rant

Diversity in genre fiction. Why I would like to see more.

| Rhoda Baxter

As part of the promo for Girl In Trouble (which came out yesterday – you can still grab it for 99p if you act fast), I was given the chance to do a guest post on Rachel’s Random Reads. Rachel asked me why representation in fiction mattered to me. You can read my very personal reasons for wanting to see more non-white characters in genre fiction here:

https://rachelsrandomreads.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/guest-post-representation-matters-by.html

And here’s a picture of Girl In Trouble, in case you’re not seeing enough of this week 😉

Girl in Trouble cover 3 w quote

Diversity in genre fiction

| Rhoda Baxter

 

A few months ago, I read a blog post on the Writer’s Workshop blog about the lack of diversity in publishing. In it was a discussion about how books with BAME characters in were assessed under different criteria compared to ‘mainstream’ books. One of the criteria was ‘is it Asian/Black/*insert minority group here enough’. You can see the original post here http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/blog/diversity-in-publishing/

This is something that has wound me up for years. Not because I care what colour characters are, but because all the Asian characters I’d seen in mainstream fiction have been of a type. None of them had lives that were anything like what I’ve experienced as a middle class British Asian person.

I commented on that post and Writer’s Workshop invited me to expand on the subject. The resulting blog post is up now – http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/blog/diversity-in-genre-fiction/

What do you think about diversity (or lack thereof) in genre fiction? Do you, as a reader, expect all your middle class characters to be white? (Or straight or able bodied or neurotypical for that matter).

I Hate Women’s Fiction And I’ll Tell You Why

| Rhoda Baxter

Tara Sparling writes

I Hate Women's Fiction, And I'll Tell You Why

Hey, you! Yes, you there, with the marketing degree! Or you, Creative Director with that massive advertising agency; hell, even you, person who spends more time than is healthy shouting at the TV when terrible ads come on, because you could do better. (Four monkeys with bad head colds could do better, you admit, but that’s not the point.)

I have a job for you. Are you ready? Good.

You have no time whatsoever, and 55% of a regular marketing budget, to repackage Women’s Fiction and sell it to the reading masses as something which is just as good as Men’s Fiction.

Because, well – you know Men’s Fiction, right? The genre listed on all the annual bestseller round-ups? You can see it right there, can’t you? Just underneath the 74th biography of Steve Jobs – which is listed as a ‘Biography’ – you can see it. It’s in the top…

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Emotionally abusive relationships in fiction

| Rhoda Baxter

I’ve been watching the whole thing about #AskELJames with interest. I haven’t read 50 Shades. I read the first chapter and decided it wasn’t for me. So I can’t comment on the books. What interests me is the discussion about abusive relationships that it’s raised (again).

As I mentioned, I haven’t read 50 shades. But I have read Twilight, and I find the relationship between Bella and Edward very disturbing indeed. Firstly, Bella talks the talk about wanting to be independent and not get married etc, but really, all she wants is to be Edward’s – mind, body and soul. Even when he points out the bit about losing her soul, she doesn’t care. She wants to be his. So much so that, when he leaves her to re enact the plot from Romeo and Juliet, she crumbles and may as well be dead. So the message is – girl, without your man, you are nothing. Nothing, I tell you. Best throw yourself off a cliff just to get a glimpse of him in case your neurones fire images of him at you while they die.

Then there’s the controlling behaviour. It is not okay to separate her from her friends, to tell her where she can go, what she can do. It’s not protective, it’s overbearing. And that thing about him breaking into her room to watch her sleep? Ewwww. NOT okay. I don’t care if he sparkles in daylight.

Fifty Shades is clearly an erotic fantasy aimed at the adult reader. Twilight is aimed at young girls. There’s no sex in it (not until they get married and nothing graphic even then), but that doesn’t mean it’s suitable reading. As a love story, it’s good fun. I’m adult enough to realise that Bella isn’t a role model and Edward is a made up character. It didn’t rock my world, but I can see how it could appeal to women my age because it reminds us of something we longed for when we were in our teens. But I’ve spoken to very young teenagers who are so totally into it that they see it as a reflection of something real. They want to be Bella and have their Edward, even if he does try to command every aspect of her life. They don’t see that ‘it’s only because he loves me’ is a dangerous excuse.

One of the things I tried to understand when I wrote Doctor January is why an otherwise normal, well-adjusted young woman would allow herself to be bullied by a man who is supposed to love her and why, when she’d escaped from him once, she would keep going back to him, again and again. Writing Beth was hard because I mostly wanted to shake her and shout ‘get out, get out’. It was difficult to show that she wasn’t someone who went around with ‘victim’ stamped on her forehead. Luckily for me, Hibs was already in love with her and saw her strengths. Thank goodness for Hibs, in so many ways. (He’s also very cute and I might fancy him just a little bit – and yes, I DO know he’s fictional, which just makes it better because he won’t leave his dirty socks lying around or anything unsavoury like that).

Can we, as readers, separate fiction from real life? Do teenagers use people from books as role models? What do you think?

Clean Reader – why censoring adult books doesn’t really protect children

| Rhoda Baxter

I was only vaguely aware of Clean Reader until I heard Joanne Harris talking about it on Radio 4. Whilst I generally like the idea of making my books accessible to people  who wouldn’t normally read them, I object to this app – partly on the grounds that I don’t want someone changing the words of my books (no ‘you can opt out’ isn’t consent), but also on the grounds that it’s such a misguided idea.

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I’m not a stranger to the idea of protecting kids from unwanted influences. I grew up in middle class Sri Lankan society in the 1980s. Conservative? You betcha. For a while there was no kissing allowed on Sri Lankan TV screens. People moved in for the kiss and then Blip – it was over. There must have been kids who thought that white people kissing (we got a lot of old UK, US and Australian stuff) was some sort of time warp generator. Sex scenes got cut out entirely or you got a short burst of static. I went to an all girls’ school. I wasn’t allowed to read any Sweet Dreams or Sweet Valley High books in case I got ‘ideas’. It was all culturally normal and it was massively pointless. You can’t get away from love stories. Getting ‘ideas’ is what teenagers are programmed to do!

Besides, even if you cleaned up the rude language in books, would you really be protecting kids from anything? I gather that words for any genitalia are replaced with the word ‘bottom’. One of my books (Dr January) contains a date rape scene. Apart from the word ‘nipple’ and maybe the word ‘body’ the app wouldn’t replace any words, so it’s relatively ‘clean’. It’s still a rape scene. It’s horrible and upsetting. It’s meant to be.  Replacing words would have protected no one.

Say the app removed the scene entirely. The ambiguity of date rape is a key plot point. If the reader can’t ‘see’ the scene and feel Beth’s confusion, then Beth goes from being a woman finally acknowledging that she’s in an abusive relationship, to either being a willing victim or plain hysterical – either of which could be actively damaging to a kid who didn’t realise that date rape was a real thing. Without that ambiguity, you’re left with ‘no bruises, no crime’.

If everyone played by the same rules, the world would be a lovely place, but they don’t. Pretending that sex doesn’t happen outside of marriage, or that people who would take advantage of the innocent don’t exist does NOT protect people. It merely makes it harder for vulnerable people to talk about what is being done to them because, if someone manages to get them into bed, to do stuff they’re not entirely sure ‘counts’, then it must all be their fault, right? So, how can they ask for help?

How on earth does that protect anyone?

Sex education is important. It won’t give kids ideas and urges that they wouldn’t have had anyway. But it does prepare them for it. Books are like dreams. They let you practise emotions so that if you have to deal with them for real, you have some idea what’s going on.

If you don’t like rude books, that’s fine. Don’t read them. If you’re worried about your kids reading books they’re not ready for, talk to them about it. Please don’t mess about with books written with care, certainly not without asking the author first.

Torso Thursdays – taking the mickey

| Rhoda Baxter

Torso Thursday

A few weeks ago, @smaddenlife and I got into a row argument discussion about the recent trend towards pictures of naked male torsos on posters, book covers, Facebook posts etc.

My view is that it’s all gratuitous and unnecessary. If it’s unacceptable for a nude female torso to be displayed like that, then it should be unacceptable for a male torso too. No need to point out about women having breasts. I’ve spotted that one. The taboo of displaying breasts is a social one (there are societies – like the Pacific island of Yap – where wearing a top is optional and you honestly do stop noticing the boobs after a while).  So, if society demands that ogling Angeline Jolie’s naked chest is wrong (as they should), then ogling Hugh Jackman’s should be wrong too.

Her view (this is still @smaddenlife, in case I’ve lost you with Hugh Jackman… or indeed, Ms Jolie) is that women have been ogled for so long, it’s the men’s turn now.

Given that two wrongs don’t make a right, we eventually arrived at the conclusion that, if this displaying of naked torsos was to be a mark of equality, we should see all kinds of semi-naked torsos. So we decided that we would start a two woman campaign (which sounds better than ‘start mucking around on Twitter playing silly beggars’ – which is what it is really) and call it #TorsoThursday. This is not to be confused with #TorsoTuesday which is about topless men, or that weird lads thing on saturday,which is about topless women. [The other option would have been #ToplessThingies, but we felt that might attract pictures of unwelcome thingies, so #TorsoThursday it is.]

#TorsoThursday
Torso Thursday – give it your chest shot.

Anyone else fancy joining in? Go photograph something with a torso. A cat, an ant, a pelican crossing with arms… the choice is endless. If you need to photoedit a pair of eyes onto it show us which way is up, that’s okay too.

Post a picture of any non-human torso with the hashtag #torsothursday. It had to be recognisably not human – so a close up of the painting Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies would not count because it could be mistaken for picture a real human. Statues are allowed.

Not long until Thursday. I’d better get snapping.

Engineering – Not just for boys

| Rhoda Baxter

Someone at work showed me this ad today. I think it’s fantastic! The toys (Goldi blox) aren’t available in the UK at the moment, but I’m sure they’ll get across here soon. When they do, I intend to buy my daughter some of these. When she gets tired of them, I can play with them!

I’m not overly bothered about pink, but I do object to things been classified as ‘for girls’ or ‘for boys’. I played with dolls (Sindy – nice, Barbies – always the baddie and Jem – just awesome). I also played with He-Man toys, Lego and Meccano I used to LOVE Meccano. I don’t think there’s any right or wrong toys. Just so long as you don’t tell your kids they can’t play with one sort or another.

My friend’s son wanted a pram for his 3rd birthday. When told it was a ‘girl’s toy’, he said, “But Why? Daddy pushes one”. Quite right too.

I’m a big fan of Terry Pratchett, so imagine my annoyance when he said “I’ve always thought that my fans were all geeks and scientists, but when I went to my book signings, there were a lot of attractive young ladies there.”

It didn’t seem to have occurred to him that there might be an overlap between the two groups.  This is the man who wrote Equal Rites. I wouldn’t call him particularly sexist. It was a comment that came out naturally. Which tells you something about how pervasive these views are.

So go on girls. Build stuff, knock stuff down. Take things apart. It’s fun. (Please tidy up when you’ve done though, or mummy gets very annoyed and goes all shouty).

Okay. I’m off to have a sneaky play with my daughter’s Hex bug nano set while she’s asleep. Shhh…

News: Two good excuses to eat chocolate

| Rhoda Baxter

Today’s book trade announcements carried this announcement from Choc Lit http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/48820/

Which means that I am now officially contracted to Choc Lit. So are Laura James and Alison May – both of whom are friends of mine from the RNA.  Hooray for all three of us!

Now, I’ve been published before, obviously, but this super duper exciting for me because my next book, Dr January, will be coming out in paperback. An actual PAPER book. Now at last my mum will be able to have a copy to keep on her shelf! There will be ebooks too, worry ye not. Dr January should be out around October 2014.

I’ve never made it into the book trade announcements before. I’m really very pleased.

I’m off to jump around excitedly for a bit and maybe treat myself to a hot chocolate. It helps keep dementia at bay you know. We should all have more hot chocolate. For medicinal purposes, of course.

Film review – Star Trek: Into Darkness

| Rhoda Baxter

There’s no Inheritance Books this week, because it went out on Friday, so I thought I’d do one of my random film reviews. There are spoilers, so if you’ve not seen the film, turn away now.

I watched Star Trek as a kid. I’m not a Trekker. I say this not because I want to distance myself from the misfit/geek aspects of it (I’ll happily admit to both), but because I’m not dedicated enough to be a fan. I’ve only seen the original series, although I’ve seen enough of the Next Generation to know who everyone is and the last time I watched The Wrath of Khan so long ago that I’ve forgotten the subtleties in it. Also I haven’t seen the first New Star Trek. So I watched Star Trek: Into Darkness as a standalone movie.

So, not a proper fan.  Got that? Okay.

It annoys me when I watch a film that leans on the knowledge of its predecessors to make sense. Like Serenity, which is a bit ‘meh’ if you haven’t seen Firefly, this movie really needs you to have seen the first new Star Trek movie AND The Wrath of Khan. Without them, it feels thin and confusing.

First of all, though, Spock and Uhura? Seriously? That’s just plain weird. Spock is a man of logic. The whole attraction of Spock is the fact that he has such a tight rein on his emotions. He’s not supposed to go around snogging people unless he’s been affected by alien spores or something. Just…no. Okay? NO.

Then there’s the random and pointless scene where Kirk sees Carol Murphy in her underwear. I’m sure it’s a nice treat for those who appreciate the female form in underpants and it’s a nod to the future, but it doesn’t serve any purpose in this particular plot.

And Spock prime (alternate timelines are a massive cop out anyway. Look what they did to Dr Who!). Again, a nice nod to another movie and a treat for the fans, but was it necessary for Spock to speak to Spock prime? He didn’t tell him anything useful. The great sacrifice presumably referred to what happened in The Wrath of Khan. Not much use here.

The darkest moment, where Kirk is irradiated was very good. Again, a nice nod to Wrath of Khan. But the seemingly miraculous bit with the funny dead badger thing was a tad predictable (although, that sort of thing does happen a lot in the original series). If you want to see this plot device done well, read Artemis Fowl.

There was no explanation as to why Khan was frozen. Yeah, yeah, he has to survive to come back later, but just a line to say ‘he was too powerful, we don’t know how to kill him’ or ‘we’re saving him in case we need his brain later’ would have solved the problem. Benedict Cumberbatch was a splendid Khan, by the way. Very… controlled.

I thought the younger versions of the crew looked a lot like the original crew. I was specially delighted to see Mr Chekov was just as cute and adorable as the original (I had a soft spot for him, can you tell?). But that rapport between them, especially the triumvirate of Kirk, Spock and Bones wasn’t there. Yes, they’re new to working with each other and some of the dialogue tried to show this, but the chemistry just. wasn’t. there.

So, there you have it. As part of series, Star Trek: Into Darkness works well. But as a stand alone movie it’s unsatisfactory and illogical.