AwkwardMD and Omenainen Review Thread

[NotWise]

https://img.ifunny.co/images/da67e48663a7e0b42d35e3e81c9d96dbff2e8a99418d421fddb8dced2f081560_1.jpg

I love the comment.

I think there’s some room for non-sex dialogue and plot elements built around a female supporting character; it is after all LITerotica. Some readers are (or at least, I am) looking for a bit more than the equivalent of a PornHub teaser video.

Almost all of my stories have some plot element other than sex. Some of them have too much plot for many readers.

I actually listed out my stories and marked them for whether I thought they would pass or fail the three rules:

More than one woman in the story,
The women actually have a conversation,
The conversation is not about the male character and/or sex.

I think it illustrates a problem trying to apply the rules to literature.

If I'm very strict about it, no more than nine of the 27 stories even have a chance of passing. The other 18 stories are all written either in first person from a male point of view, or third person limited, mostly from a male point of view. With the man always present, there's never a conversation strictly between two women. Even some of the nine that are written from a female POV may fail because there's no significant conversation with another woman.

If I give the rules a looser interpretation, then I have a 14/13 split with the majority passing, but in a lot of cases the conversation that gives the story a pass is not a conversation between two women, but a conversation between one woman and a couple. In Oscar's Place Trish relates her life story over a table to both Emily and Nick. Watch Me is almost entirely about Rae and Penny, but told from Chad's point of view. The women never have dialogue that is strictly between them. Even in the final scene, which is almost entirely between Penny and Rae, Chad is intimately involved.

With a still-looser interpretation I can get a 17/10 split with the majority passing, but that's because I either loosen conditions for when a conversation is about the man (or sex), or because I let short conversations with secondary characters qualify.

I like the Bechdel test as a litmus test, but that's as far as I can take it.

 

[SeabornFare]

Unless that's not the point of the story.

The truth of this statement is for those you putting more emphasis on the B-Test when the B-test isn't the measure of a story or character depth. The test is an eye roll, and a smirk, with a holier than though sentiment. (Some people just can't see that.)

 

[AwkwardMD]

I've never made a goal of passing the Bechdel test, but I've faced it before and given it some thought.

A lot of erotica is bound to fail the test because the story is about sex and (not surprisingly) most of the dialogue is about sex. The story needs some plot element other than sex in order to pass the test.

Another problem is that in a heterosexual story you can have two well-developed female characters who relate to the male character, but have little or no direct contact with each other.

There's some variation in how strict you want to be with the terms, but maybe only half of my stories would pass the test.

I bet I have a fair amount of work that either fails the Bechdel test or whatever the inverted Male version is (since I write a lot of lesbian stories). It's a very limited test, but it is worth pinning it to the wall to think about every so often, when you have a story that has the right set up and length.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I want to take a moment to talk about authority.

I've been writing for a long time. I've experimented with a lot of techniques. My failures have taught me even more than the successes. I've put a lot of work into learning the craft of writing, and my goal here is to share what I believe are truths.

At a few different points throughout this thread, I've talked about some rules (like the use of proper names in dialogue). I want to make sure it's clear that when I talk about these things, I'm not trying to set myself up as an authority figure. I am an author. Anyone who submits work to the site is an author. That makes us peers.

We're all adults. We all know that there are exceptions to every rule. No matter how vociferously I might rail against proper names in dialog, you'll find proper names in dialog in my stories. That's not hypocrisy, it's me finding places where rules should be broken because it's stronger to do so than to adhere to a silly rule

I hope that everyone understands that. A good rule is a rule that is widely applicable, and the mark of mastery is being able to discern between the places where it applies and the places where it doesn't.

Framing everything in writing as a tool is a useful technique for me personally, and a good framework for teaching because it highlights things like applicability, usefulness, and effectiveness. My writing theory is not something I expect anyone to adopt. That's not the point.

Diversity is a tool, and a rule. There are places where it helps and places where it doesn't. Proper names in dialog. The Bechdel test. There are exceptions to every rule. You wouldn't have diversity in a brother-sister incest story that only focuses on two characters, and nor would it pass the Bechdel test. A story could do every single thing differently than I've laid out so far in this thread and still be successful, because there are many paths to success.

I am not trying to teach anyone to write like me. I will have failed if this thread produces a bunch of clones. My own writing is intensely personal and largely therapeutic, and literally no one is clamoring for that. The goal is to enable everyone who wanders by to be able to be purposeful and mindful in their writing, and to be able to produce exactly the kind of story and reader reaction that they are going for.

 

[MetaBob]

Gotta say, I love that AMD's review of the older version of Packback on this site has stirred so much discussion in so little time, even if I think some specifics of that review were misplaced, perhaps from skimming or preconception. Glyn "shallow"? Greta just "tall"? Flake assuming Greta is his girlfriend? Master Kim regarding Megan as anyone's "property"?! The observation that Mike regards her that way is spot on, of course, which is why the major arc of the story is him getting paid back for that and the actions he takes as a result of that, while most of the story's character development is Megan's. She chooses Scott and he accepts, not the other way around at all, same with Greta and Flake, and Peri and Steve, and Graciela and Josh, though Peri does play a huge part in initiating that last, the way she has a huge impact on everything she does. (Peri will return in Book 2 of Senioritis, btw, if I ever get around to writing that past its current outline.)

FWIW, just as Flake is Scott's male friend, I wrote Greta as Megan's equivalent: direct, sharply witty, intensely loyal to and protective of her friend (just as Megan and Scott become with each other), and not incidentally funny as hell. I modeled her on Kat Dennings in the first Thor film and Krysten Ritter in She's Out Of My League. Whether I succeeded or not is up for debate, but her actions have been significantly misrepresented here by more than one person, to the point that the same thing seems to be happening to her characterization.

Brit, yeah, that's on target too, she's a tertiary character, and maybe I shouldn't have given Doe a name at all since she's barely present except as a fun, lovable third: Brit's Greta. The two "girls" from Lake Arrowhead could probably be omitted entirely without impact.

You need not be concerned that I intend for all (or any) of my stories to pass the Bechdel Test; in the (admittedly terrible) example you presented, the person who uses it has watched exactly one film in 40+ years because all the rest, according to her, fail that test, just as is the case for the piece AMD offered earlier as an example from her own writing. However, and this is one of several good takeaways for me, I need to always remain aware of it.

Give these characters some mundane tasks, like riding around in a car and covering an entire ten minute conversation, and I think you’ll be shocked by what comes out of their mouths.

More good advice, and something already heeded in chapter 1 of my Crossings, where the occupants of two cars do exactly this, with exactly that result. That was really fun to write, in fact.

Once again, a sincere thank you to AMD for reviewing a good chunk of one of my pieces and for several illuminating observations therefrom, and to everyone else for their thoughts. I truly appreciate them.

 

[NotWise]

You need not be concerned that I intend for all (or any) of my stories to pass the Bechdel Test; in the (admittedly terrible) example you presented, the person who uses it has watched exactly one film in 40+ years because all the rest, according to her, fail that test, just as is the case for the piece AMD offered earlier as an example from her own writing. However, and this is one of several good takeaways for me, I need to always remain aware of it.

The comic that AMD posted is actually the origin of the Bechdel test. It was published in 1985. Alien came out in 1979, so it had been six years since the character saw a movie that passed the test.

 

[ChadAlpha]

I love the comment.



Almost all of my stories have some plot element other than sex. Some of them have too much plot for many readers.

I actually listed out my stories and marked them for whether I thought they would pass or fail the three rules:

More than one woman in the story,
The women actually have a conversation,
The conversation is not about the male character and/or sex.

I think it illustrates a problem trying to apply the rules to literature.

If I'm very strict about it, no more than nine of the 27 stories even have a chance of passing. The other 18 stories are all written either in first person from a male point of view, or third person limited, mostly from a male point of view. With the man always present, there's never a conversation strictly between two women. Even some of the nine that are written from a female POV may fail because there's no significant conversation with another woman.

If I give the rules a looser interpretation, then I have a 14/13 split with the majority passing, but in a lot of cases the conversation that gives the story a pass is not a conversation between two women, but a conversation between one woman and a couple. In Oscar's Place Trish relates her life story over a table to both Emily and Nick. Watch Me is almost entirely about Rae and Penny, but told from Chad's point of view. The women never have dialogue that is strictly between them. Even in the final scene, which is almost entirely between Penny and Rae, Chad is intimately involved.

With a still-looser interpretation I can get a 17/10 split with the majority passing, but that's because I either loosen conditions for when a conversation is about the man (or sex), or because I let short conversations with secondary characters qualify.

I like the Bechdel test as a litmus test, but that's as far as I can take it.

Glad you took the tone of my comment as intended. It was just a comedic aside about the dangers of plot as a mere conduit to sex, and of (female) character that, but for their curves, are flat — I didn’t mean any commentary on the B-test exclusively, or your stories.

I haven’t read MetaBob’s story that AMD reviewed and definitely agree with your point on how POV can, in effect, preclude passing that test (especially if it’s a story with MMC in 1st person).

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

Gotta say, I love that AMD's review of the older version of Packback on this site has stirred so much discussion in so little time, even if I think some specifics of that review were misplaced, perhaps from skimming or preconception. Glyn "shallow"? Greta just "tall"? Flake assuming Greta is his girlfriend? Master Kim regarding Megan as anyone's "property"?!

Hi MetaBob, I just want to make sure that I clarify that my comments are only a side note on AMD’s review and its insightfulness, and not a comment on your story. I’ve read and enjoyed others of your stories but unfortunately not read Packback yet, and so I have no takeaways or comments. But I appreciate you letting us use your story as jump-off and I’m sure everyone else agrees

I want to take a moment to talk about authority.

AMD, you’re too nice To quote Cartman, I’d be telling people “Respect my author-tay”

Kidding, obviously. I think that all of us are keeping that perspective, and just are extremely grateful to you for the time and work you’re offering. It’s very generous of you, and the resulting info is very insightful and helpful.

https://img.ifunny.co/images/da67e48663a7e0b42d35e3e81c9d96dbff2e8a99418d421fddb8dced2f081560_1.jpg

—

https://media3.giphy.com/media/I4Jmrcjnr8Zfq/giphy.gif?cid=19f5b51a65e4da6b81a2bcb94aee8ca7d0225dfbb98fad4d&rid=giphy.gif

I’m CRY

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'm just reframing stuff that other people have already said, but: the Bechdel test (Alison Bechdel prefers "Bechdel-Wallace", since she got the idea from her friend Liz Wallace) is something like a sneeze.

When somebody sneezes, that doesn't prove they're sick. When somebody isn't sneezing, that doesn't mean they're well. And when somebody who is sick resists the urge to sneeze, that doesn't help them get better...

...but if hundreds of people in one place are sneezing again and again, then maybe it's time to take a closer look at what's going on.

Sometimes the answers will be "I prefer to write short stories with a male protagonist and only one other major character". If that's your personal brand, fine. But it's generally worth being aware of such choices instead of slipping into them without even noticing it.

(I haven't read MetaBob's story so this is all general comment, not directed at that one.)

 

[NotWise]

AMD,

I don't think you need authority for what you're doing, but you deserve respect for your time and effort.

Diversity is a tool, and a rule. There are places where it helps and places where it doesn't.

I know I've picked at you before about "diversity" but I'm going to do it again. For some reason, of all the things you've said, your use of "diversity" nags at me. "Diversity" is a catch word used in the news and in public policy. In some contexts it refers to racial diversity. In other contexts it refers to diversity in orientation. There are other uses.

My problem is that the catch word usually refers to different groups of people. It's never (as near as I can tell) used to refer to the differences between individuals. The differences between individuals can be much greater than the differences between groups, and we usually write about individuals, not about groups.

I could write a story in which a weaver tending her sheep confronts a wealthy attorney from Chicago. They're very different people with very different interests and experiences, but there's not much "diversity" because they're both straight, female, white Americans.

The same weaver tending her sheep could confront a gay, Native American neighbor -- also a weaver -- tending his sheep. There's a lot of "diversity," but they share virtually all of the same interests.

People who are actually very different from each other -- diverse folk -- don't share much in common for building a relationship.

What do you mean by "diversity?" To me, it sounds like you're telling us that stereotypes are tools for better writing.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I know I've picked at you before about "diversity" but I'm going to do it again. For some reason, of all the things you've said, your use of "diversity" nags at me. "Diversity" is a catch word used in the news and in public policy. In some contexts it refers to racial diversity. In other contexts it refers to diversity in orientation. There are other uses.

My problem is that the catch word usually refers to different groups of people. It's never (as near as I can tell) used to refer to the differences between individuals. The differences between individuals can be much greater than the differences between groups, and we usually write about individuals, not about groups.

I could write a story in which a weaver tending her sheep confronts a wealthy attorney from Chicago. They're very different people with very different interests and experiences, but there's not much "diversity" because they're both straight, female, white Americans.

The same weaver tending her sheep could confront a gay, Native American neighbor -- also a weaver -- tending his sheep. There's a lot of "diversity," but they share virtually all of the same interests.

People who are actually very different from each other -- diverse folk -- don't share much in common for building a relationship.

What do you mean by "diversity?" To me, it sounds like you're telling us that stereotypes are tools for better writing.

As I said before, there are many paths to success. Both of the examples you gave seem to demonstrate diversity in different ways, and I would encourage you to keep them in mind for future projects. There isn't one right way to do something that is diverse, and it would be folly to try to enumerate them.

What I can do is show you what it looks like when there isn't any.

I have a story called Violet. In this story, the protagonist is an isolated college student with no friends, and she finds out that she has a sister that she never knew about. This sister fills a need for her that is so deep and vast that she cannot put words to how powerful it is.

In the course of getting to know her sister, Violet finds out that her sister and her mother, from whom she was estranged, have a sexual relationship. The sister and mother are ESL speakers, meaning that their primary language is not English, and as is common for ESL speakers they revert to their primary language in private, or when in select company. The mother and sister, when they are together in private, speak in Spanish, and I wrote the story with untranslated Spanish dialog as a means of highlighting and reinforcing how alienated the POV protagonist is. She doesn't speak Spanish. She barely understands what she's seeing. She is on the outside looking in, and it's hard to be on the outside looking in.

I have received many frustrated comments about having untranslated Spanish, but they were mostly benign. I made a stylistic choice, and they didn't like it. Fine.

This is a comment I received on chapter 1 about a year ago:

I was so in love with this story as I read it immediately sucked me in and pulled me along. Everything about it(aside from a few grammatical errors)painted this non-stop effortless in imagine picture in my brain. Easily evoked emotion in me that every author should strive to be able to pull from their readers. THEN you fucked it up by adding in the Spanish parts at the end that completely ruined the perfect flow you crafted before hand. Why add the Spanish bits without adding in some kind of translation. You obviously know the majority of your readers are probably going to be English speakers so it seems completely counterproductive to do that. God that pissed me off so much. I hadn't even made a quarter of the way through the first page and I was already wishing that this story would be a super long read. That Spanish section pissed me off so much I skipped the last part of the second page and haven't even started reading any of the third page yet. SERIOUSLY what the fuck man.

This is the comment on Chapter 2:

You just can't stop yourself from ruining the flow of your story. If you are going to add Spanish then add some translation as well cause I can promise you most of the people reading you story can't read it. Honestly it's the shit is so irritating because your writing is so good then you go and purposefully alienate what is most likely a big segment of the people who would enjoy your story. Couldn't even finish the story because of it. I love to read and to me it felt like someone purposefully taking away something I love.

I took away something he loved. Think about that. This person is insulted by the presence of another culture. Insulted and affronted. He feels so entitled in his bubble to be able to claim that I ruined his experience. This person can't imagine a scenario where anyone else but he, and the demographic he belongs to, get to have any meaningful inclusion in the media he prefers. This is what it looks like when someone spends a long period of time without ever confronting anything different, and I feel pity for him.

We, as authors, are in the position of preventing others from coming along and having the same reaction to something new. It is no one person's job to fix, no one person could, but it doesn't take very much. Like the Bechdel test, 'some diversity' is so easy to achieve.

Edit: Just so it's clear what the context here is, Violet Chapter 1 includes 9 lines of untranslated Spanish dialog. It's very brief, and it's only the dialog. Chapter 2 includes 20 lines of untranslated dialog. It's never the narrative, only the words being spoken between two characters.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

As I said before, there are many paths to success. Both of those examples seem to demonstrate diversity in different ways, and I would encourage you to keep them in mind for future projects. There isn't one right way to do something that is diverse, and it would be folly to try to enumerate them.

What I can do is show you what it looks like when there isn't any.

I have a story called Violet. In this story, the protagonist is an isolated college student with no friends, and she finds out that she has a sister that she never knew about. This sister fills a need for her that is so deep and vast that she cannot put words to how powerful it is.

In the course of getting to know her sister, Violet finds out that her sister and her mother, from whom she was estranged, have a sexual relationship. The sister and mother are ESL speakers, meaning that their primary language is not English, and as is common for ESL speakers they revert to their primary language in private, or when in select company. The mother and sister, when they are together in private, speak in Spanish, and I wrote the story with untranslated Spanish dialog as a means of highlighting and reinforcing how alienated the POV protagonist is. She is on the outside looking in, and it's hard to be on the outside looking in.

I have received many frustrated comments about having untranslated Spanish, but they were mostly benign. I made a stylistic choice, and they didn't like it. Fine.

This is a comment I received on chapter 1 about a year ago:



This is the comment on Chapter 2:



I took away something he loved. Think about that. This person is insulted by the presence of another culture. Insulted and affronted. He feels so entitled in his bubble to be able to claim that I ruined his experience. This person can't imagine a scenario where anyone else but he, and the demographic he belongs to, get to have any meaningful inclusion in the media he prefers. This is what it looks like when someone spends a long period of time without ever confronting anything different, and I feel pity for him.

We, as authors, are in the position of preventing others from coming along and having the same reaction to something new. It is no one person's job to fix, no one person could, but it doesn't take very much. Like the Bechdel test, 'some diversity' is so easy to achieve.

I get similar laments (emails, because I turned off comments) from readers about my main series of novels, because my FMC, who was kidnapped and grew up in Europe, occasionally speaks Italian and Hungarian. But they are nothing compared to the vitriolic responses to the MMC who is WHM and speaks/thinks in the very urban colloquial jargon that lots of Wall Street guys think/speak.

 

[MetaBob]

Hi MetaBob, I just want to make sure that I clarify that my comments are only a side note on AMD’s review and its insightfulness, and not a comment on your story. I’ve read and enjoyed others of your stories but unfortunately not read Packback yet, and so I have no takeaways or comments. But I appreciate you letting us use your story as jump-off and I’m sure everyone else agrees

My pleasure(?!). Thank you very much for the encouragement, and for reading and remembering (and praising!) something of mine. That's just as wonderful as hearing AMD's honest, unvarnished critical appraisal, and feels even better.

I get similar laments (emails, because I turned off comments) from readers about my main series of novels, because my FMC, who was kidnapped and grew up in Europe, occasionally speaks Italian and Hungarian. But they are nothing compared to the vitriolic responses to the MMC who is WHM and speaks/thinks in the very urban colloquial jargon that lots of Wall Street guys think/speak.

(Anonymous) Commenters suck. Except when they don't, because sometimes even the anonymous ones are wonderful. My favorite/least favorite (anonymous, of course):

I am out.
...
With the current state of politics, I can't stand "Strong" women in charge.

The writing is good, and (if I ignore my above statements) it does bring you into the world.

Best of luck.

Yeh, that oikoumene SUCKS, even if the commenter liked my writing at some level.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I took away something he loved. Think about that. This person is insulted by the presence of another culture. Insulted and affronted. He feels so entitled in his bubble to be able to claim that I ruined his experience. This person can't imagine a scenario where anyone else but he, and the demographic he belongs to, get to have any meaningful inclusion in the media he prefers. This is what it looks like when someone spends a long period of time without ever confronting anything different, and I feel pity for him.

Edit: Just so it's clear what the context here is, Violet Chapter 1 includes 9 lines of untranslated Spanish dialog. It's very brief, and it's only the dialog. Chapter 2 includes 20 lines of untranslated dialog. It's never the narrative, only the words being spoken between two characters.

Given your context as to the actual amount of Spanish text in your story (which is minimal) I'm not sure that he was affronted or insulted by the presence of the foreign culture. I'd say he was more likely a lazy bastard who a) couldn't see the subtlety you'd brought to that use of language - (which I think was clever and on-point); and b) didn't do the obvious thing and drop the text into Google Translate.

Many readers want to be spoon-fed everything, and any subtlety is wasted on them. The fact that the reader then drops his ire in a comment is more a reflection of ignorance than intolerance, I reckon.

You'd made the choice of not offering a translation (which would have been a more traditional way through a plot point like this) knowing, I suggest, that it might alienate some readers. And cudos to you for doing that. But, when someone has pushed back against that narrative choice, maybe you're over-attributing a world view to the guy's reaction when ignorance/stupidity might be a perfectly good explanation.

But then, I tend to put most silly reactions down to stupidity before malice, every time. In my experience, folk generally ain't clever enough to be evil .

 

[AwkwardMD]

maybe you're over-attributing a world view to the guy's reaction when ignorance/stupidity might be a perfectly good explanation

That is entirely possible. My interpretation comes from the stark difference in tone between this reader and others who voiced a similar frustration. Maybe this guy was just more eloquent, or maybe he was intolerant.

I can't do anything about laziness but I can address intolerance, so I try to do what I can with this platform that I have here.

 

[NotWise]

I took away something he loved. Think about that. This person is insulted by the presence of another culture. Insulted and affronted. He feels so entitled in his bubble to be able to claim that I ruined his experience. This person can't imagine a scenario where anyone else but he, and the demographic he belongs to, get to have any meaningful inclusion in the media he prefers. This is what it looks like when someone spends a long period of time without ever confronting anything different, and I feel pity for him.

We, as authors, are in the position of preventing others from coming along and having the same reaction to something new. It is no one person's job to fix, no one person could, but it doesn't take very much. Like the Bechdel test, 'some diversity' is so easy to achieve.

I can't defend your commentator. If I cared that much, then I'd translate.

On the other hand, I live in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood. Advertising is in Spanish. Public documents are bilingual. Some of my neighbors speak no English. Some speak Spanish at home and English in public, and some just speak English. I can read some Spanish, but I don't speak it.

I've written Spanglish into my stories because I thought my English-speaking readers could still get it, but if I were to read a story that suddenly switched from English to Spanish, I'd wonder who it was written for. It wouldn't be me.

There are at least ten different languages spoken here that the State recognizes as "native", but authors usually stick to English regardless of the language their characters might speak. Really, Silko's Yellow Woman was written in English even though that would be an improbable choice of languages for the characters.

Spanish might be a real element of your characters' diverse world, but switching languages doesn't communicate with many of your readers.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I can't defend your commentator. If I cared that much, then I'd translate.

On the other hand, I live in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood. Advertising is in Spanish. Public documents are bilingual. Some of my neighbors speak no English. Some speak Spanish at home and English in public, and some just speak English. I can read some Spanish, but I don't speak it.

I've written Spanglish into my stories because I thought my English-speaking readers could still get it, but if I were to read a story that suddenly switched from English to Spanish, I'd wonder who it was written for. It wouldn't be me.

There are at least ten different languages spoken here that the State recognizes as "native", but authors usually stick to English regardless of the language their characters might speak. Really, Silko's Yellow Woman was written in English even though that would be an improbable choice of languages for the characters.

Spanish might be a real element of your characters' diverse world, but switching languages doesn't communicate with many of your readers.

My writing is largely therapeutic. I share it because I'm proud of it, but I didn't write it for anyone else but me. Underneath everything else, I wrote Violet during (and about) one of the darkest times in my life.

The inclusion of untranslated Spanish is one of the more risky experiments I've had, and it is probably the experiment that received the worst reader reaction. The response was a net positive, but there was a significant negative reaction. Still glad I did it. Still proud of it. Still went ahead with including untranslated Chinese in another story.

Side note, Two chapters with a similar level of untranslated Chinese received little to no response from readers. Nobody cared. Spanish, though? I took away something he loved.

 

[SimonDoom]

I should point out that no one should ever aim to pass the Bechdel test. It's not worth focusing on as a goal. Simply treat all of your characters as important people in their own right, on their own journies through their own lives. They are their own main characters in a different story.

I like this point, not as a hard and fast rule but as a guideline for increasing mindfulness as I write. I tend to be a concept/plot-driven author rather than a character-driven author, and when I look back at my stories I sometimes wonder if I've gone too far to shoehorn my characters into their plot roles instead of fleshing out their own characters and hinting at their lives before and after the stories. Even in a short story you can be mindful of the notion that each character is the main character in his or her story, and there's a fair chance this habit will make your stories better.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I could write a story in which a weaver tending her sheep confronts a wealthy attorney from Chicago. They're very different people with very different interests and experiences, but there's not much "diversity" because they're both straight, female, white Americans.

In most of the Serious Discussion I see about "diversity", it is very much recognised that the term includes that kind of difference. A few examples from the first page of search hits on "definition of diversity":

https://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~asuomca/diversityinit/definition.html The concept of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect. It means understanding that each individual is unique,
and recognizing our individual differences. These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies.

https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/Diversity/definition.html (exactly the same text as above)

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/diversity the inclusion of individuals representing more than one national origin, color, religion, socioeconomic stratum, sexual orientation, etc.:

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/diversity/definition In North America, the word “diversity” is strongly associated with racial diversity. However, that is just one dimension of the human reality. We also differ in gender, language, manners and culture, social roles, sexual orientation, education, skills, income, and countless other domains. In recent years, some advocates have even argued for recognition of “neurodiversity,” which refers to the range of differences in brain function.

Certainly it's something that I try to think about when I'm writing. It's not one of my strengths - I come from a very whitebread middle-class background, I've never experienced anything different - but

The same weaver tending her sheep could confront a gay, Native American neighbor -- also a weaver -- tending his sheep. There's a lot of "diversity," but they share virtually all of the same interests.

Should they, though?

Being gay, or coming from a First Nations background, tends to be a big thing in somebody's life. It affects one's family life, experiences with authority and with social systems, all sorts of things that play a role in shaping people.

That doesn't mean they can't be friends! If they're neighbours with a common interest in sheep and weaving, and they're not assholes, that's plenty of basis for a friendship. But it's unlikely that his attitudes to cops, schools, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, will be the same as hers.

What do you mean by "diversity?" To me, it sounds like you're telling us that stereotypes are tools for better writing.

In between "write everybody like a straight white guy" and "write everybody like a stereotype" there is considerable room for nuance.

Every gay person in modern society lives with the knowledge that a significant percentage of the population believes being gay is bad and that gay people should be frowned upon/disallowed basic legal rights/killed.

Every gay person is confronted over and over with choices about how to handle that. Stay in the small town where you grew up, or move to the big city in the hope of finding more acceptance? Hold your lover's hand in public? Do you tell your parents, and if so when? Are you out to your children, your workmates, your doctor, ...?

There are a million different ways to answer those questions, and all of them have consequences. If you're writing a gay character, and characterisation is something you value, then you should think about how your character has faced and answered those questions - what do the answers show about them, how have the consequences shaped them?

Stereotypes are a lazy answer to that question, and sometimes harmful to boot. But ignoring those questions and writing a gay character who's somehow managed to get through life completely untouched by these issues is also lazy, IMHO.

(Obviously, how much you actually show of that background depends on the medium - in a short story or one without much dialogue, it doesn't necessarily need to be spelled out. But it's worth at least thinking about.)

 

[Grgur]

Go ahead, love the feedback

https://literotica.com/s/violet-and-the-warrens-ch-01

 

[SeabornFare]

In between "write everybody like a straight white guy" and "write everybody like a stereotype" there is considerable room for nuance.

Are all straight white males the same?

Are all gays the same?

There is diversity between people who share the same sex, sexual preference, skin color, etc.

 

[NotWise]

Every gay person in modern society lives with the knowledge that a significant percentage of the population believes being gay is bad and that gay people should be frowned upon/disallowed basic legal rights/killed.

Every gay person is confronted over and over with choices about how to handle that. Stay in the small town where you grew up, or move to the big city in the hope of finding more acceptance? Hold your lover's hand in public? Do you tell your parents, and if so when? Are you out to your children, your workmates, your doctor, ...?

There are a million different ways to answer those questions, and all of them have consequences. If you're writing a gay character, and characterisation is something you value, then you should think about how your character has faced and answered those questions - what do the answers show about them, how have the consequences shaped them?

Stereotypes are a lazy answer to that question, and sometimes harmful to boot. But ignoring those questions and writing a gay character who's somehow managed to get through life completely untouched by these issues is also lazy, IMHO.

(Obviously, how much you actually show of that background depends on the medium - in a short story or one without much dialogue, it doesn't necessarily need to be spelled out. But it's worth at least thinking about.)

Most of the gay people I know or have known eventually minimized their contact with the straight community: their banker is gay, their doctor is gay, their car salesman is gay, they join gay social and political organizations, etc. They may even live in a homogeneous development where homes are only sold or leased to gay people. I don't know how that's legal, but okay.

People's orientation is their business, not mine. Its fine with me if someone wants to tell me or if they make it evident, but that's up to them, not to me. I write my characters that way, too. I conceived of one or both of Andy and Jorge in Watch Me! as gay, but their orientation was never important to the story and was never mentioned.

 

[8letters]

Gotta say, I love that AMD's review of the older version of Packback on this site has stirred so much discussion in so little time, even if I think some specifics of that review were misplaced, perhaps from skimming or preconception. Glyn "shallow"?

Here's the MMC's initial time spent with Glyn:

I also stumbled into and out of two trail families and had a two-night trail romance with Glyn, a gorgeous 40-something woman who told me she worked in Hollywood. I could easily imagine her being a film star but she said she worked behind the camera and wouldn't say much else. She didn't have a trail name, had an even tighter body than her clothing suggested, and was absolutely fantastic in bed. I think she was curious about me, but I wasn't going to reveal more about myself than she would. I made friends with Steller's Jays, summited still-snowy San Jacinto Peak, and there at the bottom of the connecting trail was Glyn. I'd left notes for her and Megan at the trail junction and Glyn had waited for me, which I thought was sweet. She fucked me deep and slow that night, the best I'd ever had, orgasmed several times herself, woke me for another in the dark and kissed me deep and long in the morning, which rapidly became another great slow fuck. I made her breakfast and left with smiles on both our faces, but it would be a year before I saw Glyn again even though I spent the next night resupplying from a motel in Banning, leaving a note to that effect at the I-10 crossing.

All Glyn is to him is a good lay.

I hit the back button after half a page. It was like a laundry list of accomplishments - "I took two days to summit Mt. San Gorgonio and three days to fuck two horny young honeys senseless." The five women he fucks in the first half page don't get a line of dialogue. The only thing notable about the three that get named are how they are in bed. The MMC seems to have paid more attention to the feelings of the mountain lion he drove off than to any of the women he bedded.

Which brings me to the biggest failing of the story. The MMC from what we've seen is only interested in hiking and casual sex. And yet, he's supposed to have developed a significant relationship with Megan during an evening at a group shelter when she was there with her friend Greta and their boyfriends. He leaves notes constantly for Megan with the hope of ???. This is so against character that it blows up the story.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

But then, I tend to put most silly reactions down to stupidity before malice, every time. In my experience, folk generally ain't clever enough to be evil .

I agree that this is a good starting place for interpreting and reacting to reader responses.

Yeh, that oikoumene SUCKS, even if the commenter liked my writing at some level.

I can’t even with that kind of “feedback”; and yeah, like you said, we all get it sometimes. But it totally does raise the question, “Do I want to be flattered by the compliment, or offended by the small-mindedness behind it?” Shrug; you’re a good writer—may as well take the compliment

Are all straight white males the same?

Are all gays the same?

There is diversity between people who share the same sex, sexual preference, skin color, etc.

It seems to me you and BT are saying the same/similar thing (but maybe that’s a result of my being a “hold-my-hand”-er ) I agree that it’s an important point; diversity has many layers. But because it’s so nuanced, simply putting some effort towards exploring it to some degree can result in more robust storytelling. I don’t think there’s a specific way this has to be done in every story. The story I submitted for AMD’s review didn’t play up racial diversity, but did have some focus on cultural difference/tensions between Caribbean-Americans.

 

[8letters]

It seems to me you and BT are saying the same/similar thing (but maybe that’s a result of my being a “hold-my-hand”-er ) I agree that it’s an important point; diversity has many layers. But because it’s so nuanced, simply putting some effort towards exploring it to some degree can result in more robust storytelling. I don’t think there’s a specific way this has to be done in every story. The story I submitted for AMD’s review didn’t play up racial diversity, but did have some focus on cultural difference/tensions between Caribbean-Americans.

To me, there's three levels of diversity:
#1 - For non-SWM characters to exist in the universe of the story
#2 - For non-SWM characters to have important roles in that universe
#3 - For non-SWM characters to have viewpoints consistent with their characters

I haven't had a lot of diversity in my stories, but I did in my last. In it, I didn't strive for a home run and was quite pleased to get to level #2.