Barry Deutsch Cartoon

Barry Deutsch is one of my favorite political cartoonists. I support him on Patreon, and enjoy his work very much.

He just posted a timely cartoon, and encouraged us to share it. I think it's pretty on point, so I'm doing so.

The Legalities of Fanfic

I went to a panel at a convention recently on the legalities of fanfic. I've written fanfic in the past, and will probably read more in the future. And I look forward to the day when fans of my own writing like it enough to write fanfic based on it. So I was looking forward to the panel discussion.

Unfortunately, it seems none of the people on the panel knew anything about the actual legalities of fanfic. The discussion was mostly, "Well, I like fanfic, so I think it's legal," and "I think fanfic is stealing, so I think it's illegal," and back and forth from there, based on what the panelists thought and felt about it.

In the real world, what any individual thinks or feels about fanfic is completely irrelevant to the question. The moderator made it clear that contributions from the audience had to be 1) only questions, and 2) tweet-length or less, so I didn't bother trying to throw any actual facts into the mix at that time.

In actuality, 1) nobody knows for sure whether fanfic is legal or illegal because it's never been litigated, and 2) if it is, most likely only some of it is, and the rest is not.

The fact is, the Fair Use rules are purposely ambiguous.

Whether you're making money with your derivative work is one factor, and the fanfic that gets written and posted to people’s journals, tumblrs, on Facebook, on personal web sites, and on archives like AO3 and fanfiction dot net for anyone to read for free satisfy that particular factor. That's not the only point, however.

Another point is whether the work is used as criticism or parody, and some fanfic clearly is. I know a popular fanfic writer who thinks Dumbledore is an evil, sociopathic villain, and a dark lord himself if you look at what he did and what he allowed to happen over the course of the books. She also thinks Ron Weasley is a selfish, lazy, jealous git who turned against Harry at the drop of a hat, multiple times, generally an asshole. Pretty much all her HP fanfic reflects these two beliefs, in how she writes these characters. You could make a good argument that all of her HP fanfic is criticism of Rowling's books. And a lot of fics are clearly parodies of the original works, and therefore would be no more infringement than Bored of the Rings was an infringement on Lord of the Rings. (Believe me, if the Tolkien estate could've sued National Lampoon for that, they would've; they’re notoriously litigious.) Many other fics don't satisfy the criticism or parody points, so it's possible that the critical/parody fics are completely legal while the others are not.

Another factor is whether the work is transformative. Did the fan writer clearly change a significant part of the IP to create something new? In this case, people who write further-adventures type stories, where Kirk and Spock beam down to a planet and stop two peoples from going to war against each other, are more likely to be in legal peril, while the people who write alternate universe stories where, for example, Kirk and Spock are each members of a different species of dragon, and their dragon clans have been feuding for a thousand years, but the guys meet and get together and bring peace to their clans, Romeo-and-Juliet style but without the tragic ending, are more likely to be in the legal clear.

And another factor is whether the derivative work is likely to negatively impact the earning potential of the original IP. If someone is writing My Little Pony fanfic that's just so wonderful and awesome that Pony fans stop watching the show (and buying the merch) and only read that fanfic, then the MLP IP holder would have a reason to sue, and might win. Although I don't know of many IP holders, either of books/stories or TV/movies, who'd be willing to stand up in court and say that the fanfic of their work is so much better than the work itself that it's cutting into their revenue. :)

And in actuality, if anything it's the opposite. Rabid fans of a property (and you have to be a fairly rabid fan to put in the work and effort of writing fanfic) drag their friends into the fandom by the ear, shoving books or boxed-set DVDs into their hands and practically forcing them to get into the original so that they'll understand the fanfic.

And some people read the fanfic first, then go looking for the original. I've done that a couple of times, in fact. I watched the first couple of episodes of Stargate: Atlantis, went "Meh," and wandered away. A couple of years later, a fanfic writer I like a lot started writing Atlantis fic, and I read it. I enjoyed it quite a bit, went back to the show, and (reading it through slash goggles that I won't apologize for, plus with the extra world- and character-building the fan writers had done in my mind) I enjoyed the show much more. I ended up buying all five seasons on DVD. I also read a really great fic based on the movie Blackhawk Down, then watched the movie, which wasn't my usual thing; I'd never have watched it if I hadn't read the fic first. This isn't the normal way people get into a fandom, but I'm not the only one who's come in through the side door this way. Fanfic and its writers/fans increase engagement with the canon IP, rather than decrease it. Creators who object to fanfic are, IMO, shooting themselves in the foot, and then refusing even a bandage out of sheer cussedness.

The fact is, nobody knows whether "fanfic" is illegal or not. There've been people, usually IP owners of one sort or another, who've very firmly insisted for a long time that it definitely IS, and who've gotten very nasty with their fans who write fanfic. This is stupid, but hey, if someone wants to piss in their own soup pot, that's their choice. For myself, I'd be delighted to find fanfic written about any of my published work.

Have You Signed Up For Health Care Yet?

Comic by Keith Knight, shared with permission.

Spread the word! Keith says:

I did a week of dailies informing folks to sign up for health care by Dec. 15th. Our Dotard-in-Chief has cut the ad budget by 99% (and the time to sign-up in half) in an effort to destroy Obamacare. Spread this comic around the interwebs as an eff-you to King Cheeto!

Gaming the Times List

So, someone tried to game the New York Times Book Review list. What else is new, I know. But the story of how it happened and why, and how it was thwarted, is all in one convenient post on Pajiba.

Thanks to Kris Rusch, who blogged about this, and has some excellent comments and perspective. She talks about how this plot wouldn't have worked anyway, to achieve its apparent goal of getting the book's writer a movie deal. Worth a read for every writer who wants to keep up with how the business works.

Angie

Nice to Know It's Not Just Us?

It seems Norwegian racists are just as idiotic as their American counterparts.

A Norwegian troll named Johan Slåttavik posted a pic of a bunch of empty bus seats to an anti-immigrant web site called "Fedrelandet viktigst" which means "Fatherland First." The geniuses on the group interpreted the tall, padded bus seats as burqas, and the comments were pretty much what you'd expect from that kind of person. Check it out.

Not only is this racist and Islamophobic, it's yet another case of a bunch of dudes trying to police what women wear. If there are Islamic women who don't want to wear a burqa, or a hijab, or whatever, then sure, support them. But plenty of Islamic women are perfectly happy covering up, and in fact feel uncomfortable in public without their traditional garments. They should be able to wear what they want, just like everyone else.

Angie

The Wall

I'm not usually into modern poetry, but this morning I ran across a poem I have to share. Ursula LeGuin posted Anita Endrezze's "The Wall" on Book View Cafe, and it really hit me. It imagines the wall Trump wants to build between the US and Mexico, and the various things the wall could be made of. Which sounds wierd, but it is poetry. :) I'm not generally into poetry, but I loved this. Check it out.

Angie

Can This White Woman Get Arrested?

Apparently not.

Jessie Kahnweiler, a white comedian, tried to deliberately get arrested in order to demonstrate white privilege at work. She pretended to be drunk in public, went swimming in a public fountain, patted police officers on the back (which has been interpreted as assault and resulted in arrest before when the "perp" was a person of color) and even tried to sell drugs to a couple of cops. Number of arrests? Zero.

Read the whole thing, and watch the video, here.

Thanks to Alisha for the link.

ETA: Sorry for the humongous video. :/ Blogger's size-chooser-thingy for pics and videos has never worked for me.

Open Letter from Muslim Leaders and Scholars to the Leader of ISIS

Executive Summary:

1. It is forbidden in Islam to issue fatwas without all the necessary learning requirements. Even then fatwas must follow Islamic legal theory as defined in the Classical texts. It is also forbidden to cite a portion of a verse from the Qur’an—or part of a verse—to derive a ruling without looking at everything that the Qur’an and Hadith teach related to that matter. In other words, there are strict subjective and objective prerequisites for fatwas , and one cannot ‘cherry-pick’ Qur’anic verses for legal arguments without considering the entire Qur’an and Hadith.

2. It is forbidden in Islam to issue legal rulings about anything without mastery of the Arabic language.

3. It is forbidden in Islam to oversimplify Shari’ah matters and ignore established Islamic sciences.

4. It is permissible in Islam [for scholars] to differ on any matter, except those fundamentals of religion that all Muslims must know.

5. It is forbidden in Islam to ignore the reality of contemporary times when deriving legal rulings.

6. It is forbidden in Islam to kill the innocent.

7. It is forbidden in Islam to kill emissaries, ambassadors, and diplomats; hence it is forbidden to kill journalists and aid workers.

8. Jihad in Islam is defensive war. It is not permissible without the right cause, the right purpose and without the right rules of conduct.

9. It is forbidden in Islam to declare people non-Muslim unless he (or she) openly declares disbelief.

10. It is forbidden in Islam to harm or mistreat—in any way—Christians or any ‘People of the Scripture’.

11. It is obligatory to consider Yazidis as People of the Scripture.

12. The re-introduction of slavery is forbidden in Islam. It was abolished by universal consensus.

13. It is forbidden in Islam to force people to convert.

14. It is forbidden in Islam to deny women their rights.

15. It is forbidden in Islam to deny children their rights.

16. It is forbidden in Islam to enact legal punishments (hudud ) without following the correct procedures that ensure justice and mercy.

17. It is forbidden in Islam to torture people.

18. It is forbidden in Islam to disfigure the dead.

19. It is forbidden in Islam to attribute evil acts to God ﷻ.

20. It is forbidden in Islam to destroy the graves and shrines of Prophets and Companions.

21. Armed insurrection is forbidden in Islam for any reason other than clear disbelief by the ruler and not allowing people to pray.

22. It is forbidden in Islam to declare a caliphate without consensus from all Muslims.

23. Loyalty to one’s nation is permissible in Islam.

24. After the death of the Prophet ﷺ, Islam does not require anyone to emigrate anywhere.

================

Found here. When you click through, you'll get to the main page. Click on "Read the letter." The first page is the summary quoted. Click on the right arrow in the upper left corner to turn pages and keep reading.

Each issue is elaborated, with quotes from the Qur'an and the Prophet, in the body of the document, where Muslim leadership from around the world calls Al Baghdadi out on all the various ways he's doing Islam wrong. I read the whole thing, and it's interesting to see what Muslim scholars say about all these issues, as opposed to the quick summaries, much less the slogans of fanatics we hear in the media.

This was originally written in September of '14, so I doubt Al Baghdadi is going to start paying any attention to it at this point. But it makes it clear (for anyone who still hasn't clued in) that the violent extremists who get so much play in the western media do not represent Islam as a whole, and that the scholars and leaders of Islam and Muslim people around the world don't approve at all of what ISIS and other groups and individuals with similar goals and methods are doing, in the name of a religion which does not support their actions.

Whenever you hear someone talk about how Muslims or Islam itself are inherently violent and hateful, this demonstrates just how wrong they are. Taking the acts of ISIS out on all Muslims is like blaming all Christians for what the KKK does.

Interesting stuff, especially if you don't know much about Islam. Talk half an hour or so and read it.

Paris

Paris after 9/11.

Let’s keep these people in our prayers, who so graciously kept us in their prayers after one of the darkest periods of our history.

Paris, and everyone else affected by the attacks tonight, you are in my thoughts and prayers.

Beth Greene on Tumblr

I'm not a "prayers" kind of person, but I endorse the sentiment wholeheartedly.

Marriage Equality, Finally

The Supreme Court finally grants marriage equality.

Try as they might, people opposed to marriage equality haven't been able to come up with any rational reasons for their stand. "Because our god disapproves," is not a rational reason in a nation with separation of church and state. "Because the children," is not supported by any legitimate research. (In fact, I can't give a link because I didn't save it at the time, but I remember reading an article a few years ago discussing research that showed the best outcome for children, looking at emotional adjustment, behavior, and performance in school, came from having two lesbian parents.) "Because pedophiles," is a null argument because adults having sex with minors (ignoring the complications of what that means and where the lines are drawn) is still illegal. And that idiot in California who tried to get a proposition on the ballot requiring that anyone who commits "sodomy" be executed by whatever member of the general public got to them first (no, seriously) just makes the anti-GLBT side look even more whacked than it actually is.

I'm sure there are plenty of people moaning and gnashing their teeth today. But look, the sky isn't falling. If you think gay sex is icky, then good news: you're not required to have gay sex. Your kids are no more likely to be gay now than they were last week. And if your kid does come out to you, you're still free to disown him or her, and the people around you who disapprove would probably have disapproved last week, while people who would've agreed you did the right thing last week will probably still think that now. And if your church doesn't recognize gay marriage, your church still isn't required to marry gay couples. Nothing has changed for straight people.

Which is the whole point. Nothing has changed for straight people. We can go about our lives as we always have, because the world still treats us the way it always did.

And in fact, only thirteen states still banned marriage between same-sex couples yesterday. We were already mostly there; the Supremes just acknowledged the way society was moving.

Note, though, that this decision doesn't mean homophobia is dead in the US, any more than the election of President Obama meant racism is dead. There are still plenty of people who see straight as "normal" and gay as "deviant," and who want the laws of the land to reflect their views, some of whom are active on the political stage.

Ted Cruz and Scott Walker are two Republican presidential hopefuls who support a Constitutional amendment allowing states to ban same-sex marriage. Considering that the majority of states allowed it yesterday, and polls show a majority of Americans are in favor of it, I have no idea where these guys thought that amendment would come from. There's no way they'd ever get the two-thirds ratification required to pass it, so...? Marriage equality doesn't affect them, so it looks like either their own fears and squicks on display, or (more likely IMO) it's a flag-waving act, aimed at the very small but very loud radical-right voting pool. "Hey, look how conservative I am! Vote for me!" Of course, that tactic hasn't worked in the last couple of presidential elections, but if these guys want to give it another whirl, bully for them.

And others have already discussed Clarence Thomas's dissenting opinion against marriage equality. From Thomas's opinion:

The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.

Seriously? Because being a slave, confined and beaten and raped, isn't at all undignified. Because being dragged away from your property (often losing it permanently) and locked up in an internment camp, declared a danger to the country of which you're a citizen, hated and reviled by your fellow citizens, isn't at all undignified. And having people sneer and snark at your marriage, telling you it's just pretend, and having your children harassed and mocked because their parents aren't really married and they don't really have a normal family, that's not at all undignified.

The fact that Justice Thomas, who's married to a white woman, clearly benefits from the results of Loving v. the State of Virginia, and yet declares that Obergefell v. Hodges -- which grants the exact same kind of marriage rights (and dignity) to a group of people who were discriminated against exactly the way interracial couples were discriminated against before Loving -- is wrong and pointless, is bogglingly irrational. It reflects a lack of compassion, and an "I've got mine so you all can go suck it" attitude.

There are plenty of people, though, even in conservative states, who are ready to jump right into getting gay and lesbian couples married, because "conservative" is not the same as "asshole."

Gerard Rickhoff, who oversees marriage licenses in Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, has removed the words "male" and "female" from the licenses. He's prepared extra work stations and is ready to keep the office open late. He's planning to have security on site to deal with protesters, "so there's no possibility of discomfort or hate speech." And if same-sex couples are turned away by clerks in other counties, he has a message for them: "Just get in your car and come on down the highway. You'll be embraced here."

Props to Mr. Rickhoff, and others like him in Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and Michigan, mentioned in the above HuffPo article, and to people in all states, of all political orientations around the country whose action and support, however loud or quiet, let this happen.

I'll wrap with a quote from President Obama: "Today we can say in no uncertain terms that we've made our union a little more perfect ... America should be very proud."

What Are We Paying For Again...?

From ABC News:

An internal investigation of the Transportation Security Administration revealed security failures at dozens of the nation’s busiest airports, where undercover investigators were able to smuggle mock explosives or banned weapons through checkpoints in 95 percent of trials, ABC News has learned.

Wow. So we get lined up, barked at, irradiated and/or groped, little tin dictators in spiffy blue shirts with official looking epaulettes and shiny fake badges[1] treat us like cattle or prisoners, and... for what again?

According to officials briefed on the results of a recent Homeland Security Inspector General’s report, TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 tests, with Red Team members repeatedly able to get potential weapons through checkpoints.

Gee, I'm so glad we have TSA making us feel so much safer than we were before 9/11. Oh, wait....

Security experts have said before that all the security rules put into place at the airport at the security checkpoints can be defeated without too much trouble, and I've discussed that here before. It's common knowledge; I'm sure all the terrorists know.

Or maybe this is a one-time thing?

This is not the first time the TSA has had trouble spotting Red Team agents. A similar episode played out in 2013, when an undercover investigator with a fake bomb hidden on his body passed through a metal detector, went through a pat-down at New Jersey's Newark Liberty Airport, and was never caught.

...

[T]he review determined that despite spending $540 million for checked baggage screening equipment and another $11 million for training since a previous review in 2009, the TSA failed to make any noticeable improvements in that time.

And according to a USA Today story in 2007, about failure rate of screener tests:

Howe said the increased difficulty explains why screeners at Los Angeles and Chicago O'Hare airports failed to find more than 60% of fake explosives that TSA agents tried to get through checkpoints last year.

The failure rates — about 75% at Los Angeles and 60% at O'Hare — are higher than some tests of screeners a few years ago and equivalent to other previous tests.

So I guess that's a "nope" on the one-time failure thing.

And of course, part of the problem is that so much of the effort is focused at airports. It's as if Homeland Security thinks terrorists have some kind of a compulsion to attack airports and airplanes. News flash: terrorists want to cause terror. They'll do that anywhere they think will be effective. Other places will do just as well, places like sports stadiums, shopping malls, theme parks and other tourist attractions -- anywhere large groups of people gather. There's no way to guard every possible target against terrorist activity without turning the US into the ultimate police state. Money wasted on TSA would be much better spent on intelligence, stopping terrorists before they ever get near their targets.

David Burge, on Twitter, has it right IMO:

@iowahawkblog

At $8 billion per year, the TSA is the most expensive theatrical production in history.

Yeah, that's just about right. [sigh]

Thanks to Bruce Schneier for posting about this.

[1] Yes, fake badges. The TSA screener uniforms and badges are designed to make travellers assume that the screeners are law enforcement officers, for purposes of intimidation and compliance. They are not law enforcement, and have no arrest powers. If a TSA screener thinks you should be arrested, they have to call a real cop like everyone else.

Angie

Putting Ferguson Into Perspective

Yes, what's going on in Ferguson is awful, and is causing hardship for a lot of people, most of them black. Yes, it would be better for everyone if they'd go home and get on with their lives, as Michael Brown's family has asked. But at least in this case, the people rioting have a significant reason to be angry -- a pretty clear miscarriage of justice, with an obvious racial motive. All the white people looking down their noses and crying shame on those violent black rioters for being so violent (salted with racist epithets, because of course all this violence is because that's what people of their race do) should perhaps remember all the So Much More Worthy [cough] reasons for which white people have violently rioted.

Thanks to Jason for sending me a link to this. Very telling.

Angie

Homophobia Taken to Ridiculous Extremes

So Tim Torkildson was hired to do social media for the Nomen Global Language Center, a school that serves primarily people learning English as a foreign language. Part of his job was writing the school's language blog. He did a post about homophones, and was fired.

Seriously.

Torkildson's boss, Clarke Woodger, who owns the school, called him in and fired him.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune:

When the social-media specialist for a private Provo-based English language learning center wrote a blog explaining homophones, he was let go for creating the perception that the school promoted a gay agenda.

...

As Torkildson tells it, Woodger said he could not trust him and that the blog about homophones was the last straw.

"Now our school is going to be associated with homosexuality," Woodger complained, according to Torkildson, who posted the exchange on his Facebook page.

I have to ask, how ignorant does someone have to be to think homophones have anything at all to do with homosexuality? And how ignorant about language can you be and still own a language school? I think the answer to both questions is, pretty darned ignorant.

Techdirt says:

Torkildson's account includes some eyebrow-raising quotes of Woodger claiming not to know what homophones were, claiming that they don't teach that kind of "advanced" language study to their English language students, and worrying that the post would associate the school with homosexuality for reasons uknown to this writer.

So the difference between "there" and "their," or "to," "too" and "two" is an advanced concept? Umm, sure. 'Cause I totally didn't get that in first grade. Since a lot of simple, basic words are homophones, I would expect this to be taught to foreign students very early in their English studies, because it's going to be darned confusing if it's not explained.

About the only positive thing I can say here is that this isn't a public school -- they get enough bad press, and usually deserve it. But the private side apparently isn't immune to idiocy either.

Hopefully Mr. Torkildson will find another job soon, working for someone who has a functional brain. Best of luck, Mr. Torkildson.

Angie

Because Telling Teenagers "No" Always Works

The principal of Booker T Washington High has stepped in to cancel one of their school's summer reading programs rather than let the students read Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, which is all about teenagers challenging wrongheaded authority. (Seriously, read it -- it rocks.) An English teacher and a librarian had set up the One-Book-One-School program, which exists side-by-side with a more standard Summer Reading program, developing a study guide/brochure for students and parents. It explains the program, and gives questions the students should answer after they read. Notice that it also encourages the parents to read the book so they can discuss it with their kids, and allows parents who object to the book to contact the coordinating English teacher to get an alternate book for their kid to read.

Apparently giving the parents final authority over what their kids read isn't enough for the BTW principal, though. When the program coordinators refused to choose a different book, the principal cancelled the whole program.

It was pointed out in comments to the Techdirt article, multiple times, that the principal could've done nothing to more effectively encourage all the students to eagerly read this book. [wry smile] A few people suggested that this might've been the hidden purpose behind the cancellation, but I think that's giving too much credit where it's probably not due.

In response, Cory Doctorow and his publisher, Tor, have donated 200 copies of the book to the school. I'd be interested in hearing what the school does with them, considering the principal's actions so far.

Oh, and note that the school's more standard summer reading program already includes Little Brother. o_O So apparently the principal is okay with the eleventh graders reading the book, but thinks it would be harmful for the ninth, tenth and twelfth graders...?

If you're interested in reading Little Brother, which I highly recommend, Cory offers the e-book on his site for free, in pretty much any file format you might want. Check it out.

Angie

Follow-Up on the Libel of Quoting

I'm ridiculously busy right now so this is going to be short, but Mr. Sean Fodera, referenced in my previous post, has hired a lawyer to tell him that linking to an article that quotes him saying something stupid is not, in fact, a libelous action for which one can be sued. He's posted a very thorough apology to Mary Robinette Kowal in which he also points out that he does not represent his employer (MacMillan) in any way when he says stupid things in public.

There are a few interesting roundaboutations and caveats in said apology, but whatever. I only hope he's learned something, and is planning to duck out of sight for a while.

Angie, who still has about 90 stories to get through by Saturday

Quoting Now Equals Libel?

So apparently linking to an article where someone is quoted -- with links to the original sources -- as saying something that makes him look like a sexist asshat is now libel. That sounds like fun, so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon.

Mr. Sean Fodera apparently thinks that any woman who wears attractive clothing can't possibly be a feminist, because (I guess?) in order to qualify for the feminist club, you're required to have nothing but army fatigues three sizes too big, or similar, in your closet. Okay then.

It just occurred to me that MRK seems to be deeply involved in this whole anti-sexism matter. I remember seeing her posing with Hines and Scalzi on one of their very scary cover parodies, and I know she chimed in with a snipe at the petition signers on the Radish thread.

I find it very funny and ironic that she would jump on this bandwagon. For a long time, her website featured an array of photos of her in a diaphanous white outfit, posing on a beach. No metal bikinis or such, but they were not innocuous writer headshots either. One of them, with her recumbent on the sand with legs exposed, made her somewhat attractive. I also recall she's fond of wearing tight-fitting gowns and plunging necklines when she attends cons and award ceremonies.

I'll have to add "phony" to "incompetent" and "arrogant" in the mental tags I've assigned her.

The Daily Dot has a screen grab of this bit from SFF.net, in case it gets deleted.

The whole Dot article is about the latest wave of sexist, racist crap coming out of the old guard SFWA types. It's depressing, but at this point it's really not surprising. What's particularly eyerolly here is Mr. Fodera's belief that this is actionable libel. John Scalzi commented on this, and I see it as a public service to spread it around. Not only to point out the sexist gluteal haberdashery, but to spread the word that no, this is not libel, and threatening to treat it as such just makes one look even more ignorant than the original commentary.

Also, note the Streisand effect in action here. I've never heard of Mr. Fodera before, and I'd wager most folks who read my blog haven't either. Now we've heard of him, and the impression left isn't exactly positive. Good job, Mr. Fodera!

Angie

But What About Readers and Reviewers?

There's a discussion over at Jessewave's that evolved into a thread with wider interest to fiction writers in general, so I brought one of my comments (and a bit of what I responded to) back here. Rick Reed wrote the original post, talking about women in m/m romances, and of course the conversation strayed over to the question of m/f sex in m/m books. For those of you who aren't into romance, or aren't into m/m, there's a fairly sturdy divide between readers who are willing to follow a character's story wherever it leads, and readers who, in their own words, don't want anyone getting "girl cooties" in their m/m romance. You can probably tell what side of the debate I'm on. [cough]

Anyway, Carolyne wondered in comments whether it wouldn't be practical to just avoid story elements that readers have said they dislike, in the name of maximizing sales and reviews, then said:

I don’t say all the above in a cranky way, but in asking myself whether it simply makes much more sense to make a reasonable compromise in one’s writing, to be practical and give a story its best chances in the world.

My response got kind of long, as is often the case. I posted it there, but thought I'd put it here too, because it has a larger application than just romance:

This is a question each writer has to answer for her/himself. My answer is no. I won't compromise my work because a few people are loud about what they dislike. They're entitled to their opinions, but my writing is mine.

Another way to think about it is that every subgenre, and quite a few full-blown genres, started out as a writer here or there writing something completely different, something that nobody had ever written before, despite the fact that there was no sign or clue that the readers of whatever the closest genre was "wanted" that kind of work. Paranormal romance started back in the 70s, and IIRC wasn't even considered romance half the time -- you don't find Yarbro's Saint Germain books in the Romance shelves even now, and that's the first I recall. "Weird" romances snuck into the mainstream through the occasional one-off -- anyone remember The Elsingham Portrait? -- and then in the 80s, time travel romance were huge for a few years. There were a bunch of books on the shelf with pocket watches on their spines, so TT fans could find them, while people who preferred "normal" romances just thought they were weird and dumb. Fantasy romances and SF romances (oh, excuse me -- "futuristic" romances) appeared in the late 80s as subgenres, when there had been little or nothing like them before in romance. Enough people glommed on to keep them going, which people who preferred "real" romances about doctors and secretaries and cake bakers and decorators made snarky comments. As late as 2008 a columnist at a major romance blog (now defunct) was griping about how there were "too many" of those weird romances around, about how they were pushing out the "normal" contemporary romances. She was kind enough to allow that there should be "a few" of the weird romances published, but only the very best. (Nice of her to allow people like me a few of The Very Best of the subgenres I like most -- maybe she'd be the one to vet them for me?)

What would romance -- het or GLBT -- look like now if writers who love writing about vampires and aliens and mages and interstellar ambassadors and shifters had read the gripes and snarks of people who only want contemporary romances, and thought, "Gee, if I write this stuff I really love, nobody will read or review it! I'd better toe the line and write about doctors and secretaries and dog walkers, because I want my books to sell and be reviewed!"

Will writing what you love yourself limit your market? Sure. That's always true. If you write mystery romances, there are people who don't like those. If you write about shifters, there are people who'll eyeroll and move on. If you write about cross-dressing main characters, there are people who aren't into that. If you write BDSM romances, plenty of people will avoid them. That's their choice to make, and always has been. I know that no matter what I write, I'll never capture 100% of the market. Not even the biggest, most popular NYT bestsellers capture 100% of their target market, no matter how many marketing weasels call something "the must-read book of the year."

Will writing certain things limit your reviews? Sure. Again, that's always true. If I put a m/f sex scene in a book, Wave won't review it. She pays the hosting fees, so the site runs by her rules. That's not a limitation on what I can or should write, though, and I doubt very much that even Wave thinks it should be.

I'll write what I want to write, and let each book find its audience. Some audiences are going to be bigger than others -- that's how the business works. Trying to guess ahead of time what's going to be huge or what's going to be smaller, and then writing only what you think will be huge, is a fool's game, though. Coincidentally, Dean Wesley Smith posted about something like this just a day or two ago -- The Myth: To sell either to editors or readers, you must write what is hot. Dean's answer to this question is, "Kick all the editor and agent and online board voices out of your writing office and write what makes you passionate or angry or excited." That, right there -- do that, or IMO there's no point in being a writer. We're certainly not here to get rich, right? If your number one goal is making money, there are a lot of easier, less chancy ways of going about it. [wry smile] If I'm not having fun, if I'm not writing what I want and what I love, then I have no reason to be here.

Angie

Literary Segregation

Hal Duncan wrote an awesome post on segregation in our fictional culture, and everyone who writes or reads (or watches TV or movies, or makes or consumes any other kind of fictional media) should read it. Powerful stuff.

The status quo in the media, in our narratives, is segregation. It’s a state in which members of abject groups--black, queer, whatever--are deemed to not belong as main characters. This is the segregation of not being able to sit at the front of the bus. The abject may be allowed in as an exception if this "serves the plot" if there's a reason for the character’s gayness. This is the segregation of being stopped in a white neighborhood and challenged on your purpose in being there. The abject may be allowed in as Gay Best Friends or Magic Negros in service of the straight, white protagonist. This is the segregation of travelling into a white neighbourhood to work as a cleaner in someone’s house.

Yes, this. This is what's going on whenever someone says they don't want to read a story about a woman, because they're not into all that shoes-dating-mommy stuff, as if any narrative about a woman must be about "woman things." Or when someone else says they don't want to watch a movie about a black character, because "I don't want someone preaching at me about racism." As if any narrative about a black character must feature racism as the driving force of the plot.* Or when someone protests watching a TV show about a gay character, because "homophobia, blah-blah-blah, and besides I don't wanna see two guys doing it." As though every narrative about gay people has to be blatantly sexual, and must focus on homophobia.**

Those stereotyped cliches are the uniforms Duncan talks about, the special roles people who aren't white/straight/able-bodied/male/Christian/and-so-on have to wear to justify their place in a "normal" narrative. A story can have a black protag only if the story is about Black Problems. A story can have a gay protag only if the plot is centered on Gay Issues. A story can have a female protag only if it focuses on Women's Stuff. The idea that a mystery could have a black detective, or that a war story could have be about a female officer, or that a thriller could be about a gay spy -- without the protag's blackness or femaleness or gayness being a key to the situation or conflict -- well, that just doesn't occur to very many people. The default protag is the straight, able-bodied, Christian white man, and it takes deliberate thought for most writers to reach for someone else, unless they're writing that Black Story, or Woman's Story, or Gay Story, or Blind Story, or Autistic Story, or Jewish Story, or whatever other "special" narrative they're crafting, aimed at a "special" (meaning small, niche, specialty) audience.

Only by recognising that system for what it is can we deal with it, as we must and as we can. If we can desegregate the buses, we can desegregate narrative. When it comes to fictional representation of the abject, if we can understand what we are striving for as desegregation, articulate it as such, there is no argument against this. Otherwise? Simply demand better treatment for queer characters, and they'll say we're demanding special treatment; they'll call it political correctness. They'll say we want leather armchairs at the back of the bus. Simply demand more queer protagonists, and they'll say we're demanding quotas. They'll say we want seats set aside for us at the front, even at the expense of some poor old white fart called Art.

Demand desegregation, and all this straw man bullshit is exposed for what it is.

This. It's not about quotas or "special rights" or political correctness. It's about being allowed to sit in front of the bus, about being allowed to be the protagonist, to save the world and solve the mystery and find love and win the competition, and anything else that straight white guys have been doing in fiction for centuries.

Read the whole thing, because Hal Duncan has a powerful voice, and a clear perspective that sees past the crap that's been there so long it's become invisible.

Angie

*I won't even get into how someone who reacts that strongly against hearing about racism is probably the exact sort of person who needs to hear about it.

**See previous note about people who recoil from hearing about bigotry being the ones who need to hear about it.

DOMA and Prop 8 Unconstitutional

When you wake up in the morning (hey, it was still morning) and your in-box is full of joyful announcements that the Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8 [both PDF links] have both been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, that's a damn fine way to start a day.

My usual demeanor is pretty cynical, I'll be the first to admit -- the things people do to one another, around the world and particularly here in the US, have contributed to that throughout my life. One of the most ridiculous, hateful, fearmongering trends in recent years has been the insistence by so many social conservatives that same-sex marriage is bad, wrong, evil, unnatural, and a threat to "traditional" marriage. The people who support this vile drivel have been masking their hate and fear and general negativity about the issue by insisting that they're trying to "defend" marriage. Even with many thousands of gay and lesbian people getting married in the US in states where it's been legal, even with the hundreds of thousands (maybe millions?) of gay and lesbian people getting married in countries around the world where it's legal -- including Canada, right next door -- fearful, scowling folks keep insisting that gay marriage is somehow dangerous, that it threatens traditional man-woman marriage.

You know what? My traditional marriage doesn't need defending, certainly not by people like them. When Jim and I were living in California, about 40,000 gay couples got married during the five months that it was legal, if I remember the numbers correctly, and hey, we're still married! Imagine that! All those people, men marrying men and women marrying women, and there was never a morning when either Jim or I woke up and said, "Hey, damn, I feel this overwhelming need to divorce you and marry someone of my own sex!" We have a great marriage, it's as strong as ever, and all those gay people joyfully marrying each other did nothing whatsoever to damage our marriage. Heck, we got a double dose of this dangerous threat to our union when our new home state of Washington legalized gay marriage last year -- you'll be happy to know I've still felt no impulse to divorce my husband.

One of my favorite sayings to come out of this situation is, "The only threat to traditional marriage is traditional divorce." Halle-freaking-luiah.

If you want to defend the institution of marriage, how about taking all the money and energy and other resources that've been poured into trying to prevent gays and lesbians from marrying and instead use it to, I don't know, offer free counseling to couples whose marriages are actually in trouble? That'd be a constructive focus for the beliefs of the social conservatives, one that'd help a lot of people while hurting nobody, unlike DOMA and Prop 8 and related efforts, which are purely destructive and have caused a lot of hardship and misery.

Just a suggestion for any defenders of marriage who are trying to figure out what their next move should be.

So, the Feds now recognize any legal marriage, no matter what the plumbing of the married people looks like. And gay people are free to marry once more in California, which is awesome.

This news actually chips away a tiny bit at my natural cynicism. If the other 37 states ever get with the 21st century and let gay couples marry, I might actually turn into a complete optimist! Let's work toward that, shall we?

Angie

The Perfect Metaphor

Still on the Resnick/Malzberg thing. I've been trying to figure out how to model what could possibly have been going on in these guys' heads, because they're not stupid, whatever they might've been displaying recently. Ferret Steinmetz hit it perfectly.

When you do something very difficult in an Xbox game, you get an Achievement. It’s a fizzy little thrill, not unlike winning a scratch-off lottery ticket: you vanquish a difficult boss and there’s a blip noise, then an alert at the bottom of the screen: ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED.

You’re told the name of your special Achievement. It is added to your profile, and is yours forevermore.

...

There appear to be a lot of feisty old dudes who think they’re awesome at this equality thing.

Here’s the thing: by 1970s standards? I’m sure all of these gentlemen were enlightened. Compared to the treatment women, gays, and blacks got from mainstream society at the time, these dudes were well ahead of the curve. And at the time, they deserved all the credit for going above and beyond ordinary treatment. Still do, in a certain sense.

The problem is, in their heads, they Achievement Unlocked. They became Good To Girls, or Friend To The Negro, or Comfortable With Homos. And that badge could never be removed. Once they’d proven their magnificent tolerance in the crucible of the Issues of the Day, they never had to question their position again.

That's it, right there. Steinmetz nailed it completely. Click through to read the whole thing. I hope Resnick and Malzberg do, and that it makes a lightbulb go off in their heads.

Angie