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Why The Book Smugglers' SISTERS RED Discussion Scares Me
Quick summary: Yesterday, my favorite review blog, The Book Smugglers (I love Thea and Ana!), posted their review of Jackson Pearce's SISTERS RED, a modern day retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. Basically, they both hated it. Ana wasn't able to finish. She had enough when she reached a scene in which one of the sisters, Rosie, commented about how pretty, club-going girls are inviting werewolves to attack them by tossing their hair and dressing evocatively. Both Ana and Thea (and most of the commenters on their site) are furious at the character for blaming the victim. They're saying this is like blaming a woman for her own rape because she dresses sexy.
The author wrote back yesterday saying that's not at all what she intended. She intended her character to come off angry and bitter. Reading through the rest of the comments, no one cares what Jackson Pearce intended; they're disgusted she unintentionally blamed the victims.
I don't want to get into a discussion about rape and victim blaming here. We can all agree rape is solely the fault of the rapist, right? Right. What I want to talk about is how does an author know when he or she unintentionally lets a prejudice or disturbing viewpoint slip into his or her novel?
If Jackson Pearce had seen that a parrallel could be drawn between werewolf attacks and rapes, I'm 99.9% certain she would have done as Ana suggested in a comment and added in a paragraph or two exploring Rosie's thoughts on the victims more. But Pearce wrote a story about sisters who hunt werewolves. Her beta readers, agent, editor, etc. all read a story about sisters who hunt werewolves. If rape and victim blaming had crossed their minds, I'm certain they would have told Pearce to tweak the story, and Pearce would have gladly done so because, holy cow, you know she doesn't want to be in the position she's in now. But nobody saw that. Does that mean they and all the other readers who didn't see it unconsciously hold the belief that the victims are to be blamed for what happened to them?
And I'm not at all saying Ana and Thea are wrong for the parrallel they've drawn. I haven't read SISTERS RED, but the excerpts they pulled out do make that aspect of the story look like victim blaming. But I can't say I would have noticed that if I was reading the book and hadn't seen this review. I would most likely have glossed over it because I'd be waiting to get to a kickass werewolf fight scene.
I read to be entertained. I write to entertain. I never want to be in the position Jackson Pearce is in, but how can an author prevent it? Our books go through so many rounds of edits. It's even possible her book had a scene that explored Rosie's thoughts more, but maybe it was cut out, rewritten, or reshaped in a way that made the excerpted scenes seem so much worse than they originally were.
I'm not saying that's what happened. I'm just saying it could happen, with my book, with your book, with anyone's book.
I don't write to push an agenda or viewpoint, but do my beliefs leak into my work? Undoubtedly yes. Can I see those beliefs when I read my books? Sometimes. If I look really, really hard. Even then, there are some things I'm sure I'm blind to, things that I would not be proud to learn about myself. And some things I would be proud to learn. The fact is, I just want to tell a story.
But here I am, thinking hard about my book that's on submission, wondering if a scene promotes something I don't believe in or if I've stereotyped characters or accidentally offended anyone. I don't think I have, but Jackson Pearce didn't think she did either when she published her book.
Thoughts?
I'm not sure if there is much you can do about it. I believe your own writing expresses your thoughts, feelings, experiences etc, you can't avoid brining that to the story.
You are aware of it now; maybe share your concerns with your critique partners and agent, just so they can be more aware when they read.
I believe it is a very difficult line we have to balance. And I empathises with Jackson Pearce; I had a character who I thought was developed and believable, but a critique partner pointed out I may upset certain readers by keeping her that way. A bit of an aha-moment and something I will try and keep in mind when writing.
At the same time, though, I realize that when I was younger, I made blatant criticisms of people's work--work I loved and work I didn't. There was no internet to broadcast these opinions (well, I guess there was rudimentary internet, but I didn't have it, anyway), but if there had been, it's possible I would've. Part of being an artist is opening yourself up to criticism, and once the text is out there people can and will read it however they want.
I do think the internet has made it a lot more painful, though. We're bombarded with far more opinions than writers used to be, and it's hard to ignore them. Even if Jackson doesn't have Google Alerts, chances are a friend or fan would tip her off to that review and any halfway curious person would have to look. It's also easier to discussion of something in a work that a reader finds offensive to spread--sometimes rapidly--and turn into more of a gleeful spread of internet gossip than a truly productive discussion on the topic at hand, with a lot of anonymous people freely weighing in with troll-ish opinions.
So it is tough. It's really tough. But I still think, well, we really can't ask the internet to be quiet and stop hurting our feelings. What if we were REALLY successful? Stephenie Meyer probably gets trashed on the internet 100 times a day. So we've got to learn to tell ourselves we've done our best and people will interpret things different ways...talk to our writer friends...and try not to eat TOO many comfort foods about the whole thing. >_
Those negative reviews are going to be tough, but you're right. We can't ask the internet to stop hurting our feelings. I love that there are so many different opinions out there. I love that one person can despise a book that is someone else's absolute favorite. It makes the world interesting.
Unfortunately, having your work misread and misunderstood is part of being published. And most people are firm in their first impressions and won't be swayed.
Unfortunately, having your work misread and misunderstood is part of being published.
Whew. Being published sure is difficult, isn't it?
If an attitude is prevalent throughout a book (like 'stalking is OK' in Twilight) then that's likely to be the author's viewpoint.
This appears to be a small comment blown way out of proportion, though....
Even so, the author's stuck with it.
And while I do see how Booksmugglers made that connection, it wouldn't have occurred to me if I was just reading the book. Not unless I was already thinking about the subject for some reason, or had just encountered a story where it actually was a problem. So perhaps they were hypersensitive to the subject while reading Jackson's book. Or not. I don't know. I don't know them.
What's more, even if the characters were into victim-blaming, that doesn't mean the author is. Characters =/ author.
(In my case, the society is super vigilant about genetics. They started out wary of inbreeding. But they've also passed laws on who can have babies with who in what lifetime, that way they can weed out genetic disorders and diseases. And heck, while they're at it, they made people pretty. So yeah, I'm expecting comments about how I hate diversity and think less of people with genetic issues. Apparently I'll have to hate myself and my own inherited issues while I'm at it. But characters' decisions don't necessarily reflect the author's own morals and things. Otherwise we could badmouth Tolkien for Souron, or Rowling for Voldimort. I suspect most people will view the issue of genetics in my story as I intended: creepy, dystopian. But there will be some people who want to be offended.)
I knew it took thick skin to be a writer - there will be harsh, negative reviews of every book on the shelves - I just didn't know I needed to be prepared for this kind of personal criticism. Then again, I don't think you can ever be prepared for something like this.
Ah, well. All you can do is keep on telling stories.
I took a quick look at the Amazon reviews for SISTERS RED, too, and it doesn't look like any of those readers noticed it either. It's just something that, once the leap is made, is so easy to see.
About the worry about stereotyping and accidentally offending people... it's impossible to make everyone happy, and I think all that a writer can do is try to be a good writer and work on making their ideas clear to a reader. Once a book is out there you have to let it go and expect people to perhaps misinterpret your intentions (although if you see a lot of people with the same misinterpretation - that's a sign too). All you can do is use that as a basis for improvement.
Agreed. And I like the idea of always improving.
The thing that still bothers me, though, is that an author can't be expected know every issue his or her book brings up. I see what the Book Smugglers were saying about those excerpts, but the author wasn't addressing the issue of rape in her book. She probably addressed other issues, maybe. Issues like accepting yourself for who you are, fighting the good fight, or whatever (I haven't read the book). If she'd known those scenes would have led to people thinking about blaming victims for being victimized, her characters could have addressed that issue.
:-)
Breaking out of inground stereotypes is hard, and beta readers are essential for that. Maybe even having a beta reader who typically doesn't like the genre you're writing in will help you in catching obvious errors. I haven't read the book, so I don't know the context of the complaints, but if it was that sort of blatant as the complaints make it out to be one of the beta readers ought to have caught that.
Then again, there are probably a bunch of people who read it, thought that, but didn't mention it anywhere on-line.
Change it back! :-)
This is a rather big assumption. Just because somebody expressed a concern doesn't mean Pearce has to accept that and tweak her story. I've seen authors who refused to change even if something might be misinterpreted, etc. because they didn't want to alter their vision, etc.
(I'm not saying that she refused to change...I'm just saying we never know exactly what happened during beta / revision process before the book got printed.)
I'm usually good at accepting the need to make tweaks. If there's something I don't want to change, I'll explain to whoever the person is why I don't think it should change. If I can convince them, yay for me. Of course, if I'm in a place where I have to convince somebody, that might mean I didn't write a scene/character as clearly as I thought I did in the first place. :-)
I don't think there's a lot you can do to avoid offending every single reader out there, other than write a book that's so bland and lacking in spirit that there's just nothing anyone can find to attack (although, even then, they undoubtedly will ;)
I think every reader brings their own experiences into a book, and because of this, every person will interpret a book differently. I once received a rather angry email from a mother who couldn't finish reading my book after she read a scene where one of the characters calls in a fake bomb threat. She thought I was completely irresponsible in writing that scene, and that I was glorifying bad behavior in teens. Her daughter had been involved in a bomb threat at school, and it had severely affected the girl...in that she was terrified to return to school--ever. I have also been through multiple bomb threats--both as a student, and a teacher. They clearly didn't bother me as much as they did this woman, who proceeded to write me a very lengthy email detailing just how horrible I am as a person and an author.
So there you go. I really don't think it's possible to not offend anyone. I think you'll be much happier as a writer if, rather than focusing on those who won't love your story, you focus on those who will :)
Ah, yes. That's great wisdom. I think I'm going to print out this paragraph and tape it to my computer.
Also: wow. I can't believe someone wrote you complaining about a character calling in a fake bomb threat. That's just... astounding. And you're right. I can't imagine reading a book in which characters always do the right thing and follow all the rules. What a boring book!
I consider myself to be a reasonably smart person, and realized parallels could be made between this world and the world where Fenris exist, but I didn't realize that there would be such an outcry over this. Yes, Scarlett is on the outside looking in, she doesn't understand the dragonflies, and so she might have the view that "these girls are just asking for it." But that is by no means Jackson's view.
It does make me nervous because I wonder if the flawed thinking of my characters might erroneously be attributed to me, the author.
There have been several replies to my entry with people offering good advice. You can't help the baggage readers bring when they pick up your book. People will be offended no matter what you do. I'm going to stick post-it notes all around my computer when I have a book published with authorwithin's advice to accept it and let it go. :-)
People will see all kinds of things in your writing that you didn't intend. You can't control that. You will probably be amazed by what people find in your book. And if they do find something you didn't intend, it doesn't necessarily mean that you should've had better editing.
Ridiculous.
Is it possible for authors to predict every single thing that people might find offensive? No, of course not. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with writing with care and consideration, asking other people's opinions on how things might be seen, examining several possible angles, and really thinking about the experiences the author hasn't had and is not bringing to the text.
In other words, "Yes, accept that you can't please everyone," but at the same time, "It doesn't hurt to try not to slap someone in the face with your book."
And when the criticism comes in? Well, pay attention to how much of it there is, how many are making the same points, and whether or not any of it was stuff you thought of going in. And if the mistake is big enough, I don't think there's anything wrong with a sincere apology.
I was just surprised at the time that someone saw something in Jackson's story that Jackson never intended to be there. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised at all because, as other commentators noted, an author can't control the thoughts and experiences their readers bring to a story. And they shouldn't want to. It's interesting to read the different interpretations of scenes.
But, no, I definitely don't endorse the special snowflake approach. People can criticize all they want. :-)
Thanks for stopping by.