Diversity Lioness misfire?

[Darkwriter]

What's really odd about all of this is that everyone keeps overlooking the fact that I WANTED to read the book. I signed up for it on the blog tour because I was eager to read it and give it a chance, despite the cover and the blurb. I simply couldn't get past what I was reading.

It's also overlooked how no one owes an author anything. When you read a book, all you know is what's in front of you. Whatever story or journey lies behind it is not your concern or your business, nor should it be. The idea that anyone who doesnt like a particular book is either filled with jealousy or wants to tear all authors down would be completely laughable if it wasn't such a rising tide. It's saying that the book couldn't be bad simply because they liked it or are friends/family with the author. God forbid someone should read a book they didn't like and say so. If it's not because these readers have no clue as to what they're reading, it's because if they can't say anything nice then they shouldn't say anything at all... except when they should only email the author in private to tell only them what's wrong with it.

Reviews aren't written for authors; they're for other readers. As was pointed out, it's what worked or didn't work for them and they're free to say so or not say so. Period.

 

[Svrtnsse]

If you're having trouble with descriptors- skin tones, etc- I'd then recommend Gary Gygax's Worldbuilding books; while similar in many respects to Wrede and Lisle's work, to me their real value is in the appendices- comprehensive lists of just about every adjective and adverb you can imagine for anything ranging from body parts to architecture.

This came up in a somewhat related thread and this resource was linked: Writing with Color — Skin. Writing with Color has received several...
It's got some good suggestions as well as some explanations for why certain words may be problematic.

 

[Penpilot]

Cool, I had no idea. (You'd think someone with a username like mine would know more about Asian wildlife...)

Just to add, the lion is also a significant part of Asian culture. There's a lion dance during Chinese New Year and during other celebrations like weddings etc.

Lion dance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Penpilot]

Reviews aren't written for authors; they're for other readers. As was pointed out, it's what worked or didn't work for them and they're free to say so or not say so. Period.

This is very true, but like any opinions that get express in public, they are open to being scrutinized too.

 

[Darkwriter]

One more thing. I'm trying to take Paul at his word that he was striving for something other than what I interpreted things to be, but I find it utterly amazing how he could consistently not only hit so many wrong notes, he bullseyed them (sorry for the mixed metaphors). Going back to the misappropriation of the black female image , here's an excerpt provided in the media kit for the book tour.

EXCERPT 5 – FROM CHAPTER 21
On his way forward, Jurgis stopped, his need to piss forgotten as a young girl came up the gangway. She was a Kell, nearly as black as Maud, but with her hair made up as a bird’s nest, and dressed in a flowing robe of gauze as thin as cobweb that betrayed every inch of the strong body underneath.
‘You, male!’ she said in a tone that roused hot rage in Jurgis’ breast. ‘I am seeking the Lioness Maud of the M’Brannoe. Tell her I come for her.’
Jurgis closed his mouth with an audible snap. He’d met plenty rough girls in Brisa. Harbor whores, tavern wenches, pickpockets; all coarse and often foul-mouthed women, but none had ever displayed the soul-wrenching arrogance of this barely dressed chit.
The girl frowned at his silence. ‘Are you dumb, male? Go quickly, and warn the lioness I am here. Jump to it.’
‘Well, it’s that you ask it so kindly,’ Jurgis said. ‘And who might you be?’
‘Don’t be impertinent!’ The girl’s eyes flashed. ‘My name is not your concern. Go and fetch the lioness.’
Without another word, Jurgis strode back to their cabin. He slammed the door shut behind him and Maud turned around, her sheathed sword in her hand. ‘Something wrong?’
Jurgis cursed. ‘There’s a girl come on board. A terribly arrogant, snotty girl in the most nekkid robe I ever saw. She wants to see you.’
‘A naked robe?’ Maud frowned. ‘Then she’s a wisewoman. The young ones like to go about in transparent drapes.’ She prodded Jurgis’ breastbone with a finger. ‘Don’t you believe for a moment her dress has anything to do with her being hot and cuddlesome. A wisewoman isn’t a warrioress. We’re generally easygoing; they are the opposite, and this girl’s nakedness is a deadly trap. She’d remove the manhood of any offender even quicker than I would.’
Jurgis growled. ‘That ill-mannered child cuddlesome? I’d rather mount one of those pewbara cats.’
‘Much safer. Was she alone?’
Jurgis thought back and shook his head. ‘No. She had an attendant. A boy. He wasn’t much bigger than I and looked scared as hell.’
Maud sighed. ‘They sent us a difficult one.’
‘Not all your wisewomen are wise?’
‘Forget it. They’re no better than warlocks.’

In addition to the Kell warriors constantly being in 'Fight or **** mode (sic), our introduction to a Kell Wisewoman- a future leader of their society- is of her flaunting her sexuality, parading around practically naked yet daring someone to approach her because of it. Remind you of anything?

 

[Darkwriter]

This is very true, but like any opinions that get express in public, they are open to being scrutinized too.

Scrutiny, absolutely. Subject to attack, harassment, cyber-stalking, physical violence- no.

 

[Mindfire]

One more thing. I'm trying to take Paul at his word that he was striving for something other than what I interpreted things to be, but I find it utterly amazing how he could consistently not only hit so many wrong notes, he bullseyed them (sorry for the mixed metaphors). Going back to the misappropriation of the black female image , here's an excerpt provided in the media kit for the book tour.

EXCERPT 5 – FROM CHAPTER 21
*snip*

Okay, Graylorne isn't from the US so he probably doesn't know but WOW. I'll do my best to look his work over and give him a comprehensive opinion as soon as I feasibly can.

 

[Svrtnsse]

In addition to the Kell warriors constantly being in 'Fight or **** mode (sic), our introduction to a Kell Wisewoman- a future leader of their society- is of her flaunting her sexuality, parading around practically naked yet daring someone to approach her because of it. Remind you of anything?

I'll bite.
I may be overthinking it, or completely missing the point, but I don't see what you're getting at here that I should be reminded of.

 

[Darkwriter]

I'll bite.
I may be overthinking it, or completely missing the point, but I don't see what you're getting at here that I should be reminded of.

Stereotypical black woman. Strutting around, aggressively flaunting their attributes yet surly, nasty attitude and hard to get along with.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

In Graylorne's defense, I'll say that I wouldn't have guessed the blue eyes would be problematic, aside from blue eyes being a recessive gene means blue eyes are rare among those whose ethnicity is partially European. (I realize the Kells are not mixed race, but are a fictional race.)

It all comes down to one's own experiences. I probably know more mixed race people than most, and by "know" I mean "see daily, especially the three who live in my house." My wife is Chinese, so our daughters are an Irish-Italian-Chinese mix. I have one cousin with a Haitian husband and mixed race daughter, and another cousin with a Japanese wife—and his daughter actually has blonde hair and blue eyes. (Extremely rare—the only other time I saw half-Asian children with blonde and blue was on a plane to Hong Kong ten years ago.) My daughter also recently made friends with a girl at Chinese school. Her mother is Irish and her father is African (from South Africa).

None of what I just said takes away from the validity of Darkwriter's objections to the blue eyes. As writers, I do agree we need to be aware of what works in a diverse cast and what doesn't.

We've had so many discussions on diversity, and one member in particular often made the point that there's more to creating a diverse cast than "just do it!"—and I'll add that he took quite a bit of heat for saying it. Since he's got too much class to say I told you so (while I, on the other hand, am a Masshole), let me just say that this thread validates his point. His point being to understand—and not underestimate—the challenges that come with including in your works cultures that you haven't experienced first-hand.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Stereotypical black woman. Strutting around, aggressively flaunting their attributes yet surly, nasty attitude and hard to get along with.

Thanks. Got it. I was thinking there was some kind of historical/cultural reference I was missing.

 

[Devor]

We've had so many discussions on diversity, and one member in particular often made the point that there's more to creating a diverse cast than "just do it!"–and I'll add that he took quite a bit of heat for saying it. Since he's got too much class to say I told you so (while I, on the other hand, am a Masshole), let me just say that this thread validates his point. His point being to understand–and not underestimate–the challenges that come with including in your works cultures that you haven't experienced first-hand.

Thank you - that - that wasn't necessary.


:bounce:

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Massholes don't worry about what's necessary. So… yeah, you told us so.

 

[Graylorne]

Mulatto is, in the context of the word, half-breed: an (in)direct mix of black/white genes. Here in the US the term 'light-skinned' is the most common euphemism. Having an entire region populated by such and catergorizing them as troublemakers didn't make a good impression.

And I understand your intent to discuss matters was sincere, but for future reference avoid trying to contact reviewers directly, regardless. You may not be aware that bloggers/reviewers are being 'attacked', for lack of a better word, by lots of self-published John and Jane Does when they get a bad review (sort of like what happened here but on a more intensive scale). You may recall a recent incident where a UK author tracked a woman down and assaulted her with a wine bottle because of her review, as well as the Kathleen Hale debacle here in the US. You mean well but leave things alone; I'm only here because I found the discussion and felt it warranted a response to help clear things up.

First of all thank you for coming here, I really appreciate it.

I know about that reviews are not for authors, and i have followed too many of those battles to want to be part of it.
I asked the tour operator to contact you about this, only because I didn't understand half of your comments and I wanted to know what I did wrong. If I can't ask, I can't learn.

 

[Graylorne]

In addition to the Kell warriors constantly being in 'Fight or **** mode (sic), our introduction to a Kell Wisewoman- a future leader of their society- is of her flaunting her sexuality, parading around practically naked yet daring someone to approach her because of it. Remind you of anything?

Actually, it doesn't remind me of anything. I only saw a troubled young teenage girl acting aggressive to give herself a pose.

Stereotypical black woman. Strutting around, aggressively flaunting their attributes yet surly, nasty attitude and hard to get along with.

I see what you mean, but I wouldn't have known it as a stereotype, nor its implications.

 

[Graylorne]

When writing outside of your experience, it's always helpful to get more perspective. It's no different than writing about a city and traveling there to get the feel of the place.

As far as worldbuilding goes I'd strongly suggest Patrcia Wrede's excellent questionnaire, which remains freely available online. There's also author Holly Lisle's series of books that expand of Wrede's work and really helps nail things down. Imagine designing a culture from scratch and providing them not only their own language (complete with syntax) but also their own versions of King Arthur, the Tower of London, collected works of Shakespeare, Stairway to Heaven, etc. I can't recommend those enough.

If you're having trouble with descriptors- skin tones, etc- I'd then recommend Gary Gygax's Worldbuilding books; while similar in many respects to Wrede and Lisle's work, to me their real value is in the appendices- comprehensive lists of just about every adjective and adverb you can imagine for anything ranging from body parts to architecture.

I used Writing with Color for the skin descriptions. I also googled the blue eyes and found several sites discussing how they came about, and how possibly the original peoples coming out of Africa to colonize Europe were of dark skin with (again possibly) blue eyes. It were people like these I had in mind when I thought of the Kell, but in a more SE Asian setting. And nowhere I found a suggestion that blue eyes and dark skin were denigrating.
I was purposely not writing about Afro-Americans, just as I wouldn't write about Native Americans, because I knew that was a sensitive area I didn't understand a thing about. I should have kept to my own Medieval Europe.
Damn, I only wanted to write about people of color having adventures.

 

[buyjupiter]

Actually, it doesn't remind me of anything. I only saw a troubled young teenage girl acting aggressive to give herself a pose.

This might be another thing that is more stereotypically American. Personal opinion: It's odd to think that you guys don't have some similarly parallel belief, because I don't quite buy that Europe is so much more advanced and righteous than the rest of the world.

The belief is this: that black women (or indeed all women of color, and maybe even all women, come to think of it) are so "sexual" to the point that they go about naked (or close enough to it) to be provocative. This is a good starting point for the sassy, black woman trope: Sassy Black Woman - TV Tropes

Arguments have been made often enough about this subject that it's a trope in fiction: the woman of color as a sexualized object. Key word here: object. She has no agency beyond her sex drive and lack of inhibitions and menfolk around will blame their behavior on her prancing about with no clothes on. (Or flirting, or being intelligent, or funny, or pretty, or having [x, y, z]). Women aren't responsible for other people's actions!

It's part of what drives people to ask "well what was she wearing" when a story about a woman being attacked is on the news.

And to be quite honest, that character--as described--is hitting just about all the markers of the madonna/whore thing for me. (This is a good starting point: Madonna—Whore Complex - TV Tropes).

I don't think you can't fix this, but as the work is described as of now--I'd be giving it a miss.

 

[Graylorne]

I can't speak for all of Europe, only for my own country. In the Netherlands we don't. Not to say that it doesn't happen, but on the whole the feminist movement was rather successful over here. One of the big problems we have with especially one of our own minority groups is (Moroccan youths) is that they tend to objectify Dutch (read unbeliever) girls. That is one of the differences that always amaze me following US news. We really are different cultures.

 

[Philip Overby]

About writing reviewers about your books: I think if this was a case of getting a bad review (or book update) that focused a lot on weak characters, a confusing plot, and these kind of things, then I think the author should just take the loss and hopefully learn from those mistakes by working on their craft more. It's not the reviewer's job to teach everyone how to write. But for things like including diversity, I think Graylorne is doing a good thing by trying to figure out what has made people so angry or upset. I don't believe he meant to offend intentionally, that's why he's trying to figure out how to prevent future incidents like this from happening.

I mentioned this in an earlier post, but fiery responses (like "this is f***ing pissing me off") at the beginning of a blog post or review are going to cause people like Graylorne (although I hope he doesn't) to abandon writing diverse characters altogether. He's already said that he should have stuck to what he knew and that's Medieval Europe. I'm afraid if responses to attempts to include diversity are constantly met with anger and disbelief, then it's not helping the movement for writers to try new things. Everyone will just go back to writing only in their comfort zone and that bothers me. They'll be terrified to write characters of different races and genders for fear that someone is going to rip them to shreds. Sure, it's a person's choice to write a review however they like, but when it comes to including diversity in fiction, I'd like to see less "You're doing it wrong and I hate it" and more "This is very flawed for multiple reasons, so I hope my criticism doesn't ring on deaf ears." Hopefully Graylorne has gleaned some useful advice from this discussion and it will help him in exploring diverse characters in the future.

I know it's not every writer and reviewer's duty to educate people on diversity, but if we want to see more of it in the genre, we need to do our best to try. But as writers we also have to do as much research as possible before writing a character that might be misconstrued as something it wasn't intended to be. In this case (a rare one I might add) the reviewer, Darkwriter, has chosen to address these concerns more. This is certainly a good thing and helpful for Graylorne going forward. But as writers we have to understand that this is a rarity and we always have to be prepared for good and bad when it comes to our work and how people will view it.

 

[Jabrosky]

Just to play devil's advocate for a moment on the topic of diversity and stereotyping...anyone else suspect if, once racism against African and other non-European people dissipates as a serious social pressure, stereotypes like those perceived in the OP's work actually wouldn't be seen as so offensive?

I presume most of us wouldn't see jokes poking at the Irish, French, or Italians as offensive on the same level as those targeting African or Native American people. That's because very few of us in America seriously have strong feelings either way about the Irish, French, or Italians, to the extent that we even notice them as distinct from other white people. Over 150 years ago, attitudes towards the Irish and Italians would have been very different, but since then they've been given the chance to assimilate into "mainstream" white American society and so have lost practically all the stigma once attached to them. Thereby no one feels guilty of oppression when they playfully stereotype them, since those groups don't have much to lose from being stereotyped anymore. Perhaps the day when jokes about black and Native people aren't seen as such a big deal ether is the day they've finally gotten to integrate into the American mainstream.

Am I arguing that writers today shouldn't worry about stereotyping since those stereotypes might someday lose their hurtful power? Not necessarily, as you could just as easily add more fuel to that fire while it's still going, and stereotypes will always be lazy and one-dimensional characterization no matter when you're writing. Nonetheless, I wish to ask how much influence we as fiction writers really wield over the treatment of certain demographic groups. We are still writing fiction, not factual rebuttals to conventional prejudices, and our genre of choice is even further removed from reality than most others. And when you're dealing with the larger problem of institutional racism, also known as "racism without racists", you'll need something much more potent than a few fantasy novels to overturn its legacy. Somehow I doubt it was a trend in speculative fiction alone that let those Irish or Italians become socially white.