Writers respond: Define offensive

[Chime85]

Now when I say offensive, I have no desire to be shot down in flames as the next Nick Griffin. I hold no apology to those who follow his views, but I consider myself as an open person when it comes to culture and race.

By all means, the term offensive does not cover race or colour alone, offence is something that encompasses all forms of offence. In fact, I shall scratch the word offence, and replace it with discrimination.

As fantasy writers, we cherry pick many cultures and lifestyles of our worlds history, in order to complete a fitting and justified world in which our stories can unfold. However, we are often concerned about the people we may (or may not) offend. There have been plenty examples of this, both in reality, and in fantasy.

On one side, you could argue that Tolkien considered black people were evil (as Orcs) , or are 'tribal in nature’, only banding with other tribes under the common banner of chaos. The other school would see his works as taking a shot at Germany, and the relentless effort they gave during the war. If you as a reader researched Tolkien, you have long discovered this is not the case.
Tolkien was very hard pushed to place Orcs as a relentless race; hence the horrid whip of the nine and the dark lord as a stick, rather than a carrot.

With Tolkien in mind (and I promise to move away from Tolkien) we have Hobbits, and the other side of the coin. We can all relate to a calm, cool and quiet county side as being a picture of goodness and what is right in the world, Hobbits embrace and breathe this very notion. However, are we to say little people are simple and easily pleased? I should jolly well hope not!

Moving from Tolkien I move to Anne Mccaffrey, Author of Pern and Arcorna. In my opinion, these novels swing in the opposite direction. I agree the veil between males and females needs to be torn down. If anyone said I believed different, I’d go as far as giving them a firm slap in the face. Now this is my own opinion, but I do find that her machine gun stance against the male agenda more than overtakes the enjoyment of the story at hand. In an example, with the first book of Acorna, it seems all female slaves look out for each other, while the male slaves screw over the female slaves for butter with their bread. Any woman considered evil has male like outer features and is often accompanied by a male who is heartless and out to make profit. I still encourage people to read these books, despite my complaints, I found myself reading four novels of the Acorna series.

Now I am not saying we should throw these values aside. Personally, I am 100% for equally and representation in written media. In fact, this draws on the point I am making. What is more offensive; having a black person in your story or removing black people altogether? I hate to pick on racial issues at this point, but from recent post; this seems to be the case.

Throwing the ball into the other side of the court, I’ll pass you over to religion. A lot of the western world practices (or believes in) Christianity, Judaism or Catholicism. They seem to be a no go area in modern media. I demand that any reader right now would conclude that I have no intention to take away his or her beliefs. That is their right as much as any. It would be wrong of me to do that, as well as hypocritical of the very point I am pursuing to make.

If I must boil down to a point, it is this. Is it nor more offensive, to place someone out of a story, rather than have them included within; through fear of upsetting a few who would believe you are attacking them? Personally I would rather push the boundaries of society and bring these issues to question, rather than side-lip them and do them an injustice.

Now I imagine many of you are thinking “well, what this person knows about prejudice?” That is a very good question in regards to this matter. I am transgender (M2F) and yes, I get prejudged when it comes to jobs, being served common goods such as alcohol and tobacco. I even get turned down at my local bars during football season. I find these people offensive, not fictional works.

This is only the tip of the ice as they say. I encourage any persons here within to speak for or against this short presentation.

Chime xXx

[Caged Maiden]

My only response to this is: While it is mildly offensive to take away people of a particular race, it is more offensive to use that race or stereotypes of said race in a negative way, say as the evil side. In one of my novels (set in a northern European setting) I had my prince married to a woman from another land and in one scene he remarks about her great exotic beauty and dark skin. I don't think anyone could find offense with that. However if I painted her people as uncivilized or frightening evil shamans or something.. we're bordering on offensive.

[T.Allen.Smith]

My outlook on this topic is pretty simple & straightforward. If you're going to be a writer that wants to be read you'd better get used to the idea that you're going to offend people. It's going to happen no matter how you approach telling your story. I consider this an axiom.

Considering this, I don't think authors should give a damn about what people "think" they are talking about or why certain elements are included or excluded from the tale. If the story calls for inclusion then put it in there.

If you start writing with a worry that you have to be careful with this or delicately handle that you're going to end up with a terrible book.

A lack of honesty is the only inexcusable sin in writing. The only thing that should dictate how a story is told is the story itself.

[Steerpike]

I think fixating on this sort of thing is a good way to avoid actually writing something, or else to come up with something so contrived that it isn't worth writing. If you are trying to make a point specifically about one of these social issues (i.e. if these are important to your theme), then they bear consideration. If you're only thinking about them because you are worried that X or Y is going to offend someone you are wasting your time.

[Caged Maiden]

Yeah. Take it from me, I butchered novel when I considered sending out a query for it. I took out anything I thought was too graphic rather than letting the story go out as it was, and now I've spent over a hundred hours undoing the worst of my mistakes.

Now mine weren't at all linked to race or religion, but still, I had concerns that my scenes might upset some people and I cut and hacked them until I didn't recognize my story. Sad.

[Ophiucha]

Unless it is a very racist depiction of a black person, I have to say it is better a black person than to erase them entirely. While anyone intending to write about people of colour (or women, or transgender people, or gay people, or disabled people) should obviously research the thoughts and concerns of their communities, both in regards to what your story is about and in regards to how people in that community view their media representation, ultimately a half-step is generally better than none at all. There's definitely a point where it's a step backwards, but I'd like to think that everyone here would be able to avoid that.

To look at it a different way, there's Hollywood. When we started casting black actors and actresses, the roles didn't become any less racist, but it was still a big step to not just cast white actors and put them in blackface.

I don't really think this is something you need to fuss about, either. I have black, gay, and transgender characters in several of my stories. But I don't spend weeks trying to justify how every choice and line of dialogue I wrote is or is not racist/homophobic/transphobic. I treat them like I'd treat any other character, with respect and with my research in mind, and if I'm ever so lucky as to be published and read by a diverse group of people, and some take offence, then I listen to their criticisms and apologize, avoiding the same mistakes in the future. That's all you really can do.

[Steerpike]

I think it is a mistake to assume that you have done something wrong just because someone writes you and says they were offended. It is ultimately fruitless, because even with a demographic group, any two given people may take opposing views. For example, one of my best friends is a lesbian, and she and her partner sometimes have very different (and sometimes contradictory) ideas of what is offensive. Also, proceeding solely with these considerations in mind is nothing more than political correctness, which is in turn the attempt to censor thought and ideas and as such should be an anathema to any artist and within any art form, including fiction.

[Kailarthas]

The way I look at offense in my writing is, it's MY writing, I get to decide what happens. If the evil wizard is Asian, and the barbarian hordes are black, cool. If not, cool. My story, you choose to read it or not to.

I find it offensive that the world has become so sensitive. You'd think, with the breadth of knowledge available to us, we'd be capable of handling slights and insults better. Instead, the world seems to be degenerating into a politically correct sphere of people worried about stepping on someone else's toes.

tl;dr
Write for yourself. If it offends other people, they can put it down.

[Jabrosky]

In one of my novels (set in a northern European setting) I had my prince married to a woman from another land and in one scene he remarks about her great exotic beauty and dark skin. I don't think anyone could find offense with that.

I wouldn't, but I have met people who perceive even complimentary words like "exotic" as offensively alienating.

[Steerpike]

I wouldn't, but I have met people who perceive even complimentary words like "exotic" as offensively alienating.

A perfect example of what T. Allen Smith was talking about, above, and why it is pointless to fret over these issues. Kailarthas is right - you write the story you want. Anyone who doesn't like it can and should go find a different book.