In their latest version, Disney expanded the Beauty and the Beast story and created new, more complex personalities and social dynamics for our favorite characters.
I love fairy tales, and not just the Disney ones. Don’t get me wrong, I love Disney and their recent takes are worth a long look. However, the classic fairy tales provide stronger lessons for writers. I suppose by now you’re wondering how. How, with such shallow characters and simplistic plots, could these stories teach us about writing in today’s world? How, when they are for children, can they teach us about writing more mature content? The answer is easy: they’re not simple and they’re not just for children.
As an undergrad I took more than my fair share of classes on fairy tales, including a comparative literature course. In these classes I read more than the ones our (American) parents read to us. The gritty originals, non-European tales, and the more obscure of the European stories filled the syllabi.
These classes helped us to read fairy tales as more than the stereotypical image of a “fairy tale.” We examined the stories as symbols of different cultures and time periods. Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, all of these classic tales have been explored in many time periods and many nations. The various versions of the same story or the same archetype reveal the shifting of values and attitudes both across time and geographically.
I’m sorry, I got off-track. I’m so enthralled with studying fairy tales, legends, myths, and folklore for their cultural implications that I get a bit carried away.
I consider fairy tales early incarnations of short stories. They began as oral tales and so were simplified to make them easier to remember, but they’re short stories nonetheless. Plots, characters, themes, they have all the basic elements of a good short story.
The deceptively simple surfaces of fairy tales make them the perfect tool for studying these elements. The plots are straightforward, allowing us to examine narrative arcs; the characters are simple and yet captivating, giving us the bare bones of a good character while leaving room for development; the themes are multilayered, some clearly exposed to the audience and others hiding beneath the surface, teaching us about subtext. Most importantly, whatever we dislike in a fairy tale helps us learn what to avoid in our own writing.
Snow White was only seven when she ran into the forest in the Grimm version. I can’t be the only one who has a problem with that. And the Prince didn’t even know her when he kissed her! How is that OK?
For example, I’m not a fan of most Snow White stories. Some of them, even some older ones, have intriguing additions that others do not but many of them, in my opinion, are frustrating. I despise her passivity. For some deep-seeded psychological reason that I can’t identify, I can get past that flaw in most Sleeping Beauty stories, but I absolutely hate it in Snow White tales. The older I’ve become and the more I study fairy tales, the more I dislike Snow White’s passivity. Perhaps it’s not even her passivity I hate as much as her utter lack of agency.
That’s why, even when a female character is passive overall, I find a way to give her some agency. Sometimes it’s as small as internally complaining about an invasive male or as significant as her ordering a man to get out when he doesn’t get the hint. I’m tired of passive female characters having no agency, probably because I worry that I’m so passive that I let myself get stepped on, and so I work to incorporate female characters with agency, whether they are passive or aggressive.
Fairy tales may be considered “children’s stories” nowadays but they haven’t always been that way. They were once oral tales told by adults to keep themselves entertained while working and were later adapted to serve as cautionary tales for children. They can teach us a lot, and not only about the times and cultures from which they come. They’re worth re-reading as adults and as writers to learn more about the bare basics of our crafts. Besides, they’re entertaining and easy to read, a good break from our everyday stresses.
As I’m working on my end-of-year essay for my Master’s program, I can’t help but feel exhilarated. Stressed, a bit frustrated, and banging my head against the wall, but exhilarated. For whatever reason I find most–not all but most–academic/essay writing exciting. (Yeah, I’m a geek. I own it.) I’m not alone in my love of academic/essay writing, not even among fiction writers. Edgar Allen Poe wrote essays on literature and writing. Virginia Woolf composed essays as well, most notably her book-length essay A Room of One’s Own.
Sometimes you can combine fiction and essay writing. Virginia Woolf wrote A Room of One’s Own with a fictional narrator and narrative.
Image retrieved from the Wikipedia entry on A Room of One’s OwnBut what’s the appeal? Why would anyone want to slave over books and analysis, real people and real-world issues, even statistics and other dry facts, rather than letting the imagination run wild in fiction or poetry? I say it’s because academic/essay writing isn’t actually much different from fiction and poetic writing.
What we tend to forget is that academic/essay writing is a creative act. Yes, it can feel very stifling when we’re assigned essay prompts in class and have to worry about writing something that the professor thinks fulfills said prompt. Yet even that sort of academic/essay writing can be creative, if we stumble across a prompt that we’re excited about. That’s where the creativity of academic/essay writing first appears: the topic.
As with anything we write, academic/essay writing becomes its most creative when we are passionate about the topic. We aren’t always so fortunate when we have to write essays for school; I just happened to luck out with my end-of-year essay in that I like one of the prompts and I have many, many thoughts on the book I’m analyzing. However, essays–even academic essays–outside of the classroom can be about anything you want. You just have to be interested in the subject and know something about it.
I personally have a lot of topics which I want to cover in an essay or academic book someday: sexuality and Harry Potter, an extension of my undergraduate critical thesis; the influence of Arthurian romances on the modern soap opera; even the evolution of the word “gay.”
Of course, not everyone who writes essays, even academically, write about literature or writing. My entire world is pretty much books and words. They’re how I understand and navigate the world and how I express my thoughts. It’s only natural for me to gravitate towards analyzing literature and its sociological, historical, and/or psychological impacts. You can write essays on the physical benefits of yoga and meditation, how economic turmoil after World War I served as a catalyst for the Nazi regime, your views on human consciousness, and so on. You can also write personal essays. (I’m not too familiar with these so I’ll leave a link to a Writer’s Digest article on the matter.) The possibilities are endless.
The part of academic/essay writing which requires the most creative effort, however, is the actual writing.
Let’s face it, first drafts are difficult in fiction and poetry; they’re even harder in non-fiction, especially academic/essay writing. The topic you’re writing about may be interesting but you’ll never keep the reader’s attention if your writing isn’t just as interesting.
Length is probably one of the first things we’re concerned about when reading–and writing–academic pieces and essays. As readers, we don’t want to read something tremendously long for fear of being bored. Still, we want the writer to thoroughly cover the subject–if they don’t, it’s not even worth reading. Academic/essay writers must be careful to find the right balance, and this balance is never the same from one piece to the next. We must know what to keep to make our point and which darlings to kill, a creative act which we find in fiction and poetry as well.
As in fiction and poetry, the voice and tone of the work can make or break the essay. In personal essays you also need a narrative arc. Then we have the demons that seem small but can have a huge impact: organization, grammar, sentence length variation, and word choice. Even the most minor error in word choice could put your essay out of the intellectual reach of your target audience.
Academic/essay writing is as much a creative act as fiction and poetry. Neither the topic nor the writing can be boring, especially to the writer. If something is boring the writer, it will certainly bore the reader. Academic/essay writing requires research, thought, and originality. You only need to find a topic you’re interested in and approach it like any other writing endeavor. You never know, you might be able to profit from it. (I had an essay published in the UC Davis Prized Writing Anthology as an undergraduate.)
I keep this image in the rotation for my laptop background to remind me that I just have to keep writing.
Image retrieved from PinterestFor this “Writers on Writing”, I want to discuss Dominican American writer and MacArthur Fellow Junot Diaz. Diaz is best known for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the novel for which he won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I know him for his humorous story “How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)” and his strong political voice on Facebook. Based on what I’ve read, I think he’s a talented, hilarious, and very opinionated man. I’ve also found his writing advice and discussions on his writing, editing, and teaching experiences to be incredibly valuable, especially for struggling writers.
The advice I’m going to focus on is more about uplifting fellow writers than approaches to writing and its difficulties:
You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.
–Junot Diaz, Becoming a Writer/ The List, O Magazine, November 2009, retrieved from Goodreads
This quote, as an image I found somewhere on Google, serves as part of the rotating background on my laptop. I keep it to remind myself that it’s OK that not everything I do is perfect. I’ve especially needed these words recently. It may sound obvious–no one’s perfect, after all–but artists overall don’t typically remember that the world won’t end if they make a mistake. Writers are no exception.
It’s no secret that writers are perfectionists. One of the most common reasons for writer’s block is a paralyzing fear of not creating anything worthwhile. I know that my writer’s block, no matter what the superficial reasons seem to be, always boils down to being afraid that my work is going to be utter crud. It’s the barrier that separates aspiring writers from actual writers.
It doesn’t matter a lick that you’re the most talented writer in the world if you don’t let yourself write something horrible. Conversely, you could think that that 90% of your work is the worst thing ever produced. However, if you keep writing through this 90%, you will reach the 10% that’s gold. You will hit roadblocks, you will feel discouraged, but you will find your masterpiece because you don’t stop. That’s when you stop aspiring to be a writer and start being one.
In addition to sifting through the muck, we have to keep writing when we have no hope because we’re the worst judges of our own work. We may think something is horrific but our readers eat it up, or we think something is genius but it falls flat once it’s out of our hands. There are plenty of examples from famous writers, including Edgar Allen Poe and Herman Melville. Our views are biased either for or against our work, so we’ll never know what’s actually worth the effort until after the effort has been made.
Yes, it can do you and your work a load of good to step away for a while. Sometimes our batteries need to recharge. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean that we should give up entirely when things get tough. In my opinion, writing is about 10% talent, 10% luck, and 80% effort. The more we create, the more likely we are to succeed. That’s why, even when nothing we do shows any promise, we can’t give up. All we can do is continue to write. Remember, this career–this lifestyle–isn’t about publication and success; it’s about doing what we all love, writing.
Any thoughts on Diaz’s words? Have quotes and/or writing advice from famous writers that you think I should discuss? Leave your thoughts in the comments below or contact me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com.
Trigger Warning: Today’s topic is the “bury your gays” trope. The following post and any resulting conversations may contain triggers for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, particularly those who have suffered any abuse for their identities and/or are survivors of attempted suicide or whose loved ones have been affected by such trauma. Please proceed with caution.
Theatrical release poster for the movie Brokeback Mountain, which is much different from the short story, retrieved from the Wikipedia entry
A discussion of Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” has caused some…heated debate within my Master’s Literary Studies program. Unfortunately, such conflict is inevitable when discussing hot-button issues like the treatment of LGBTQIA+ characters in modern literature. It’s certainly given me something to think about, namely the “bury your gays” trope and its effects.
The debate in my class’s discussion forum is mainly over whether writers should take the opinions and sensitivities of certain communities into account when writing a story. The “kill your gays” trope and its persisting prevalence in Western culture emerged during this discussion as an example of why writers should take at least some care in considering how you will represent a specific community. Admittedly, I faded in and out after the initial posts by these people because I feared things could take a bad turn. I also feel, after stupidly repeating myself multiple times in the post, that I made no real contribution and that I just put my foot in my mouth. Still, I have some very strong opinions on this matter.
Before I continue, I want to define the “bury your gays” trope as I have come to understand it. In popular culture there’s a tendency for LGBTQIA+ characters to be killed unnecessarily and/or unnecessarily cruelly. Another prevalent trend is for LGBTQIA+ characters to be given tragic story lines overall, not just being killed off. For more information on this issue and the LGBTQIA+ community’s problems stemming from it, please follow this link.
I’ve said repeatedly that writers shouldn’t care what other people think and just write what they’re going to write. I still believe that. However, many writers, myself included, forget the sort of effect that their works can have.
Writers shape culture, social dynamics, and politics as much as we reflect them. One prominent modern example is the study that suggests that readers of Harry Potter are more empathetic towards stigmatized groups because they read Harry Potter. What we say in our books, short stories, and poetry have a much greater effect on people, on the world, than we could ever imagine.
I know what you’re thinking at this point: if writers have such sway, shouldn’t we use that influence to show people the horrific conditions under which the LGBTQIA+ community often suffers? Yes and no.
We need to use our writing to bring attention to the problem. Sometimes that involves depicting the disastrous outcomes of prejudice, whether there’s a sad ending or a happy ending after the dust has settled. Nevertheless, these traumas should not be the only way in which we represent the LGBTQIA+ community.
Imagine depicting people of color, Jewish people, Muslims, and other minorities only with tragic plots and/or stories in which they die, or that the majority of stories with these communities turned out that way. Could we say it’s to bring to light the injustice, prejudice, and abuse to which they are subjected? It would be racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia. Mind you, all minorities are still severely underrepresented and misrepresented in Western literature. However, if we were to treat them with a parallel of the “bury your gays” trope, would we be able to justify it by saying “characters die” or “tragedy makes for interesting stories”?
Here’s another way to look at it. You know how heterosexual (particularly white heterosexual) people have come to the realization that so many “love stories” end tragically and encourage their children to not follow those examples? Well, take that feeling and apply it not just to love stories but a vast majority of books, TV, and movies in which heterosexual people are main or secondary characters. It’s not something we’d want our children or other people with similar sexual identities to aspire to, huh? Doesn’t really fill you with hope for your own life, does it?
Lexa was a very popular and complex character from The 100. Her relationship with Clarke significantly impacted the LGBTQIA+ community. When she was tragically killed off, there was not only outrage; many in the LGBTQIA+ community were traumatically effected and several were even suicidal. Not every character’s death is justifiable.
I’m not saying that all LGBTQIA+ characters are treated this way. There is, however, a disproportionate number of them that are in comparison with hetero-normative characters. The 100 TV show killed off Lexa, who had a relationship with the main character Clarke; The Originals killed off Josh’s boyfriend, Aiden; some people even consider Dumbledore as an example because he dies, his relationship with Grindewald was tragic, and he is not openly depicted as gay in the Harry Potter books. These are just three of the examples that I’m aware of.
I hate admitting it but I’m not innocent of this trope, either. In a story I submitted for my Master program’s first writing forum, my main character–whose sexual identity is put into question–is killed and, for the reader, seems to be in an ambiguous in-between state, a limbo of sorts. I often thrust my main characters into horrific situations, sometimes even killing them, and especially so in fantasy pieces like this story. That’s why I didn’t even think about the possibility of harming the LGBTQIA+ community with this particular ending.
I can justify it all I want by saying that I was trying to illustrate the poor treatment of the LGBTQIA+ community and the scapegoating that they are subjected to, but there’s a thin line between conveying a message about a negative stereotype and perpetuating it. Before realizing I played into that issue, I had already decided to expand it into a novel (three, actually) that follows the main character after the supposed death. That’s no excuse but my plans do include a better, if bumpy, plot for the main character, so I’m trying to not perpetuate anything negative as I continue my stories.
That brings us to an important question: what if the story is best the way it is, with something bad happening to an LGBTQIA+ character?
The answer is complex. If, after an extensive review and self-reflection, we decide that that’s how the story needs to be, we have to leave the story that way. I was told by the person who helped me realize the social implications of my story that it was a good story; I just shouldn’t publish it yet, given the current socio-political climate. With this story, that’s probably the right path. The fact that I’m trying to make it the first chapter of a novel made that decision easy.
But what about those who need to publish the story exactly as it is in order for it to be its best? Well, you could wait until this trope has been disposed, has itself been buried. You could also write and publish other works which have LGBTQIA+ characters but do not put them through the “bury your gays” trope, instead finding a way to write a great story in which they are content. My strongest recommendation, however, is to not have your first published piece contain a “bury your gays” situation. You wouldn’t publish a story involving racism which ends badly for the person of color as your first published piece, would you?
Ultimately, writers must be the masters of their work. We can’t let the possibility of offending people make us question every one of our choices, but that doesn’t give us free license to offend people without caring at all. If we write negative stereotypes (gender, race, sexual identity, religion, etc.) or constantly kill off minority characters/give them tragic plots more often than our non-minority characters, we perpetuate negative stereotypes and attitudes towards minorities. We can even push people with these identities over the edge. Besides, if we don’t explore alternate endings, we may miss out on a story we’re more proud of. We can’t be policed by other people’s beliefs and sensitivities but we would do well to consider them as we revise our work.
Thoughts? Concerns? Examples of the “bury your gays” trope you wish to discuss? Counter-examples? Remember, we welcome all perspectives but the discussion must remain civil and intellectual. Anything less wouldn’t be productive (and any trolling/bullying could result in your suspension or banning from the comments section; please remember to check the comments policy before posting).
In the last webinar for the year, my Master’s Elements of Fiction class discussed images, metaphors, and symbols. We discussed their roles in writing, how we approach them in our works, their relation to literary theory, and much more. I plan to (eventually) talk about everything that came up in this webinar in one form or another. For today I want to focus on a particular quote on imagery that we debated:
There are images made with eyes open and images made with eyes closed. One is about clear sight and the other about similitude.
–Charles Simic
Our main debate was over which images were made with eyes open–the ones about clear sight or the ones about similitude–and which were made with eyes closed. Part of the class thought that images made with eyes open were about clear sight and that images about similitude were made with eyes closed. The other part, myself included, thought that clear sight images were actually made with your eyes closed and that the images made with your eyes open are similitude.
Before I explain both sides, I should give you the definition of “similitude” (I honestly had to look it up myself). Basically, a similitude is a likeness or a resemblance. (For the full definition, check out Dictionary.com.)
Now, I can see why some people think that Simic means for the clear sight to be the images made with your eyes open. First of all, it makes sense semantically. Images made with eyes wide open comes first in the first sentence and clear sight comes first in the second sentence; it would only make sense if Simic meant for them to correlate. Of course, Simic is a writer, a poet in particular, and so what seems obvious in that sense may not actually be the truth.
I can also see people thinking this way because one would assume that you have to have your eyes open in order to have clear sight. However, this is a literal interpretation of Simic’s words. “Clear sight” could mean seeing things as they truly are, not just as they appear to be in the physical world.
This possibility for “clear sight” is what leads me to believe that images made with your eyes closed are about clear sight. Let’s add to this definition of clear sight the definition of “similitude”. “Similitude” is a likeness or resemblance, something which looks like something else. These sorts of images writers must make with their eyes open in order to see that which the image is a similitude of. The example I gave in class is that I see a flower in front of me, I write “there is a flower”, and that image is a similitude.
Clear sight, then, is something beyond what we see in everyday life. It’s the parts which we can’t see, for which we have to expand our sight and our mind in order to steal a glimpse.
The people trapped at the wall can only witness the shadows in front of them, but we can see that there’s much more to the cave and the world beyond it than what they see.
Let’s take, as an example, Plato’s allegory “The Cave”. I don’t want to mislead anyone with my summary, so here’s a link to a summary of the allegory on Wikipedia. Essentially, there’s a cave in which people are forced to look only ahead of them. Behind them are people with a fire and puppets, which they use to cast shadows on the wall in front of the observers. The people who are forced to look forward only see the shadows on the wall. It’s not until they’re freed that they can see everything: the shadows, what makes the shadows, and the world outside the cave.
Images in literature work in a similar way. When you only look at what’s in front of you, you only see the shadow–the semblance–of the image. However, if you look around, look in unconventional ways, you can see the shadows and the truth behind them. Seeing with your eyes open is the traditional way to see an image. You only see the “shadows” of physical appearance. Seeing with your eyes closed, on the other hand, involves looking beyond the shadows to reach their essence.
I know that, from a common sense point of view, this comparison seems like a stretch. How can you see something clearly if your eyes are closed? I want you to consider for a moment meditation and imagination. When you meditate, your eyes are closed. I can’t speak for anyone else but when I meditate, I see images. They aren’t the objects that are in front of me. Rather, they can be anything from inverted images of the objects around me to a replay of a memory to some flash of cosmic insight that I can’t even explain. Similarly, the images you see in your imagination are not the objects right in front of you. They are distant world, a plant you’ve only seen in passing once or twice in your life, a person you’ve never even laid eyes on. Sometimes your eyes have to close in order for those images to come into focus, like how dreaming brings images into sharp focus but trying to replicate those images when you’re awake and your eyes are open makes them fuzzy.
When your eyes are “closed,” you experience more than just the appearance of an image. You experience the smells, the sounds, the emotions, the moods, and the significance behind them. If you draw on these sensations, rather than just the similitude, you create for your reader an image beyond the physical world. You show them the rest of the cave and, perhaps, a way out to the world beyond it.
For my end-of-year essay, I’m writing about flawed characters in Cisneros’s Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. I decided that discussing flawed characters on this blog would both help me think for my essay and help my readers think about character development in their own work. Two birds, one stone.
I’m going to start with a quote our program director gave us:
We want to be taught to feel, not for the heroic artisan or the sentimental peasant, but for the peasant in all his coarse apathy, and the artisan in all his suspicious selfishness.
–George Eliot, The Natural History of German Life
Eliot hits the mark on this matter. Readers don’t care about perfectly heroic or sympathetic characters. Frankly, they’re boring. There’s a reason why writers cringe when a character is labelled a “Mary Sue” or a “Gary Stu.” I personally feel less sympathetic/empathetic for such characters, let alone feel any sort of connection to them.
That being said, not all flawed characters work well, either. Some of them can be too mean or their traits so incongruous with each other that the characters don’t seem to be human at all. How, then, can flawed characters work in a writer’s favor? What does it take to make us feel “for the peasant in all his coarse apathy, and the artisan in all his suspicious selfishness”?
Let’s dip into a little Freudian psychology for this answer. In particular I want to turn to his concept of the id, ego, and super ego.
It’s helpful to think of the subconscious as an iceberg. Most of what shows in the conscious mind is the ego with some of the super ego; the id lies beneath, in the unconscious, along with most of the super ego.
Now, I’ll admit that I don’t understand everything about Freud’s theories. Nevertheless, here’s my best explanation of the id, ego, and super ego:
The id, ego, and super ego are the three levels of our subconscious. The id houses our primal instincts; it’s essentially our impulses and basic needs and desires unfiltered. Our super ego criticizes and moralizes our actions, stopping us from doing what the id wants. Finally, the ego is our organized, rational side; it acts as a mediator between our id and our super ego. (For more information, here’s the Wikipedia article.)
Each level of the subconscious can represent a different kind of character: entirely good, entirely bad, or flawed. Entirely good characters are like the super ego. They are overly-righteous and crying too hard for the reader’s sympathy. Just as we would get annoyed with real-life people who are too moral and push those morals on others, so would we get bored of characters who are too good, not flawed at all. Entirely bad characters are the id. They do whatever they want without caring about the consequences, have no conscience or guilt, and are just mean. An unrestrained id would be chaotic, hard to stop, and destructive with no real purpose; we’d have no sympathy for that person because they’ll get what’s coming to them if they act with no thought. Similarly, we can’t really feel for a character with no redeeming qualities.
Finally, the ego represents flawed characters. We see a mixture of the beastly id and the saintly super ego, resulting in a complex character with whom we can relate. We can see bad traits we hate, good traits to which we aspire, and everything in between. We feel for when they fail or something else bad happens to them because we recognize them as someone like us who makes mistakes and at least has the potential to regret them.
I’m going to turn to an example from one of the stories I’m studying for my essay, Clemencia from “Never Marry a Mexican”.
As I said in my review of the collection, I don’t typically read stories about adultery. They conflict with my morals too much. “Never Marry a Mexican”, however, keeps my attention from start until end and I believe it’s due solely to Clemencia’s character development.
Clemencia is far from the perfect heroine: she sleeps with a married man, actively seeks control over him and his family through even the most minute actions, and is pretty crazy. However, Cisneros also shows us her background and her troublesome relationship with her dead father and her remarried mother. Despite her willingly and knowingly having an affair with a married man, I understand and feel for Clemencia. I don’t approve of her actions but I understand that she’s trying to gain some control in her life, have power over a marriage and a family when she didn’t have any power in how her mother acted during and after her father’s death. Her admittance that she doesn’t want to marry and that she knows that she can be vindictive and cruel, by the end of the story, are not solely flaws to me; they’re signs of a woman who knows who she is, accepts who she is, and draws power from this knowledge and acceptance. Were she the “perfect” woman aside from her affair, I would’ve hated her and been too perplexed by her actions to read the entire story. Were she an entirely malicious character with the haunting sadness of her background, I would’ve thought without a doubt that she deserved whatever bad thing happened to her and wouldn’t have been able to stomach her long enough to reach the end. Her flawed character is what made me interested in a kind of story that usually repulses me.
Flawed characters draw our sympathy because humans are, at their core, flawed characters themselves. We are neither entirely super ego nor entirely id. We make mistakes, we regret them, and we fix them; we fall in love and we break hearts; we are kind and we are cruel; we restrain our desires and we indulge in them. We want to see characters like us. We’d rather be reminded of the good and bad together, rather than one or the other.
Do you have any opinions on flawed characters? Have any good examples of flawed characters that you feel for? Leave your thoughts in the comments. To keep up with all our support, advice, and distractions, remember to sign up for email updates in the lower left-hand corner.
Warning: Due to the discussion topic (swearing in fiction), profanity may be used within the post and comments. Do not proceed if you do not wish to risk encountering vulgarity.
Swearing is a part of life. You swear. Your neighbor swears. Your mom swears. The eighty-year-old Walmart greeter swears. I swear, too. I swear a lot. You may not believe it when you first meet me but give me some time and I’ll be cussing like a sailor. I’ve never had any problems with swearing in fiction. Vulgarity often slips into my writing without a second thought. It’s not until the editing stage that I go back and question the use of cussing because it’s second nature for me.
This tendency raises a couple very important questions: should there be swearing in fiction? If so, how much is too much?
For me, the first answer is pretty clear. Yes, there should be swearing in fiction when appropriate. Obviously you’ll want to avoid vulgarity in your children’s picture book about a rabbit learning the alphabet. Swearing may be a part of life but it wouldn’t be wise to expose children that young to this reality. Some things require baby steps.
However, the criteria for the appropriateness extends beyond the target audience’s age group. Does the book’s contents call for swearing? If it’s in the narration, does the narrative voice justify it? If a character is swearing, does his/her established personality align with this action? If not, is the change at an appropriate time and justified?
You shouldn’t avoid cussing because someday somebody might read it and become offended. You’re a writer. Frankly, everything you’ve done to this point has already offended someone and everything you write from now until the apocalypse will offend at least one person. What you need to worry about is if the vulgarity is not only appropriate for your piece but adds to it. If the story/novel/whatever needs the swearing, write it. Prudes be damned.
On to the second question, how much swearing is too much?
The answer isn’t that different from the first. If it’s a detective novel with a P.I. who has no filter and doesn’t give a rat’s behind about people’s opinions, a lot of cussing may be called for. However, saturating the work with swear words can become tedious and, counter-productively, boring. As with everything in fiction and in life, moderation is key. Sometimes you want a lot of salt on your food, sometimes none, and sometimes something in between. You just have to use your best judgment. When in doubt, ask your beta readers to focus on that aspect while they’re giving you feedback.
Personally, I think anything for people who are 16+ years old should contain some cussing. It’s just unrealistic to exclude it. Writers even create new swears for fantasy and science fiction worlds. Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer and The Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey contain some particularly amusing examples. If you’re a fantasy/science fiction writer, I suggest getting creative like they did. Not only will it help your readers immerse into your worlds but it’s fun to make up your own swear words.
Now, I only have an opinion on swearing in fiction. I have no clue as to what role cussing should play in poetry or even nonfiction. Any thoughts? Leave them in the comments below.
Some people think that the writer’s worst critic is his/her audience, that negative reviews destroy him/her from the inside. It’s true that readers and reviews are important to most writers but they are far from writers’ worst critics. Honestly, readers and reviews only have the slightest influence in comparison to writers’ real worst critics: themselves.
I know it’s cheesy to say that we are our own worst enemies but there’s a reason phrases like that exist. In this case the saying exists because it’s true. It’s true for any person but most especially artists. Painters, drawers, sculptors, actors, and, yes, writers are notoriously hard on themselves. We expect perfection and if we don’t get what we consider to be perfect, it won’t matter what anyone else says. We’ve already failed ourselves.
How do we deal with these inner critics? As I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t know. I can barely get mine to shut up long enough to get any work done, and lately that’s required a combination of anti-depressants and two kinds of anti-anxiety pills. Nevertheless, learning to live and work with the writer’s worst critic is key to being a writer.
Writers can benefit from some self-criticism. The important word there is some. We need to be critical of ourselves and our work so that we can produce the best writing that we can. It’s especially helpful during the editing/rewriting phase. However, there’s a point when enough is enough. If the voice inside your head is telling you that you can’t make it, that you will never make it, that your writing is garbage, that’s when you need to take a step back and reevaluate your situation. Been there, done that, probably will be back there again tonight as I work on my end-of-year portfolio.
Despite what people may try to lead you to believe, it’s not so easy to just turn the inner critic off. Believe me, I’ve tried. It slips back into your thoughts as soon as you think you’re in the clear and you let your guard down. My inner critic especially loves to appear when I’m in the middle of first writing a story and when I’m in the midst of editing. Yes, it can help me edit and improve my work but it’s often in hyper-drive and tries to derail the entire project. I’m sure I’m not the only one. There’s a reason why the stereotypes of writers with addictions and mental disorders have gained traction.
The important thing to remember is to write despite this critical voice. It’ll probably still shout in your head and make you want to curl into a ball, but you can show it who’s in charge. You’ll feel much better if you just get a project done even with the doubt. Sometimes you’ll have to stop and give the voice a bit of a credence–after all, it may actually have a point about the last passage you wrote–but you also have to brush aside comments along the lines of “you’re a failure.” I know, easier said than done. If we don’t at least try, we’ll never get anything done.
As you may have realized, I’m a liberal. It’s no offense to my conservative readers but I just have more liberal tendencies in my political and social views. All writers have very strong political stances, whether they’re liberal or conservative. More often than not, in one way or another, these views surface in their works. These works, in turn, offend people. Not everyone but people who don’t share the views the writer has expressed. It’s just how it is. You can’t please everyone. However, people usually take their displeasure out on the writer and their other works–even works that they (the readers) had enjoyed. Sometimes they even burn the books. With this alienation of readers, an important question rises for the writer: should writing and politics be separated?
The answer seems simple. If a writer doesn’t want to lose readers, he/she should stay out of politics, keep it out of their work. After all, the best solution is to make your writing accessible to everyone, right?
In reality it’s not that black-and-white.
A visual representation of the Gordian Knot, retrieved from ReaMedica
I liken this situation to the Gordian Knot. For those who aren’t familiar with the story, here’s a link to the Wikipedia entry. References to the Gordian Knot are used to indicate a simple solution to a complex problem, usually through a loophole or thinking out of the box.
What most people don’t think about is the effect that Alexander the Great’s “solution” had on the Gordian Knot. He destroyed it. A beautifully complex knot that had been there for ages, safeguarding the town’s prized possession, was utterly destroyed in a matter of seconds without any consideration to the work put into tying it. Alexander got what he wanted but sacrificed the town’s defining feature, a mark of their heritage.
I see a similar problem with the supposedly “simple” solution to writing and politics.
Writing and politics have a rich, elaborately intertwined history. Plato, Aristotle, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mark Twain, Sui Sin Far, George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, J.K. Rowling, the list of “political” writers is endless. Even Dr. Seuss’s books have strong political influence. (Don’t believe me? Re-read The Lorax.) The written word has always been and will always be the strongest tool for swaying political beliefs, which is why so many people attempt to censor it.
Essays, nonfiction, fiction, and poetry have all been used to express someone’s political views. Even playwrights and screenwriters channel their inner politicians when writing. Why? Because politics are universal, something that we can’t escape even if we try.
No matter your gender or gender identity, sexuality, religion, nationality, ethnicity, race, age, income level, what have you, politics affect everyone’s life. Every part of human life, both public and private, is politicized: our jobs, our stations in life, our social lives, how we treat others, how others treat us, our religions, our cultures, whom we love and marry, the color of our skin, our bodies, our identities. Politics bombard us in print, on the radio, on TV, and in our everyday conversations. They make our lives better, they make our lives worse, they make our lives complicated. It’s no wonder politics worm their way into our writing, even subconsciously.
More importantly, politics are tangled with human morality. We claim that our political affiliations come from our stances on economics, labor, foreign policy, separation of church and state, or something similar, but the reasons all boil down to our morals. Our morals determine how we approach social and economic problems. Our individual senses of right and wrong tell us what we think the perfect society would be, a vision which tries to be realized in our politics.
Morality is an intricate part of writing and themes in writing, and so it’s only logical that politics play into them as well.
Our political beliefs influence every part of our stories. They change how we portray characters, which events we highlight, our endings, etc. As part of human relations, they serve as the perfect source of tension, even in fantasy and science fiction. They make the written word interesting. In turn, the written word spreads political beliefs. Separating writing and politics would only detract from the work.
Thanks to the current political environment in the U.S., Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has become even more popular. People from all walks of life watch the TV show based on it. Rather than rejecting politics due to backlash, writers must embrace and nurture their messages.
If we can’t take politics out of writing, what should we do about the would-be book burners? The best thing is to remain calm. Don’t fan the flame. Instead, offer to explain your point of view to them. Open a friendly dialogue free of name-calling and hatred. The only way we can turn this world into a world for all people is to understand each other’s perspective. If things get too heated, walk away. Don’t let them drag you down to their level. Most importantly, take the time and read works created by people with views opposing yours. You will probably find yourself hating what they say, but at least you tried to understand their views. An informed argument is better than ignorant, hateful silence.
Don’t stop writing or remove political influence from your works because people criticize your views. If every writer were to remove politics from their work, we wouldn’t have any stories, poems, essays, plays, etc. At the very least we wouldn’t have anything worth reading.
I’ve been spending a lot of time with Sandra Cisneros’s work lately. Last week my Master’s program discussed her short story collection, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. Overall the stories are captivating, unique, and spiced with Latinx–particularly Chicana–charm and passion. “Woman Hollering Creek” and “Never Marry a Mexican” depict striking moments of female empowerment, but “Remember the Alamo” has stuck in my mind. Given the timing, I think it’s fitting that I write about Cisneros for this “Writers on Writing”.
I’ve chosen a quote by Cisneros which hearkens back to Virginia Woolf:
For a writer, for the solitude to write, you don’t need a room of your own, you need a house.
Sandra Cisneros
She has many quotes on writing, her early life, culture, etc., that are worth reading. You can find several on BrainyQuote. I picked this quote because I find her expansion on Woolf’s original comment to be thought-provoking.
As I discussed in a previous “Writers on Writing”, Woolf’s comment originally applied to effects that women’s duties and financial/legal dependence on their husbands have on their writing. Cisneros may also be referring to female writers, particularly those from cultures similar to hers, given the subjects of several of her stories.
Honestly, I don’t think there’s much “may” about it. Many of her works highlight the oppression and discouragement of speech towards women in Mexican cultures. It’s been the subject of several academic essays, including Jacqueline Doyle’s “Haunting the Borderlands: La Llorana in Sandra Cisneros’s ‘Woman Hollering Creek'” (which is available to read on JSTOR).
Cisneros’s suggestion about needing a house of one’s own to right is not too different from Woolf’s original comment. Rather, it’s an extension. Cisneros is implying that it’s not enough for female writers to just have a room of their own. Instead, they must have their own entire house, they must be in charge of their entire households.
I can’t disagree with this extension, especially after reading Cisneros’s stories. A woman can have a room that appears to be her own in the house but, in reality, it’s a ruse. If she does not have a house of her own, one which she can at least claim as much rule over as her partner (particularly a husband), even “her” room is not truly her own. Therefore, to have only a room of her own is not enough freedom and independence–spatially, financially, emotionally–for a female writer to reach her potential.
I also explained that while Woolf’s initial intent still rings true today, the sentiment can be expanded to include all writers. With this interpretation in mind, Cisneros’s words suggest that all writers need an incredible amount of space, seclusion, and independence.
This idea is one with which writers have wrestled for a long time. How much space is enough space? How much independence do we need to write?
All writers need a space where they can retreat and write without interruption. It can be a room, an office, a rented house. We’re all different and so we all need different zones of personal space to get work done. In regards to space, then, Cisneros’s words could be true or false depending on the individual writer.
The financial aspect, however, is not such an easy or pleasant answer.
Unfortunately, society’s views on writers and their financial independence can vary based on many things, including age, race, and, yes, gender. My post on #ThingsWomenWritersHear revealed that female writers still hear such comments as “oh, aren’t you lucky that your husband supports you so you can write” (even if they don’t have husbands). It’s assumed that female writers have to–or just do–rely on their husbands for money while they write. However, they need financial independence so that they avoid being scrutiny for being a “bad” wife and/or mother for focusing on their writing. That’s without mentioning that many, many female writers just don’t have husbands and support themselves anyway. A dependence on a husband, partner, parents, or even a day job financially can detract from writing time, and so tremendous financial independence is necessary for a female writer to succeed in actuality and under societal criticism.
There’s another side to this coin for male writers. Men are still seen as the breadwinners, no matter what their situation actually is. If anyone finds out that they don’t make much money or contribute the most financially to their families, the men are ridiculed. Writing, quite truthfully, is not seen as a high-earning job. The resulting income is unreliable at best. If a male writer with a family focuses on his writing, he will be considered selfish for not bringing home more for his family or weak because his wife or partner provides the primary income. They’re considered failures. Financial independence–i.e. a bachelor life in which no one depends on them and they don’t depend on anyone–appears to be the only solution.
Image retrieved from Pinterest
I realize that this post has presented society as horrible and writing as a lonely career path. The sad thing is that such scenarios cannot only happen but are common. Complete financial independence seems to be the only way for anyone to write without distraction, judgment, or societal restraints. (That last way probably still isn’t true as negative stereotypes and expectations follow us so long as we are who we are and society remains the way that it is.) However, I don’t think that you should walk away from this post in total despair.
A “house of one’s own” is not necessarily a physical house that you control, alone space, or even complete financial independence. Instead, it is a state of life in which you feel free, confident, independent, and supported. It can be a house out in the suburbs with a white fence and a nuclear family, only the husband and wife run the household and their lives together and support each other’s ventures. It can be an apartment in the middle of an overpopulated city where a single woman writers with student loans still looming over her but a secure job with flexible hours and parents who live nearby and will always support her and help her no matter what. It can even be a mobile tiny house parked in a field, the owner a writer who writes all day, is debt-free, and whose only family are pets and friends. A “house of one’s own” is the perfect set of circumstances, whatever those may be for you. It is wherever and whenever you can write without life, burdens, and societal expectations weighing you down.
I doubt that Cisneros and Woolf intended anyone to have this interpretation. But hey, so long as it gets us writing, does it really matter?
Did you like this post? Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments and sign up for email alerts. Also be on the look-out for my post on the tangled web that is writing and politics.
