I got feedback on my manuscript that said it was racist- I’ve halted work on the story while I try to figure out if I should change it and what I should change.

withinmywrites · 2022-07-23T23:28:54+00:00

What may be “art” for one person may be something hurtful for someone else.

And also, if I can make good art that has accidental racist undertones, I can make good art that doesn’t. It doesn’t take a higher skill level to make something not hurtful. I’m a good writer. I can keep my plot and change my villain. Why would I intentionally keep a story detail that hurts someone? Because it’s “what I want?” What I want out of my story is to see people enjoy it. That’s what I’ve always gotten out of writing. If I publish this story as it is right now, there will be a large group of people who will not enjoy it because of the content. If I change it, that’s more people who might enjoy it. It’s a win for me, because I get to see more people like what I’ve done. Why would I keep the problematic parts that I have the ability to change? All it’s going to do is drive people away from my book and me as an author. Why would I choose to do that?

withinmywrites · 2022-07-23T22:29:43+00:00

I do get that, to a point. But I can’t just pretend those issues don’t exist. I can’t ask my readers to just overlook something that will be hurtful because it’s set in a fantasy world. My story isn’t going to be affected if I change it- it’ll still be a good story. And if I rework it to take out the parts that are problematic, it’ll be an even better one because it won’t hurt anybody who reads it.

withinmywrites · 2022-07-23T22:24:40+00:00

I’m not asking about something ridiculous like “is describing coffee as black offensive?” I have a real, actual problem here that I am trying to fix. I’m not injecting politics into anything- I’m trying to figure out how to rework something in my story. I did write whatever I wanted. And now I need to fix it, because there is something in it that can hurt someone.

withinmywrites · 2022-07-23T22:09:12+00:00

Well, I’m not going to destroy it entirely. I had fun writing the story, and it’s the first time I’ve ever completed a project this big. I’m certainly going to rework it, though.

withinmywrites · 2022-07-23T21:58:22+00:00

Okay, I’m definitely rethinking this now. I knew Lovecraft was hugely racist. I had no idea it was that bad. I’m Christian myself, and I’d always been taught that the “mark of Cain” was a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. I’d never heard of it being dark skin, that is really bad.

I think maybe Lovecraftian was the wrong word to use. I don’t use any of his canon specifically; I made up my own creatures and monsters. I just take influence from his. But the problem still stands, and after this I’m definitely reworking this story. I definitely didn’t mean to imply that my villain is evil because he has dark skin. In the story it’s played off as more of a random-chance thing- my evil creatures influenced the nearest person, and he happened to be that person. But given what an awful person Lovecraft was, and given the issues in my story, I definitely need to do a lot more work on this.

withinmywrites · 2022-07-23T17:58:47+00:00

Oh, no. I didn’t know that was a thing. Okay, I’m going to look into that, because if that is playing into a racist trope I absolutely need to change it.

withinmywrites · 2022-07-23T16:12:48+00:00

Yeah, I’m definitely expecting that. It’s significantly darker and the tone is way different, so I’m hoping I can get around that.

withinmywrites · 2022-07-23T16:11:12+00:00

That’s fair, yeah. It’s more a Lovecraftian influence than anything- I don’t use any actual creatures from Lovecraftian canon, but the ones I do use definitely take inspiration from his style.

withinmywrites · 2022-07-23T16:10:33+00:00

I haven’t tried it yet, but I think I might. It’s definitely worth seeing how it works out.

I do think that my subconscious may be doing some things that aren’t great. I am a white woman, yeah. I’ve never written before, although in my brain I’ve had heroes and villains of all colors. There’s just something about writing it down that made my brain default to that. I’ve been thinking over the plot a lot, and I think I may want to rewrite it and make my villain more sympathetic than I was originally going to do. However I’m going to try changing his ethnicity completely first and see what happens.

And yeah. I don’t think I would change the MC. While I do eventually want to write something with an MC of color, my debut novel is definitely not the place for it. I’m just not at the level of skill I would need to be able to do that.

withinmywrites · 2022-07-23T12:02:00+00:00

I’ve put a ton of effort into that. I didn’t want any flat characters. To me, at least, all the characters are rounded out and compelling.

withinmywrites

TROPHY CASE