On Labelling

In his marvellous book, A Fair Dinkum Pain in the Neck, author Peter Henri relates an argument with a hospital doctor. With his permission, I'll quote the section here:

While I was working at the hospital I went to the ear nose and throat department for another check-up, or down as the case may be. I was seen by a visiting doctor from the ENT at Royal Adelaide. I hadn’t met him before, and when I arrived in his room I was still wearing my hospital identity badge. He had my file in his hand, and by way of greeting he said, “Ah Mr Henri, I see you’re a laryngectomee.”
I said, “No I’m not.”
He looked confused, obviously reading my name badge and checking the file at the same time.
“It says here that you had a laryngectomy in August 2001.”
“That’s right. I’m Peter, not Mr Henri, and I had a laryngectomy in August 2001.”
Now he looked even more confused, and I’m sure he probably thought that he had just met a Territorian who had ‘gone troppo’ or had developed ‘mango madness’ as we are wont to do up here in the Top End.
“And if I had an arm amputated I wouldn’t be an amputee. I would be Peter who had his arm amputated. You see, doctor, I don’t identify as being a thing, a laryngectomee, or any other ‘ee’. Nor do I identify as a cancer victim. I was afflicted by cancer, or got cancer.” 

Who has not seen someone who is, or who has a friend or relative, on the Autism Spectrum, making the point that those people should be referred to, not as 'autistics', but as people who have autism? The issue isn't particular to autism, either, by the way.

This is not a situation peculiar to a particular person, or to hospitals, or to any particular conditoin or industry. It is a general issue, and the issue is one of courtesy. The reason for this is that this kind of discourtesy is labelling.

Let's take a look at what we are doing when we say to someone, 'you're a xxxxxx'. By using a noun to describe a person, we are assigning him to a category. Even if it's a compliment, there's a shade of arrogance to that. We are implicitly saying that it is for us to define what that person is, a thing we have no right to do. 

This is why it goes to courtesy; by arrogating to ourselves the right to define a person, we have implicitly placed ourselves above him. And that's rude as hell.

What To Do About It

The whole problem can easily be made to disappear. There are two possible ways. 

One way is to examine whether the remark was even appropriate. There are many situations where the whole thing would be just better unsaid. For example, if it's a comment you're making about a person's physical appearance. These are generally better avoided. Whatever it is you want to say, the person has almost certainly heard it a million times, it is not going to be news to him, and unless you know him very well, it's intrusive. Commenting about a person's body is just the first step on a path that leads to touching him.

If it is still something that needs to be said, there is an easy fix: it is to use a verb instead of a noun. Not 'he is autistic', but 'he has autism'. I am using autism for my example because that's the context in which I most often see people complaining about labelling, but this method has quite general application. For example, not 'he is an animal lover', but 'he loves animals'. Of course, statements like this are unlikely to give offense, at least not consciously, but as courtesy is so often a matter of unconscious habit, it does no harm to err on the side of strictness.

Labelling Enables Bigotry

A huge benefit of forcing yourself into this more verbal approach is that it can support your effort to behave well in other ways. A great example of this is racism.

Why is it so, you ask. Let's try an experiment. Pick a person, any person. Try to make a racist remark about that person, without first saying, or at least thinking, something like 'he is a (insert noun). I'll be surprised if you can do it, very surprised indeed.

It is the very act of labelling that enables bigoted thinking. For this reason, if for no other, it is a habit we all do well to overcome.

Try my new short story, Uncle Zan's Dog.
 AMAZON

Cast of Thousands Need Not Apply

Vampires. Werewolves. Witches. Zombies. Elves. Goblins. Fairies. Elder Gods. Practically every fantasy novel one pick up these days appears to have a cast of thousands, that makes Tolkien's five sentient species look positively stingy.

Sometimes I imagine conversations between these writers.

"Oh, Mary's book isn't going to be any good. She hasn't even got vampires!"

"I hear Fred's new one has Silkies and a Pooka as well as dragons, griffins and elves."

A brief hush follows, as a roomful of writers scribble notes to look up what a Pooka is and add it to their Gothic Christian Steampunk Transgender Erotic Romance Fantasy Epics. Or whatever.

This mania for having one of everything has, I suspect, in the ancient art of 'Keeping Up With The Joneses.' "Oh," one imagines them saying to themselves. "Joe's got zombies AND cyberpunk." And off they rush to add some zombies to their mediaeval quest fantasy.

Don't even let me get started on how overworked is the mediaeval quest fantasy. It's a truism in the writing world that whenever something really good and original is published, at least a decade will follow where hundreds of people produce poor copies of it. As far as I can see, this applies to just about every genre except literary fiction. That one's too hard for copyists.

Is this overabundance of fantasy species in modern fantasy literature a bad thing? Yes, I have to say I think it is. It's not so much that extra species are a bad thing per se, but more that the wholesale inclusion of everything under the sun signals a lack of restraint. Further, there is something intrinsically comical about the 'cast of thousands' approach. Who can even hear the words 'cast of thousands' without a tiny snigger? And unless your book is actually meant to be funny, that really isn't the response you're looking for from your readers.

About now, I can hear my reader thinking, "But what about Terry Pratchett?" Although I never accept the appeal to authority as any kind of valid argument, his books are so lovely, and so very successful (in the literary, not in the commercial, sense) that the existence of the Discworld, with its dwarves gnomes gargoyles vampires werewolves dragons et alia, may be seen as adding weight to the contra position.

I don't think this is so. Pratchett's work is deeply satirical, and he does not just make fun of policemen, movie producers, dog breeders or whatever aspect of society he's chosen for his particular target in any given book. He is, all the time, making fun of himself and all the other fantasy writers. He mocks us all, and we love him for it. 

My own approach is different. If I write fantasy, I like to keep the fantastic element to an absolute minimum - no more than is needed for the story to work. Some people have unkindly referred to this as 'diet fantasy.' I will defend this approach with my last breath, though. To me, it's a matter of fixed principle that you should use no more of anything than is required for the story to work. And that applies to sentient species, just as it does to sex, to violence, to descriptions or anything else. 

No story needs more
than one dancing zombie cockroach.
Danse Macabre

When You Get A Bad Review

For some of us that sorrowful day is still in the future, for some of us it's a traumatic memory. Some newer writers have even be heard to say they'd be grateful for any review, if only someone would write one, even if it was terrible. But make no mistake, it comes to us all, and if it hasn't happened to you yet, then you have it coming.

The whole vexed question of bad reviews is something I often see discussed in writers' groups. Why say anything if you can't say something nice, is one of the most frequent comments. 

This is missing the point of reviews. Of course, many of us have been brought up to be 'nice', and of course if you're at a party and someone asks you what you thought of his biography of Thomas Crapper, you're going to be racking your brains for a compliment, even if you have to resort to the worn-out 'interesting'. But a review is not a social occasion. A review is feedback from your reading public, and if you're a publishing writer, it can be very, very valuable, and a critical review can often be more valuable than a complimentary one, because it will point you to areas where you are displeasing your readers.

Over the years, I have heard a number of well-known authors quoted as saying they never read their reviews. I used to believe it too, until I was publishing myself. Now I think it is mere posturing. 

Mind you, that isn't necessarily bad. It's much better than starting one of those ghastly public bitchfights all over the social media. That not only makes you look like an amateur, it makes you look like a child. Therefore, I believe, for the safety of your image and reputation, the first rule of reviews ought to be that you do not respond. No matter what.

DO NOT RESPOND TO REVIEWS OR ACKNOWLEDGE THEM IN ANY WAY.

This may seem a little hardline, but I truly think it's for the best. If you get a real stinker, you can maintain your dignity much better if no one knows you've seen it.

Given that any response you make to the review is not going to be public, let's look at what you can usefully do. There are several questions you should be asking at this point.

Malicious or not?

I see a lot of writers speculating about whether a bad review has been prompted by malice. This is not helpful, because at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter if it has been or not, if the criticism is valid. Of course, if the criticism is not actually about the book but attacks you personally, the rules of most sites will allow you to report it and it will probably be removed sooner or later. But generally this will not be the case.

IS IT TRUE?

Of course, a reader's enjoyment of a book is purely subjective. If the reviewer just hated your plot, or didn't like your characters, or for any reason didn't enjoy the book without a specific and concrete stated reason, then truth or falsehood do not apply. If he says he didn't like it, then he didn't like it.

Often, however, specific statements will be made. Formatting errors, poor proofreading, bad grammar, defects of style - all of these, if clearly stated, warrant a second look. If, for example, a reviewer says your book has formatting errors, it's easy enough to check this, especially if it's a print edition. If it's an ebook, then you'll want to look at it on more than one device and varying the font size. If you find that the criticism has merit you can go ahead and fix it. That's a win for you; you will avoid annoying future readers. Similarly, if he says your grammar is all wrong, you can check that too, or get a good editor to do it. This kind of criticism should be viewed at as free quality-control advice.

If, after careful examination, you find that the criticism is not true - the formatting errors claimed do not exist, or whatever - then you can just move on and forget it. Yes, in such a case, it may have been prompted by malice, but so what? You're a published author, you're a public person to that extent. You need to be able to take this stuff in your stride. And yes, it's hard, damned hard, the first time it happens, but every job has its downside.

HAS MORE THAN ONE REVIEWER MADE THE SAME CRITICISM?

This is the second question you should be asking. If the answer is yes, especially if there have been a number, you have identified an area of your work that needs improvement. There are no two ways about this. If you published your work, you wanted people to buy it and read it, so at some point you need to consider your market, and if dozens of people are complaining about, for example, plot holes, wooden dialogue, stock characters and so on, or even something that isn't technically a flaw but seems to be displeasing a lot of your readers, this is something you need to look at. For example, if anyone in your book kicked a puppy, you're almost guaranteed to lose stars, no matter how beautifully you wrote about it. 

IF THERE HAS BEEN MORE THAN ONE INSTANCE, HOW PREVALENT IS THE CRITICISM?

This question goes to the question of how drastic your response should be. If you have a hundred reviews and eighty-six of them make the same major criticism, I should recommend withdrawing the book from publication and either scrapping it or reworking it to fix the problem. It isn't usually so clear-cut, though, not least because as novice authors, we tend to pick these things up before there are so many reviews, because we are constantly checking on our reviews, whatever we may say in public. Nevertheless, if a majority of your reviews mention the same fairly severe criticism, you would be wise at least to consider revising the work. 

At this point you have a judgement call to make: is fixing it going to be worth the time it will take, or should you suck it up and move on, hopefully avoiding the same blunder in future work? If it's an easy fix, or if you've only just published this book, it's probably a good idea to fix it and republish. If it's been around for some time and it's well in the past, unless that particular book is very important to you, it might be better just to write it off to experience and apply what you've learned to your new work. Either way, you should never, never, engage with the reviewer in any way. Trust me on this. If you do, you'll end up looking like a fool, a psychopath, or both.

Each of these has received one real stinker.
It didn't kill me.
Grammar Without Tears
Once Upon A Dragon

Productivity Revisited - my problem solved; followup from 31 March

On 31 March this year, I posted a cautionary tale of productivity gone wrong. In that post, which you can see HERE, I described how last year, despite meeting my daily wordcount goals and writing well over 200,000 words, I finished almost nothing. 

My approach this year has been to limit, very severely, the things I allow myself to work on. At the New Year, when I make resolutions, I made a list of goals for 2017:

1. New edition of Grammar Without Tears

1. Companion volume to Grammar Without Tears

1. Two long stories or perhaps novellas

1. Two short stories (which had already been written and only needed revisions etc.)

The plan called for everything to be finished and in a ready state for publication or submission, and for the companion volume to Grammar Without Tears to be published.

This seems like a very small amount of achievement for a whole year, and I think that's one of the big hidden dangers in planning. If I'd written this list cold, I'd have been going, 'of course I can do WAY more than that.' However, the clarity afforded by Microsoft Project, used properly, in conjunction with data I've accumulated about how long things have taken in the past, told me that this little lot, based on a five-day working week and not going at it like a maniac, could be expected to take me to the end of November, and December is pretty well a write-off anyway, what with all the bites that get taken out of one's work time.

So how has it gone, so far? Well, as we approach the 2/3 point of the year, only one long story and the two books remain uncompleted. They are all substantially finished, though; only revisions and formatting, etc, remain. In addition, I've published one novella, one long story and one short story that were drafted last year.

The way I did this was that I now forbid myself to touch anything not on the project plan, and I allow myself to add anything to the plan only when a) it is inside my stated working hours and b) I am genuinely unable to work on anything that was on it. 

It hasn't been as much fun as last year when I wrote up a storm. By the end of April I'd finished all the actual writing part of the project, and since then it's been all revisions, and formatting, and proofreading. But things are getting finished, and there is a quiet joy to meeting a goal, especially when that involves publication, that is for me worth the short-term sacrifice. It's like graduation ceremonies - that moment when you stand up on the stage and receive your testamur makes you very, very glad of all the pub nights and days at the beach that were foregone in the preceding years.

Is there a lesson in this? Well, I don't know about you, but for me there certainly is, and it is that when you have spent twenty years developing a particular skill, you shouldn't stop using that skill when you take up a new line of work.

None of these would have got published if I'd kept to my frivolous ways.
Operation Badger
The Real Winner
Uncle Zan's Dog