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political correctness in the writting community

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pcpoet:
I have a really good group I meet with once a week. our group has six members and we our all working on a book. last week the subject of political correctness came up and how it effects writing. I was surprised when one in my group started to talk about how it ruins writing when it creeps into a book. this surprised me coming from her because she could not see how it was all over her criticism of other people writings and had crept into her own writing.. She is constantly telling us that character is sexist or an idea should not be presented because you will lose audience if you voice the idea. I was wondering how many here our feafull that some books our not being written because authors are afraid of a negative reaction from the publisher or if it is published by society.

trboturtle:
Simply put -- you can't have a all-PC cast of characters. If you do, you have a BORING book.

I will say this first -- I hate political correctness. I think it's something straight out of Orwell's 1984. If you don't like what someone is saying, either challenge them to a debate like a rational human being or walk away. Trying to cut off someone's speech because you don't agree with what the person is saying is WRONG. Everyone in the US has a right to free speech, but we also have the right to either challenge what the speaker is saying, or ignore them -- they don't have the right to have their view accepted by everyone. As long as they are not advocating violence against another person or group of people, they can speak their mind, no matter how stupid or vile it is. I personally think PC should be wrapped in chains, taken out in the middle of the ocean and dumped overboard

Back to writing. Sure, you can have PC characters, but most major characters have some anti-PC views. A warrior who's spent a lifetime fighting Orcs might believe that all Orcs should be exterminated. Barbarians are clearly non-PC characters -- they don't have the social graces or the right beliefs.

Readers want interesting characters. Interesting characters have flaws, are not perfect. Mary-Sues (And Gary-Sues) are to be avoided at all times. The sexist character you mentioned? Maybe they run into a member of the opposite sex that feels the same way they do, and there's an attraction/repelling effect going on between the two characters. Or they meet someone that forces them to reconsider their beliefs. Character conflict comes from opposing viewpoints, which means someone is not PC in their views.

Dion't let political correctness get in the way of your story. Write what you want to write, and don't worry about people getting huffy because they don't like one of your characters because their viewpoint doesn't line up with theirs. If they do get huffy about it, you don't need them.

Craig

PilgrimDan:
The PC crowd is essentially a bunch of pussies who want to control everyone's speech because they can't stand to hear anything that might disagree with, or might challenge them. It is, I think, a fusion of postmodernism and cultural Marxism being preached in universities and the inevitable result of the self-esteem movement of about 15, 20 years ago.

I've been hearing more and more stories of how it's infecting everything from tabletop RPGs and fiction publishing to journalism. Even the BBC is not immune. It's a cancer, it really is and it needs to dealt with, positively, before it does any more damage. Preferably with napalm.

Quantus:
For what it's worth I feel like it can depend on the target audience, in the sense that a slightly higher degree of awareness of Political Correctness (or perhaps simple non-douchebaggery) should be present in YA stories.  Not a complete absence of non-PC content, that would indeed be boring, but a little mor care to at least awknowledge the dissenting views? 

That's just my gut reaction, I dont know if it has much of a leg to stand on, and I feel dirty even saying that much...

Haru:

--- Quote from: trboturtle on December 12, 2015, 05:36:39 PM ---Readers want interesting characters. Interesting characters have flaws, are not perfect.

--- End quote ---
This is one of the things that I find so paradoxical about this "radical PC" approach, if I may call it that. For an interesting story, you need flawed characters, it doesn't really work any other way. On the other hand, the PC approach kind of permits to put flaws on characters of some demographics, mainly those often called "diverse" or more bluntly "not straight white and male". And by doing that, you often end up with a quite diverse cast, including one "straight white male", and all the flaws you need for your story are dumped on this one "straight white male", in return making him the one character most people will be able to relate to most, when you are actually trying to achieve the opposite.

Incidentally, Pratchett has one of the best characters playing with this sort of thing in his Johnny Maxwell series: Yo-less. It's just playing around with stereotypes to the point of breaking them and gluing them back together, it's brilliant.


--- Quote ---Dion't let political correctness get in the way of your story. Write what you want to write, and don't worry about people getting huffy because they don't like one of your characters because their viewpoint doesn't line up with theirs. If they do get huffy about it, you don't need them.

--- End quote ---
This is another thing that weirds me out with this sort of thing. If I write a sexist/racist/whatever character, that doesn't necessarily mean that I as an author am sexist/racist/whatever. I mean, I've seen people call Jim sexist because of the way Harry and Murphy treat each other. Pointing out the characters as being something is fine, maybe that's exactly what they are supposed to be, get a cookie and a gold star for noticing. But drawing a conclusion from that to the author is pretty far fetched, if you ask me, and completely uncalled for. I would hazard to guess that it says more about the person making the claim than the person being accused.

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