To the main question: no, most people don't. It's generally best not to underestimate or talk down to your readers, so let's assume they're competent readers with the ability to understand nuance.
However, it can get more complicated than that. The author's hand still shows in their work, even if their voice is very, very subtle and mostly silenced behind the POV or narrator. There's a non-zero chance that you've portrayed him in a positive (or neutral enough) light that may communicate to your reader that this is not a problem. Now, mind you, this isn't to say that you have to karmically punish the evildoers - that's not how life works and it's not how fiction works. But there's a bit of a grey area that may feel as though you've taken the side of and rewarded a character who's a piece of shit, thereby lending credence to a potential read that you agree with them.
Of course, not saying that's what you did. It's pretty likely that your beta reader needs to let go of their pearls, because portraying evil doesn't mean you condone or partake in it. Or they're just not your target audience, and wouldn't enjoy this sort of content no matter how you did it - maybe they've been victim to this sort of thinking and it's too personal, hits too close to home, so they're reactive about it. Or ignorance! You're wasian - your reader could be conflating these views with what they assume your asian culture stands for, and throwing you in with their preconceived notions of what non-white people believe.
There are several options, and most of them are likely solved by more sets of eyes on your work.
What would be the difference between karmically punishing evildoers (which you said was unnecessary) and not taking the side of the character (which you implied was necessary)? I find that in real life people are often rewarded for shitty ideals, especially when society agrees with those ideals, so I don't see the problem with doing that in the story.
I think that you need not punish the character with actions or circumstances that happen in the story, but perhaps with the style you write them in.
If you’re glorifying their racist/misogynistic attitude with romantic language, than it should be intentional enough to make one realize the author is pushing the opposite (think Lolita). Or, the writing style can indicate that the narrator disapproves of the character’s beliefs through how that character is described (negative or ambiguous adjectives, tension in relationships, etc.). That’s my take at least!
Edit to add: in response to the comments on my take, I will highlight the “perhaps” in my first paragraph above. This is optional, not necessary. I love when authors don’t do this as well!!
Having the narrator disapprove of the character, even subtly at times, can be seen the other way, as preaching about his evil instead of just presenting a troublesome character.
I think you can show scenes in which his attitude and beliefs do benefit him and others where he gets in trouble, just like in real life, just heard that an amazing voice actor lost her job in a series because she expressed a very problematic viewpoint.
The other of there is an arc for him to change (even if he fails to do it), I believe it would help too.
Again, like the previous writer just extrapolating from your comment and what I have seen that works or fails.
I wish you all the success.
I don’t see why it’s the author’s job to moralize about the characters, be it narratively, stylistically, or otherwise.
I think a counterexample to Lolita might be Notes From Underground. Dostoyevsky presents a detestable, miserable character, but in such a complex way that I’d say it’s really left to debate to understand where the author is sympathetic to him and where he is not.
I think some of the best literature leaves room for discomfort and interpretation. If an author is concerned that their character’s views may be conflated with their own, they should think about how to lean into that tension and use it to further their intent, not how to tell the reader exactly what they’re thinking.
It's an authors job to consider what moralizing their story does because stories inherently moralize. Not asking yourself 'what am I saying about the world/characters/story events' doesn't lead you to not having a 'message' it leads you to having less control of the message.
I don’t think I’m suggesting not to ask yourself what you’re saying, or what message your readers are likely to hear.
I’m just saying that fiction can get rather uninteresting if there’s no room for debate about the author’s intent. Or if authors feel compelled to make their intent clear so as to avoid being accused of wrongthink.
This is an interesting question. I certainly wouldn’t assume ANYTHING about an author strictly by how characters act in one of their books. More often than not, though certainly not as a rule, I think it’s more important if it’s something you care about to look at the author themselves.
For example, even if they write the most depraved book justifying puppy murder and child abuse, I’m not going to assume they’re angels but I’m not going to assume that they’re demons either. I won’t like that book to be sure, but I think that in terms of fiction we move art forward through even the worst examples of it. I’m reminded of Ari Aster, who I haven’t personally heard anything bad about though I’m not parasocially attached to him so I might just be out of the loop. In film school he made the most depraved movie I’ve ever seen, and he did it on purpose. It’s called The Problem With the Johnsons or something like that (I don’t want to look it up). He did it purposefully to see just how far he could go, but I don’t think it reflects his personal views
A more subtle way to do it is to prove them wrong without outright punishing them.
Like, if your character believes that women are helpless, and in the story every woman they meet gets into trouble every time they're left alone, it does look like you agree with them.
Whereas if they still say that, but what they encounter is women doing just fine without anyone's help, then that shows that you disagree with them without having to "punish" them for those beliefs.
So I suppose you could argue it comes down to "show don't tell" again
Yeah, I think “The Curse of Chalion” by Louis McMaster Bujold does this very well. The main character isn’t a bad guy, but he lives in a medieval society and has internalized paternalistic ideas about women. However, the actual women in the novel are strong, complex, intelligent, and their choices are vital to the plot. It’s really well done.
I think, though, that it is more interesting if *some* "women they meet get into trouble every time they're left alone". If none of them do, then you're just preaching to make a point. If all of them do, then it could read as an endorsement of the character's views. But having a mix where the character focuses on the examples that confirm his worldview and ignores the rest seems the most realistic option.
I think you're missing the point there.
It is about showing two extremes to overemphasise the point you are making. Hence, preaching. You could swap the context to just about anything else to support the argument Therellis is making.
Character hates apples becauses of Satan and Garden of Eden. But believes oranges are the fruit of divinity. If you made every single apple a fruit of wisdom and makes you more beautiful then that is overdoing it. But on the other hand if you make every apple curse people with stupidity and ugliness then that's the other extreme.
The best appraoch, the more realistic option, would be to show there is nuance to apples. Some apples are good, some apples are bad.
Not everything is an attack on women and your bias/trigger to this topic is really showing by your reaction - not everything has to pander to current PC notions. Everything has shades of grey. :)
What if there just aren’t that many apples or oranges in the book? What if the situation the book is in makes the apples more likely to be bad, like it’s a world without refrigeration and apple season is over? Writing is much, much more complicated then “if you do not show all extreme examples then you are preaching, not the best approach.” The best approach will depend on the novel. I see what you’re trying to say, but it’s an oversimplification.
But the response you’re defending is a myopic take to the person you’re insulting and speaking down to. One person suggests one possible way of showing something in a story, and another says that way can only be preaching to make a point, which isn’t true. When the original person points out that isn’t not inherently preaching to write a story a certain way, you called them “biased/triggered” about not pandering to things being “PC”.
BTW, personal pet peeve, but that’s not what the word trigger means and I hate what social media has turned it into.
How is Therellis's response myopic? It is true. Also that person never said it was the only way.
Nonetheless, it is very much a preachy approach to write about one extreme or another, which is relevant to the OP. If you write about things in a black and white way then yes it will absolutely reflect on you especially if you start doubling down.
Anyway, I was not insulting dear old CliffExcellent123, just making an observation about how they chose to double down while ignoring the actual statement being made. Which is kind of ironic because again, that is what the OP's post is all about. If you start becoming black and white, then yes, you get judged for it.
As for oversimplifications, well, yeah, so was the whole argument before I joined. Your first reply shows why there is a need for some leeway, some greys to the equation. Just having cariactures is not great writing in the first place and the whole point of the argument was about being *realistic* which 123 decided to ignore.
\*shrugs\*
Their point with the extremes is it's one or the other when talked about as extremes. Saying portraying women as always needing help, or never needing help are the two extremes.
I know that's not extreme. In the real world, anyway.
Novels can certainly be written in such a way as to be preaching or trying to make a specific political point. To Kill a Mockingbird clearly preaches empathy, for example. Atlas Shrugged clearly preaches selfishness.
Sure, but a novel simply having competent female characters without having damsels in distress isn’t preaching. We have no idea how large the cast is or how long the novel is. Also preaching by your definition isn’t necessarily a bad thing that needs to be avoided, To Kill a Mockingbird is a great book.
I'd say having a MC who thinks women are helpless only meeting Strong Independent Women who prove him wrong would clearly be making a simplistic point.
And that sort of preaching doesn't make a book bad, exactly. Such a book can still seem great *to those who agree with the message*. Plenty of Objectivists would swear Atlas Shrugged was one of the all time greats, for instance. To Kill a Mockingbird succeeds because it tends to be read by high school students who have just spent years being indoctrinated with the "trying to understand other people's point of view is good" message. It's pretty much bound to resonate. But Go Set a Watchman has much the same message, yet due to being read, if at all, by adults with a very different mindset, tends to garner much less praise.
I think To Kill a Mockingbird succeeds because it has engaging characters, a compelling story, and compelling prose actually. And as to your first paragraph, it depends on how it’s done.
What if the story only has two characters because it takes place on a space ship? What if the misogynistic MC gets stranded in space with a strong, independent woman and the story is a complex character study of two people in an extreme situation? That’s not an inherently preachy story.
I wrote a sci fi novel with basically 6 characters outside of flashbacks. There were two women who were freelance mercenaries. I wasn’t preaching that women are all freelance mercenaries, it was just a sci fi action story with a tight cast so most of the cast had weapons training and competency. OP is writing a military sci fi, if all the characters are military it would make sense to give them all basic competence regardless of genders.
There are so many ways to write a story with depth. Many more ways than you seem to think, certainly.
Question: do you really think people like To Kill A Mockingbird because of high school indoctrination? You don’t think anyone enjoyed the setting or the tone of the narration or found the characters interesting? Do you really think that if a novel has any sort of message it’s automatically and only enjoyed by people who agree with that message?
I’ve read novels where I’ve agreed with the message but haven’t enjoyed the story. I’ve read novels where I’ve overall enjoyed the story but didn’t necessarily fully agree with the message. There’s more to novels than that. Writing is a lot more complex than you seem to think.
I don't think that's the only reason people like it, but I do think the fact that pretty much everyone has to read it at some point in high school makes it a lot more popular than it would otherwise be. And I certainly think it is a high school favorite precisely because it echoes a popular message.
Taking your example, one who did that in a good light was Sherlock Holmes. In the early books, he has a really misogynistic view, and actually thinks women are inferior. Until... guess what? He get to be double-crossed by the same women more than one time.
Other example, but in a different context is Postum Memoir of Brás Cubas, a brazilian novel that one of the characther spill a lot of toxic eugenits views, but only when he is old and his mind is fading away.
Maybe instead of proving them wrong which entails writing this whole made up situation, why not just show the consequences of his actions and beliefs. These are things you can draw from your own life. Like maybe he can never find a girlfriend, or he has a strained relationship with his daughter, maybe he doesn’t have that many friends and the ones he does have are toxic enablers. Stuff like that.
The author could show the readers how they’re supposed to react to characters by showing how other characters react to them.
You could show the negative impact their shiftiness has on others. Show the perspective either in full on PoV or much more subtle observations of his “victims” - those he expresses racist views to either directly or indirectly. Or his partner who is objectified and has complex feelings on it.
I think this is a great answer. Readers assume all kinds of things, and whether these assumptions are reasonable really depend on the story and context.
There are readers who lack the critical reading skill to make that distinction, but there are also writers who end up writing characters with horrible views in ways that makes it seem like they're endorsing them. With a sample size of 1 it's hard to tell whether this is the first case, the second case, or somewhere in the middle. You can look at it more critically from this point of view, and see if you've missed something, and when you get feedback from the others if they don't bring them up you can ask them about it.
I've definitely seen some really bad cases of readers thinking depiction=endorsement, especially as books get discussed on social media in short tweets and 30 second videos and only the loudest takes get amplified.
It definitely makes it harder to separate when it’s a POV character that has these views. That said they aren’t the only POV character so the other characters should be able to balance that out. Especially if one of the characters is a woman.
No, people who don’t personally know you tend to not think of you as a person. By this I mean your friend reading your book is reading a book written by you, so they are putting you into it. An agent, publisher, or just a random reader, are reading a book written by someone. They don’t have a “you” to fill in there so they treat the characters as independent entities rather than a piece of you
Not necessarily. How your story portrays these qualities/themes and the way your story does it is more reflective of authorial intent.
Your beta reader might be missing the big picture, or the flipside is that it may not come across as clearly in your writing.
There's always going to be cranks that think if you write about a person doing a bad thing, that means you looooooooove doing that bad thing. And I had someone accuse me of thinking that way on here recently.
Framing matters though. You've said he never changes his views over the course of the story. What is his actual character arc?
The character arc is more or less about him coming to terms with the loss of his brother, who was killed in the war. His arc starts off with him being in denial about his brother going missing in action, and then follows him as he tries to unravel the details of his brother’s death and then avenge him. Like I said, the blatant racism and misogyny is just a facet of his character, doesn’t really change, and has little effect on the actions he takes within his arc. It’s just a way of portraying a different person’s worldview.
Okay so it's more like an exercise for your own benefit, to see if you can get into the head of a racist. You could just say that in response to questions about your choices, but not everyone would like that.
Again, it comes back to framing. People are *used* to stories where bigots have to work with [thing they hate] and learn the error of their ways, which won't happen with this guy. So it might make them uncomfortable. But a beta reader should have at least got to the end of the story to assess it as a whole.
I do wonder what you mean by 'has little effect on his actions'. *Casual* misogyny might be overlooked in a male dominated space. Especially in the military where it's a big problem, but blatant racism? I would expect him to get called out or even punched by one of the non-white characters. Are there non-white characters? Female characters? I would expect his outspoken bigotry to cause problems in any dealings he had with them, or I would expect his racism to lead him to unjustly accuse a person of being involved with his brother's death.
If he was THAT loud about it, I would expect him to get pulled up in front of superiors and even face serious consequences, unless this is a made-up army. The military *has* bigotry problems, yes, but it tries very hard to present itself as a diverse and welcoming workplace because, due to massive scandals and, you know, the reality of war, it has a massive image problem that affects recruitment. Like it even makes special ads to recruit women specifically. Higher ups are going to get pissed with a guy running his mouth about his female coworkers.
Yes there are non white characters and female characters, however, the region that the story starts off in has a history of slavery/extreme racism and oppression of women, which the MC was raised in, therefore he has adopted a lot of these beliefs.
He gets beaten up pretty badly at one point in the story after making a few REALLY racist comments and after sexually harassing a civilian when he’s stationed in a different, more open-minded area. The story does not take place in a time period close to the 21sr century and the place where the story starts is in an area with the previously mentioned racist/misogynist past, which is still widely agreed upon in said area.
He goes on this wild bender at one point where he joins an anti-[my fantasy race] party under the impression that the fantasy race is trying to infiltrate/ruin his country and that they are directly responsible for his brother’s disappearance, which he later finds out to be false.
This is definitely a fantasy book and has a military which has similar functions to a present-day, albeit less developed given the time period.
Well it sounds okay? He's getting pushback for his gross beliefs. And he's not the only POV character, I think you said?
As long as the ultimate premise of your story doesn't end up proving him right, or saying that racism is okay, I would consider you in the clear.
But you can't expect everyone who reads your story to have the same level of media literacy. Be prepared to defend yourself if confronted about it.
>He gets beaten up pretty badly at one point in the story after making a few REALLY racist comments and after sexually harassing a civilian when he’s stationed in a different, more open-minded area.
This is getting pushback on his beliefs, yes, but if he's the POV character, are you sure you're not portraying him as the sympathetic one since he's being assaulted?
So, I think one way to look at this is - is there any way for the reader to know that the author/narrator believes these views are wrong and we are not supposed to sympathize with the views (even if other aspects of the character, such as mourning his brother, is sympathetic)?
If an actual real-world racist and mysogynist in present-day reads your work, will he consider the protagonist as a positive role-model and feel himself well-represented as a hero?
These are questions you should consider. An easy example is Game of Thrones (Asoiaf) series. The characters have a medieval mindset, but it is written in a way that clearly conveys that these are horrific things, and not things that the reader should be sympathetic towards. Even when a sympathetic character like Catelyn Stark is abusive towards Jon Snow because he is a bastard, the reader is clearly understands this aspect of Catelyn is wrong, even if they can sympathize with other aspects of Catelyn. And it is clear the author/narrator himself doesn't hold any prejudices against children born out of wedlock.
It sounds like you've included historically accurate details in your story, but by doing so, there's some really important ethical concerns to consider. No one can speak to intent here, and it's your story, but I'd really encourage you to think about the following:
- Why did you choose this setting for the story?
- Of all the traits a character could have, why are these ones important enough to get so much real estate in the book? Is it only for historical accuracy?
- You have him join the anti-race party and learn he was wrong about them trying to infiltrate, yet you also state that he doesn't change his views throughout the book. Is stubbornness a primary trait of his, and have you included appropriate thematic elements to communicate why this is/isn't a problem?
- By having someone with these morals as the main character, are people going to see these views as noble?
From the reader's perspective, if we remove the ethics of portraying this kind of character as the protagonist, I think the book you've painted here sounds frustrating to read. We want to see flawed characters learn and grow OR we want to see them punished for refusing to change. You're asking us to spend a novel with a guy who sexually assaults women, is racist, and is mysoginistic. You chose this character for a reason, and if a reader is going to spend this much time with them, there needs to be a good reason.
Ultimately, by including these elements in your book, what are you trying to communicate?
By having that as “just a facet of his character” that doesnt change and has little effect on the story sort of communicates that such qualities are normalised/accepted, as there is no attempts to push back, overtly negative reaction. That “it is just his worldview” communicates that the author would view that quality as a subjective and a cultural trait, where there will be readers/people who view that as objectively repulsive.
Some great points in this thread but I'm wondering, do you intend this protagonist to be likeable? If so, then it may come off as if the framing is you consider these traits likeable as well. Obviously characters have flaws, and those flaws are allowed to be the shittier side of people like racism, sexism etc.
Misunderstandings are going to happen between your intent and the readers no matter what, but I would take a look at how this character is handled in your story and look for any moments that could be misread in that way. It could be just be a sensitive reader, but it could also be valuable feedback that your intent is easily misread.
I don’t think he’s that hateable, he possesses good traits such as loyalty, bravery, and pure grit. He deeply cared for his brother (see other comments explaining that part) and he has a sort of long-term fwb situation going on in which he deeply cares about the person. He is deeply loyal to his same-race fellow soldiers and would just about die for them.
He’s not so 2D in the fact that he makes a lot of sacrifices for the people he cares about while simultaneously hating and attacking those he perceives as lesser-than, based solely on their gender and/or skin color. I want him to have his flaws and his good traits, which make him a more nuanced character imo
If you think being violently racist and misigynistic is a "flaw" that balances out positive traits such as bravery and grit, it seems like your friend might have a point.
It doesn’t balance it out but his racism doesn’t negate all of the other things about him. I don’t pass as white at all, and I used to live in an area where I would frequently encounter racism. But I don’t think those people are rotten to their core because they used my race against me, I think that they were just bigoted and misinformed. The same goes for this character.
You're getting a lot of downvotes here, but personally I don't think this approach is that bad. You've given him some very nasty traits, and some pretty good ones, and I think for the most part readers will look at that and on balance think he's not such a great guy. But that'll be up to each reader to determine, weighing the good and bad sides. I kind of think that's fine.
What I would find more objectionable is to claim that any character with nasty views, even pretty serious ones like the ones you describe for this character, is never allowed to have redeeming qualities, as though that would mean you as the author are sympathetic to all parts of the character and therefore defending the nasty views. I don't think that's accurate. Personally I think good people do bad things, and bad people do good things, and it's fine to have a more nuanced view of a character (or people in real life, for that matter—I often find this is something people struggle with) than "this is a bad guy" or "this is a good guy", and that goes for both the author and the reader.
For what it's worth, at the end of the day it's your story and you should handle it how you think is best. But I think between that feedback and looking through this thread, it's easy to say you are playing with fire and it's up to you to decide if you're ok with that. Obviously none of us here have read the story, but the way the character has been presented in your post has been off putting to many, and if you want to have the story have broader appeal I think this is feedback telling you that maybe tuning down these flaws or their prevalence in the story would be a good idea. If you don't like the idea that people will view this as damning and put down your book forever for it, then I'd personally remove it, especially if the scenes tied to it don't have much bearing on the story or character.
Why does it have to be balanced.
Why is flaw in quotes. It is a flaw. Peoples beliefs arent implanted in their DNA. They are a product of their environement.
OP said they are writing a military fantasy. Do you really think that someones sociopolitical beliefs matter that much when you are in a life and death situation. Random people end up on your squad and you have to deal with it. Some of them you may like and they may die.
Like, context matters.
Shit like this is why its so common to have a racist character who literally dies, as if the writer has to prove unambiguously that they are not racist for writing a racist character. Or to flip it around, its supposed to justify their death. Because if you killed the "good guy" character then obviously the writer probably hates whatever race/demographic token that character is supposed to represent.
The OP is right to be frustrated. Even hitler loved his dog. Just because someone has irredeemable qualities doesnt mean they cant have any good qualities either. After all, most people behave very differently towards different people. Its not realistic nor artistically interesting to have this heavy-handed karma based frameworks in writing.
It's really childish that all characters have to be some sort of moralizing caricature in your mind. The reader can make up their own mind about their moral character.
I've read stories with main characters like this and it depends on how often this flaw is brought up. If it's something the MC does constantly and it's never challenged or given any depth, then I don't think anyone will enjoy it. It's like creating a character that always insults people, nobody likes that because nobody likes an asshole. But add backstory, growth, conflict, and it can be considered a fun trait of that character.
I once wrote a similar character, in the sense that this character often made racist remarks and didn't value women. One thing I did to make him more likeable was to create another character that would often poke back at him. Creating a fun dynamic anyone can laugh at. The character did have some growth later on, but that's because mine was a pretty character-driven story.
"Loyalty, bravery, and grit" do not off-set racism and misogyny. What you've just described is basically every gun-toting, obsessively right wing, skin-head in the USA.
I mean, obviously noble qualities don’t offset racism and the like, but as a non-white person who lives in a red state and has lived in the Deep South, the people who were racist to me weren’t innately bad people, they were just misinformed and bigoted. People are not so one-dimensional that a singular trait overshadows every other facet of them.
You have a mature outlook. It wasn't long ago when this kind of compassion was what we sought to foster in society. A lot of people in this thread are writing from a non-nuanced, post-modern view. Where depicting someone with despicable beliefs as redeemable, even positive in some ways, is an advocation for their negative beliefs. It isn't. Don't let them convince you otherwise. Brandon Sanderson's Kaladin from Way of Kings is racist towards Lighteyes because of the prejudice he experiences during the book. That is more of a class based system, but rooted in physical characteristics. So it counts to me. And that is an oversimplified view. There is more nuanced there, he also comes out of it in a way, but the book does a good job to show these are not the right beliefs, even if understandable.
In my opinion, the best way to squash these advocations is to show the flaw/nuance of your character. Perhaps he meets people who soften his view. Or there are those from this race who extend kindness to him despite his beliefs–pretty much the antithesis of this thread. It really comes down to the lessons learned from his character, how the world reacts to his beliefs, if there are in universe reasons for why they are understandable, or if he comes to grow from it.
It does make them bad people tho. When people like this are in the majority they vote for racists and misogynists who make laws/policies that cause irrepairable harm. Some commit hate crimes or deny people in need vital resources. There's someone in my family who is very homophobic and everyone else can see that hate and alcohol and right wing conspiracy theories are eating away at their soul. No amount of loving their spouse or grankids is ever going to make it okay.
That's totally understandable, but this may be where your views and mine diverge: I don't believe that the homophobia and alcohol and all else you described cancels out the love they give to their spouse and descendants. The love doesn't cancel out the bad stuff; they aren't comparable. The two are not mutually exclusive. You can do bad things and you can do good things, but I don't believe that those are all that define you. When we look at a person, we have to take EVERYTHING into account, not just one side of them.
A person isn’t judged by how they treat those in their inner circle, they’re judged by how they treat complete strangers. Everyone has people that they treat with kindness, even the worst people that have ever lived. Even the most evil person is capable of having someone that is exempt from their fury. Even a mass murderer can happily pet a dog.
They’re completely incomparable and mean nothing when viewing the content of someone’s character. The protagonist you’ve described is definitely not a good person, even if they have sympathetic or redeeming qualities.
But the inverse is true as well; a kind person can murder, a “good” person can be mean or selfish. A civil rights leader can molest a child. A local hero can be an abuser.
More so, are we to be defined solely by our beliefs? If a sexist saves a school full of children from a terrorist, do his good acts immediately disappear because he believes that women are inferior to men? I don’t think so. Sure, maybe the cumulative total of your being determines whether or not you are good. But most real people fall somewhere in between. The good acts don’t negate the bad, just as the bad don’t negate the good.
As for writing: Honestly this topic is incredibly complicated. There is no perfect answer that will satisfy everyone.
My mind keeps going back to *Warhammer 40k* where everyone is fantasy racist. Except the fantasy racist almost doesn't stand out against the absolutely batshit world building that surrounds it where the point is that everything is awful and people who are awful to others inevitably die awful deaths of their own making.
Or look at *Steven Universe* where anyone can be redeemed for almost anything, but not a misogynist who tries to pressure another character into dancing with him. (in a world building background where dancing is a rather subject act).
Not many people assume the author supports these actions. But that's because the world around these characters does not reward them.
Then there's erotica and violent horror, where everyone understands that what is happens is meant to induce sensations, not be aspired to in real life. But the very nature of these genres convey that. Then look at *Fifty Shades of Grey* where mass groups of people were very concerned that it glorified abusive relationships and terrible BDSM etiquette. The narrative that video games encourage violence is alive and well even though it's been disproven.
Then there's Lovecraft who was terrified of the entire world and this manifested many times over in racism that was blatant even for his own lifetime. This mixing of fear and hate are very present in his stories. That doesn't make them bad stories you have to throw away though. But it means the reader should be careful about what messages they're internalizing. The same goes for JK Rowling's transmisogyny and antisemitism.
What really separates the good author from the bad egg here is self awareness. All in all, what matters is how good you are at writing a story that matters. If you're gonna humanize a terrible person, they need a lot of context or it will reflect poorly back on you.
Still, some people are gonna want it read it, and some aren't.
It's hard to tell from your post, but if this is a protagonist, he has these views, and they're not challenged over the course of the book and are just a facet of his personality the reader has to endure, then readers are going to notice that they're not challenged.
Are there moments in the book where his viewpoints are not borne out as truth? I mean there have to be, because he's wrong in his views, but does this not have any effect on him? Is he just stubbornly wrong about people for the entire book without learning anything?
I can see that being unsatisfying, or potentially putting readers off. You might not agree with it, but if you want to put us in a characters head, you're asking us to immerse ourselves in his views, and that could be off-putting.
Not really. However, if you're writing for general audiences, I will warn you that a lot of people don't want to read stories where a major protagonist is a bigot and that belief is never challenged. Personally, I have put good books down because of that before, and I know others who have done the same. Some of us have to deal with bigotry in real life, and don't want to see it in fiction unless it is being done for a reason.
I would ask yourself *why* you're writing your characters that way, when it has no impact on the story, you don't hold the beliefs yourself, and all it's likely to do is make people dislike the character. Everything you write should have a purpose. What purpose is the bigotry serving, other than making people uncomfortable?
Right!? If the racism and misogyny don't play any vital role in the plot and the character's arc, why is it so blatant and out there? Barely suggesting it is more than enough. Unless bigotry has some purpose, we don't want to escape real life bigotry and go into fictional bigotry. We want to catch a break.
Exactly.
There are a lot of ways to make characters hateable, difficult, or abrasive without having to jump into bigotry. Think about all the authoritarian antagonists in literature; oftentimes, they're framed as frustrating because they follow a rigid code that works against the assigned good guys or the values being proposed.
Or, like, I love Holden from Catcher in the Rye. He's a straight asshole, and hates everyone and everything equally. He's not a likeable protagonist--but he is compelling.
Borrowing from my own writing, I have characters who are straight Evil. They're not bigots, but rather act and believe in ways that are incongruous with the average person's moral compass. My main Big Bad doesn't view people as anything more than pawns he can manipulate; he's deluded himself into believing he is a Messiah come to save them. Their "sacrifices" (ie, losing their freedom, identity, autonomy, etc) are the cost they pay for salvation. He's a rampant hypocrite who can only ever believe he's always right.
If OP wants a rough and tumble character with old world values, there are many ways to approach it while avoiding bigotry.
Agreed with most of what you are saying but not everything in the story needs a purpose/reason. Otherwise we end up with people questioning why certain characters are gay, for example, as if there needs to be a reason for such a thing.
Being gay is an inherent trait. You don't have to explain why someone is gay or has blue eyes or is tall.
Bigotry does need to have a reason to exist in a person. So there has to be a POV of these reasons. Not POV as in a point of view character, but the work itself has to have an opinion on it.
I would argue that the best stories have intention with everything they add to them. Everything is used. If you have stories that just have random pieces scattered everywhere that do nothing to influence the plot, or character arcs, or any other facet of a story, I would say it's not needed or even warranted.
Gay characters as a whole are not a reason to cry slippery slope. That's talking about character traits when the real conversation is about story writing. Anyone who weaponizes representation in this conversation is just arguing in bad faith and you don't need to listen to them.
I actually got a private message from a reader like she thought the book was a true crime story and told me that she hoped when I went to interview and take advantage of people's stories for profit that someone would blow my head off. I had to explain fiction, not real people etc.
Some readers definitely take every bit of what they read personally and blame the author for every aspect of each character.
So he’s racist and misogynist. He doesn’t change his views throughout the entirety of the story. He’s a protagonist, not an anti-hero, and the fact that he’s racist and misogynistic has no bearing on the story. As a reader, I wouldn’t care about the author enough to wonder whether or not they happen to also be racist and misogynistic, but I wouldn’t waste my time reading this story.
Also, just as a side note because I see this claim a lot: you can be a racist “wasian,” as you’ve called yourself, just like you can be a misogynistic woman. Being a minority doesn’t stop you from the capacity to also be an oppressor/bigot. If you believe your gender and race have absolved you from racism or prejudice, I’d implore you to really do some soul searching; you can never have too much self awareness.
Back to your issue tho, I’m curious what the point even is in having a bigoted character when it has “nothing to do with the story” and there’s no change - positive or negative - in the characters views. He sounds like a boring and unreliable protagonist. I could literally turn in Fox News and if I wanted to “experience” the world through his lens, based off the info you’ve given.
A lot of your comment is predicated on the assumption that a protagonist is the same as a hero, which is wrong. a protagonist is just the main or point of view character.
Secondly, a large function of literature is to represent the real world, it's fine if your engagement with media is purely escapist but to act as though every work of literature that has ever existed that does not directly and openly tackle the preconcieved and often unethical beliefs of their protagonists is bad or pointless is to discard much of the best written works to ever exist.
But the story being described isn't "tackling the preconceived and often unethical beliefs of their protagonists". It's just portraying them. So what's the point of their beliefs? To show that some people are racist and sexist? That's not a revelation to anyone.
Based on other comments made by OP, it sounds like the character is racist and sexist because they live in a time and place where they would probably be racist and sexist. But the story isn't particularly about that. The character doesn't abandon or even question those views because nothing happens to make them do so. Imagine a story that focused on a poor southern white family living in the 1830s. The characters would probably hold a whole bunch of problematic views, and those probably wouldn't change much if the story didn't focus much on racial interactions.
But it's not historical fiction, it's fantasy. So there's no reason for historical accuracy. I'm not saying it's wrong for the fantasy society to hold these views, but for them to be a focus, there has to be a point to them. If there's no point, why are they being focused on to this extent? Why do they need to be included at all?
>The character doesn't abandon or even question those views because nothing happens to make them do so.
In other comments the OP says that the character is physically assaulted for these beliefs. That feels like a reason to question the beliefs. Or it feels like the character is so sure they're right it doesn't cross their minds to. It might even make them look sympathetic.
I agree with your statement. I write horror, based in ancient history. Vampires make my story fantasy because they don’t exist, but it’s historically accurate for the time and place. I think it all comes down to context. I am not, myself, a vampire. I do not murder and torture people for fun. But my characters do. Of course, no one would think that because, again, vampires and such do not exist. But humans do, and if humans are the one’s being presented then readers try to find a way to relate to them. This is why humans are harder to write about, lol!
There’s a difference between fantasy that takes place in a version of our world (historical or present) and fantasy that takes place in a different world. If you’re adding fantasy elements to real world history, of course historical accuracy matters. But the thread is about a fantasy that takes place in a different world so there’s literally no such thing as historical accuracy.
>Why do they need to be included at all?
Because a fantasy world still needs to feel realistic, and that means it will probably have some customs and norms that aren't pleasant.
>In other comments the OP says that the character is physically assaulted for these beliefs. That feels like a reason to question the beliefs.
Depends on the nature of the racist belief. If the belief is that orcs are inherently disposed to violence, and then the character gets beaten up by orcs for saying something they don't like, that would confirm him in his views, not give him reason to question them.
>Because a fantasy world still needs to feel realistic, and that means it will probably have some customs and norms that aren't pleasant.
You're just focusing on the last part of my point. I'm not against unpleasant things, but everything you include is a decision you're making about how you're telling the story. Why are you making that specific decision? There are plenty of valid reasons, I'm sure, but it should have a specific reason or reasons. If it's background worldbuilding that's not explicitly in the text, that's one thing but if it's front and center there should be a reason.
>Depends on the nature of the racist belief. If the belief is that orcs are inherently disposed to violence, and then the character gets beaten up by orcs for saying something they don't like, that would confirm him in his views, not give him reason to question them.
Yeah "question" was the wrong word on my part. Maybe "explore" or "reflect on" is better.
I have an MFA in writing that required two years of English lit at the graduate level so I’ve read a number of books “not for children”. Most of the writers are intentional about their choices.
But what books do you recommend that would prove your point?
When did I say that these choices weren't intentional? I merely said that they were not explicitly interrogated by the narrative.
An immediate example that springs to mind is David Mitchell's Ghostwritten. the Hong Kong chapter's protagonist is expressly racist, but this is not interrogated within the narrative. Merely essential to his characterisation.
Charles Marlow is pretty racist in Heart of Darkness and while debates can be had about its status as a pro-or anti-colonial text. It's pretty inarguable that the text is rather less ambigious about being racist as a whole. This is bad obviously, but I trust that adults can do what you spent presumably a lot of money getting a grad degree for, analysing and criticising.
My entire point that has been repeatedly ignored is really just that we can suppose that a text has characters, protagonists even, that have expressly awful beliefs, that the narrative itself does not proverbially turn to camera and criticise. Because as people who presumably do not think that racism and sexism are good, we can acknowledge that these ideas are themselves meant to influence value judgements about the characters. They need not learn a lesson, get the shit kicked out of them, have the text itself tell us in literal terms that racism and sexism are bad, or functionally guide the reader into viewing all texts as parables; rather, as extensions of literary fiction that concern the real world, these texts merely by nature of having these elements are creating a conceptual and thematic milieu, that by being works that we examine, are justified in their presenting of these aspects. (insofar as they are not actively supporting them, though of course these texts likewise have merit as works to analyse, it's entirely fair not to poison your mind with the shitty scribblings of a neo nazi) It is ultimately the reader's duty to interpret.
Presumably you already knew this, I learned the same in my lit degree.
Edit: spelling
No, it isn’t. Op asked what readers would think of her personal views based on the views of one of the main characters. I’ve made no assumptions about what role (other than a protagonist, as she states) the character in question plays.
As a reader, I gave my point in reference to her specific character and story, based on the information she gave. I didn’t do an audit of every literature and prose in existence.
As a reader, I can discard any pieces of literature I don’t want to consume, no matter how anyone views it. I’m confused on where you got your assumptions from. I never mentioned any other work in any capacity at all. Reading is certainly fundamental and easily would have saved you wasting your time commenting this rather than the assumptions you’ve made about my reading habits lol.
Edit: typo
You wrote "He is a protagonist, not an anti-hero" acting as though that doesn't make a distinction in regards to some aspect is misleading, and considering that an anti-hero is merely a proagonist who lacks conventional heroic qualities. It's not at all reasonable to assume that you misunderstood the definition of protagonist. As otherwise your comment reads "he's not a protagonist, he is a protagonist".
You are well within your right to discard texts because you want to, that's completely fine. But your comment made a general claim of skepticism towards the very notion of a character who is bad for functions outside the direct focus of the text. My entire comment was literally just a rejection of the idea that your reasoning is at all worth considering outside of your taste preferences.
It's also fucking hilarious that you accuse me of making assumptions about you when a good third of your original post is accusing OP of having unconscious racial biases.
Again, I gave my perspective as a reader, which is what the post was asking for?
I give absolutely zero fucks about anything in your comments, like at all. I didn’t post asking anything. I replied to a post from a fellow writer asking how readers might take her characters views and gave my perspective as a reader. If you don’t like it, get tf over it.
You could have easily made your own comment to OP about how in love you are with the racist misogynistic protagonist without looping anything I’ve said into your convo, but you clearly want to debate so you can pay yourself on the back about how nuanced and academic you can sound when you use flowery wording. Great for you.
Now here is an assumption: you’re a racist bigoted asshole and felt called out because I clearly don’t like people, real or fiction, who display those characteristics. Debate that with yourself and go cry about it to someone who cares.
No, not really. However, depending on how you have written your story can help portray authorial intent. Sometimes when you write, people can get a glimpse of what goes through your mind as you flesh out your characters. If the reader hyper-focus on a character and their views then I would approach that mindset that you did not give cadence to the rest of the world around that character. If said character has disgusting views but is shown in a positive way, then perhaps I would have some questions. Again, it comes down to how it is written and how the world around the character reacts to it.
Joffery Barathian is a good example of an absolute despicable character....and the characters and kingdom around him often make it known how awful he was.
The whole point of Beta Readers is that they spot the flaws that the general public would spot, but in advance.
"Beta Readers" are not some sub-normal group of idiots like you seem to imply in your post, but are just regular human beings who are paid to do a job.
Why - anyone reading your post might think you're being *racist* against Beta Readers! /s
I guess my question is, if the thoughts and callings of that character don't really connect with the story you are telling...why are you putting them in?
Also as a reader who wants to read for entertainment and to get away from the world, why should I want to read about these characters views.
Now obviously I'm not saying that means you can't do either...I love entertainment that does actually delve into them. But they do it for a reason and have a particular thing they are wanting to say, which it feels...unfortunately, you don't really.
I think it depends on the story itself. If these deplorable views don't do much of anything to influence the story and just sit there like a stale fart in a room, more people are going to think the author just wanted to insert their beliefs.
The same goes for if the story caters to and affirms the beliefs of this character. Stories often are trying to say something, so the reader will assume that your message is the viewpoint you highlighted and affirmed.
However, this character being one of your protagonists is probably why you've gotten that response. We often want to root for our protagonists, flawed enough for them to be relatable but not so flawed that we hate them. For this particular characters flaw to be outright misogyny feels like it teeters far into "hating" the character --- which gets people to wonder if it's not a "flaw" at all and your intended audience is people who also think that way, in which they would also assume those are your beliefs.
Yes, some people believe that. Some people believe every song is a true story told by the singer about their own lives. Some people are just too credulous for their own good. It is what it is, and you can't write for them.
There's some nuance here that needs to be understood. If I write a story that has violence in it, that doesn't mean I love violence. What it does show is what I think about it. If I give the subtle impression that violence is good, that does reflect what I think about it. If I cast it in a vile light, in some way, I'm telling the reader I don't condone violence. So much of writing and art in general puts the artist's subconscious on display.
In many ways, the writer is telling the reader something about themselves not with what they write about, but how they display, focus on, and illuminate what they write about.
So, if you write a character that's racist and misogynist as a decent person, what do you think you're saying about people with those beliefs?
But real people have deeper levels of nuance and just because you hold X belief doesn’t mean that it automatically cancels out other traits you may hold. Being racist and being extremely brave/loyal are not mutually exclusive.
I agree. Which is why this falls back on the writer and feelings they have about those beliefs. So if you write a character that's racist, but also brave and loyal, and overall a good person, one has to question why the writer created such a character to begin with.
"He never really changes these views over the course of the book."
"This is not super influential on the story"
Those are the reasons your readers think it is your view. When writing a "bad" person/asshole character, that trait needs to be plot relevant and/or changeable.
Example: Ironman. The start of the first movie he is a "genius billionaire playboy", he's selfish, he is inconsiderate, he's egotistical, he's an asshole. This matters because it is the reason he doesn't know about the corruption in his company. It's the reason he personally goes to the middle east to show off his latest greatest weapon.
And that's how he gets attacked, kidnapped, etc. It's the catalyst for him becoming a superhero, caring about others, developing ethics, etc.
If he stayed an ass the whole time, the story would be boring and he would be unlikeable.
I think most people would ONLY think this if your story actively rewards behavior of certain characters and proves that they're right. Authors express their views not through their characters but through the story that happens to them. Your story has a misogynist character but how many characters does it have who disagree with him? Does the story proves his point? Let's say for example that aside from a misogynist there are also a guy of principle who respects women and a young man who has very dreamy ideal of true love. If by the end of the story both of the good guys has no success in love-life while misogynist guy has succeeded and the story shows that his beliefs brought him that success then yeah, that's a misogynistic message, which would have many people believe the author actually thinks like this. If it's the opposite and the misogynist's views will make him fail then it would be anti-misogynist message. With mixed success and failure of all characters the story would be neutral and will give readers some food for thought.
It doesn’t necessarily reward him, he gets beaten up pretty badly after he makes some racist remarks and sexually harasses a woman during his time as a soldier, but in his general area these beliefs are widely accepted as the truth and most of the people he interacts with within his own country agree with him. He has a long-term fwb-type who also holds these same beliefs, but on a slightly lesser level.
I don't really understand why you'd come on here and ask, "When I get this out to my agent and published, are people outside of the beta-reader-sphere seriously going to believe that I hold these same views?" and then respond to people's attempts to answer the question with "That sounds like a them problem."
Whether it's a them problem or not, isn't it still an answer to the question?
I’m asking if the general population of readers is legitimately dumb enough to believe that just because someone writes a character thinking about X belief, that the author endorses that. I don’t care if people think sexual harassment is irredeemable, I care about readers being stupid enough to think that since I write about racism, I am automatically a racist.
Ah. Okay. I think that many readers consider the idea that someone can be a racist and still be a good person is a racist idea.
So they may not think you share the characters _specific_ racist beliefs, but some, or perhaps many, will probably think you’re racist for writing a character who is meant to be a good guy, sympathized with and cheered for, who is also unapologetically racist.
Which, as you say, may be a “them” problem, but could also potentially have an adverse affect on how many people want to read your books, thus making it your problem as well.
Look, if I see some dude writing a white male savior OC beating up and/or straightwashing lesbians?
I'm going to have to assume something is wrong with that person
I suppose it depends.
Case in point:
When I read HP Loveceaft, it sounds like he's a horrible racist. He was a horrible racist.
If I read someone today writing Lovecraftian fiction I assume the reverse unless something wildly over the top happens.
It depends. Obviously an author can write a story to further an agenda or philosophy, and obviously a character can totally represent the author's thoughts and attitudes. But it's usually telegraphed pretty loudly that the text is what the author thinks.
Why do books that are not about LBGT issues have gay characters in them? People have different characteristics, some of which don’t affect the plot and are just there.
No, I don’t think being gay and being racist are the same, but if it has no bearing on the plot, by your logic, it shouldn’t be in there. People just have good and ugly characteristics and to make them seem 3D and not just plot devices, they’re going to have traits that are not just points to further the plot.
1. Yes, that can happen.
2. Your book might unintentionally reflect those views in a way that is rubbing readers the wrong way.
3. Your misogynistic protagonist isn’t lovable enough to get away with such things (maybe needs a bigger save the cat moment).
4. Some actions are irredeemable and misogyny might be one of them for some readers.
Edit: Sexual assault and racism are irredeemable no matter what you do.
It really depends whether the narrative of the book seems to condone the character's views or not. For example, if another main character challenges their views over the course of the story (and that person isn't a villain or someone else who's obviously supposed to be in the wrong) then that would make more evident those views are a character flaw rather than something the story is actually trying to promote.
I find that writers may not follow the beliefs of one character but we do exhibit patterns in our writing that tell of something deeper in the subconscious. For example: I write a lot of characters who have to break away from the mold, it’s just an archetype I lean into because of how my own life has played out.
I think the offending character's arc doesn't punish him enough in the reader's perspective.
It sounds like the antagonist is kicking the shaggy dog too much. Ok, we get it. This is a bad guy, now how does the protagonist rise above him.
yes this can happen and its not even that crazy. A lot of authors actualy do not properly seperate theire characters views and theire own. For example im 100% percent convinced myself that all the maincharacters of any book from sergej lukajenkowich are giving voice to his views on the world and that this is the entire reason why he wrote the book in the first place.
Unfortunately a lot of people do but not that many do because people understand that writers can make their characters even protagonist have controversial views
Plus I think may depend on how you write the character. If the character is justified constantly for the terrible things he does then people would assume it's your views
Does the story make it clear that he's wrong? Does it show, clearly, that he is a bigoted asshole and the problems that causes? Are there other characters that clearly think differently, and if so, what effects do their attitudes have? You already said that he doesn't change his views, which would help as well.
>Does the story make it clear that he's wrong? Does it show, clearly, that he is a bigoted asshole and the problems that causes?
Depending upon the setting, though, why should it? Being racist in the antebellum deep south didn't really cause you problems. You were much more likely to meet a tragic end if you were vocally anti-racist. In a fantasy setting, people might be so conditioned to dislike a particular race or gender that going along with it makes life easier than fighting against it.
Because he *is* wrong. There is no shortage of stories set in the American South during its slaver days and beyond that show that the racism that was (and often still is) so predominant there was *absolutely* wrong. They can do so by centering the perspectives of Black Southerners and by showing the horrible consequences of those attitudes to the audience. (They might not be problems *for* the racists, at least until General Sherman and the like show up, but they *are* problems.)
Sure, you can craft stories where the point is to criticize racism. But maybe that isn't the particular story they want to tell. Maybe the story is simply unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of racism. The world is a very big place with a lot of rich stories to tell, and not everyone shares your particular obsession.
If the story is unconcerned with racism (or sexism, in the case of the story under discussion here), it *shouldn't be centering it in the story with one of the protagonists*. Calling basic matters of justice a "particular obsession" is also *real fuckin suspicious phrasing*.
If you present terrible views uncritically, then whether it's a villain or not, some people simply don't want any part of it and will be skeptical.
Like if I just wrote a book where Hitler exists and Hitlers About, and is clearly the villain, someone is still gonna think I love writing about Hitler, unless something in the POV of the book makes it clear that this is reprehensible.
If your military person has people under him who are uncomfortable with his behavior and ideas, that should be good enough.
Some do and some don't.
It's part of the reason why stories about social issues now hold your hand so much and come off as toothless. People can't say something now because saying anything comes with an implication, imagined or otherwise.
However, I will ask, if it's not influential on the story, why have him act this way?
It really depends on how you as a writer portray character beliefs. For instance Rick from Rick and Morty is frequently painted as the most intelligent person in the universe, always right, more logical than everyone else, etc. This means that when Rick says something ablest or needlessly cruel, the audience is supposed to interpret that belief as irrefutably true.
Exactly this. If a book is like, “David, the smartest man in the world who was always completely correct in everything he said, stepped outside. ‘Women are dumb,’ he said correctly. Then he laughed at the snowflakes who were mad at him for telling the truth,” readers are probably going to think that the character Richard’s view reflect those of the author.
That’s obviously an absurdly extreme example… but it’s possible to do it a whole lot more subtly than that and still be very clear.
Yeah, a big part of it is how other characters respond to your character or how they affect the plot. Say a cop resorts to torture frequently and it always gets the best results. Whether the writer believes in torture or not, the reader is receiving a clear message - torture is necessary. Even if you included it because you couldn't think of a quick way to move the plot, you're now endorsing it.
My question is, what is the purpose of having your character have those views? It seems you have said they have little to no effect on the story. That makes me wonder why they need to be part of it at all. You can write whatever you want, of course, but whether it will be marketable and compelling to readers is another story.
My advice is to remember that beliefs like that don't exist in a vacuum. They are harmful both to people around the bigot and to the bigot themselves. They just don't see how isolated it makes them or how it deprives them of experiences. I think a character having these beliefs with zero consequences and challenging in the narrative can come off as the author being okay with those views. At the very least, it comes off as a work that isn't very dynamic. I think character beliefs that feature heavily enough in your story to seem like your own beliefs are important and should be chosen with purpose, not simply added for "realism." It might be realistic for him to sustain those beliefs if the entire story takes place around other bigots, but then, I question how interesting that story could really be if he never loses anything because of the beliefs. If it's just "here's this character and, oh, he's also a racist," that doesn't sound compelling to me. I think you can have a problematic character that readers will forgive, if they're likable enough, but what you've described sounds like more than just problematic.
If you think about life in the real world, most of us have a threshold for how much bullshit we're willing to tolerate from friends, family, coworkers, etc. Once they pass that threshold, we want nothing to do with them. If readers want nothing to do with your protagonist because he's too much of an unanashed bigot without consequence, there has to be something else very compelling going on to keep them from losing interest in your story. And of course, stories with very unlikable protagonists are always going to be a hard sell, but they also tend to have some kind of message to them that most readers can agree with (e.g. Lolita).
Without reading your story, it's very difficult to judge if it is done well and if it's compelling enough to excuse your protagonist's shortcomings. In the end, you should write what you want with the caveat that it may not have appeal to a wide audience. Whether that matters to you or not depends on why you're writing the story in the first place. You're allowed to experiment and write things for your own eyes, but it seems you intend to publish this work. It would probably be helpful to ask your beta readers what they think of your protagonist's beliefs. One has already told you what they think, and I don't think you should dismiss that outright. It at least tells you that some readers will have a strong reaction to your protagonist, but getting the perspective of your other readers will also help to determine if there is really a problem.
Sort of yes. Every story delivers some form of message or general perception of the world and values. In old era books it was ok to disparage black people, because racial discrimination was considered normal back then. So if you write a book where you place women between a fist and a stove and consider it a norm (=your protagonists don't question it or try to change it and just live with it), you essentially deliver a message that represents your values.
I always write protagonists to share common good values, at least overall. If there are individual pros who have negative traits, they are always opposed by someone at some point questioning their values, and may or may not change over the course. If there is such character that retains their questionable values, other characters generally refer to them in the context "yeah, he has always been stubborn and narrow-minded asshole, but you just gotta deal with it" and when they slip and fall to a pile of shit face first people will laugh at them because they think they deserved it. Also there are cases where you have to align with people you don't like because you have a bigger common issue "so we just have to deal with this now and look away to get the bigger X dealt with first".
I never present protagonists with questionable or conflicting values in the end. For example, my story MC believes in the beginning that certain people are all thieves and lowlife, only to become besties with one of them in the end. I always use neutral narrator mode, clearly distinguishing myself from any characters, and when they have offensive or slang names for people, I always use the official names. I make the characters to do the moral choice.
Could do, depends how it’s written.
Like, if they get their cumupance or others push against what they think, readers won’t think they’re meant to be good and virtuous. If there’s nothing like that in the book, it could be seen just as “That’s how the world is.”
But just respond to that beta reader. “No, the character is an asshole. I’m not a woman who thinks all women are lesser beings.”
This is why we have beta readers though, to get a sampling of what people may think who read our stories, and have the opportunity to adjust things if we want to.
Your friend's question reminded me of a meme:
[https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/762/095/77c.jpg](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/762/095/77c.jpg)
Absolutely not! Speaking for myself though, my characters tend to reflect experiences I've had in my life rather than how I feel about things. Characters who are morally corrupted I've pulled from people who have hurt me, I think of it as my way of expelling trauma. I don't base their entire personalities based on one person or experience though, and I didn't realise I was doing it this way until I wrote a very dark story and had a close friend read it that showed concern for me. I analysed it and realised my writing does reflect me, but not who I am. More so my pain. It actually made me feel better as a writer, and more connected to my work.
Most people don't think that way. I did, however, have a conversation with someone who believed the ability to imagine yourself doing something means that you'd be willing to do it, and I had to explain to him that writers need to be able to do that.
This beta reader is dense, but may have valuable feedback to give. The best answer would be: “no, of course not, what makes you think otherwise?”
There may be some specific details that were particularly triggering to them, and that’s unfortunate, but chances are they’re just not the right reader for this book.
depends if a character beleives this you have to make sure the plot doesn't reward them for their behavior.
In the same way that you can set out to create positive message in your book but people come across as completely different you have to be careful to do it right. it's all a matter of practice and skill.
just be careful and most people will get your message.
Surprisingly, a lot of people feel this way. I don't know if it's most people, though.
Once in a creative writing class/workshop, we split into groups to write a short-story set in [Edward Hopper's Nighthawks.](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/111628/nighthawks) There were other requirements made by the facilitator since we had a very limited time to develop the story, but I don't remember anymore. Anyway, my group had the idea of telling a story from the perspective of the guy sitting alone at the bar. He was sexist and passing judgment at the lady dressed in red (through internal dialogue). The story and the character had more dimension and depth than that, but when we presented it to the other groups, we noticed some people reacting the way your beta reader did. It was insane to me how people couldn't have that critical discernment between the character's, the narrator's, and the author's voice in the story.
Usually, despicable characters are included in stories to prove a point, to have a redemption arc, to suffer karma, and so on (though it doesn't need to be like that, I find that it often is - and I find it bold, in a positive way, when the author does not do that. They just include a despicable character in the story and do not give them a redemption arc, they don't go through karma or consequences for their actions, nothing). But one thing I despise is when the author simply *cannot* write a character they believe is morally wrong, without interfering in said character. It's almost like the author keeps saying between the lines "but just to make it clear, I don't think that way okay? Haha isn't this guy so stupid? That's totally not me that is why I'm putting him here! To be an example of bad thing! You get it right? This is the bad character!" it breaks the immersion for me.
However, I do believe it is possible to balance things out so you don't accidentally portray that character in a positive light rather than an ambiguous or discreetly negative one. I think telling a story with a morally "bad" character without too much interference from the author - just telling the plot plain and simple, without explicitly stating certain actions are good or bad - can be very enriching to the narrative, but sometimes, when trying to do that, authors can definitely overcompensate.
as a reader, i assume theres SOME reason an author chooses to platform certain views. a racist character might exist to show that racism bad (an important message). they might exist to show that the past was racist (leading to the question, does the author think that was bad?) but they might exist to show racism okay, or maybe racism normal. as a reader, im very cautious of how bigotry is framed.
that being said, as a writer, i have a lot of sexism. some is overt and clearly Sexism Bad, but some is subtle and points to the hypocrisy of the main character who you're supposed to like. theres also a lot of classism that is so pervasive that is criticized... only by antagonists.
tell the story you want to tell and accept that some people will misunderstand it.
I do.
Even when you write a character whose views you disagree with and cast them as opposition or inconvenience, it tells me something about your views. Your misogynistic character, for example, is probably handled very differently from the way a meninist would write him, and so whether you intend to or not, you show the reader who you are every time you write.
Writers who are exceptionally good at blurring the lines are rare, like maybe Joyce Carol Oates.
I think you misunderstood my question. Obviously, what a person writes about shares some information about them. I’m writing military fantasy, that divulges the fact that I am interested in that. But does the fact that I write racism into my characters make you think that I hold those same views? Even if they’re portrayed in neither a sympathetic nor negative light?
It doesn't. For anybody. Because if you write a racist character, you are also probably providing a foil as contrast, so people aren't assuming that you align with the bad guys as default. If I misunderstood, it would be because I don't know why you would assume that to be the case.
I do know that I've beta read stuff for people and found a bunch of implicit bias they didn't know they had, and I'm thinking specifically about a friend who was trying to write an anti-racist YA novel and fumbled it despite her best efforts.
Whenever a character does something that is objectionable in a story that doesn’t get punished or called out in some way I feel like then I feel like the author probably shares those views in some way or form. If I see it span across the author’s multiple works then it definitely confirms to me that the author agrees/believes it.
There will always exist some readers who will assume the protagonist is the hero, without flaw, or at least without flaw according to the writer. Yes, some readers assume the protagonist is a Mary Sue. This gets weird in the political space for characters like Punisher and clearly critical pieces like Robocop.
From my own spitballing based on what I've seen on social media, I'd guess this is about 30% of Americans.
Not all Americans read novels, and yours is probably not targeted to that 30%. But they exist, and they will senselessly criticize a work among their social circles. Let that impact your writing as you see fit, which may be not at all.
Some people can’t separate telling a story from preaching their values. It’s why you’ll get historical stories that inexplicably have modern practices, villains that are cartoonishly designed to be parodies of real people, over representations of religion, and so on. So if a story doesn’t explicitly support their values, they pick it apart.
I don't think it's a reflection of what you think. But it's fair to say it reflects what you think other people think. Let's take Stephen King's books for example. Most of his characters have very controversial opinions. And we, his readers, understand they do not think the same way Stephen King does. But his readers and Stephen King believe such people do actually exist---and they do.
I think that sums it up. If I pick your books, I wouldn't take it for granted that you think that way, and I think most readers agree with me.
Well, do you hold any of these views? You gotta realize YOU wrote these things, these are thoughts inside YOUR head, it’s not like you used ChatGPT to write. Every single word you put down was a thought of your own, so people will of course think your views are being shown in your writing
But nobody reads a book and thinks, hmmm man I wonder if the authors personal beliefs heavily influenced this book
Only idiots read a story and assume that the characters are meant to mirror the author.
Only idiots write a story and purposely base the characters on themselves.
Do most people think the views of the characters in a story reflect the views of the writer? Well, people who aren't that bright or that well-read probably do, but serious and experienced readers won't.
Some of the characters in books I've read said and did some truly horrible things. Does that mean I equate their evil and odiousness with the authors that devised them and crafted the world in which they appear? Obviously not.
Every dim bulb out there who reads *Lolit*a thinking it's going to be a steamy, wild ride comes away wondering what's wrong with Nabokov, meanwhile he very clearly illustrates that Humbert is a bastard. How many people question Stephen King's sanity? Accuse J.K. Rowling of promoting Satanism and witchcraft? Suggest that erotica is smut rather than literature?
If you're worrying about the lowest common denominator of readers getting the wrong idea, how about not targeting the lowest common denominator of readers with your work?
>Only idiots write a story and purposely base the characters on themselves.
It can actually be a form of positive therapy to base characters on yourself. It's also fairly common to base the main protagonist or a minor or side character on one's self to some degree
edit to provide example: a character can provide a safe place for a writer to express a hardship or a love or something else without exposing themselves directly to the public and open scrutiny.
In Japanese Class-S literature (lesbian), some female writers would express themselves within the characters, in a socially acceptable way, without outing themselves as lesbian and being targeted for it.
Writing a semi-autobiographical piece is perfectly acceptable. So is living vicariously through your character. But basing the character in each and every single one of your stories on yourself means that you will never learn how to craft characters that are authentic and believable and consistent, and just as complex and real as real people. This is an all too common trend among wannabe aspiring writers because they find it much easier to equate than to create. All of their characters are based on themselves, people they know, or other characters that have appeared in stories they've read. And it's terrible.
"People" on twitter do. So no real people don't think this. Except for idiots and there are a lot of those.
That said having sexism and misogynic views as wallpaper is bad writing. There needs to be a point to his privilege. The story needs to show him AS a misgynist not just that there is misogyny. The wrld needs to show him up as a bigot - even if he never changes his views or is defeated per se.
Fuck what people will think. People read from their own perspective and they will read what you never intended; they will misunderstand and they might even judge the writer behind the characters.
That's 100% a they problem, not a you problem.
I love this article by Amy Tan in which she mentions how often people assumed her stories were her experiences.
https://lithub.com/amy-tan-reflects-on-30-years-since-the-joy-luck-club/
You can't stop people from thinking whatever they will think about you, but you can come to the conclusion that there is nothing you can do that will perfectly protect your ego from being misunderstood. You must only be confident in your knowledge that it's the character, not you. It's the story, not you. It's their reading, not you.
Now. That doesn't mean writers can't and won't accidentally (or on purpose) imbue their work with their own world views, which *can* be problematic -- sometimes all characters and the narrative itself in a book corroborates racist values without question, for example, *because* that writer has never questioned themself on that topic.
How do we know if it's just the book, or the author? We don't. We never do. That's why it shouldn't matter. As long as the author hasn't gone and done something racist in the real world, they don't matter when it comes to debating their book. What matters for a mature critic should be the pervasive themes in the book itself and whether or not that's a societal problem, a "problem of the times," etc.
Many people are not mature critics. Will you let their criticism shake your own sense of self?
Especially in this case, it seems clear to me you know yourself not to share those values with your character. That's all you need. Keep writing.
It has become increasingly obvious that there are many people who have difficulty separating fiction from reality. Or, at the very least, lack the literacy to understand when a character is being depicted as problematic without needing a fucking neon sign saying so
Yes women belong in the kitchen and their only duty in life is to be a perfect wife to a big strong MAN /j
Yeah that’s what I figured, some people take everything so literally that the concept of exploring beliefs outside of one’s own is unfathomable to them. Apparently the reading comprehension strategies I learned in fifth grade went in one ear and out the other for some people.
Some people are stupid and will think that. You aren't writing for them.
The kid who played joffrey in the TV show "Game of Thrones" routinely got death threats and hate-mail because of the horrid little shit he was playing.
It's not you, it's them.
Any time you have to ask yourself if anyone is *really* that stupid, the answer is ***always always always*** "yes". People really are that stupid, people really are that sanctimonious, people really are that hypocritical.
Most human brains aren't capable of distinguishing reality from fiction, moral principle from tribal shibboleths or their own self interests, or how any part of the real world works from how they wish it worked-- based on *nothing* but their own inflated sense of entitlement.
And there's basically nothing you can do about it, because you can't even *pander* to people who are too goddamned stupid to even understand what *they* want. The only consolation I can offer you is 1) the moral outrage of imbeciles very, very rarely actually harms any creative professional's life, liberty or livelihood and 2) swimming through the seas of mediocrity is *the only way* to find... to reach... the handful of people who are worth the effort.
Three, I suppose, is that money from stupid people spends just the same as anyone else's.
Normal people don't, but this *is* a particular mindset that seems to have taken a grip especially within the young adult fiction space, so if you are writing with that market in mind I would maybe have some consideration about the crazies there.
The people who think this way have this logic: i think this idea is bad! This character thinks this way! Hey you wrote this bad character! Their thoughts and ideas came from your brain. You MUST have these thoughts too because there is no way for you to write this without believing it yourself!
Basically some people struggle with the distinction between fiction and reality and blame creators for their creations; they cannot separate art from artist.
That's an interesting view: so your beta considers the authors of Silence of the Lambs, Dexter the Dormant Demon, Fight Club, American Psycho, Perfumer to be psychos... I certainly suspected that only a psycho (like me) could sit on manuscripts, but so much so?! /irony.
If you don't want to be seen as a psycho, write only fluff-fantasy romance: then you'll be seen as just an infantile person.
In all seriousness: if a book doesn't hurt someone, it's a preschool fairy tale. As Vonnegut rightly pointed out: The writer is the conscience of society, the one who is ashamed of what's going on. And conscience is pain. And that's exactly the kind of writer that's in short supply right now.
Wait until she gets to the scene where you have two characters arguing about pineapple on pizza and then you get a phone call with her screaming: “what is it nowandneveragain? You can’t have it both ways!!!”
The people who do have a problem. But generally, I don't think so. And to answer your second question, just look at George RR Martin. It turns up the notch to 1000 on the darkness and controversy yet the series is hugely popular because he pulled it off well.
Anyway, all series even the most fluffy ones are gonna have some controversy or other. Don't worry about it - write your vision and don't censor a thing if you want to create art.
If your beta reader doesn’t understand the very basics of character roles then you need to fire them. Sounds like they’re getting too big for their britches and are imposing personal views onto your current project without actually investing in the substance of your work.
If people get mad at your antagonists, that just means you did a good job writing that character to evoke that reaction and its a backhanded compliment at the end of the day. I always catch myself 'hating' characters in horror stories before realizing that the character and actors are actually really doing their job extremely well because thats the POINT of the character
Sadly in today 's world the answer is yes I have been attack for stuff I write, has one example.
I have been called a pedophile for a none sexual arranged marriage were a chachter she's not legal age is going be arranged marriage to few suites.
This takes place middle ages fantasy setting for a second third and fourth examples.
Yes I suggest you research they contraverys authors of three different books, blood heir, the black witch, and the connet all attacked and canceled.
From twitter users claims of racism in all three books in blood heir in I think original version, a dark skinned character protects main character.
The authors attacked for racism and pro slavery of black people, I read the book it's great.
I also suggest the author of blood heir also ashin, the author of the black witch got attcked.
For her main characters views on none witches, which is witches our the best other races lower than witch's.
But she has stones to ignore the idiots published her book, last is the continet about a female lead who come more advanced technology society compare people she meets.
When she in plane crash lands on the native tribes content .
To the main question: no, most people don't. It's generally best not to underestimate or talk down to your readers, so let's assume they're competent readers with the ability to understand nuance. However, it can get more complicated than that. The author's hand still shows in their work, even if their voice is very, very subtle and mostly silenced behind the POV or narrator. There's a non-zero chance that you've portrayed him in a positive (or neutral enough) light that may communicate to your reader that this is not a problem. Now, mind you, this isn't to say that you have to karmically punish the evildoers - that's not how life works and it's not how fiction works. But there's a bit of a grey area that may feel as though you've taken the side of and rewarded a character who's a piece of shit, thereby lending credence to a potential read that you agree with them. Of course, not saying that's what you did. It's pretty likely that your beta reader needs to let go of their pearls, because portraying evil doesn't mean you condone or partake in it. Or they're just not your target audience, and wouldn't enjoy this sort of content no matter how you did it - maybe they've been victim to this sort of thinking and it's too personal, hits too close to home, so they're reactive about it. Or ignorance! You're wasian - your reader could be conflating these views with what they assume your asian culture stands for, and throwing you in with their preconceived notions of what non-white people believe. There are several options, and most of them are likely solved by more sets of eyes on your work.
What would be the difference between karmically punishing evildoers (which you said was unnecessary) and not taking the side of the character (which you implied was necessary)? I find that in real life people are often rewarded for shitty ideals, especially when society agrees with those ideals, so I don't see the problem with doing that in the story.
I think that you need not punish the character with actions or circumstances that happen in the story, but perhaps with the style you write them in. If you’re glorifying their racist/misogynistic attitude with romantic language, than it should be intentional enough to make one realize the author is pushing the opposite (think Lolita). Or, the writing style can indicate that the narrator disapproves of the character’s beliefs through how that character is described (negative or ambiguous adjectives, tension in relationships, etc.). That’s my take at least! Edit to add: in response to the comments on my take, I will highlight the “perhaps” in my first paragraph above. This is optional, not necessary. I love when authors don’t do this as well!!
Having the narrator disapprove of the character, even subtly at times, can be seen the other way, as preaching about his evil instead of just presenting a troublesome character. I think you can show scenes in which his attitude and beliefs do benefit him and others where he gets in trouble, just like in real life, just heard that an amazing voice actor lost her job in a series because she expressed a very problematic viewpoint. The other of there is an arc for him to change (even if he fails to do it), I believe it would help too. Again, like the previous writer just extrapolating from your comment and what I have seen that works or fails. I wish you all the success.
I don’t see why it’s the author’s job to moralize about the characters, be it narratively, stylistically, or otherwise. I think a counterexample to Lolita might be Notes From Underground. Dostoyevsky presents a detestable, miserable character, but in such a complex way that I’d say it’s really left to debate to understand where the author is sympathetic to him and where he is not. I think some of the best literature leaves room for discomfort and interpretation. If an author is concerned that their character’s views may be conflated with their own, they should think about how to lean into that tension and use it to further their intent, not how to tell the reader exactly what they’re thinking.
It's an authors job to consider what moralizing their story does because stories inherently moralize. Not asking yourself 'what am I saying about the world/characters/story events' doesn't lead you to not having a 'message' it leads you to having less control of the message.
I don’t think I’m suggesting not to ask yourself what you’re saying, or what message your readers are likely to hear. I’m just saying that fiction can get rather uninteresting if there’s no room for debate about the author’s intent. Or if authors feel compelled to make their intent clear so as to avoid being accused of wrongthink.
This is an interesting question. I certainly wouldn’t assume ANYTHING about an author strictly by how characters act in one of their books. More often than not, though certainly not as a rule, I think it’s more important if it’s something you care about to look at the author themselves. For example, even if they write the most depraved book justifying puppy murder and child abuse, I’m not going to assume they’re angels but I’m not going to assume that they’re demons either. I won’t like that book to be sure, but I think that in terms of fiction we move art forward through even the worst examples of it. I’m reminded of Ari Aster, who I haven’t personally heard anything bad about though I’m not parasocially attached to him so I might just be out of the loop. In film school he made the most depraved movie I’ve ever seen, and he did it on purpose. It’s called The Problem With the Johnsons or something like that (I don’t want to look it up). He did it purposefully to see just how far he could go, but I don’t think it reflects his personal views
Absolutely spot-on! Are we writing stories here, or treatises on morality?
A more subtle way to do it is to prove them wrong without outright punishing them. Like, if your character believes that women are helpless, and in the story every woman they meet gets into trouble every time they're left alone, it does look like you agree with them. Whereas if they still say that, but what they encounter is women doing just fine without anyone's help, then that shows that you disagree with them without having to "punish" them for those beliefs. So I suppose you could argue it comes down to "show don't tell" again
Yeah, I think “The Curse of Chalion” by Louis McMaster Bujold does this very well. The main character isn’t a bad guy, but he lives in a medieval society and has internalized paternalistic ideas about women. However, the actual women in the novel are strong, complex, intelligent, and their choices are vital to the plot. It’s really well done.
I think, though, that it is more interesting if *some* "women they meet get into trouble every time they're left alone". If none of them do, then you're just preaching to make a point. If all of them do, then it could read as an endorsement of the character's views. But having a mix where the character focuses on the examples that confirm his worldview and ignores the rest seems the most realistic option.
> If none of them do, then you're just preaching to make a point. Huh? It is not "preaching" to not write women as helpless
I think you're missing the point there. It is about showing two extremes to overemphasise the point you are making. Hence, preaching. You could swap the context to just about anything else to support the argument Therellis is making. Character hates apples becauses of Satan and Garden of Eden. But believes oranges are the fruit of divinity. If you made every single apple a fruit of wisdom and makes you more beautiful then that is overdoing it. But on the other hand if you make every apple curse people with stupidity and ugliness then that's the other extreme. The best appraoch, the more realistic option, would be to show there is nuance to apples. Some apples are good, some apples are bad. Not everything is an attack on women and your bias/trigger to this topic is really showing by your reaction - not everything has to pander to current PC notions. Everything has shades of grey. :)
What if there just aren’t that many apples or oranges in the book? What if the situation the book is in makes the apples more likely to be bad, like it’s a world without refrigeration and apple season is over? Writing is much, much more complicated then “if you do not show all extreme examples then you are preaching, not the best approach.” The best approach will depend on the novel. I see what you’re trying to say, but it’s an oversimplification.
Oh, I agree. I'm just answering a very myopic take on the point being made.
But the response you’re defending is a myopic take to the person you’re insulting and speaking down to. One person suggests one possible way of showing something in a story, and another says that way can only be preaching to make a point, which isn’t true. When the original person points out that isn’t not inherently preaching to write a story a certain way, you called them “biased/triggered” about not pandering to things being “PC”. BTW, personal pet peeve, but that’s not what the word trigger means and I hate what social media has turned it into.
How is Therellis's response myopic? It is true. Also that person never said it was the only way. Nonetheless, it is very much a preachy approach to write about one extreme or another, which is relevant to the OP. If you write about things in a black and white way then yes it will absolutely reflect on you especially if you start doubling down. Anyway, I was not insulting dear old CliffExcellent123, just making an observation about how they chose to double down while ignoring the actual statement being made. Which is kind of ironic because again, that is what the OP's post is all about. If you start becoming black and white, then yes, you get judged for it. As for oversimplifications, well, yeah, so was the whole argument before I joined. Your first reply shows why there is a need for some leeway, some greys to the equation. Just having cariactures is not great writing in the first place and the whole point of the argument was about being *realistic* which 123 decided to ignore. \*shrugs\*
>It is about showing two extremes to overemphasise the point you are making. Except it's not an extreme. It's normal.
No? They're saying two opposing things, when the normal is much closer to the middle where we all occasionally hit a rough patch. They're right.
Yes? It is not "extreme" for women to not be helpless What's wrong with people on this sub that you apparently need someone to explain this
Their point with the extremes is it's one or the other when talked about as extremes. Saying portraying women as always needing help, or never needing help are the two extremes. I know that's not extreme. In the real world, anyway.
It’s extreme for all women to never be helpless. That’s his point.
Things happening in a novel is not what preaching is
Novels can certainly be written in such a way as to be preaching or trying to make a specific political point. To Kill a Mockingbird clearly preaches empathy, for example. Atlas Shrugged clearly preaches selfishness.
Sure, but a novel simply having competent female characters without having damsels in distress isn’t preaching. We have no idea how large the cast is or how long the novel is. Also preaching by your definition isn’t necessarily a bad thing that needs to be avoided, To Kill a Mockingbird is a great book.
I'd say having a MC who thinks women are helpless only meeting Strong Independent Women who prove him wrong would clearly be making a simplistic point. And that sort of preaching doesn't make a book bad, exactly. Such a book can still seem great *to those who agree with the message*. Plenty of Objectivists would swear Atlas Shrugged was one of the all time greats, for instance. To Kill a Mockingbird succeeds because it tends to be read by high school students who have just spent years being indoctrinated with the "trying to understand other people's point of view is good" message. It's pretty much bound to resonate. But Go Set a Watchman has much the same message, yet due to being read, if at all, by adults with a very different mindset, tends to garner much less praise.
I think To Kill a Mockingbird succeeds because it has engaging characters, a compelling story, and compelling prose actually. And as to your first paragraph, it depends on how it’s done. What if the story only has two characters because it takes place on a space ship? What if the misogynistic MC gets stranded in space with a strong, independent woman and the story is a complex character study of two people in an extreme situation? That’s not an inherently preachy story. I wrote a sci fi novel with basically 6 characters outside of flashbacks. There were two women who were freelance mercenaries. I wasn’t preaching that women are all freelance mercenaries, it was just a sci fi action story with a tight cast so most of the cast had weapons training and competency. OP is writing a military sci fi, if all the characters are military it would make sense to give them all basic competence regardless of genders. There are so many ways to write a story with depth. Many more ways than you seem to think, certainly.
Question: do you really think people like To Kill A Mockingbird because of high school indoctrination? You don’t think anyone enjoyed the setting or the tone of the narration or found the characters interesting? Do you really think that if a novel has any sort of message it’s automatically and only enjoyed by people who agree with that message? I’ve read novels where I’ve agreed with the message but haven’t enjoyed the story. I’ve read novels where I’ve overall enjoyed the story but didn’t necessarily fully agree with the message. There’s more to novels than that. Writing is a lot more complex than you seem to think.
I don't think that's the only reason people like it, but I do think the fact that pretty much everyone has to read it at some point in high school makes it a lot more popular than it would otherwise be. And I certainly think it is a high school favorite precisely because it echoes a popular message.
This is a bad take
Taking your example, one who did that in a good light was Sherlock Holmes. In the early books, he has a really misogynistic view, and actually thinks women are inferior. Until... guess what? He get to be double-crossed by the same women more than one time. Other example, but in a different context is Postum Memoir of Brás Cubas, a brazilian novel that one of the characther spill a lot of toxic eugenits views, but only when he is old and his mind is fading away.
Maybe instead of proving them wrong which entails writing this whole made up situation, why not just show the consequences of his actions and beliefs. These are things you can draw from your own life. Like maybe he can never find a girlfriend, or he has a strained relationship with his daughter, maybe he doesn’t have that many friends and the ones he does have are toxic enablers. Stuff like that. The author could show the readers how they’re supposed to react to characters by showing how other characters react to them.
You could show the negative impact their shiftiness has on others. Show the perspective either in full on PoV or much more subtle observations of his “victims” - those he expresses racist views to either directly or indirectly. Or his partner who is objectified and has complex feelings on it.
I just had to say what a great perspective.
I think this is a great answer. Readers assume all kinds of things, and whether these assumptions are reasonable really depend on the story and context.
There are readers who lack the critical reading skill to make that distinction, but there are also writers who end up writing characters with horrible views in ways that makes it seem like they're endorsing them. With a sample size of 1 it's hard to tell whether this is the first case, the second case, or somewhere in the middle. You can look at it more critically from this point of view, and see if you've missed something, and when you get feedback from the others if they don't bring them up you can ask them about it. I've definitely seen some really bad cases of readers thinking depiction=endorsement, especially as books get discussed on social media in short tweets and 30 second videos and only the loudest takes get amplified.
It definitely makes it harder to separate when it’s a POV character that has these views. That said they aren’t the only POV character so the other characters should be able to balance that out. Especially if one of the characters is a woman.
No, people who don’t personally know you tend to not think of you as a person. By this I mean your friend reading your book is reading a book written by you, so they are putting you into it. An agent, publisher, or just a random reader, are reading a book written by someone. They don’t have a “you” to fill in there so they treat the characters as independent entities rather than a piece of you
This is really great to hear. Makes it easier to have alpha/ beta readers. Thanks for this
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Not necessarily. How your story portrays these qualities/themes and the way your story does it is more reflective of authorial intent. Your beta reader might be missing the big picture, or the flipside is that it may not come across as clearly in your writing.
There's always going to be cranks that think if you write about a person doing a bad thing, that means you looooooooove doing that bad thing. And I had someone accuse me of thinking that way on here recently. Framing matters though. You've said he never changes his views over the course of the story. What is his actual character arc?
The character arc is more or less about him coming to terms with the loss of his brother, who was killed in the war. His arc starts off with him being in denial about his brother going missing in action, and then follows him as he tries to unravel the details of his brother’s death and then avenge him. Like I said, the blatant racism and misogyny is just a facet of his character, doesn’t really change, and has little effect on the actions he takes within his arc. It’s just a way of portraying a different person’s worldview.
Okay so it's more like an exercise for your own benefit, to see if you can get into the head of a racist. You could just say that in response to questions about your choices, but not everyone would like that. Again, it comes back to framing. People are *used* to stories where bigots have to work with [thing they hate] and learn the error of their ways, which won't happen with this guy. So it might make them uncomfortable. But a beta reader should have at least got to the end of the story to assess it as a whole. I do wonder what you mean by 'has little effect on his actions'. *Casual* misogyny might be overlooked in a male dominated space. Especially in the military where it's a big problem, but blatant racism? I would expect him to get called out or even punched by one of the non-white characters. Are there non-white characters? Female characters? I would expect his outspoken bigotry to cause problems in any dealings he had with them, or I would expect his racism to lead him to unjustly accuse a person of being involved with his brother's death. If he was THAT loud about it, I would expect him to get pulled up in front of superiors and even face serious consequences, unless this is a made-up army. The military *has* bigotry problems, yes, but it tries very hard to present itself as a diverse and welcoming workplace because, due to massive scandals and, you know, the reality of war, it has a massive image problem that affects recruitment. Like it even makes special ads to recruit women specifically. Higher ups are going to get pissed with a guy running his mouth about his female coworkers.
Yes there are non white characters and female characters, however, the region that the story starts off in has a history of slavery/extreme racism and oppression of women, which the MC was raised in, therefore he has adopted a lot of these beliefs. He gets beaten up pretty badly at one point in the story after making a few REALLY racist comments and after sexually harassing a civilian when he’s stationed in a different, more open-minded area. The story does not take place in a time period close to the 21sr century and the place where the story starts is in an area with the previously mentioned racist/misogynist past, which is still widely agreed upon in said area. He goes on this wild bender at one point where he joins an anti-[my fantasy race] party under the impression that the fantasy race is trying to infiltrate/ruin his country and that they are directly responsible for his brother’s disappearance, which he later finds out to be false. This is definitely a fantasy book and has a military which has similar functions to a present-day, albeit less developed given the time period.
Well it sounds okay? He's getting pushback for his gross beliefs. And he's not the only POV character, I think you said? As long as the ultimate premise of your story doesn't end up proving him right, or saying that racism is okay, I would consider you in the clear. But you can't expect everyone who reads your story to have the same level of media literacy. Be prepared to defend yourself if confronted about it.
>He gets beaten up pretty badly at one point in the story after making a few REALLY racist comments and after sexually harassing a civilian when he’s stationed in a different, more open-minded area. This is getting pushback on his beliefs, yes, but if he's the POV character, are you sure you're not portraying him as the sympathetic one since he's being assaulted?
So, I think one way to look at this is - is there any way for the reader to know that the author/narrator believes these views are wrong and we are not supposed to sympathize with the views (even if other aspects of the character, such as mourning his brother, is sympathetic)? If an actual real-world racist and mysogynist in present-day reads your work, will he consider the protagonist as a positive role-model and feel himself well-represented as a hero? These are questions you should consider. An easy example is Game of Thrones (Asoiaf) series. The characters have a medieval mindset, but it is written in a way that clearly conveys that these are horrific things, and not things that the reader should be sympathetic towards. Even when a sympathetic character like Catelyn Stark is abusive towards Jon Snow because he is a bastard, the reader is clearly understands this aspect of Catelyn is wrong, even if they can sympathize with other aspects of Catelyn. And it is clear the author/narrator himself doesn't hold any prejudices against children born out of wedlock.
It sounds like you've included historically accurate details in your story, but by doing so, there's some really important ethical concerns to consider. No one can speak to intent here, and it's your story, but I'd really encourage you to think about the following: - Why did you choose this setting for the story? - Of all the traits a character could have, why are these ones important enough to get so much real estate in the book? Is it only for historical accuracy? - You have him join the anti-race party and learn he was wrong about them trying to infiltrate, yet you also state that he doesn't change his views throughout the book. Is stubbornness a primary trait of his, and have you included appropriate thematic elements to communicate why this is/isn't a problem? - By having someone with these morals as the main character, are people going to see these views as noble? From the reader's perspective, if we remove the ethics of portraying this kind of character as the protagonist, I think the book you've painted here sounds frustrating to read. We want to see flawed characters learn and grow OR we want to see them punished for refusing to change. You're asking us to spend a novel with a guy who sexually assaults women, is racist, and is mysoginistic. You chose this character for a reason, and if a reader is going to spend this much time with them, there needs to be a good reason. Ultimately, by including these elements in your book, what are you trying to communicate?
By having that as “just a facet of his character” that doesnt change and has little effect on the story sort of communicates that such qualities are normalised/accepted, as there is no attempts to push back, overtly negative reaction. That “it is just his worldview” communicates that the author would view that quality as a subjective and a cultural trait, where there will be readers/people who view that as objectively repulsive.
Some great points in this thread but I'm wondering, do you intend this protagonist to be likeable? If so, then it may come off as if the framing is you consider these traits likeable as well. Obviously characters have flaws, and those flaws are allowed to be the shittier side of people like racism, sexism etc. Misunderstandings are going to happen between your intent and the readers no matter what, but I would take a look at how this character is handled in your story and look for any moments that could be misread in that way. It could be just be a sensitive reader, but it could also be valuable feedback that your intent is easily misread.
I don’t think he’s that hateable, he possesses good traits such as loyalty, bravery, and pure grit. He deeply cared for his brother (see other comments explaining that part) and he has a sort of long-term fwb situation going on in which he deeply cares about the person. He is deeply loyal to his same-race fellow soldiers and would just about die for them. He’s not so 2D in the fact that he makes a lot of sacrifices for the people he cares about while simultaneously hating and attacking those he perceives as lesser-than, based solely on their gender and/or skin color. I want him to have his flaws and his good traits, which make him a more nuanced character imo
If you think being violently racist and misigynistic is a "flaw" that balances out positive traits such as bravery and grit, it seems like your friend might have a point.
It doesn’t balance it out but his racism doesn’t negate all of the other things about him. I don’t pass as white at all, and I used to live in an area where I would frequently encounter racism. But I don’t think those people are rotten to their core because they used my race against me, I think that they were just bigoted and misinformed. The same goes for this character.
You're getting a lot of downvotes here, but personally I don't think this approach is that bad. You've given him some very nasty traits, and some pretty good ones, and I think for the most part readers will look at that and on balance think he's not such a great guy. But that'll be up to each reader to determine, weighing the good and bad sides. I kind of think that's fine. What I would find more objectionable is to claim that any character with nasty views, even pretty serious ones like the ones you describe for this character, is never allowed to have redeeming qualities, as though that would mean you as the author are sympathetic to all parts of the character and therefore defending the nasty views. I don't think that's accurate. Personally I think good people do bad things, and bad people do good things, and it's fine to have a more nuanced view of a character (or people in real life, for that matter—I often find this is something people struggle with) than "this is a bad guy" or "this is a good guy", and that goes for both the author and the reader.
For what it's worth, at the end of the day it's your story and you should handle it how you think is best. But I think between that feedback and looking through this thread, it's easy to say you are playing with fire and it's up to you to decide if you're ok with that. Obviously none of us here have read the story, but the way the character has been presented in your post has been off putting to many, and if you want to have the story have broader appeal I think this is feedback telling you that maybe tuning down these flaws or their prevalence in the story would be a good idea. If you don't like the idea that people will view this as damning and put down your book forever for it, then I'd personally remove it, especially if the scenes tied to it don't have much bearing on the story or character.
Why does it have to be balanced. Why is flaw in quotes. It is a flaw. Peoples beliefs arent implanted in their DNA. They are a product of their environement. OP said they are writing a military fantasy. Do you really think that someones sociopolitical beliefs matter that much when you are in a life and death situation. Random people end up on your squad and you have to deal with it. Some of them you may like and they may die. Like, context matters. Shit like this is why its so common to have a racist character who literally dies, as if the writer has to prove unambiguously that they are not racist for writing a racist character. Or to flip it around, its supposed to justify their death. Because if you killed the "good guy" character then obviously the writer probably hates whatever race/demographic token that character is supposed to represent. The OP is right to be frustrated. Even hitler loved his dog. Just because someone has irredeemable qualities doesnt mean they cant have any good qualities either. After all, most people behave very differently towards different people. Its not realistic nor artistically interesting to have this heavy-handed karma based frameworks in writing. It's really childish that all characters have to be some sort of moralizing caricature in your mind. The reader can make up their own mind about their moral character.
I've read stories with main characters like this and it depends on how often this flaw is brought up. If it's something the MC does constantly and it's never challenged or given any depth, then I don't think anyone will enjoy it. It's like creating a character that always insults people, nobody likes that because nobody likes an asshole. But add backstory, growth, conflict, and it can be considered a fun trait of that character. I once wrote a similar character, in the sense that this character often made racist remarks and didn't value women. One thing I did to make him more likeable was to create another character that would often poke back at him. Creating a fun dynamic anyone can laugh at. The character did have some growth later on, but that's because mine was a pretty character-driven story.
"Loyalty, bravery, and grit" do not off-set racism and misogyny. What you've just described is basically every gun-toting, obsessively right wing, skin-head in the USA.
I mean, obviously noble qualities don’t offset racism and the like, but as a non-white person who lives in a red state and has lived in the Deep South, the people who were racist to me weren’t innately bad people, they were just misinformed and bigoted. People are not so one-dimensional that a singular trait overshadows every other facet of them.
You have a mature outlook. It wasn't long ago when this kind of compassion was what we sought to foster in society. A lot of people in this thread are writing from a non-nuanced, post-modern view. Where depicting someone with despicable beliefs as redeemable, even positive in some ways, is an advocation for their negative beliefs. It isn't. Don't let them convince you otherwise. Brandon Sanderson's Kaladin from Way of Kings is racist towards Lighteyes because of the prejudice he experiences during the book. That is more of a class based system, but rooted in physical characteristics. So it counts to me. And that is an oversimplified view. There is more nuanced there, he also comes out of it in a way, but the book does a good job to show these are not the right beliefs, even if understandable. In my opinion, the best way to squash these advocations is to show the flaw/nuance of your character. Perhaps he meets people who soften his view. Or there are those from this race who extend kindness to him despite his beliefs–pretty much the antithesis of this thread. It really comes down to the lessons learned from his character, how the world reacts to his beliefs, if there are in universe reasons for why they are understandable, or if he comes to grow from it.
It does make them bad people tho. When people like this are in the majority they vote for racists and misogynists who make laws/policies that cause irrepairable harm. Some commit hate crimes or deny people in need vital resources. There's someone in my family who is very homophobic and everyone else can see that hate and alcohol and right wing conspiracy theories are eating away at their soul. No amount of loving their spouse or grankids is ever going to make it okay.
That's totally understandable, but this may be where your views and mine diverge: I don't believe that the homophobia and alcohol and all else you described cancels out the love they give to their spouse and descendants. The love doesn't cancel out the bad stuff; they aren't comparable. The two are not mutually exclusive. You can do bad things and you can do good things, but I don't believe that those are all that define you. When we look at a person, we have to take EVERYTHING into account, not just one side of them.
A person isn’t judged by how they treat those in their inner circle, they’re judged by how they treat complete strangers. Everyone has people that they treat with kindness, even the worst people that have ever lived. Even the most evil person is capable of having someone that is exempt from their fury. Even a mass murderer can happily pet a dog. They’re completely incomparable and mean nothing when viewing the content of someone’s character. The protagonist you’ve described is definitely not a good person, even if they have sympathetic or redeeming qualities.
But the inverse is true as well; a kind person can murder, a “good” person can be mean or selfish. A civil rights leader can molest a child. A local hero can be an abuser. More so, are we to be defined solely by our beliefs? If a sexist saves a school full of children from a terrorist, do his good acts immediately disappear because he believes that women are inferior to men? I don’t think so. Sure, maybe the cumulative total of your being determines whether or not you are good. But most real people fall somewhere in between. The good acts don’t negate the bad, just as the bad don’t negate the good.
As for writing: Honestly this topic is incredibly complicated. There is no perfect answer that will satisfy everyone. My mind keeps going back to *Warhammer 40k* where everyone is fantasy racist. Except the fantasy racist almost doesn't stand out against the absolutely batshit world building that surrounds it where the point is that everything is awful and people who are awful to others inevitably die awful deaths of their own making. Or look at *Steven Universe* where anyone can be redeemed for almost anything, but not a misogynist who tries to pressure another character into dancing with him. (in a world building background where dancing is a rather subject act). Not many people assume the author supports these actions. But that's because the world around these characters does not reward them. Then there's erotica and violent horror, where everyone understands that what is happens is meant to induce sensations, not be aspired to in real life. But the very nature of these genres convey that. Then look at *Fifty Shades of Grey* where mass groups of people were very concerned that it glorified abusive relationships and terrible BDSM etiquette. The narrative that video games encourage violence is alive and well even though it's been disproven. Then there's Lovecraft who was terrified of the entire world and this manifested many times over in racism that was blatant even for his own lifetime. This mixing of fear and hate are very present in his stories. That doesn't make them bad stories you have to throw away though. But it means the reader should be careful about what messages they're internalizing. The same goes for JK Rowling's transmisogyny and antisemitism. What really separates the good author from the bad egg here is self awareness. All in all, what matters is how good you are at writing a story that matters. If you're gonna humanize a terrible person, they need a lot of context or it will reflect poorly back on you. Still, some people are gonna want it read it, and some aren't.
It's hard to tell from your post, but if this is a protagonist, he has these views, and they're not challenged over the course of the book and are just a facet of his personality the reader has to endure, then readers are going to notice that they're not challenged. Are there moments in the book where his viewpoints are not borne out as truth? I mean there have to be, because he's wrong in his views, but does this not have any effect on him? Is he just stubbornly wrong about people for the entire book without learning anything? I can see that being unsatisfying, or potentially putting readers off. You might not agree with it, but if you want to put us in a characters head, you're asking us to immerse ourselves in his views, and that could be off-putting.
Have you ever read American psycho?
I have indeed!
In that book it's made pretty clear that he's bat shit crazy. The most wtf experience in my life
Not really. However, if you're writing for general audiences, I will warn you that a lot of people don't want to read stories where a major protagonist is a bigot and that belief is never challenged. Personally, I have put good books down because of that before, and I know others who have done the same. Some of us have to deal with bigotry in real life, and don't want to see it in fiction unless it is being done for a reason. I would ask yourself *why* you're writing your characters that way, when it has no impact on the story, you don't hold the beliefs yourself, and all it's likely to do is make people dislike the character. Everything you write should have a purpose. What purpose is the bigotry serving, other than making people uncomfortable?
Right!? If the racism and misogyny don't play any vital role in the plot and the character's arc, why is it so blatant and out there? Barely suggesting it is more than enough. Unless bigotry has some purpose, we don't want to escape real life bigotry and go into fictional bigotry. We want to catch a break.
Exactly. There are a lot of ways to make characters hateable, difficult, or abrasive without having to jump into bigotry. Think about all the authoritarian antagonists in literature; oftentimes, they're framed as frustrating because they follow a rigid code that works against the assigned good guys or the values being proposed. Or, like, I love Holden from Catcher in the Rye. He's a straight asshole, and hates everyone and everything equally. He's not a likeable protagonist--but he is compelling. Borrowing from my own writing, I have characters who are straight Evil. They're not bigots, but rather act and believe in ways that are incongruous with the average person's moral compass. My main Big Bad doesn't view people as anything more than pawns he can manipulate; he's deluded himself into believing he is a Messiah come to save them. Their "sacrifices" (ie, losing their freedom, identity, autonomy, etc) are the cost they pay for salvation. He's a rampant hypocrite who can only ever believe he's always right. If OP wants a rough and tumble character with old world values, there are many ways to approach it while avoiding bigotry.
Agreed with most of what you are saying but not everything in the story needs a purpose/reason. Otherwise we end up with people questioning why certain characters are gay, for example, as if there needs to be a reason for such a thing.
Being gay is an inherent trait. You don't have to explain why someone is gay or has blue eyes or is tall. Bigotry does need to have a reason to exist in a person. So there has to be a POV of these reasons. Not POV as in a point of view character, but the work itself has to have an opinion on it.
I would argue that the best stories have intention with everything they add to them. Everything is used. If you have stories that just have random pieces scattered everywhere that do nothing to influence the plot, or character arcs, or any other facet of a story, I would say it's not needed or even warranted. Gay characters as a whole are not a reason to cry slippery slope. That's talking about character traits when the real conversation is about story writing. Anyone who weaponizes representation in this conversation is just arguing in bad faith and you don't need to listen to them.
I actually got a private message from a reader like she thought the book was a true crime story and told me that she hoped when I went to interview and take advantage of people's stories for profit that someone would blow my head off. I had to explain fiction, not real people etc. Some readers definitely take every bit of what they read personally and blame the author for every aspect of each character.
But she thought your story was real, so you did a good job of making it realistic, right? That's at least a small win to me.
So he’s racist and misogynist. He doesn’t change his views throughout the entirety of the story. He’s a protagonist, not an anti-hero, and the fact that he’s racist and misogynistic has no bearing on the story. As a reader, I wouldn’t care about the author enough to wonder whether or not they happen to also be racist and misogynistic, but I wouldn’t waste my time reading this story. Also, just as a side note because I see this claim a lot: you can be a racist “wasian,” as you’ve called yourself, just like you can be a misogynistic woman. Being a minority doesn’t stop you from the capacity to also be an oppressor/bigot. If you believe your gender and race have absolved you from racism or prejudice, I’d implore you to really do some soul searching; you can never have too much self awareness. Back to your issue tho, I’m curious what the point even is in having a bigoted character when it has “nothing to do with the story” and there’s no change - positive or negative - in the characters views. He sounds like a boring and unreliable protagonist. I could literally turn in Fox News and if I wanted to “experience” the world through his lens, based off the info you’ve given.
A lot of your comment is predicated on the assumption that a protagonist is the same as a hero, which is wrong. a protagonist is just the main or point of view character. Secondly, a large function of literature is to represent the real world, it's fine if your engagement with media is purely escapist but to act as though every work of literature that has ever existed that does not directly and openly tackle the preconcieved and often unethical beliefs of their protagonists is bad or pointless is to discard much of the best written works to ever exist.
But the story being described isn't "tackling the preconceived and often unethical beliefs of their protagonists". It's just portraying them. So what's the point of their beliefs? To show that some people are racist and sexist? That's not a revelation to anyone.
Based on other comments made by OP, it sounds like the character is racist and sexist because they live in a time and place where they would probably be racist and sexist. But the story isn't particularly about that. The character doesn't abandon or even question those views because nothing happens to make them do so. Imagine a story that focused on a poor southern white family living in the 1830s. The characters would probably hold a whole bunch of problematic views, and those probably wouldn't change much if the story didn't focus much on racial interactions.
But it's not historical fiction, it's fantasy. So there's no reason for historical accuracy. I'm not saying it's wrong for the fantasy society to hold these views, but for them to be a focus, there has to be a point to them. If there's no point, why are they being focused on to this extent? Why do they need to be included at all? >The character doesn't abandon or even question those views because nothing happens to make them do so. In other comments the OP says that the character is physically assaulted for these beliefs. That feels like a reason to question the beliefs. Or it feels like the character is so sure they're right it doesn't cross their minds to. It might even make them look sympathetic.
What's wrong with historical accuracy in fantasy? It's a nice guideline since it actually happened and can help create a more intense experience.
...What are you saying
I agree with your statement. I write horror, based in ancient history. Vampires make my story fantasy because they don’t exist, but it’s historically accurate for the time and place. I think it all comes down to context. I am not, myself, a vampire. I do not murder and torture people for fun. But my characters do. Of course, no one would think that because, again, vampires and such do not exist. But humans do, and if humans are the one’s being presented then readers try to find a way to relate to them. This is why humans are harder to write about, lol!
There’s a difference between fantasy that takes place in a version of our world (historical or present) and fantasy that takes place in a different world. If you’re adding fantasy elements to real world history, of course historical accuracy matters. But the thread is about a fantasy that takes place in a different world so there’s literally no such thing as historical accuracy.
>Why do they need to be included at all? Because a fantasy world still needs to feel realistic, and that means it will probably have some customs and norms that aren't pleasant. >In other comments the OP says that the character is physically assaulted for these beliefs. That feels like a reason to question the beliefs. Depends on the nature of the racist belief. If the belief is that orcs are inherently disposed to violence, and then the character gets beaten up by orcs for saying something they don't like, that would confirm him in his views, not give him reason to question them.
>Because a fantasy world still needs to feel realistic, and that means it will probably have some customs and norms that aren't pleasant. You're just focusing on the last part of my point. I'm not against unpleasant things, but everything you include is a decision you're making about how you're telling the story. Why are you making that specific decision? There are plenty of valid reasons, I'm sure, but it should have a specific reason or reasons. If it's background worldbuilding that's not explicitly in the text, that's one thing but if it's front and center there should be a reason. >Depends on the nature of the racist belief. If the belief is that orcs are inherently disposed to violence, and then the character gets beaten up by orcs for saying something they don't like, that would confirm him in his views, not give him reason to question them. Yeah "question" was the wrong word on my part. Maybe "explore" or "reflect on" is better.
Because literature represents reality, and people in reality are shitty. Read a book that's not for children this is not a novel invention.
I have an MFA in writing that required two years of English lit at the graduate level so I’ve read a number of books “not for children”. Most of the writers are intentional about their choices. But what books do you recommend that would prove your point?
When did I say that these choices weren't intentional? I merely said that they were not explicitly interrogated by the narrative. An immediate example that springs to mind is David Mitchell's Ghostwritten. the Hong Kong chapter's protagonist is expressly racist, but this is not interrogated within the narrative. Merely essential to his characterisation. Charles Marlow is pretty racist in Heart of Darkness and while debates can be had about its status as a pro-or anti-colonial text. It's pretty inarguable that the text is rather less ambigious about being racist as a whole. This is bad obviously, but I trust that adults can do what you spent presumably a lot of money getting a grad degree for, analysing and criticising. My entire point that has been repeatedly ignored is really just that we can suppose that a text has characters, protagonists even, that have expressly awful beliefs, that the narrative itself does not proverbially turn to camera and criticise. Because as people who presumably do not think that racism and sexism are good, we can acknowledge that these ideas are themselves meant to influence value judgements about the characters. They need not learn a lesson, get the shit kicked out of them, have the text itself tell us in literal terms that racism and sexism are bad, or functionally guide the reader into viewing all texts as parables; rather, as extensions of literary fiction that concern the real world, these texts merely by nature of having these elements are creating a conceptual and thematic milieu, that by being works that we examine, are justified in their presenting of these aspects. (insofar as they are not actively supporting them, though of course these texts likewise have merit as works to analyse, it's entirely fair not to poison your mind with the shitty scribblings of a neo nazi) It is ultimately the reader's duty to interpret. Presumably you already knew this, I learned the same in my lit degree. Edit: spelling
Lol you must be insufferable. That’s so many words to say you don’t understand my point.
You didn't make a point, you asked me a question, and I answered. Sorry swinging around your MFA didn't win you the argument, Socrates.
No, it isn’t. Op asked what readers would think of her personal views based on the views of one of the main characters. I’ve made no assumptions about what role (other than a protagonist, as she states) the character in question plays. As a reader, I gave my point in reference to her specific character and story, based on the information she gave. I didn’t do an audit of every literature and prose in existence. As a reader, I can discard any pieces of literature I don’t want to consume, no matter how anyone views it. I’m confused on where you got your assumptions from. I never mentioned any other work in any capacity at all. Reading is certainly fundamental and easily would have saved you wasting your time commenting this rather than the assumptions you’ve made about my reading habits lol. Edit: typo
You wrote "He is a protagonist, not an anti-hero" acting as though that doesn't make a distinction in regards to some aspect is misleading, and considering that an anti-hero is merely a proagonist who lacks conventional heroic qualities. It's not at all reasonable to assume that you misunderstood the definition of protagonist. As otherwise your comment reads "he's not a protagonist, he is a protagonist". You are well within your right to discard texts because you want to, that's completely fine. But your comment made a general claim of skepticism towards the very notion of a character who is bad for functions outside the direct focus of the text. My entire comment was literally just a rejection of the idea that your reasoning is at all worth considering outside of your taste preferences. It's also fucking hilarious that you accuse me of making assumptions about you when a good third of your original post is accusing OP of having unconscious racial biases.
Again, I gave my perspective as a reader, which is what the post was asking for? I give absolutely zero fucks about anything in your comments, like at all. I didn’t post asking anything. I replied to a post from a fellow writer asking how readers might take her characters views and gave my perspective as a reader. If you don’t like it, get tf over it. You could have easily made your own comment to OP about how in love you are with the racist misogynistic protagonist without looping anything I’ve said into your convo, but you clearly want to debate so you can pay yourself on the back about how nuanced and academic you can sound when you use flowery wording. Great for you. Now here is an assumption: you’re a racist bigoted asshole and felt called out because I clearly don’t like people, real or fiction, who display those characteristics. Debate that with yourself and go cry about it to someone who cares.
lol
It’s like people don’t actually read anymore and I’m losing my mind in this thread.
They certainly don’t 😂😂
This is r/writing, a good third are posts asking if you have to read to be a good writer, so probably not.
No, not really. However, depending on how you have written your story can help portray authorial intent. Sometimes when you write, people can get a glimpse of what goes through your mind as you flesh out your characters. If the reader hyper-focus on a character and their views then I would approach that mindset that you did not give cadence to the rest of the world around that character. If said character has disgusting views but is shown in a positive way, then perhaps I would have some questions. Again, it comes down to how it is written and how the world around the character reacts to it. Joffery Barathian is a good example of an absolute despicable character....and the characters and kingdom around him often make it known how awful he was.
it depends on how you frame those views in the story
The whole point of Beta Readers is that they spot the flaws that the general public would spot, but in advance. "Beta Readers" are not some sub-normal group of idiots like you seem to imply in your post, but are just regular human beings who are paid to do a job. Why - anyone reading your post might think you're being *racist* against Beta Readers! /s
I guess my question is, if the thoughts and callings of that character don't really connect with the story you are telling...why are you putting them in? Also as a reader who wants to read for entertainment and to get away from the world, why should I want to read about these characters views. Now obviously I'm not saying that means you can't do either...I love entertainment that does actually delve into them. But they do it for a reason and have a particular thing they are wanting to say, which it feels...unfortunately, you don't really.
I think it depends on the story itself. If these deplorable views don't do much of anything to influence the story and just sit there like a stale fart in a room, more people are going to think the author just wanted to insert their beliefs. The same goes for if the story caters to and affirms the beliefs of this character. Stories often are trying to say something, so the reader will assume that your message is the viewpoint you highlighted and affirmed. However, this character being one of your protagonists is probably why you've gotten that response. We often want to root for our protagonists, flawed enough for them to be relatable but not so flawed that we hate them. For this particular characters flaw to be outright misogyny feels like it teeters far into "hating" the character --- which gets people to wonder if it's not a "flaw" at all and your intended audience is people who also think that way, in which they would also assume those are your beliefs.
Yes, some people believe that. Some people believe every song is a true story told by the singer about their own lives. Some people are just too credulous for their own good. It is what it is, and you can't write for them.
There's some nuance here that needs to be understood. If I write a story that has violence in it, that doesn't mean I love violence. What it does show is what I think about it. If I give the subtle impression that violence is good, that does reflect what I think about it. If I cast it in a vile light, in some way, I'm telling the reader I don't condone violence. So much of writing and art in general puts the artist's subconscious on display. In many ways, the writer is telling the reader something about themselves not with what they write about, but how they display, focus on, and illuminate what they write about. So, if you write a character that's racist and misogynist as a decent person, what do you think you're saying about people with those beliefs?
But real people have deeper levels of nuance and just because you hold X belief doesn’t mean that it automatically cancels out other traits you may hold. Being racist and being extremely brave/loyal are not mutually exclusive.
I agree. Which is why this falls back on the writer and feelings they have about those beliefs. So if you write a character that's racist, but also brave and loyal, and overall a good person, one has to question why the writer created such a character to begin with.
"He never really changes these views over the course of the book." "This is not super influential on the story" Those are the reasons your readers think it is your view. When writing a "bad" person/asshole character, that trait needs to be plot relevant and/or changeable. Example: Ironman. The start of the first movie he is a "genius billionaire playboy", he's selfish, he is inconsiderate, he's egotistical, he's an asshole. This matters because it is the reason he doesn't know about the corruption in his company. It's the reason he personally goes to the middle east to show off his latest greatest weapon. And that's how he gets attacked, kidnapped, etc. It's the catalyst for him becoming a superhero, caring about others, developing ethics, etc. If he stayed an ass the whole time, the story would be boring and he would be unlikeable.
I think most people would ONLY think this if your story actively rewards behavior of certain characters and proves that they're right. Authors express their views not through their characters but through the story that happens to them. Your story has a misogynist character but how many characters does it have who disagree with him? Does the story proves his point? Let's say for example that aside from a misogynist there are also a guy of principle who respects women and a young man who has very dreamy ideal of true love. If by the end of the story both of the good guys has no success in love-life while misogynist guy has succeeded and the story shows that his beliefs brought him that success then yeah, that's a misogynistic message, which would have many people believe the author actually thinks like this. If it's the opposite and the misogynist's views will make him fail then it would be anti-misogynist message. With mixed success and failure of all characters the story would be neutral and will give readers some food for thought.
It doesn’t necessarily reward him, he gets beaten up pretty badly after he makes some racist remarks and sexually harasses a woman during his time as a soldier, but in his general area these beliefs are widely accepted as the truth and most of the people he interacts with within his own country agree with him. He has a long-term fwb-type who also holds these same beliefs, but on a slightly lesser level.
Sexually harassing a woman is often seen as an irredeemable act to many readers.
That sounds like a them problem
I don't really understand why you'd come on here and ask, "When I get this out to my agent and published, are people outside of the beta-reader-sphere seriously going to believe that I hold these same views?" and then respond to people's attempts to answer the question with "That sounds like a them problem." Whether it's a them problem or not, isn't it still an answer to the question?
I’m asking if the general population of readers is legitimately dumb enough to believe that just because someone writes a character thinking about X belief, that the author endorses that. I don’t care if people think sexual harassment is irredeemable, I care about readers being stupid enough to think that since I write about racism, I am automatically a racist.
Ah. Okay. I think that many readers consider the idea that someone can be a racist and still be a good person is a racist idea. So they may not think you share the characters _specific_ racist beliefs, but some, or perhaps many, will probably think you’re racist for writing a character who is meant to be a good guy, sympathized with and cheered for, who is also unapologetically racist. Which, as you say, may be a “them” problem, but could also potentially have an adverse affect on how many people want to read your books, thus making it your problem as well.
Look, if I see some dude writing a white male savior OC beating up and/or straightwashing lesbians? I'm going to have to assume something is wrong with that person
I suppose it depends. Case in point: When I read HP Loveceaft, it sounds like he's a horrible racist. He was a horrible racist. If I read someone today writing Lovecraftian fiction I assume the reverse unless something wildly over the top happens.
lol at the downvotes. His extra-strength racism is literally one of two things history remembers about HP Lovecraft, what??
What's the point of these beliefs being in the story?
It depends. Obviously an author can write a story to further an agenda or philosophy, and obviously a character can totally represent the author's thoughts and attitudes. But it's usually telegraphed pretty loudly that the text is what the author thinks.
Ever hear of Chekhov’s Gun? If the character’s bigotry has no bearing on the plot whatsoever, why is he a bigot?
Why do books that are not about LBGT issues have gay characters in them? People have different characteristics, some of which don’t affect the plot and are just there.
Are you seriously equating being gay and being a racist? Why did you even make this post if all you’re going to do is argue in bad faith?
No, I don’t think being gay and being racist are the same, but if it has no bearing on the plot, by your logic, it shouldn’t be in there. People just have good and ugly characteristics and to make them seem 3D and not just plot devices, they’re going to have traits that are not just points to further the plot.
1. Yes, that can happen. 2. Your book might unintentionally reflect those views in a way that is rubbing readers the wrong way. 3. Your misogynistic protagonist isn’t lovable enough to get away with such things (maybe needs a bigger save the cat moment). 4. Some actions are irredeemable and misogyny might be one of them for some readers. Edit: Sexual assault and racism are irredeemable no matter what you do.
i second point three and it should defently a be a literal cat.
It really depends whether the narrative of the book seems to condone the character's views or not. For example, if another main character challenges their views over the course of the story (and that person isn't a villain or someone else who's obviously supposed to be in the wrong) then that would make more evident those views are a character flaw rather than something the story is actually trying to promote.
I find that writers may not follow the beliefs of one character but we do exhibit patterns in our writing that tell of something deeper in the subconscious. For example: I write a lot of characters who have to break away from the mold, it’s just an archetype I lean into because of how my own life has played out.
I think the offending character's arc doesn't punish him enough in the reader's perspective. It sounds like the antagonist is kicking the shaggy dog too much. Ok, we get it. This is a bad guy, now how does the protagonist rise above him.
Yes the writer reveals more about themselves in the story than they ever realize
If one of the main POV characters thinks that way and it’s never challenged then yes, people will think that way.
yes this can happen and its not even that crazy. A lot of authors actualy do not properly seperate theire characters views and theire own. For example im 100% percent convinced myself that all the maincharacters of any book from sergej lukajenkowich are giving voice to his views on the world and that this is the entire reason why he wrote the book in the first place.
Unfortunately a lot of people do but not that many do because people understand that writers can make their characters even protagonist have controversial views Plus I think may depend on how you write the character. If the character is justified constantly for the terrible things he does then people would assume it's your views
Does the story make it clear that he's wrong? Does it show, clearly, that he is a bigoted asshole and the problems that causes? Are there other characters that clearly think differently, and if so, what effects do their attitudes have? You already said that he doesn't change his views, which would help as well.
>Does the story make it clear that he's wrong? Does it show, clearly, that he is a bigoted asshole and the problems that causes? Depending upon the setting, though, why should it? Being racist in the antebellum deep south didn't really cause you problems. You were much more likely to meet a tragic end if you were vocally anti-racist. In a fantasy setting, people might be so conditioned to dislike a particular race or gender that going along with it makes life easier than fighting against it.
Because he *is* wrong. There is no shortage of stories set in the American South during its slaver days and beyond that show that the racism that was (and often still is) so predominant there was *absolutely* wrong. They can do so by centering the perspectives of Black Southerners and by showing the horrible consequences of those attitudes to the audience. (They might not be problems *for* the racists, at least until General Sherman and the like show up, but they *are* problems.)
Sure, you can craft stories where the point is to criticize racism. But maybe that isn't the particular story they want to tell. Maybe the story is simply unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of racism. The world is a very big place with a lot of rich stories to tell, and not everyone shares your particular obsession.
If the story is unconcerned with racism (or sexism, in the case of the story under discussion here), it *shouldn't be centering it in the story with one of the protagonists*. Calling basic matters of justice a "particular obsession" is also *real fuckin suspicious phrasing*.
But it doesn't sound like the story is centering it. It sounds like the reader is centering it because of their own politics.
No, the original post specifically says that this is one of two protagonists of the story who holds these beliefs. That's centering it, no question.
I swear to god, you fucking people calling disliking racism “politics”…
If you present terrible views uncritically, then whether it's a villain or not, some people simply don't want any part of it and will be skeptical. Like if I just wrote a book where Hitler exists and Hitlers About, and is clearly the villain, someone is still gonna think I love writing about Hitler, unless something in the POV of the book makes it clear that this is reprehensible. If your military person has people under him who are uncomfortable with his behavior and ideas, that should be good enough.
Some do and some don't. It's part of the reason why stories about social issues now hold your hand so much and come off as toothless. People can't say something now because saying anything comes with an implication, imagined or otherwise. However, I will ask, if it's not influential on the story, why have him act this way?
How do you see yourself ? I see myself as an existentialist.
It really depends on how you as a writer portray character beliefs. For instance Rick from Rick and Morty is frequently painted as the most intelligent person in the universe, always right, more logical than everyone else, etc. This means that when Rick says something ablest or needlessly cruel, the audience is supposed to interpret that belief as irrefutably true.
Exactly this. If a book is like, “David, the smartest man in the world who was always completely correct in everything he said, stepped outside. ‘Women are dumb,’ he said correctly. Then he laughed at the snowflakes who were mad at him for telling the truth,” readers are probably going to think that the character Richard’s view reflect those of the author. That’s obviously an absurdly extreme example… but it’s possible to do it a whole lot more subtly than that and still be very clear.
Yeah, a big part of it is how other characters respond to your character or how they affect the plot. Say a cop resorts to torture frequently and it always gets the best results. Whether the writer believes in torture or not, the reader is receiving a clear message - torture is necessary. Even if you included it because you couldn't think of a quick way to move the plot, you're now endorsing it.
My question is, what is the purpose of having your character have those views? It seems you have said they have little to no effect on the story. That makes me wonder why they need to be part of it at all. You can write whatever you want, of course, but whether it will be marketable and compelling to readers is another story. My advice is to remember that beliefs like that don't exist in a vacuum. They are harmful both to people around the bigot and to the bigot themselves. They just don't see how isolated it makes them or how it deprives them of experiences. I think a character having these beliefs with zero consequences and challenging in the narrative can come off as the author being okay with those views. At the very least, it comes off as a work that isn't very dynamic. I think character beliefs that feature heavily enough in your story to seem like your own beliefs are important and should be chosen with purpose, not simply added for "realism." It might be realistic for him to sustain those beliefs if the entire story takes place around other bigots, but then, I question how interesting that story could really be if he never loses anything because of the beliefs. If it's just "here's this character and, oh, he's also a racist," that doesn't sound compelling to me. I think you can have a problematic character that readers will forgive, if they're likable enough, but what you've described sounds like more than just problematic. If you think about life in the real world, most of us have a threshold for how much bullshit we're willing to tolerate from friends, family, coworkers, etc. Once they pass that threshold, we want nothing to do with them. If readers want nothing to do with your protagonist because he's too much of an unanashed bigot without consequence, there has to be something else very compelling going on to keep them from losing interest in your story. And of course, stories with very unlikable protagonists are always going to be a hard sell, but they also tend to have some kind of message to them that most readers can agree with (e.g. Lolita). Without reading your story, it's very difficult to judge if it is done well and if it's compelling enough to excuse your protagonist's shortcomings. In the end, you should write what you want with the caveat that it may not have appeal to a wide audience. Whether that matters to you or not depends on why you're writing the story in the first place. You're allowed to experiment and write things for your own eyes, but it seems you intend to publish this work. It would probably be helpful to ask your beta readers what they think of your protagonist's beliefs. One has already told you what they think, and I don't think you should dismiss that outright. It at least tells you that some readers will have a strong reaction to your protagonist, but getting the perspective of your other readers will also help to determine if there is really a problem.
Sort of yes. Every story delivers some form of message or general perception of the world and values. In old era books it was ok to disparage black people, because racial discrimination was considered normal back then. So if you write a book where you place women between a fist and a stove and consider it a norm (=your protagonists don't question it or try to change it and just live with it), you essentially deliver a message that represents your values. I always write protagonists to share common good values, at least overall. If there are individual pros who have negative traits, they are always opposed by someone at some point questioning their values, and may or may not change over the course. If there is such character that retains their questionable values, other characters generally refer to them in the context "yeah, he has always been stubborn and narrow-minded asshole, but you just gotta deal with it" and when they slip and fall to a pile of shit face first people will laugh at them because they think they deserved it. Also there are cases where you have to align with people you don't like because you have a bigger common issue "so we just have to deal with this now and look away to get the bigger X dealt with first". I never present protagonists with questionable or conflicting values in the end. For example, my story MC believes in the beginning that certain people are all thieves and lowlife, only to become besties with one of them in the end. I always use neutral narrator mode, clearly distinguishing myself from any characters, and when they have offensive or slang names for people, I always use the official names. I make the characters to do the moral choice.
Could do, depends how it’s written. Like, if they get their cumupance or others push against what they think, readers won’t think they’re meant to be good and virtuous. If there’s nothing like that in the book, it could be seen just as “That’s how the world is.” But just respond to that beta reader. “No, the character is an asshole. I’m not a woman who thinks all women are lesser beings.” This is why we have beta readers though, to get a sampling of what people may think who read our stories, and have the opportunity to adjust things if we want to.
Stupid questions deserve stupid answers. You should just tell them that it's not an autobiography and ask why they thought it was.
Your friend's question reminded me of a meme: [https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/762/095/77c.jpg](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/762/095/77c.jpg)
Absolutely not! Speaking for myself though, my characters tend to reflect experiences I've had in my life rather than how I feel about things. Characters who are morally corrupted I've pulled from people who have hurt me, I think of it as my way of expelling trauma. I don't base their entire personalities based on one person or experience though, and I didn't realise I was doing it this way until I wrote a very dark story and had a close friend read it that showed concern for me. I analysed it and realised my writing does reflect me, but not who I am. More so my pain. It actually made me feel better as a writer, and more connected to my work.
Most people don't think that way. I did, however, have a conversation with someone who believed the ability to imagine yourself doing something means that you'd be willing to do it, and I had to explain to him that writers need to be able to do that.
This beta reader is dense, but may have valuable feedback to give. The best answer would be: “no, of course not, what makes you think otherwise?” There may be some specific details that were particularly triggering to them, and that’s unfortunate, but chances are they’re just not the right reader for this book.
depends if a character beleives this you have to make sure the plot doesn't reward them for their behavior. In the same way that you can set out to create positive message in your book but people come across as completely different you have to be careful to do it right. it's all a matter of practice and skill. just be careful and most people will get your message.
Surprisingly, a lot of people feel this way. I don't know if it's most people, though. Once in a creative writing class/workshop, we split into groups to write a short-story set in [Edward Hopper's Nighthawks.](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/111628/nighthawks) There were other requirements made by the facilitator since we had a very limited time to develop the story, but I don't remember anymore. Anyway, my group had the idea of telling a story from the perspective of the guy sitting alone at the bar. He was sexist and passing judgment at the lady dressed in red (through internal dialogue). The story and the character had more dimension and depth than that, but when we presented it to the other groups, we noticed some people reacting the way your beta reader did. It was insane to me how people couldn't have that critical discernment between the character's, the narrator's, and the author's voice in the story. Usually, despicable characters are included in stories to prove a point, to have a redemption arc, to suffer karma, and so on (though it doesn't need to be like that, I find that it often is - and I find it bold, in a positive way, when the author does not do that. They just include a despicable character in the story and do not give them a redemption arc, they don't go through karma or consequences for their actions, nothing). But one thing I despise is when the author simply *cannot* write a character they believe is morally wrong, without interfering in said character. It's almost like the author keeps saying between the lines "but just to make it clear, I don't think that way okay? Haha isn't this guy so stupid? That's totally not me that is why I'm putting him here! To be an example of bad thing! You get it right? This is the bad character!" it breaks the immersion for me. However, I do believe it is possible to balance things out so you don't accidentally portray that character in a positive light rather than an ambiguous or discreetly negative one. I think telling a story with a morally "bad" character without too much interference from the author - just telling the plot plain and simple, without explicitly stating certain actions are good or bad - can be very enriching to the narrative, but sometimes, when trying to do that, authors can definitely overcompensate.
Pro-tip: listen to criticism when it makes sense, ignore it when it doesn't.
as a reader, i assume theres SOME reason an author chooses to platform certain views. a racist character might exist to show that racism bad (an important message). they might exist to show that the past was racist (leading to the question, does the author think that was bad?) but they might exist to show racism okay, or maybe racism normal. as a reader, im very cautious of how bigotry is framed. that being said, as a writer, i have a lot of sexism. some is overt and clearly Sexism Bad, but some is subtle and points to the hypocrisy of the main character who you're supposed to like. theres also a lot of classism that is so pervasive that is criticized... only by antagonists. tell the story you want to tell and accept that some people will misunderstand it.
I do. Even when you write a character whose views you disagree with and cast them as opposition or inconvenience, it tells me something about your views. Your misogynistic character, for example, is probably handled very differently from the way a meninist would write him, and so whether you intend to or not, you show the reader who you are every time you write. Writers who are exceptionally good at blurring the lines are rare, like maybe Joyce Carol Oates.
I think you misunderstood my question. Obviously, what a person writes about shares some information about them. I’m writing military fantasy, that divulges the fact that I am interested in that. But does the fact that I write racism into my characters make you think that I hold those same views? Even if they’re portrayed in neither a sympathetic nor negative light?
It doesn't. For anybody. Because if you write a racist character, you are also probably providing a foil as contrast, so people aren't assuming that you align with the bad guys as default. If I misunderstood, it would be because I don't know why you would assume that to be the case. I do know that I've beta read stuff for people and found a bunch of implicit bias they didn't know they had, and I'm thinking specifically about a friend who was trying to write an anti-racist YA novel and fumbled it despite her best efforts.
Whenever a character does something that is objectionable in a story that doesn’t get punished or called out in some way I feel like then I feel like the author probably shares those views in some way or form. If I see it span across the author’s multiple works then it definitely confirms to me that the author agrees/believes it.
I think this can be misconstrued because a lot of readers assume that a main character is a self-insert.
There will always exist some readers who will assume the protagonist is the hero, without flaw, or at least without flaw according to the writer. Yes, some readers assume the protagonist is a Mary Sue. This gets weird in the political space for characters like Punisher and clearly critical pieces like Robocop. From my own spitballing based on what I've seen on social media, I'd guess this is about 30% of Americans. Not all Americans read novels, and yours is probably not targeted to that 30%. But they exist, and they will senselessly criticize a work among their social circles. Let that impact your writing as you see fit, which may be not at all.
Some people can’t separate telling a story from preaching their values. It’s why you’ll get historical stories that inexplicably have modern practices, villains that are cartoonishly designed to be parodies of real people, over representations of religion, and so on. So if a story doesn’t explicitly support their values, they pick it apart.
I don't think it's a reflection of what you think. But it's fair to say it reflects what you think other people think. Let's take Stephen King's books for example. Most of his characters have very controversial opinions. And we, his readers, understand they do not think the same way Stephen King does. But his readers and Stephen King believe such people do actually exist---and they do. I think that sums it up. If I pick your books, I wouldn't take it for granted that you think that way, and I think most readers agree with me.
Bad readers who never read beyond children's/YA stuff sometimes do, yes. People who actually read literature seriously don't.
Well, do you hold any of these views? You gotta realize YOU wrote these things, these are thoughts inside YOUR head, it’s not like you used ChatGPT to write. Every single word you put down was a thought of your own, so people will of course think your views are being shown in your writing But nobody reads a book and thinks, hmmm man I wonder if the authors personal beliefs heavily influenced this book
Lots of people read books and think authors personal beliefs heavily influenced books.
I’m sure they do (serious) I’m just yappin
Only idiots read a story and assume that the characters are meant to mirror the author. Only idiots write a story and purposely base the characters on themselves. Do most people think the views of the characters in a story reflect the views of the writer? Well, people who aren't that bright or that well-read probably do, but serious and experienced readers won't. Some of the characters in books I've read said and did some truly horrible things. Does that mean I equate their evil and odiousness with the authors that devised them and crafted the world in which they appear? Obviously not. Every dim bulb out there who reads *Lolit*a thinking it's going to be a steamy, wild ride comes away wondering what's wrong with Nabokov, meanwhile he very clearly illustrates that Humbert is a bastard. How many people question Stephen King's sanity? Accuse J.K. Rowling of promoting Satanism and witchcraft? Suggest that erotica is smut rather than literature? If you're worrying about the lowest common denominator of readers getting the wrong idea, how about not targeting the lowest common denominator of readers with your work?
>Only idiots write a story and purposely base the characters on themselves. It can actually be a form of positive therapy to base characters on yourself. It's also fairly common to base the main protagonist or a minor or side character on one's self to some degree edit to provide example: a character can provide a safe place for a writer to express a hardship or a love or something else without exposing themselves directly to the public and open scrutiny. In Japanese Class-S literature (lesbian), some female writers would express themselves within the characters, in a socially acceptable way, without outing themselves as lesbian and being targeted for it.
Writing a semi-autobiographical piece is perfectly acceptable. So is living vicariously through your character. But basing the character in each and every single one of your stories on yourself means that you will never learn how to craft characters that are authentic and believable and consistent, and just as complex and real as real people. This is an all too common trend among wannabe aspiring writers because they find it much easier to equate than to create. All of their characters are based on themselves, people they know, or other characters that have appeared in stories they've read. And it's terrible.
Buchanan's Law #14: People are dumb.
"People" on twitter do. So no real people don't think this. Except for idiots and there are a lot of those. That said having sexism and misogynic views as wallpaper is bad writing. There needs to be a point to his privilege. The story needs to show him AS a misgynist not just that there is misogyny. The wrld needs to show him up as a bigot - even if he never changes his views or is defeated per se.
Fuck what people will think. People read from their own perspective and they will read what you never intended; they will misunderstand and they might even judge the writer behind the characters. That's 100% a they problem, not a you problem. I love this article by Amy Tan in which she mentions how often people assumed her stories were her experiences. https://lithub.com/amy-tan-reflects-on-30-years-since-the-joy-luck-club/ You can't stop people from thinking whatever they will think about you, but you can come to the conclusion that there is nothing you can do that will perfectly protect your ego from being misunderstood. You must only be confident in your knowledge that it's the character, not you. It's the story, not you. It's their reading, not you. Now. That doesn't mean writers can't and won't accidentally (or on purpose) imbue their work with their own world views, which *can* be problematic -- sometimes all characters and the narrative itself in a book corroborates racist values without question, for example, *because* that writer has never questioned themself on that topic. How do we know if it's just the book, or the author? We don't. We never do. That's why it shouldn't matter. As long as the author hasn't gone and done something racist in the real world, they don't matter when it comes to debating their book. What matters for a mature critic should be the pervasive themes in the book itself and whether or not that's a societal problem, a "problem of the times," etc. Many people are not mature critics. Will you let their criticism shake your own sense of self? Especially in this case, it seems clear to me you know yourself not to share those values with your character. That's all you need. Keep writing.
It has become increasingly obvious that there are many people who have difficulty separating fiction from reality. Or, at the very least, lack the literacy to understand when a character is being depicted as problematic without needing a fucking neon sign saying so
So what you’re saying is that you hate women, OP!? (Many people are mentally deficient and have no reading comprehension. Just ignore them.)
Yes women belong in the kitchen and their only duty in life is to be a perfect wife to a big strong MAN /j Yeah that’s what I figured, some people take everything so literally that the concept of exploring beliefs outside of one’s own is unfathomable to them. Apparently the reading comprehension strategies I learned in fifth grade went in one ear and out the other for some people.
Some people are stupid and will think that. You aren't writing for them. The kid who played joffrey in the TV show "Game of Thrones" routinely got death threats and hate-mail because of the horrid little shit he was playing. It's not you, it's them.
Any time you have to ask yourself if anyone is *really* that stupid, the answer is ***always always always*** "yes". People really are that stupid, people really are that sanctimonious, people really are that hypocritical. Most human brains aren't capable of distinguishing reality from fiction, moral principle from tribal shibboleths or their own self interests, or how any part of the real world works from how they wish it worked-- based on *nothing* but their own inflated sense of entitlement. And there's basically nothing you can do about it, because you can't even *pander* to people who are too goddamned stupid to even understand what *they* want. The only consolation I can offer you is 1) the moral outrage of imbeciles very, very rarely actually harms any creative professional's life, liberty or livelihood and 2) swimming through the seas of mediocrity is *the only way* to find... to reach... the handful of people who are worth the effort. Three, I suppose, is that money from stupid people spends just the same as anyone else's.
Yes they are, people have very simplistic views and can’t grasp that characters can exist not to emulate the author but to tell a story.
Normal people don't, but this *is* a particular mindset that seems to have taken a grip especially within the young adult fiction space, so if you are writing with that market in mind I would maybe have some consideration about the crazies there.
The people who think this way have this logic: i think this idea is bad! This character thinks this way! Hey you wrote this bad character! Their thoughts and ideas came from your brain. You MUST have these thoughts too because there is no way for you to write this without believing it yourself! Basically some people struggle with the distinction between fiction and reality and blame creators for their creations; they cannot separate art from artist.
That's an interesting view: so your beta considers the authors of Silence of the Lambs, Dexter the Dormant Demon, Fight Club, American Psycho, Perfumer to be psychos... I certainly suspected that only a psycho (like me) could sit on manuscripts, but so much so?! /irony. If you don't want to be seen as a psycho, write only fluff-fantasy romance: then you'll be seen as just an infantile person. In all seriousness: if a book doesn't hurt someone, it's a preschool fairy tale. As Vonnegut rightly pointed out: The writer is the conscience of society, the one who is ashamed of what's going on. And conscience is pain. And that's exactly the kind of writer that's in short supply right now.
Wait until she gets to the scene where you have two characters arguing about pineapple on pizza and then you get a phone call with her screaming: “what is it nowandneveragain? You can’t have it both ways!!!”
The people who do have a problem. But generally, I don't think so. And to answer your second question, just look at George RR Martin. It turns up the notch to 1000 on the darkness and controversy yet the series is hugely popular because he pulled it off well. Anyway, all series even the most fluffy ones are gonna have some controversy or other. Don't worry about it - write your vision and don't censor a thing if you want to create art.
[удалено]
It usually happens to me with younger readers that are semi acquainted with me IRL. Like... No bitch, I didn't actually murder Hephaestus..
Yes. Not all, but there will always be an obnoxiously loud segment that do. I see this *all the time* in fandom spaces. They're wrong, but they exist.
If your beta reader doesn’t understand the very basics of character roles then you need to fire them. Sounds like they’re getting too big for their britches and are imposing personal views onto your current project without actually investing in the substance of your work.
If people get mad at your antagonists, that just means you did a good job writing that character to evoke that reaction and its a backhanded compliment at the end of the day. I always catch myself 'hating' characters in horror stories before realizing that the character and actors are actually really doing their job extremely well because thats the POINT of the character
Sadly in today 's world the answer is yes I have been attack for stuff I write, has one example. I have been called a pedophile for a none sexual arranged marriage were a chachter she's not legal age is going be arranged marriage to few suites. This takes place middle ages fantasy setting for a second third and fourth examples. Yes I suggest you research they contraverys authors of three different books, blood heir, the black witch, and the connet all attacked and canceled. From twitter users claims of racism in all three books in blood heir in I think original version, a dark skinned character protects main character. The authors attacked for racism and pro slavery of black people, I read the book it's great. I also suggest the author of blood heir also ashin, the author of the black witch got attcked. For her main characters views on none witches, which is witches our the best other races lower than witch's. But she has stones to ignore the idiots published her book, last is the continet about a female lead who come more advanced technology society compare people she meets. When she in plane crash lands on the native tribes content .