How I Turned Into That Person

Good books often get challenged because they challenge us in turn. If you look at the list of most commonly challenged books in US libraries, you'll see classics of both adult and children's literature, Toni Morrison rubbing shoulders with Judy Blume, Vladimir Nabokov with S.E. Hinton, Margaret Atwood with Maurice Sendak. With a few exceptions ('Go Ask Alice' is a pretty disingenuous book), it's practically a roll-call of honour.

And we all have a mental image of the challengers, don't we? Twinset and pearls, or perhaps a varsity sweatshirt. Probably a woman, an interfering mother who expects the whole of society to shield her child from reality, parochial, intolerant and rather stupid. A very easy and satisfying figure to hate on, really.

Which is why I was a little surprised to find myself writing to the BBC, challenging a children's show for - of all things - its values.

*cue bouncy music*

Mike the Knight, he's a brave young hero!
(Be a knight, do it right!)
He's a trainee knight, but does he show fear? No!
(Be a knight, do it right!)
There'll be trouble, double trouble,
But you know it's going to be all right,
'Cause every day is an adventure For Mike the Knight...

Now, admittedly nostalgia is a powerful motivating force when it comes to children's entertainment. I was heartbroken when they changed the format of Zingzillas. I was wary when they introduced Abadas, purely because it was something new. (It turned out to be rather charming and I'm now fond of it.) The books and shows that entertain my son are important parts of his childhood, and my emotional attachment to them is consequently strong and a little conservative: the more he grows and changes, the cooler he gets, but changing his favourite shows triggers an instinctive resistance in me. But I know this isn't rational, and I try not to be silly about it.

So when, with literal and metaphorical fanfares, CBeebies (the preschool channel produced by the BBC, generally of a very high standard), trotted Mike the Knight out of his stable, I was cautious but determined to be fair.

Here's the basic format of each show. Mike, a trainee knight with a supportive mother, an apparently absent knightly father and a trainee witch sister called Evie whose spells never work, is always looking for a quest. Something comes up, he exclaims 'By the king's crown, that's it!', and races off to make a quest of it - making a mess of it because he's more preoccupied with his fantasies of knighthood than with paying attention to his circumstances. He stops everyone crossing a bridge all day to protect them from a monster, for instance, when a little investigation would reveal it's just Evie's pet frog trapped down an echoing hole; he races off to make a quest of collecting Evie's birthday cake and getting it redesigned with knightly decorations, ignoring her trying to tell him that her preferred birthday treat would be to help him with a quest (because being allowed to play with your brother is obviously the height of a girl's ambitions); he decides to prove his pathfinding abilities, removes all the road signs and makes everyone get lost; and so on. After a while, he realises his mistake, declares, 'It's time to be a knight and do it right!' and fixes the mess he's made. Everyone stands in the background and applauds - a mostly white crowd with one or two token Asian-looking people. The Asian-looking bard sings of Mike's heroism, and we have the credits.

Which is why my letter to the BBC was headed: 'If you're white and male, you're a star even if you're wrong; if you're brown or female, you're background even if you're right.'

My complaint letter was, in short, written from a progressive point of view.

Here it is in full:

We are the parents of a white little boy, and are concerned about Mike the Knight. Complaining like this, we may sound like a politically correct cranks, but we love most of CBeebies: it's educational, fun, and full of good values, and our son has a great time watching it.

Mike the Knight is a disappointing exception. Where most of CBeebies shows make an effort to show diversity in a respectful way, Mike the Knight focuses heavily on a single character - a white boy, the category that we already have a million stories about. And the way it focuses on him is, to our eyes, destructive.

Yes, it's about doing it right in the end, and it clearly means well. But where most CBeebies shows appreciate the value of community, respect for difference and working together, Mike is fraught with entitlement: the plot is all about him making trouble because his status as an aspiring knight - a male role, we note, and are there any non-white knights? - makes him feel entitled to be the star, even if it means pushing himself to the centre when there's no need and failing to listen to other people who know better than him. Yes, he puts it right in the end - but through his own revelations, while female and brown people stand in the background playing a subordinate role. If you're not white and male, your prospective roles in this world are admiring rival, admiring sidekick, or admiring observer.

This is not a role we want our son to be modelled. Female and non-white people are his brothers and sisters, his co-stars, not his background, and we want him to feel comfortable with that. The world is already full of messages pushing the idea that white men are the stars and everyone else is background, and apart from encouraging prejudice and unrealistic expectations, it puts an unfair burden on white boys, implying that they're weak if they have to accept someone telling them they're wrong. Even the theme song - 'does he show fear? No!' - pushes old and destructive ideas about how men are supposed to be strong and occupy the leading role.

This is a set of values that discriminates against the many and isolates the few. The idea of a knight doing things right could be great if it took in the notion of true respect for others - why shouldn't Mike have knight friends who are female or of colour, for example? or sometimes find himself called upon when he has other things in mind than seeking attention? - but at the moment, on a channel that's usually progressive, Mike the Knight is decades out of date.

Justin Fletcher, the male presenters, the Piplings, the Zingzillas, Mr Bloom, Bob the Builder: all these are excellent models for a white boy living in a world where he'll have to learn how to navigate the disparity between the privileges he gets and the privileges denied other people if he's going to become a good person. Mike the Knight is a sorry exception, and we hope very much you'll either improve it or replace it with something better.

I wasn't calling for Mike the Knight to be banned. I'd like it to be improved a great deal, or else to make way for a better program: a TV channel has limited slots and I think they should go to shows that don't marginalise the majority of people, but if they want to keep it around on their website or sell DVDs of it and make them available in libraries, that's their right. So there's that.

On the other hand, I have unquestionably joined the ranks of mothers who complain that fiction is modelling bad values for their children.

I don't expect TV to be my babysitter. If I don't want us to watch Mike the Knight, it's up to me to switch the box off. And yet here I am, complaining - with, I believe, good cause - about a TV show failing to meet with my moral standards.

Which raises the question: is there any difference between me and Mrs Twin-Set, and if so, what is it? We are both, after all, complaining that we don't want our children taught bad values. We are both accepting the posit that what a child encounters in fiction is going to have some effect on how he or she thinks. We are both considering that a public service has some responsibility to the public conscience.

We have a difference of opinion, at least. I'm not complaining because I want things excluded; I'm complaining because I don't want things - like women and people of colour - excluded. I'm not objecting to my son's innocence being violated; I'm objecting to his privilege being reinforced. I'm not arguing that no one should have access to Mike the Knight, just that it could be improved and that if it's not, another show would be a better occupant for finite TV time. But then, what if I were in a library and I saw a book I really had doubts about on the children's shelves? Would I complain? I certainly have plans to influence my son's fictional palate: there are books and shows and movies I plan to introduce him to because I think they'd be emotionally educational (though whether he actually likes them or not is, of course, up to him). There are books I hesitate over; for instance, I plan to read aloud Edith Nesbit and J.K. Rowling and Diana Wynne Jones, partly for their entertainment value and partly because I absolutely loathe C.S. Lewis and, should my son turn out to be a fan of magical tales, I'd like to give him the opportunity to bond with other, less bigoted authors first so that he can view Lewis with a bit more critical distance. (Of course, with this attitude it'd serve me right if he turned out to be Lewis's reincarnation.) So while probably wouldn't want a library to pull a book off its shelves, I certainly think in terms of exercising a degree of parental influence in the first few years of my son's life.

So at the end of the day, it may simply come down to an issue of politics. I don't think, for instance, that one should censor a book because it has shocking content (be it Lolita's paedophilic narrator or Blubber's villain using racial slurs); I believe that honest depictions of bad things are a good thing in books. I don't object to sexual content in fiction; to my mind, the sooner my son wants to have The Talk the better for him. While I'd hope that a writer for young children would be responsible in depicting the consequences of violence, I don't object to violent content per se. I'm all in favour of stuff that supports racial equality, LGBT rights and social justice. But on the other hand, Mrs Twin-Set is a fantasy figure, and without hearing the reasons for the challenges, I probably shouldn't assume I know real peoples' motivations. I'll stand up for my politics, but they may not explain everything.

So I'm wondering: is complaining complaining no matter what your motivations? Are there legitimate and illegitimate complaints? What's the difference? I'd really like to know what people think, because frankly, I'm far from sure.

--Kit Whitfield

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

Comments

[Amaryllis]

@Kit: Given what's recently happened when I tried to explain things from my point of view, I must recuse myself from answering that question. Sorry.

Fair enough; I don't mind. You're not obligated to continue with an uncomfortable situation just to satisfy my curiosity.

I should probably have waited to ask that question in some other relevant thread, or made it clear that I didn't expect any immediate discussion.

Just, sometime perhaps, if someone feels like talking about how their major in English or their MFA degree, or their on-the-job training, or their favorite editor or their local writers' group, helped shape their work, it'd be interesting. Some Other Time.

Because if someone says to me (thanks, J. Enigma) "Practice," I'm sufficiently clueless to wonder, "Practice what?" It takes practice to get to Carnegie Hall, but it also takes a solid musical education to base one's practice on. Is there an analogue for creative writers, is what I meant.

But again, Some Other Time. IF anyone's ever interested in talking about it.

----
AnaMardoll: In my brain, the "original version" would still be freely available (the book is even in the public domain in America, I do believe), students would be informed of what had been changed and why and could have copies of the original to read at home if that's what they wanted, and the students who had to get through the mandatory class would be protected.

I'd have no problem with making the book optional, or dropping it entirely in favor of some other contemporaneous work. (My own high school days are too far back to remember, but I believe at my daughter's school, it was on the optional "further reading" list.)

I'd prefer either of those options to teaching the amended version. But I expect that much depends on the grade level, the particular students involved, and the intent of the curriculum (college class in minority images vs. high-school American Literature survey, for instance.)

---
I'm not going to get involved in the more personal aspects of this argument, but I'd like to express my support for TBAT as TBAT here. No matter how heated things get with individual posters including TBAT members, I don't believe that anyone can point to any instances of TBAT using their administrative status to pursue private feuds. Arguing painfully with Kit or Mmy or hapax is not the same thing as arguing with TBAT. That was the agreement made at the start of this blog, and it hasn't changed.

[Kish]

I concur.

I also find the idea that saying, "I'm leaving" should guarantee someone an unchallenged last word, however insulting they choose for that last word to be, morally and logically bankrupt.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

I should probably eat pie more often. In fact, I very rarely eat it at all. It's a very London dish, isn't it?

TRiG.

[Mmy]

@TRiG: Not sure what "a London dish" is.

[hapax]

I'm sorry. I would love to have some pie, but I cannot let this stand without response.

Do you think she should be psychic, to KNOW that she's safe from you using the information you have in a way she wouldn't like?

Yes, she jolly well should.

In fact, if there is anyone here that says that they do not KNOW that neither Mmy, Kit, or I would ever misuse the information we have learned in our other hats as members of TBAT to harass or in any way violate the privacy of anyone here, please speak up now.

Because if that's the prevailing sentiment, I will cheerfully turn over my set of keys at once. Speaking only for myself, I do not see how TBAT can possibly function if the community members do not feel safe trusting us with the private information necessary for running the site; and I certainly do not wish to contribute to an atmosphere of fear and suspicion.

I am astonished (and sometimes frankly embarrassed) at the amount of private information that comes our way, most of it freely volunteered to us, some of it accessible through the technical side of things.

Mmy, because of her greater technical expertise and her willingness to take on the lion's share of those duties, has the most access.

To suggest that she would abuse that access is an APPALLING insinuation.

In either my or Mmy's profession, breaching confidentiality in that way would be an immediate firing offense, without possibility of appeal.

If it is considered acceptable to imply that Mmy -- or ANYONE who participates here -- would engage in such unprofessional, unethical, hurtful, and criminal practices, I would find that to make me feel far more "unsafe" than any degree of acrimony about art, or religion, or privilege, or even Dr. Who.

[Silver Adept]

@hapax, Amryllis, et Mmy:

I freely admit that I am not a selector in any sort of direct way, so it's easier for me to sidestep the idea that a letter written about the materials, or a user talking to me about something in the collection they don't like, is a direct attack on my credentials. If I asked my selectors, they would probably have a very different attitude toward such letters than I do, regardless of how well-penned they are. We also have a formal process that any formal request for reconsideration goes through (most never get that far, as being able to talk through objections with users is usually enough), so no person ever goes through the process feeling that it's up to the whim of one person whether they are heard.

That said, I do understand that feeling of anger that comes from the assumption that librarianship is something that just anyone can do, and that it doesn't take advanced degree work.

@MercuryBlue - Editor. And in response, several authors who were slated for publication in the anthology removed themselves in protest.

@J Enigma, @Ana Mardoll - There's probably quality literature that does have high instances of triggery language, but for the reasons J Enigma mentioned, it would probably be excluded as swiftly as it were introduced, with a high probability from persons thundering about the need to THINK OF THE CHILDRENS who don't actually listen to the language and topics their children and teens are discussing normally. I think they could handle a discussion of those kinds of topics...but it would mean expecting the best out of their teachers and the best out of the students. (One can rant about the quality of USian schooling at this point.)

As Amaryllis notes above, though, changing the list of required reading in schools might be an effective way of getting these necessary conversations without getting hung up on particular language choices. (Then again, language choices are a part of culture, and cultural study is important, too...)

Also, I know about those Confederate Apologists in Michigan. I probably went to school with some of them. Things were pretty bad where I was, so much so that I think I was pleased that there was an "actual black person" (my own thoughts) at school while I was there. It's not exactly racially sensitive where I was...

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Mmy, pie is popular in London. Traditionally, anyway. Stereotypically. I think. I could be wrong. That's all.

It's not particularly common in the Irish midlands. The one place in town I knew that did pies has closed down. Pity. I liked them. They were nice people.

TRiG.

[Mmy]

@TRig: Ahh, interesting that. My mother's people ate pie for breakfast and lunch (you make two pies while the cows are being milked, one is cut into four and eaten at breakfast, the other is cut into four, wrapped in handkerchiefs and put in one's pocket for lunch.) One had pumpkin pies, butternut squash pies, lemon pies, apple pies, blueberry pies....if you could eat it, you could "pie it."

My father's people basically only ate mincemeat pies. What they ate were stews and puddings.

Food is incredibly regional isn't it?

[ZMiles]

Re: Making Things Up (and How To Write):

I concur with the idea that it really does require "practice, practice, practice." This is the one piece of advice I've seen in literally every book or conversation about writing that I'm familiar with. As for additional tools, the book that helped me the most was Stephen King's "On Writing." It's short, and includes tons of useful information on the craft.
My own personal style has been to try to write a reasonably tight first draft, but not to worry about polishing it -- that's what my second draft is for. Opinions vary. Some people go by the 'throw whatever you think of on the page just to get it down, then major revision for the second draft.' Others don't write a sentence in the first draft until their certain that you may as well typeset that sentence in the printer. You'll need to find what works for you.
King recommends starting with writing 1000 words/day, six days a week, and eventually moving up to 2000 words/day, every day. I found that, when I followed this dictate, I could eventually get into a groove where the words just seemed to flow out. So it's what I would recommend.

On the more general idea side of things, I'd just recommend to read widely and always look for new ideas. Helpful for a couple reasons; both for inspiration, and to make sure that you aren't duplicating something already out there.
This is again where Tvtropes can really help. For example, a type of story that's somewhat popular now is a type of fantasy perspective flip, where the environment is standard D&D or Tolkein, but the story is from the perspective of one of the monster races (goblins, kobolds, orcs, trolls). In these stories, the protagonist monsters are the good guys, and the adventurers are depicted as murdering everyone and destroying the warrens/nest/homes in a greedy search for plunder. So, if one decides they want to write this sort of story, they can go to the Tvtropes page and see what's out there -- both for inspiration, and to avoid duplication. One can also see which other tropes are common in those stories, to see what to add to the story, or what to deliberately lead out (i.e., a perspective flip will often feature the evil adventurers invoking the Always Chaotic Evil trope towards the protagonists -- include, or disinclude that?)
{Personal folly/example: I recently wrote a story in which a goblin is captured and forced to lead villainous adventurers through tunnels to find treasure. It's a basic premise similar to Hines' novel Goblin Quest. Several other features are similar, and one aspect is exactly opposite, to the point where anyone reading my story would probably think I was ripping off or riffing off of Hines. So now I need to change it, and if I'd just read GQ earlier, I could have made them different at the outset.)

[ZMiles]

(I think I was just spamtrapped).

[The Board Administration Team]

You were but are no longer.

[Silver Adept]

(I might add to previous comment that when I said "I went to school with some of them", I was thinking of my required schooling, not of my University, although there's a good chance that they were there, too.)

[ZMiles]

Mmy:

I would certainly agree that there's more to being a competent writer than just publishing a book (i.e., that publishing is not sufficient). I don't think I'd agree that it's necessary. There's people who self publish, there's people who write a book but don't publish it anywhere (as J. D. Salinger was rumored to do near the end of his life), there's people who know a lot about writing but don't have the time or have other issues.

But my point is more that Kit has not stated what she thinks 'sufficient' qualifications are, even when Froborr asked directly. She has argued that Tvtropes is worthless -- not just to her, but to writing in general -- and then, when others disagreed, supported her statement by saying that she has expertise and those who disagree with her don't. This basically prevents anyone from challenging the specifics of her expertise, her standards, or her claim that it's got anything to do with Tvtropes. She also made several generalizations, such as that writing is a unique skill that cannot be taught like others, again only substantiating that by invoking her expertise. And when Froborr and I challenged her claims to expertise, she said that Froborr was being 'personal and condescending' and I was being 'rude.'

[Note: following draws on my experiences in college; may not and likely will not be the same for other people]

Is this an environment where claims of expertise and lack thereof are not to be questioned? Because that is not the environment of either a writing for or debate forum. It's a lecture. That's an environment where there's one or more experts at the front of the room, telling less-trained and less-knowledgable people the facts. Where it's considered churlish (at least where I'm from) for one of the students to act as if they have the same amount of experience or knowledge as the instructor. Where it's often considered rude to even challenge the instructor, unless one has a solid set of facts to base the challenge on.

I think the site is much better as a discussion-based community than a lecture-based one. But it is, of course, the mod's call.

[Mmy]

@ZMiles: Is this an environment where claims of expertise and lack thereof are not to be questioned?

I don't think anyone is making that demand or stating that expectation. But there situations in which expertise should be given a lot of weight. For example, I wouldn't claim expert knowledge of whether or not a movie was good, enjoyable, uplifting etc. I would claim in terms of whether it was well crafted, expertly shot etc.

So, (as our motto says) it is usually more complicated than that.

[Note -- I am speaking here as someone who has had the experience of people who read ONE book on a subject thinking they can school me about something I have been studying for decades, in which I have graduate degrees and have done professional research. I don't think that expertise is always right, I don't think that appeals to authority are always justified but I also don't think that every opinion on every topic is worthy of the same amount of respect or consideration.]

I think the site is much better as a discussion-based community than a lecture-based one. But it is, of course, the mod's call.

No, it isn't the "mod's call" it is the call of the community. TBAT administers this blog as the community asked that it be administered. The members of TBAT wade into arguments/discussions as members of the community. And sometimes, as people notice, we argue vigorously with each other on the board.

[J Enigma (the Transhumanist! Who has a new desktop computer and is happy about it)]

My personal technique for writing, and my opinion of it in general, can be summed up thusly: do it again, and again, and again. Rewrites - that's what it boils down to. Doing it once, and then doing it all over again and throwing the entire previous work out.

When I say "rewrite", I mean that I'll sit down and write a whole novel out in one setting - upwards of 200 pages or even 300 pages in some settings (well over 300,000 words), walk away from it for a while, and totally scrap the whole project and start all over again from scratch. I'll write the same book 4 or 5 times before I've even got a rough draft I'm happy with. That's when the major revisions start. To put this process in prospective - I've been working on the same book for 6 years now. It's roughly 140,000 words long and I've rewritten it from the ground up at least 4 times. I only now, after 5 total rewrites, have a draft that I'm happy with.

This does have a benefit. I get to know the plot *really* well.

@Silver Adept: What part of the state are you from? I'm from here - *Holds up right hand and points to the center of the thumb area, if only because it's cool that Michiganders get to do that* - Genesee County. Given the high percentage of African-Americans in the area I live in you wouldn't expect to see too many neo-Confederates, but all you have to do is take a jaunt into the surrounding county and boy howdy...

[ZMiles]

Mmy:

I fully agree. There are definitely situations in which expertise should be given much weight, and I fully share your frustration with amateurs thinking they know more than experts in my field because they read a book/interned for one summer/saw a video.

But -- speaking only for myself -- to know if this was in fact one of those situations, I would need to know what Kit describes her expertise as, and what she considers to be relevant expertise on this issue. That weigh, I could weigh its value and determine if it logically substantiates her claims. She has refused to provide either. The implication that I am deriving from this is as that she does not want her expertise questioned (and in fact she objected when Froborr did so, calling it 'personal' -- which, to be fair, it was, but it's about personal expertise, so I'm not sure that being personal is avoidable) and expects others to simply concede that she has it. So I think that she is in fact demanding that people accept sans evidence her claim that she is an expert, and Froborr, MaryKaye, and presumably myself are not.

[Again -- the below text draws on my experiences in university, and may be different from the experiences of others]

Which is not to say that I always demand a list of qualifications before accepting that someone else has superior knowledge. For instance, were this a college course, with I a student and Kit the lecturer, I'd be willing to accept what she said, even though it didn't match my experiences. Because, in that case, I'd have conceded a lack of knowledge in the subject by taking the course. Also, Kit's expertise and qualifications to instruct in writing would have been verified by the university, whose expertise in turn would be periodically reviewed by a government accreditation board. Or if this were some mentorship program, where the program selected her as a writing instructor and I was a client who had signed up to learn how to write, same thing.
(And if I showed up for those situations and acted as if I thought I, the neophyte student with no fiction publications, was just as knowledgable as Kit, I would be acting like an arrogant and conceited jerk.)
But those situations are not the case here. No external agency that I trust has vouched for Kit's expertise in this area, and I haven't conceded myself that I'm particularly ignorant. So if I'm to think that she has it (or that I know much less than I think, which is of course possible), I want to see evidence -- to see what she considers to be her expertise and to hear why it relates to the question of 'is Tvtropes useful for writers'. And she has not provided any, and my understanding of her posts is that she thinks it offensive that I and others have asked for such. I could be wrong, and hope I am.

Fair enough on the other point (about the community moderation). I do appreciate that.

[Mmy]

@ZMiles: This is getting incredibly personal but I can answer this much. Kit is a successfully published author, has extensive academic training, has worked as an editor and in publishing. She has more qualifications than many people teaching in MFA programs. All of her qualifications have long since been in the public record so I don't know what exactly it is that is giving you pause.

Since a major university and major publisher have vouched for Kit's qualifications I think the discussion can move on now.

[ZMiles]

" All of her qualifications have long since been in the public record so I don't know what exactly it is that is giving you pause."

I would feel creepy looking up someone's personal information to use in an Internet discussion. I didn't feel like it would be right for me to bring in that without Kit's approval (i.e., if Kit wanted to not bring up her work experience or whatnot for whatever reason, I didn't feel comfortable taking the choice away from her). Which is not by any means to say that I think your invoking it was creepy; just that this is why I myself didn't feel comfortable doing that.

Sure -- no objection to discussion moving on then. Thanks for your patience.

[Mmy]

@ZMiles: No creepiness required. Everything I mentioned has been stated by Kit here or on her blog (which is on the sidebar like everyone elses'.) Kit has been commenting here since long before Fred left and has mentioned everything I referenced in various comments over the years.

So, this is all public information and stuff that has been referenced so often that it would feel like overkill for her to bring up again.

[cjmr]

Not everyone here was here when Kit revealed who she was.

Not everyone here has read Kit's novels.

Not everyone here has read Kit's CV.

Not everyone has read every comment thread all the way through.

I don't see why it would be surprising that there would exist a commentor who didn't know Kit's credentials.

[Mmy]

@cjrm: I don't expect everyone to know her credentials -- but she mentioned in the thread that she didn't consider herself a writer until she was published. Since she posts under her own name and her comments link to her blog then it wouldn't take "creepy" levels of googling to find out the information I gave.

Kit can't seem to win here. If she mentions her books by name she gets criticized for playing the "I am published and you are not" card and if she merely mentions in passing that she is a published author she gets criticized not giving enough information.

[Ruby]

@cjmr--True. As well, there are many commenters here who don't share their backgrounds and credentials, for a variety of sensible and understandable reasons. Now, that's not to say that people shouldn't share everything and be very public, but many people can't or don't.

[cjmr]

It sounded TO ME like you were chastising ZMiles for not being aware of her credentials.

Just like earlier it sounded TO ME like Kit was deliberately insulting Froborr.

I stayed out of it earlier. I should have stayed out of now, too, I think.

[Mmy]

@cjmr: I don't quite know why you feel what you are feeling. I was surprised that ZMiles didn't just click on the Kit's name and go to her webpage. She doesn't "hide" her credentials, she doesn't make it difficult to find out about her work. Why would she? She is a professional writer.

@Ruby: Lots of people don't share their backgrounds. Others link to their web pages where there is lots of information about them. Kit belongs to the second group.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Not everyone here has read Kit's novels.

Working on that (ordered Bareback the other day, and when it arrives I'll slip it to the top of the To-Be-Read pile).

TRiG.

[Silver Adept]

@J Enigma: Oooh, Genesee County. Have relatives in that area. I grew up a bit more *sticks finger on palm, thumb-base-high, slightly right of the middle of the hand* thereish, Jackson County. Plenty of sticks for there to be Ted Nugent fans, neo-Confederates, and plenty of folks who think that minorities and women are enemies against the Great White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Male and looking to steal whatever they can from him, be it jobs or his ability to be overtly racist.

I'm guessing you, too, have the joys of "will there be enough people in school on the opening ay of hunting season to count it as a day of instruction?"

[Kit Whitfield]

She has argued that Tvtropes is worthless -- not just to her, but to writing in general

No, I have not, and I'm tired to death of people saying I have.

What I have been saying all along is that TVTropes:

a) Is primarily a list rather than a set of analyses and could easily be a lot better than it is.

b) Appears to be part of a cultural phenomenon (largely located within the geek community, though it probably doesn't encompass the whole subculture) in which it's assumed that writing is always a schematic business, and while some writers are schematic others are not and it's a bad idea for any kind of writing to be assumed the only way.

Somehow people have turned this into 'I am Queen of Everything and I condemn you, your hobbies, your tastes and everything about you.'

I am going back to what mmy said earlier. Sometimes when a person resists an orthodoxy, they are accused of trying to establish a counter-orthodoxy. This is what has happened to me here.

It seems it's okay to be a Christian, an atheist, a progressive, a conservative, a pagan, a sceptic ... but only as long as you're a geek. This is something I've felt in this community before: that disagreement about most things is acceptable, but if you say anything critical of geek orthodoxies, people start making personal accusations and fighting with things you didn't say.

I am not going to flounce, but neither am I going to issue a general apology for having an opinion that is different from the opinions of others here. This is supposed to be an open forum where difference of opinion is welcome.

[Kit Whitfield]

Regarding invasion of privacy: we don't do that. And we can't prove that we don't do it, because to give examples, we'd have to violate people's privacy.

[Kit Whitfield]

Just like earlier it sounded TO ME like Kit was deliberately insulting Froborr.

I think this needs to be addressed. It seems a lot of people have taken exception to me saying, 'Yes, but your writing might be bad, and if so, you won't be an authority on what makes writing good.'

Here's the thing. I'm not just a writer. I'm a former editor. I've read a lot of slush piles. I've been sent a lot of books for reader's reports. I have read many, many, many books by aspiring writers.

To say 'Your writing may be bad' is not, from that point of view, a personal insult. It's a statistical fact. Statistically speaking, you would assume that anyone's writing is bad. If you didn't know my stuff was published, you should, statistically speaking, assume that it's unpublishable. And while it might irritate me a bit if someone assumed it was unpublishable when the fact that it's published is easily accessed, to me, saying 'Statistically speaking, your work is probably somewhere between an enjoyable light hobby and unfathomable mess,' ... well, if someone says that to me, I'm not going to hear someone disrespecting me. I'm going to hear someone respecting the art form.

A while ago, a flurry occurred in Hollywood because, the promoters of Black Swan having claimed that Natalie Portman did almost all the dancing, her ballet 'double' Sarah Lane appeared in public saying that this was not the case,* that Portman had done face and arm work and was a great actress, but that most of the dancing was Lane. And the reason she gave for objecting was that:

I know that some people are getting very defensive about Black Swan and my role in it, but back-stabbing is not my purpose when people ask me about the legitimacy of the dance shots in the movie. I only care to speak the truth. The truth is that no one, not Natalie Portman, or even myself can come anywhere close to the level of a professional ballerina in a year and a half. Period. That doesn't mean that I don't admire Natalie and her acting. She is so talented and can inspire people, as well, with her own art form. She did an amazing job portraying her character in Black Swan. (Though the movie wasn't a completely realistic reflection of ballet or dancers.) My only wish is that Natalie, Darren, and certain others who worked closely on the movie could have grasped the beauty and the heart of true ballet. If they had, they would have advocated for this art more and given the real dancers the credit that they deserve.

Or, in a shorter form, "When those incorrect things are coming out, and they threaten the entire principle of ballet, then I feel like I need to say something."

Her point was not to undermine Natalie Portman. It was that to claim that anyone could dance at a professional level after only a year and a half of training was to demean the lifetime's work that is becoming a ballerina and the art form it represents.

This is where I'm coming from. I'm not trying to demean anyone. If someone writes for a hobby and it makes them happy, I really don't care if they write well or badly. It's their own business.

But if they're going to enter into a debate about the principles of writing in which they make definitive statements about what is and isn't good method, and I'm required to accept that their statements are authoritative even if their writing is bad ... then no, I'm sorry. Not if we're talking about writing as an art form. If we're talking about it as a hobby, fine; I care about as much as Sarah Lane cares about someone boogying in a nightclub. Knock yourselves out. Have fun.

But if we're talking about it as an art form, it isn't about my ego: it's about the art itself. And to require me to accept that someone who can't write is an equal authority to someone who can is to require me to accept that the art is meaningless.

And that, I cannot do. It isn't about me. It's about the art form. And I am not going to demean every art-form writer in history by saying that their working methods are something anybody can have an equal understanding of, no matter how little they understand how to produce fine writing themselves. It just isn't right to say that.

I'm sorry, but hier stehe ich. Most people can't write as an art form. If they want to write as a hobby, I hope it makes them happy. But it's an art form as well, and that matters.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Swan_dance_double_controversy

[Mmy]

@Silver Adept: I'm guessing you, too, have the joys of "will there be enough people in school on the opening ay of hunting season to count it as a day of instruction?"

Hell, we had that problem at the private residential college where I taught for years. 3/4s the students came from a background where they had never changed a tire or even made a bed before they came to college. The other 1/4 came from "our family have gone to this college for generations and when I graduate I go back to the home town and take over daddy's business and on the side go out and HUNT THINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!" families.

I went to grad school with a guy who gave me my very own NRA belt buckle and who thought come the libertarian paradise he could very well without any intrusive government thank you. And yup, he had friends in the Militia.

Meanwhile I had grown up around people who had served through two shooting wars and knew people who had been in POW and concentration camps. None of whom seemed to feel the need to wear NRA belt buckles.

[J Enigma (the Transhumanist!)]

@Silver Adept: I'm guessing you, too, have the joys of "will there be enough people in school on the opening ay of hunting season to count it as a day of instruction?"

In the rural districts like Genesee and Lake Fenton, and suburban ones like Davison, Fenton and Flushing, yeah. Grand Blanc sometimes. I'm usually called in to sub on that day because teachers often miss that day, too. When I did my student teaching, a few of the staff I worked with were big hunters. I'm from Flint, though, so I don't see a whole lot of it on those rare occasions when I do sub in a Flint school, and I don't remember the problem when I was in school (went to a Flint school). It's not from a lack of guns in the city, though, believe me.

@Mmy - You're from Michigan/been in Michigan too? (I may be reading too much into your post, but I figured I would ask).

[Laiima]

I would hope, even if I was very upset, that I wouldn't suggest any members of TBAT would abuse their rights and privileges. But I can't know for sure that I wouldn't make such a suggestion. It has nothing to do with TBAT, and everything to do with how I was raised.

I don't think most members of my family of origin even have principles, but if they do, there isn't one they wouldn't jump over so they could better kick someone who was down. Which I know, because I was often that person.

I spent years UNlearning that. Turns out, 'in the real world', most people don't *care* enough about you to make your life a living hell. It's too much bother, or they aren't particularly mean anyway, or they'd rather watch TV.

But when I'm very upset, even with Spouse -- who has never even been deliberately unkind, never mind violent -- I mentally revert back to worrying that my life and safety are at risk. Because for years, they were.

[Mmy]

@J. Enigma: I am a Canadian (and that is where I live now) but I know Michigan well. Among other things I did graduate research there. I probably know more about the politics of Detroit than most non Michiganders and have managed to get lost in many out of the way parts of the state.

@Laiima: Turns out, 'in the real world', most people don't *care* enough about you to make your life a living hell. It's too much bother, or they aren't particularly mean anyway, or they'd rather watch TV.

Yeah, most people are too busy living their own lives.

But there are a lot of people who have a lot of confidential information and who would never in a million years violate that. In fact I would guess that most people are either neutral or good and it is just the bad ones who stand out.

Of course in a world of 8 billion people a very small percentage works out to a frighteningly large number.

[Kit Whitfield]

Yeah, it's not always wrong to assume people would hassle you, and caution can be the way to go. In this case, though, I don't think any of us could be bothered to chase someone who wasn't posting just to carry on an argument that was getting up our noses anyway; even if we weren't serious about privacy, we're not gluttons for punishment!

[Silver Adept]

@J Enigma: Oh, yes, Flint. More than enough guns to go around. Flint and Detroit are the places rural Michiganders use as bogeymen because of the guns. (Which they believe are all in the hands of dark-skinned hoodlums.)

@mmy: Graduate studies in Michigan! Wonderful. Lots of people there that have those NRA buckles and think they'll be just fine if things collapse. (They're finding out otherwise right now, of course, but they won't realize that.) But yes, it's the people who have actually seen fighting and the like who are the least jingoistic about war and their skills with guns.

[Dash]

Everyone else has moved on, and I will too, but I wanted to at least toss in a thought about MaryKaye's closing request to be left alone. I read it as a "I can't cope" plea. This is a friendly place and one where people tend to value feeling safe. While anyone in an administrative position is necessarily very conscious of the rules, others generally don't need to be. And we don't know how many other situations MaryKaye has dealt with where someone might have checked in with someone who left, in a kindly "Are you OK? We miss you" sort of way.

It's worth remembering as well, that MaryKaye has just been though a terrible experience. It's not just the loss of "stuff"--robbery/home invasion can make one feel horribly vulnerable. And her child has now experienced this at a particularly vulnerable age and is responding, well, about as one might expect, which is to say in a way that would deeply worry any mother.

I doubt what was heard is entirely what she wrote, and I doubt what she wrote was expressed in quite the way she might mean it if she weren't under incredible pressure at the moment.

True, most of us would probably just have let it go and, if anyone did contact us, replying, "I'm sorry, but I can't deal with this right now." But most of us aren't going through what she's going through. (Note please, I'm not saying TBAT would contact anyone--I'm just hypotheticalizing here. Take it as such.)

Anyway, just a thought and a hope that, should MaryKaye return, she will be given a bit of slack for anything that happens during this traumatic time for her.