their minority characters. Male fantasy authors in particular have a tendency to write all their female characters as indistinguishable clones. Other races and cultures are usually given even worse treatment in popular fiction. Again, this isn't good writing with flaws, it's just bad writing, and not because of any sexist or racist element. The writing is bad because having a group of characters that all think and act the same way because of a single shared characteristic is ridiculous, lazy and unconvincing.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I kinda like the odd unrationalised cannibal character. Hannibal Lecter, probably fiction's most famous cannibal, is supposed to have been ruined by Harris providing him with a backstory in "Hannibal Rising", not that I've read it. We just assume "something bad" happened to him at some point rather than needing it overdetermined* by the author. Crock example though, as Lecter is a famously vivid character, so sorry about that.

The Aboriginal cannibal thing is real actually. I recall there's some cannibalism in Patrick White's A Fringe of Leaves although I very much don't recall how it's put across. That book, I think, was based on the historical counterpart of the female protagonist's dubious and widely doubted account of her capture by, and survival with, an Aboriginal group.

* I like this word -- but perhaps more ironically, the WP page for overdetermination is a "disambiguation page".

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

The idea that 'something bad' happening to an otherwise well-adjusted person can turn them into a psychopath has never been convincing for me; psychopaths are born, not made. However, the path from psychopath to cannibal seems fairly straightforward and reasonable to me.

Were Patrick White's cannibal characters equally convincing?

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

I don't know about psychopaths -- I guess the propensity to recognised insanity is probably inborn, but I reckon there are a few latent maniacs out there just waiting to be triggered by an extreme situation.

The cannibalism in AFoL occurs in a relatively minor episode, when Fraser is living with Aboriginals in the deep country, with an escaped convict, after they've killed her husband and others with whom she's travelling. It seemed a bit out of place if I recall correctly. But interestingly, the historical story on which AFoL is one Eliza Fraser allegedly constructed herself after having quite a different experience, and laced with false events conforming to the stereotypes of the day.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

"is based is", not "is"

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

character who was a cannibal 'just because' would be terrible

I think you mean "AWESOME".

[alias_sqbr]

they're just examples of bad writing that also happen to betray prejudiced views

I guess this is in some ways true (depending on your definition), but if most readers don't notice because they are also prejudiced then I think it's useful to distinguish that from "most people would recognise it as such" bad writing.

I didn't make this at all clear but: to those authors, getting angry for no reason, or being a cannibal, are inherent to being female/aboriginal. Thus they don't need to be explained, and any reader who shares their prejudices will agree and not notice any flaws. I come across this a LOT with the motivations of female characters in stories written by and for men.

For a real life example I've noticed(*): french characters in english novels written before about 1940. They can be quite nuanced and varied and seen as Real People, but there was a general attitude back then that french people were more passionate and irrational etc and this definitely shows in the characters. See, for example, Villette by Charlotte Bronte where pretty much all the characters (including the romantic lead) other than the protagonist are french, and (as I remember from having read it YEARS ago) have a lot of variety and feel 3D but are still all Very French.

(*)Not that anti-french sentiment is a major injustice right now, but it is an example of "Well motivated characters who are still irritatingly stereotyped due to misconceptions of the author"

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

If an author is unable to grasp the idea that women (and men) have both rational and emotional motivations, then they aren't really going to be able to consider the flaws in their writing. They're a lost cause, since they're never going to be able to relate to their female characters. On the other hand, any readers who are aware that women are actually people will find their characters unconvincing and flat - they will recognise the bad writing when they see it.

Those characters might be convincing to the group of people who share the author's delusion, but they will be seeking out fiction that plays to their prejudices anyway.

Basically, my position is that if an author lacks the ability to empathise with and understand his or her characters, those characters will be inherently unconvincing. This is bad writing. Characters that are unconvincing for one reader might be totally convincing for another, but the more people you can convince, the better your writing; hence, better understanding your characters makes you a better writer.

Sadly, bad writing will not stop a book from being resoundingly successful, particularly in the sci-fi and fantasy genres where the importance of character is vastly overshadowed by plot and setting.

[alias_sqbr]

I guess..by your definition I think all writers are "bad" to some extent.

Basically: I agree that getting rid of stereotypical/limited thinking will improve ones writing, but not that merely aiming to improve ones writing will necessarily have that much of an effect on ones stereotypes etc unless you make a concerted effort to combat that problem in particular.

It's like: using less electricity saves you money, but trying to save money doesn't necessarily use less electricity :)

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

I guess..by your definition I think all writers are "bad" to some extent.

Um, isn't that a self-evident, objective truth? There is no such thing as a flawless piece of writing.

Regardless of how much you otherwise improve your writing, getting rid of stereotypes will allow you to improve it further. In much the same way, cutting back on electricity use will always allow you to save more money than not doing so. ;)

[alias_sqbr]

Absolutely. (I'm not sure, are we disagreeing any more? :))

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

Were we ever? :P

[alias_sqbr]

YES!!!!

Wait.

NO!!!

Um.

Nice weather isn't it?