Sigh… “Diversity” and “Inclusion”
September 28, 2024 by Harvey
In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* A New Short Story
* Reminder
* I Started a New Story
* Sigh… “Diversity” and “Inclusion”
* Still Dealing with Internet Issues
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Special Note to Dave T.
Dave, I received your Bradbury input, but when I replied it went to the email addy that currently isn’t working. If you want, send me the “new” email addy in the body of another email.
A New Short Story
“Being Martha Ramis” went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. I think it’s a good story. Go check it out.
If you enjoy it, tell Everyone. If you don’t, shhh! (grin)
Reminder
You Bradbury Challenge folks, remember to get your titles, numbers and genres in to me before the Journal goes live on Monday.
For those of you in the September Challenges, you’re in the home stretch! Three days left! Today, tomorrow, and Monday.
You may report your final numbers late on Monday or before the Journal goes live on Tuesday, Oct 1.
Congratulations to all of you. Regardless of whether you met your goal on any particular day or week or for the month, every single one of you wrote more than you would have had you not entered the challenge.
I hope you’ll carry that knowledge forward and start another challenge for yourself soon. You’re on your way, dudes and dudettes. All you gotta do now is keep the ball rolling. (grin)
I Started a New Story
yesterday and I’m not sure what it will be. Like the novella I just finished, it features PI Stern Talbot as the POV character.
Right now it’s listed in the Numbers section as a short story, but it might be another novella or a novel. I guess we’ll see.
Sigh… “Diversity” and “Inclusion”
Maybe it’s just me. I turned 18 while in Marine Corps boot camp. I was basically born there. For the next 21 years, I didn’t know anything about diversity or inclusion or exclusion.
Despite the color of our skin or our nationality or our first language, my fellow Marines and other armed forces members were all green. And we all bled red.
We lived in same world everyone else lives in, but we were very much aware of the frailty of life. Juxtaposed with that reality, nothing else much matters.
In that world, our green “skin” and our red blood were the only colors that mattered. Surface differences didn’t matter to us then, and they don’t matter to me now.
While I was writing Book 5 of the 10-volume Journey Home series, I received an email from one of my first readers who at the time was reading Book 4. He wrote to point out that I hadn’t “mentioned diversity very much on the [generation ship] the Ark.”
Well, to be bluntly honest, that’s because “diversity” and “inclusion” are only socially acceptable virtue-signaling words that means different things to different people. Therefore, frankly, they mean nothing at all to me.
However, in the very first book of that series, the POV character mentioned that almost every culture on Earth was represented on the ship, most notably in and by the lounges. Those lounges were frequented most often by the repopulation passengers, 200,000 people from every part of the earth and every culture on Earth.
I pointed out to that first reader that the Journey Home series would be a very long series and that many major and minor scenes would take place in those lounges, either directly or peripherally. That’s where some cultural differences would begin to appear.
Also though, every person allowed to board The Ark, crewpeople and repopulation passengers alike, underwent a rigorous psychological screening process to weed-out anyone who might cause problems based on gender or race issues, religion, national origin, or cultural or political beliefs.
So the initial idea was that everyone (all-inclusive) would have at least a good chance of just getting along—without all the surface BS that some of us intentionally create on Earth. Those who do that do it for only two reasons:
to create talking points so they can hear the beautiful sound of their own voice, and
so everyone will look at them (as they imagine everyone will) and see how very wonderful they are.
The unfortunate fact is, people who are actively looking for something to gripe about (there are too few or too many Blacks, too few or too many Caucasians, too few or too many Whatever Else) will always be out there and they’ll always find something to complain about.
However, I don’t much care whether any of them ever pick up one of my books. They’re probably too busy to read anything anyway, other than political literature that bends to their particular way of thinking (or bends to the current trend of the minute). I live in a broader world than that.
Many of those folks are busy dreaming up or inventing “causes” and then “protesting injustices” they’ve created with their own warped perception before they go home to their gated, locked communities and their Black, Hispanic, or Asian (just to name a few) maids at the end of the day.
PLUS if I research and write at some depth about a culture of which I am not personally a member, some (like that particular first reader) probably will applaud me for being inclusive.
Others, though—usually others who are not members of that culture—will be offended and scream that I’m “misappropriating” the cultural mores. Whatever. All of that happens without anyone but my closest friends even knowing my culture. Sigh.
To those people, I would say, “Y’know what? It’s freakin’ fiction. It’s taking place on a generation ship that doesn’t even exist. And oddly enough, everyone on board is getting along (mostly) despite the problems and problem-children they left behind on Earth. Get the hell over it.”
Forcing particular surface designations on people is what got us into the current mess in the first place. I won’t do it.
Most of the time in my stories I identify minor characters with their names and their speech patterns. What appears in the reader’s head is the reader’s business.
When I describe major characters, I usually do so with hair color and length, eye color, body build (height, weight) and maybe some facial characteristics.
Finally, as I wrote to my first reader and as all of you know, I don’t consciously decide anything when I’m writing fiction, and being politically correct (keeping up appearances for appearance’ sake) is frankly the least of my concerns. In fact, it isn’t even on the list.
And I sure as hell won’t break out a spreadsheet or a database or graphing software to decide the appropriate percentages of different nationalities, colors, languages, religions, and whatever else of the characters in the stories I convey.
For one thing, as I keep saying, I just draw aside the curtain, roll off the parapet into the trenches of the story, and write what happens and how the characters react.
For another, bending to someone else’s real or imaginary guilt complex would just be no-excuse stupid.
Still Dealing with Internet Issues
Just a reminder, I have internet at the house, but not in the Hovel. Soon that will be fixed one way or the other. I suspect it will be fixed today. In the meantime, please bear with me.
At present I check email, newsletters, vids etc. in the morning when I file the current issue of TNDJ; sometimes again in the late morning (depending on how the writing’s going); and when I get off work in the late afternoon.
But by then I’m too tired to deal with much of it. However, I’ll always respond to personal emails, comments on posts, etc. as soon as I see them.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
How to Write Great Fight Scenes I’ve written on this topic before. Here’s another take.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 1220
Writing of “The Darling Members Club”
Day 1…… 3274 words. To date…… 3274
Fiction for September…………………….. 81458
Fiction for 2024………………………….… 734792
Fiction since October 1…………………… 861996
Nonfiction for September………………… 27020
Nonfiction for 2024……………………….. 301860
2024 consumable words…………………. 864049
Average Fiction WPD (September)……… 3017
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 13
2024 Novellas to Date……………………. 1
2024 Short Stories to Date………………. 14
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 95
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………. 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………. 251
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer, but please try this at home. You can do it. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies. They will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
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Very well put! Whenever I see such nonsense brought up AGAIN, because these folks are insufferable and way too predictable, I remember a conversation I had with a fellow author several years ago. One of her books contained almost entirely black characters, because they lived in a predominantly black inner city community. She was applauded by some for focusing on black people, but she actually got a rather hateful email from a person who accused her of appropriating the black culture to make money. Imagine their surprise when they found out SHE is black. Their response to finding that out? "Your name is white." She shared that with a bunch of us, thought it was outright ludicrous all the way around.
I also recall an article I read a while back about an author who identifies as non-binary and lesbian or some such. (It was confusing because the terms used actually contradicted each other.) She wrote a book that was supposed to celebrate all the DEI stuff, and she ended up nearly crucified because reviewers said she didn't properly represent the trans community, particular trans "women".
"Diversity" and "inclusivity" in fiction writing is nothing but a pointless trap. If you don't use PICK A GROUP, you're a bigot. If you do, but you don't show them in an entirely positive light (you know, because characters are human and not perfect), then you're a bigot. If you DO include them, you'll be accused of appropriation, or oddly enough, being a bigot who's only including them to try to hide your bigotry. The virtue-signaling people are so determined to be offended, you truly can't win no matter what you do, so I see zero point in humoring their nonsense.
As far as I'm concerned, they can climb back under their rocks. I write the characters that come to me, regardless of skin color or nationality. If they don't like it, they don't need to read my books. There are a whole host of writers out there these days who actually TRY to pander to them (such as the DEI author I mentioned above). They're free to can go buy those books and then slaughter the author for not pandering hard enough. LOL
I don't ever think about what types of characters to include. They tell me what/who they are.
Good Of Interest on fighting. I'd like to see your posts again on that. I just wrote a fight scene--actually an escape scene--and would love more examples of how to capture them well for the reader.
I'm very visual and "see" the action that I write. But I also act out specific movements (I think it's probably pretty weird to watch me writing) to make sure I've got them right. And I know there's lots more than the physical action to portray the scene fully and make it real for the reader.