I usually take the stance there's enough chefs in the kitchen when it comes to the big subjects of the day but for once, I feel like I've got something to say when it comes to the two constantly taking up my twitter right now - Tagging and Diversity. And while I'm gonna hit up some detail, it boils down to "It's crap when you're doing something because you think it helps and people make you feel like you're a bad person, but it's wise to put ego and hurt aside and listen".
For example, tagging authors in reviews. When Elizabeth Bear said "Don't do it, its rude" and Neil Gaiman backed her up, it caused quite a lot of dismay. A lot of it seemed to come from a place of "I'm putting a lot of time and effort into my reviews, so more people can love your books, and now you're telling me that me doing this and me trying to make sure as many people see it as possible makes me the asshole?"
Certainly, that was a little of how I felt and I half-ass this a lot, I've got nowhere near the investment in this some people do. Quite a few book bloggers felt the need to talk about how this isn't all fun and games, and why are they feeling so under pressure for something they do for free, after that. I think that's a trend that existed before but it was exacerbated by the statements. Others lashed out. I saw talk of Gaiman being entitled, of people removing them from their TBRs.
It is straight up legit to be hurt by that. I just don't think its helpful to stay there, or to stay pissed off at great authors. Book bloggers are not the assholes here, but neither are Bear or Gaiman. And while Bear shouldn't have spoken for all authors, because Twitter is littered with other authors pointing out she doesn't, that doesn't mean her opinion is without value here. Ditto Gaiman saying authors know where to find reviews, because a lot of new authors like having them delivered to their doorstep. They don't want to be tagged because for them, it makes life harder not easier. It is not hard to imagine why a famous author who gets lots and lots of tweets directed at them a day, more than they can handle, doesn't want to feel like an asshole either. I appreciate dedicated book bloggers don't really want an extra task, but do we want to make the authors we love feel like assholes? Even if they made us feel like assholes themselves?
Me, I think that for now I'd check the author's profile and see if they regularly interact with reviews. I think Womble suggested asking publishers. I particularly like Hiu Gregg's idea in this thread of a DNT stuck in an author's profile. Maybe there needs to be Twitter profiles dedicated solely to boosting reviews of certain authors so we don't need to tag them to get the boost.
In any case, I think once we stick the totally legitimate hurt aside, I think there's an easy solution here. And authors do have the right to limit their interaction with fandom, just like we have the right to be appreciated for what we do. Nobody needs to be the asshole here. Which is arguably the big moral of a lot of internet arguments.
What is less easy is the arguments about Diversity. I'm not going to touch Diversity in terms of publishing, possible quotas, etc.etc. as I do not know a huge deal about what's going on there. But in terms of what's going through a writer's mind?
I think there's a few possible motivators that go through a writer's mind when they decide on what to write, none of them exclusive from each other. I really want to write about this. It might make me rich and famous. I want to challenge myself. I feel like I should write about this. Writing about this would be a good deed done for the world.
The latter two crop up a fair amount when people talk about writing Diversity. There's a sense that authors feel obligated to do their bit to move literature's portrayals away from a heavy focus on the traditional middle/upper classes of the Anglosphere i.e. white, straight, man of the house. And that this means we're back to some writers feeling like them putting those characters in is a good deed, and feeling hurt when PoC start putting conditionals on it - and stop listening to them as a result.
Now, again, there are huge amounts of this argument that I'm not going to touch because I don't know all of it - the impact of bad portrayals, of stereotyped portrayals, writing careers dashed due to not being given exposure etc.etc. - but there is one part I do feel I can talk with some confidence on and that is what makes a good book. Good books overwhelmingly come "I really want to write about this". Which means that whatever other reasons a writer might have for an idea, they need to be transmuted into "I want to write this!"
And if you really want to write about being smuggled from Mexico to the US, or growing up in the housing estates of Totty, or coming out to your strict homophobic family... why don't you want to get it right?
Getting it right means listening to the people who've gone through it or for whom it is part of their immediate cultural history and who've read some bad fiction about it, which frequently means the writers. They won't always say what people want to hear, they won't always help as much as people want them to help, they will have their own lives and desires and so on - but there's still so much out of there that they have shared that will help. And the more people respect their boundaries, and don't ask crap out of nowhere, the more help they'll probably give.
The more people talk to them, and read what they've written, the fuller a picture you can get. Sometimes it feels like nobody wants other people in their cultural yard. That we get tweet threads like this that prove completely otherwise. We need a depth of knowledge.
And sometimes to get that depth of knowledge, we just need to put aside our hurt, and listen to what's being said.
No comments:
Post a Comment