Ada Hoffmann on Autistic Characters and the “Neurotypical Gaze”

Rose Lemberg pointed me to this post by Ada Hoffmann: Note to people thinking of writing autistic characters.

“If you write a story where your character has no character traits except for impairments and behavioural issues, and where they take no actions not related to these issues (or to someone’s desire to “cure” them), you are presenting a distorted and objectified picture of autism. This goes double if you are writing from the autistic character’s point of view.”

Personally, I think it’s worth reading even if you’re not a writer and have no intention of ever writing an autistic character.

There’s a part of me that wants to write a much longer blog post here, talking about my son, about the character of Nicola Pallas in Libriomancer, about the need to listen when people tell you you’re portraying people like them in a one-dimensional way. But I worry that doing so would pull attention from Hoffmann’s piece, when my goal was to divert attention to that piece.

I’ll probably write that post one of these days. But for now, go. Read. Think. And write better.*

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*”Write better” is advice I’d give to everyone, myself included, and wasn’t meant to suggest that you’re a bad writer.**
**Disclaimer written to try to avoid hurt feelings, and because footnotes are cool.

Discount Armageddon, by Seanan McGuire

Twice in a row now I’ve found myself reading a Seanan McGuire book while my wife has surgery. This time it was Discount Armageddon [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy]. Here’s the official synopsis:

Ghoulies. Ghosties. Long-legged beasties. Things that go bump in the night… The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity-and humanity from them. Enter Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she’d rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and is spending a year in Manhattan while she pursues her career in professional ballroom dance. Sounds pretty simple, right? It would be, if it weren’t for the talking mice, the telepathic mathematicians, the asbestos supermodels, and the trained monster-hunter sent by the Price family’s old enemies, the Covenant of St. George. When a Price girl meets a Covenant boy, high stakes, high heels, and a lot of collateral damage are almost guaranteed. To complicate matters further, local cryptids are disappearing, strange lizard-men are appearing in the sewers, and someone’s spreading rumors about a dragon sleeping underneath the city…

This book is McGuire combining her fascination with weird and wacky biology with her never-resting imagination to produce an urban fantasy that isn’t too serious, but is a great deal of fun. There’s plenty of good banter, lots of action, and a long list of interesting creatures to meet and talk to and/or beat to a pulp.

I had started reading this a while back, and it hadn’t sucked me in. I’m not sure if that was the book or my life getting in the way. But this time, as soon as we reached rumors of the dragon, I was hooked.

The romantic subplot was pretty true-to-form. Sexy sworn enemy is sexy, protagonist goes back and forth between attraction and wanting to put a bullet in SSE, SSE slowly comes around, and ends up more or less on the side of the angels. Except not, because in McGuire’s world, angels are probably some sort of dinosaur/bird hybrid that evolved to feed on the sound waves generated by hymnal music. That said, it was a fun subplot, and they do have some good chemistry going.

What really makes the book work though are the cryptids, the various species McGuire fits into the urban setting, from Sarah the shy/geeky/telepathic cuckoo to the dragon princesses to the gorgon to the Aeslin mice. Oh God, the mice. I won’t even try to explain them, except to say they’re one of those delightfully fun ideas I wish I’d come up with. While the sheer number of cryptids living undetected in the city strained my belief a bit, in a lighter book like this, I think it works.

Keep in mind, “light” doesn’t mean “mindless” or “thoughtless.” While the Covenant are pretty straightforward bad guys, the Price family brings a more interesting perspective as cryptobiologists, studying the biological role of cryptids and how they fit into the larger ecology. (Want to know what caused the Black Plague? Hint: It has something to do with the loss of unicorns.) Traditional monsters aren’t treated as monsters; nor are they simply misunderstood uglies with hearts of gold. They’re true to their nature. Like any other species, they can be dangerous, but that doesn’t make them evil. It’s an examination you don’t run into that often.

Which leads to a point I’ve seen made in some of the negative reviews for the book. In the first chapter, Verity chases down a ghoul who has murdered a number of girls in the city. But instead of killing it, she lets it off with a warning, with the understanding that if it happens again, she’ll personally end him. Which means she essentially let a murderer go free, and some readers have a problem with that.

Me, I’m torn. I can’t imagine the ghoul was under the mistaken impression that killing and eating random girls was okay, so it’s not like this was a cultural misunderstanding. On the other hand, if it was deliberate–and knowing McGuire, I’d lay odds that it was–it shows that Verity is in some ways just as bound to the rules and teachings of her family as the Covenant is to theirs. She lets the ghoul go because that’s what the Price family does, in part I suspect to distinguish themselves from the Covenant. It didn’t ruin the book or anything, but it was a bit troubling, and I wonder if that decision will come back in future books.

Overall, a lot of fun. If you like McGuire’s work, this one’s worth checking out. If you haven’t tried her stuff, this might be a good place to start.

Inclusion Linkfest

My thanks to everyone who contributed links and suggestions for posts about inclusion in fandom and SF/F. There were a lot of suggestions, far more than I could squeeze into a single blog post. Which means 1) I’ll have to try to come back and do a Part II to this, and 2) I found myself in the position of having to pick and choose.

I’m not happy about #2. As a member of the most included groups in SF/F, it’s uncomfortable to feel like I’m filtering what people should read about diversity and inclusiveness in our community. But I’ve done my best. For anyone who wants more, all of the suggested links are in the comments of the original post on my site and LiveJournal.

It’s Amazing the Things We Know, that are Actually Wrong, by Kate Elliot. “How unrealistic a more “diverse” story will seem to a reader or writer whose views of the past are mired in these sorts of errors. How flawed, even though it actually isn’t. Attempts to add “diversity” into such a scenario then remain trapped in the same box, regardless of the axis of diversity: The “diversity” becomes an ornamental or utilitarian element being forced onto the “real” underpinnings of the world (which remain in such a case as the default male, white, Western, straight, whatever), rather than being an intrinsic part of the creation.”

Octavia Butler’s Descendants: Diversity in Science Fiction (Video), by Nalo Hopkinson. Ironically, the introduction text opens by talking about how science fiction and fantasy is “about as inclusive as it comes,” before transitioning into Hopkinson’s argument about racial and gender diversity.

Oh, Fandom and Your “Inclusiveness,” by SL Huang. On geek cred, geek girls, and why all of the anger and vitriol about “fake” geeks seems to be directed at women…

Inclusivity and Exclusivity in Fiction: Aliette de Bodard on Crossing Over. “It’s all but inevitable that someone within a group will perceive it in different terms than someone outside a group: it’s what I call ‘insider’ writing vs ‘outsider’ writer. There are two different problems: who is writing this, and for whom it is intended.”

Read These Before Engaging. A collection of links about race and privilege and diversity and unexamined assumptions.

The Hotel Rant, by Mari Ness. Some commenters asked or talked about what conventions should be looking at in terms of choosing accessible hotels for disabled attendees. Read this post. Also, you might want to follow http://access-fandom.dreamwidth.org/

What About When Something is Offensive AND Amusing? by Renee Martin. “It is commonplace to argue that “that’s not funny” because it’s offensive (now, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it’s just plain vile, or sometimes we’re just so outraged and sickened by it that the very idea of it being funny is boggling to us). And it’s awkward because sometimes we use it even when we don’t believe it – even when we are tempted to crack a smile. Because we have an idea that somehow, if it is funny, it is not offensive…”

Radical Inclusiveness: or, Why Hufflepuff is the Best House, by Nightsky. Talking about inclusiveness in Harry Potter and Doctor Who both. And this is one of the reasons I love fandom. (The entire Doctor Her site was also recommended on general principles.)

The “Fannish Enough” Question, by Cheryl Morgan. “Why can’t it be the case that people who are ‘not fannish enough’ are not those who fail to adhere to any particular narrow definition of what fans should be, but rather people who fail to accept that fandom is a diverse and wonderful community, in which we all have a place?”

Women Are Geeks, Too, by Sylvia Sybil. Examining many of the ways women are made to feel excluded from fandom, as well as providing links to examples of inclusiveness as well.

Things People Need to Understand, issue 223.2, by N. K. Jemisin. “We have to shed this idea that SFF is somehow special. That it is perfect. That it is in any way better than the mainstream society from which it derives. It isn’t. And in fact, SFF’s manifest unwillingness to examine itself is one of the things that makes it worse than the mainstream.  I and people I care about keep getting accused of having some kind of agenda, whenever we express a demand for some kind of positive change. So OK. You know what it is? Lean close. Here’s the secret. Here’s the goal of the big shadow conspiracy…”

My Soon-to-be-Bionic Wife

Today I’ll be driving my wife to the hospital for knee replacement surgery. This should be fairly straightforward, and will hopefully alleviate at least one piece of the pain she’s been dealing with. (Eventually I suspect we’ll be going back to do the other knee. You’ve got have symmetry, right?)

Also, it’s one step closer to her becoming a cyborg, which is pretty cool.

So please don’t expect much online activity from my little corner of the Internet for a few days.

In Which Others Worry About the State of my Career

For the writer folks, are you reading Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s blog? She has a great deal of experience in the industry, and her posts are worth reading and thinking about, even if I occasionally disagree. Case in point: last week she wrote about auditing your agent, and shared her personal experience with Unnamed Agent who … well, let’s just say they weren’t terribly diligent about getting her all the money she deserved.

She makes a lot of good points. And while I haven’t seen anything to suggest similar problems with my own agent, it’s good to keep these things in mind, and preferably to be aware of them before rushing into a relationship that will affect your career.

A friend pinged me to let me know my name had come up in the comments, where someone was suggesting I should read the post, because it could help me. Another person referenced something I wrote last year about why I was keeping my agent, thanks.

From there, discussion moved to me working for “slave wages,” and how I was being “screwed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.” Another person said it was sad that I was “so against changing anything about his work relationships.”

Let me start by saying I genuinely appreciate people’s concern for my career and financial well-being.

With that said, there seems to be an assumption in some of the comments that I’m blindly sticking with a system that’s screwing me over, that I haven’t seriously considered or researched other publishing options, and so on. I would like to reassure people that this is not the case. I read my contracts, both U.S. and foreign. I review my royalty checks and statements, and I ask my agent about anything that looks odd. (Often he beats me too it, sending me royalty spreadsheets with a note that he thinks some numbers look off, and he’s following up with the publisher.)

I’ve spoken to a lot of self-published authors, both those who went indie from day one and those who started with commercial publishing and switched over to self-publishing. I’ve self-published three collections and one novel, partly for the additional income, and partly for the experience. As my books revert back to me, I fully intend to self-publish those as well to keep them available.

After looking at the different options and talking to people who have gone down those different paths, I’ve chosen to keep my agent and publisher. I choose to stay with DAW and JABberwocky because I’ve determined that this is what’s best for me and my career at this time. That doesn’t necessarily mean it would be best for you. Everyone’s career is different, and there’s no one right way to do this.

The person who mentioned the hundreds of thousands of dollars I should be making also said they saw my books in kids’ hands as often as Twilight and Hunger Games. Which is awesome anecdotal data, but I’ve seen my sales numbers on Bookscan. I’ve been pretty successful so far, but I’m nowhere near Meyer/Collins levels of success.

At least not yet 🙂

My situation is my own. I choose to write part time, and to keep a full time day job. I have several chronic health conditions, a partially disabled wife, and a special needs child. And I live in a country that doesn’t have universal health coverage. I could find an insurance plan on my own, but it would be pricy. Health Care Reform will hopefully create more options, and I’ll revisit my situation as things change. But for now, I do choose to be a bit conservative when it comes to the health and care of myself and my family.

So thank you again for the concern, but I’m doing okay. My latest book hit the Locus Bestseller List, is in its fourth printing, and looks like it will have earned out a five-figure advance in three months. It’s been picked up in Germany and the UK so far, as well as by the Science Fiction Book Club (deals arranged by my agent and my publisher, respectively). My earlier work is still in print, and is being re-released in omnibus (Goblins) and audio (Goblins and Princesses) editions, as well as ongoing foreign deals (Stepsister Scheme just came out in Turkey).

I agree with Rusch that it’s important to go into a business relationship with your eyes open. I know I didn’t always do that when I was starting out, and in some ways, I got very, very lucky. I also agree that not everyone needs an agent, and that there are a lot of scams and pitfalls out there.

But I have done research, and I continue to pay attention to different options and opportunities. I talk to different authors, some more successful, some less. Some commercially published, some self-pubbed. Some with representation, some without. This is my career. I watch what’s happening in the industry, and I take it very seriously.

And I am indeed quite happy with where I’m at right now. Thanks!

Inclusion in Fandom: Call for Links

A week or so back, I talked about inclusiveness in fandom and the SF/F community, trying to separate perception from reality.

In the comments, author Ekaterina Sedia pointed out that many people who feel excluded in one way or another have been blogging and talking about this issue for a while, but that the response tends to be pretty minimal. (Whereas when the straight white male geek blogs about it, he ends up with close to 100 comments.

Running with a suggestion from netmouse, I’d like to collect and share some of those less-trafficked blog posts. If you’ve written or read about the issue of inclusiveness in our community, please share the link in the comments. My plan, depending on how many links we get, is to summarize and organize the list in a future post. (LJ Note: LiveJournal has been sending more comments with links into the spam folder. If this happens to you, don’t worry about it. I’ll unspam that as soon as I catch it.)

Short version: If we’re going to have this conversation, let’s try to get more attention to a broader range of voices.

Thanks!

In Which Storytellers Conquer the Universe

The Election Day Giveaway was, I believe, the most popular giveaway I’ve ever done, with close to 600 entries across my various blogs. Congratulations to Kari, who was selected at random as the winner. You should have gotten an email asking how you’d like the book signed and where to send it. And thank you everyone who voted last week.

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Seanan McGuire is doing a giveaway of her new collection Velveteen vs. the Junior Super Patriots (which just happens to include an introduction by me).

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Thinking back to the election, to everything leading up to it and the aftermath from all sides, what struck me was the importance of story. Facts are nice and all, but what really mattered was the story you told. The story of your candidate. The story of your opponent.

I see two problems right off the bat.

  1. These stories involve what we in the business call “unreliable narrators.”[1. And that there was what we call an understatement.]
  2. It’s not just that the election is all about stories; it’s that they’re really bad stories.

I mean, come on. One of the basic lessons of writing is that your antagonist should be more than a cardboard caricature, a mustache-twirling villain who kicks homeless puppies for fun. Every villain is the hero of his/her own story, and I believe it’s important to understand the villain’s motivations, even if you don’t agree with them. It usually makes for a much better story. These campaigns need to go take Remedial Creative Writing at their local community college.

Think about how many candidates try to portray themselves as Washington outsiders. That’s storytelling! They want to be the orphaned hero: Luke Skywalker going up against the Empire! Frodo Baggins marching into Mordor!

And like any series, the storytellers have to keep raising the stakes to keep their audiences invested. “My opponent is a Death-Eater and a sparkling zombie werewolf who intends to enslave you all!”

Of course, the other part of storytelling is that your story is supposed to be believable. A member of the House Committee on Science proclaiming that woman have magic pregnancy-blocking vaginas to protect them in cases of rape? Oh, please. Suspension of disbelief is important, and you just catapulted me right out of the story with that one.

The silver lining to all of this is that it provides a lucrative opportunity for us writers. We’ve been so busy freaking out about the state of publishing that we’ve missed the obvious: We should be the ones pulling the strings of the elections, not those silly billionaires.

All those billions of dollars candidates spent campaigning? Send that money to those of us who know how to craft a decent story. We’ll spin you a tale of tragedy and triumph, with a likable hero, just the right amount of humor, a sympathetic backstory, and page-turning action that will actually make you want to care about politics.

You want people going to the polls? Look at how many people rushed out to buy the last Harry Potter novel, because they just had to know how the story would end.

Oh, yeah. That’s the power of story.

Candidates for 2016 can start sending their checks to my P.O. box.

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Hapenny Magick, by Jennifer Carson

I spent much of the drive to New York last week listening to Jennifer Carson‘s book Hapenny Magick [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy].

Maewyn Bridgepost is the smallest of the Hapennies, working for her guardian Gelbane in a relationship similar to Cinderella and her stepmother. But strange things have been happening around Maewyn – purple eggs, gates mysteriously unlatching themselves – signs that suggest the impossible: a Hapenny with magic.

In the meantime, several of the Hapennies have disappeared, and the culprit might be trolls. The Wedge is supposed to be protected from trolls by an old spell, but if that spell is failing, it could mean the end of the entire village.

This is a book aimed at younger readers, with illustrations by P. A. Lewis, but I enjoyed it. It reminded me of a blend of fairy tales, the movie Willow, and a dash of The Hobbit. Maewyn is a lovely protagonist, and there are many nice and whimsical touches, from Callum and his kitchen magic to Maewyn’s care for her pigs to the disheveled raven who leads Maewyn on her adventure.

There were a few dark moments when it comes to the fate of a few Hapennies, but that’s never described directly, and they aren’t any worse than the old fairy tales. And while there were one or two places where things happened a little too conveniently for Maewyn and the plot, overall it was an enjoyable book, made even better by Simon Brooks’ narration.

Let me put it this way. By the time I finished listening to this book, I was looking forward to reading it to my children.

The Inclusiveness of the SF/F Community

I had a “Duh” moment at ICON last weekend. We were talking about conventions and fandom and such during a panel – maybe the gaming panel? – and someone in the audience commented that overall, fandom tended to be pretty accepting and inclusive.

It’s a claim I’ve heard a lot, and I think we as a community tend to pride ourselves on our inclusiveness. Heck, I mentioned in my speech at Worldcon how finding fandom felt like coming home, how I felt accepted and valued here in a way I never did back in high school.

And therein lies the logical flaw, which hadn’t quite crystallized in my mind until that conversation at ICON. Because fandom is not a utopia of acceptance and tolerance. True, it’s a place where I found acceptance. But the fact that I as a straight white male geek feel accepted and relatively safe here does not therefore prove that this is a safe or accepting community.

After all, the other place I felt accepted growing up was in the Boy Scouts…

I love this community, and I think we’ve made progress, but we have a long way to go. Most conventions I attend are still at least 95% white. Women continue to get harassed while men stand around asking why people have to make such a big deal about sexual harassment policies. Awards and “Best of” anthologies continue to be dominated by western (particularly U.S.) names. Our book covers fetishize women and whitewash or erase characters of color. And people who speak up about feeling excluded are accused of being oversensitive, searching for reasons to be offended, and being part of the PC police.

Fandom is accepting of a different subset of people than most other parts of my life, and as a member of that subset, I’m grateful. But I also think we have a lot more work to do to broaden that acceptance.

Election Day Giveaway (U.S. Only)

It’s Election Day here in the U.S. More importantly, tomorrow is “Thank Shadowstar, these %$*& campaign ads are finally OVER!!!!!” day.

To all eligible U.S. voters, I’m giving away an autographed copy of Libriomancer [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy]. All you have to do to enter is:

  1. Vote
  2. Leave a comment saying, “I voted.” (Or words to that effect.)

I’ll draw a winner probably this weekend.

If you already own Libriomancer, I’ll happily substitute one of my other books.

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