Do you ever worry about offending certain readers?

It could also depend on the character, and if showing the character/narrator's casual cruelty fleshes them out more, and is true to who they are.

This way hopefully the reader is offended by the character, and not the author.

You see this often where the offense is wrongly set at the feet of the author, when in reality the author actually had a point - a reason - for having a character say or do something.

 

You're right, I missed that...tch...grrr...arrrgh.

[Also, I found it a weakness in story - when I/one translates a true story to appear as fiction. Some of the real life turn of events/motivations appear inauthentic on the page. AND the frustration, when the story fails..]

 

I strive to tell the unpopular truth, and I know that this will offend those whose views of life depend on the more popular lies

The corollary to "No matter what you write, you're going to offend somebody" is that writers have to decide which people they want to offend and why.

If a writer's personal answer is "... therefore, it doesn't matter what you write, because offending any person for any reason is always exactly the same as offending any other person for any other reason," then this says something about that writer.

@Le gribouilleur What values are most important to you as a writer? What do you most want to accomplish with your writing?

 

Right.

Of course, the point of being inclusive and unbiased isn’t to avoid criticism. It’s because being inclusive and unbiased is good.

 

If you get upset put the flipping gosh-damned book down and move on!

FREEDOM MEANS YOU WILL BE OFFENDED. YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT NOT TO BE OFFENDED!! MUVAFOOKERS!!

I am just happy to see most people say "No" and I can only hope those who said otherwise did so whilst thinking within a certain context. Please don't write material devoid of emotional content. We're not robots and we all harbour certain prejudices because we're stoopid humans. Go around and say stooopid derogatory things and then suffer the humiliating afterthoughts once you've matured a little. We err and we adjust. Live by the mistakes you've made NOT the avoidance of controversy.

If you're offended ask yourself why. I am not "offended" by rascists or people who don't like dancing. It is okay to have homophobic, racist or sexist friends. People are allowed to be ignorant; I would say it is the privilege of being human, and those of use who can expand the horizon of our ignorance a little more are all the better for it - for the more we explore understanding the greater we appreciate the infinite state of our ignorance and childish stupidity.

 

It would be an interesting exercise to see exactly how disgusting you can make your MC and still make the reader sympathetic toward them. It would be a very big ask to make a horrific decadent and murderous character worthy of admiration simply by virtue of a some altruistic acts. The mythos of redemption is a very curious thing. How far can we push a character into darkness and still be able to return them to the light? Can Darth Vader ever be forgiven for the willful destruction of an entire planet-full of people?

It seems to me the only way to divert away from the darkness is by implanting the concept of an "external force", but even then the character was flawed if they failed to resist and the fault is their fault not their circumstances. "Evil" will remain a very prominent theme of all fiction and in life it seems we're always going to see some "evil" in ourselves rear its ugly head sometimes. So maybe, JUST maybe, we can forgive naivety.

 

It's certainly a spectrum. But the more fearful you are of offending somebody, the weaker any of your stances and arguments become. Not only that, but the convictions of your characters and their actions suffer, too. Everything's soon on eggshells and nothing can happen as a result, or else somebody, somewhere, is going to get upset.

"Offended" is one of those words that has lost its value due to the hyper-inflation of its usage, and its meaning due to an increasingly ambiguous definition. Have I ever been offended by something? Certainly. But I taught myself to get over it, because it's not a real argument, and I quickly realized that if they deliberately hurt me in the first place then they're not going to care about me crying that they hurt my feelings.

And that's what most people are talking about when they say "offended". They're talking about how something hurt their feelings.

Now, is it appropriate to just be offensive all of the time? Obviously not, unless you want to quickly become a social outcast. There's a time and a place, and I think to be deliberately offensive by means of speaking a truth is fine, especially in art. But at your local supermarket? Probably not, extenuating circumstances aside.

Being flagrant and trolling is often offensive, but it's also not very defensible. Speaking a truth that's "offensive"? People's heads explode from the cognitive dissonance you create, because their feelings are hurt AND deep down they know you have a real argument, while they do not.

Nothing sets people back on their heels like an asshole who has learned how to channel their "jerkishness" into telling the truth and fighting for a good cause with their reasoning. People will excuse the guy who has a tendency to be rude but typically has a good reason or intention. People will not excuse the guy who is rude because he's not properly socialized, or out of malevolence.

 

Since there was another option "I try not to offend anyone," it seems fair to say that those of us who answered "Yes" meant that we worry about offending some readers, but not others.

Does that make sense?

 

I think it's important to look at the phrasing of the question. A word like "consider" may have been a better choice than "worry", along with a rephrasing of the question.

 

It does to me.
I certainly don't wish to offend the very audience of readers the story is intended for. I will however keep them engaged and test their mettle from time to time.

 

Yes I do. I write primarily horror, and a lot of it is real-world stuff, no ghosts, ghouls, or vampires (sparkly or otherwise), just the evil that people do to each other. I worry if it's moral to write a story about the Holocaust to give people an ugly little shiver, if it's okay to write about a sexually abused toddler to make people smile when she comes out victorious.

But these are the stories that come to my head, this is what I see when the lights go down, so... I dunno.

 

I would say some books are more appropriate for some people, be this due to age or general psychological disposition.

There is certainly issue with presenting fiction as factual or facts as fiction. This is more likely due to ignorance than a concerted effort to "offend" people. Then there is the matter of judging intent. These are more philosophical questions and perhaps questions writers may find useful when they write.

If I try not to offend then what does that mean? Why is it that I would feel the need to think such a thought? I could also put a case forward for intending to offend, that would be politically motivated though in order to bring to the fore a question I may feel society could do with tackling more head on (and I could be wrong about that or right - either way it is a defendable position to take on the side of being offensive.)

 

Nah. I'm blatently one-sided in my presentation of telepathy. Telepaths are the worst.

Just kidding.

My WIP doesn't take place on Earth, and any representation of modern, real world ethnicities or nationalities would be profoundly anachronistic in the setting, so I can't see how I would offend anyone in that regard. I do portray different sexual orientations in a positive (often explicit) way, which is guatenteed to offend the sensibilities of some, but the cover art should filter them out from the start.

Other than that... I've learned to accept the fact that universities will likely soon be cobbling together PhD programs in professional offendedness which will issue forth doctoral ricipients of many ilks ready to satisfy the growing and ever diversifying niche of offense.

(Also, not kidding about telepaths. They suck.)

 

I want to show the readers a part of the world or history that many don't know about.

Thanks for your responses everyone. It really helps.

 

I think this is partly where the problem is. Yes, some people love to be offended by things, some people look for things to get offended by so it's impossible not to. But thinking of everyone who is offended by books as that kind of person, the 'think of the children, they can't possibly read Catcher in the Rye!!' types can become dangerous because sometimes the ideas in books do promote real harm by promoting harmful stereotypes or making people think ways of treating others are ok that just aren't. Simply putting the book down then doesn't help because other people will still read it and respond.

I want to be absolutely clear here, I am not saying that you should try to not offend anyone. I think like most people here that if you have something to say then offence is not the primary concern, and it is almost inevitable that someone will be offended because humans differ so much in what they find offensive. But I do have a problem with the attitude that 'we're ignorant so it's fine' because that DOES cause harm to people. It causes harm when officials refuse to marry a homosexual couple, it causes harm when people think it's ok to make racist jokes to people on the bus, it causes harm when people in a position of power think it's ok to touch the people who work for them inappropriately. And it's ok for people to be offended when they read things that promote this.

I'm not saying literature shouldn't challenge our beliefs and conventions and make us feel uncomfortable sometimes, because that's part of the beauty of it. And of course you can voice controversial opinions and have characters who are less than PC or downright awful. But it's not just extremists and people bored looking for something to whine about who get offended. Literature and television do play a part in building people's views of others and groups of people. I just don't think that's something to be flippant about. And maybe this was more of a problem a few decades ago when there were fewer sources at hand for people, but it's still relevant.

But maybe I'm just thinking of offense in different terms to other people. Which again shows a problem of how broad it is.

 

Of course, because I'm not an arsehole.

That doesn't mean I avoid anything that could offend anybody anywhere. Mostly I don't want to offend groups that are already marginalised and persecuted and discriminated against.

 

I'm going to have to throw a [citation needed] on both of these.

None of those things are nice but they don't harm you. They just don't. And you don't have a right to have the world be nice to you, nor do you have a right to tell other people what they can think and what can be promoted. Sorry but that is a step too far.

Who has been harmed if a priest tells a gay couple that, by the vows he has taken and the rules of his church both of which are deeply important to him, he cannot perform their service, but there's a lovely church up the road where they can go? Where is the harm?

And as for your other two examples; thoughts cannot hurt you. Only actions can hurt you. And you have no way of knowing what people think unless they take an action to express it. The person sitting next to you on the bus might well think that it's ok to make racist jokes. But it's ok for him to think that because you have no claim on his thoughts. Just the same for someone in power; we have no right, no claim and no ability to determine what they think. What we care about is if they keep their hands to themselves or not, and if they don't they get arrested for that not for what they think. Because seriously when you are saying that other peoples thoughts are harming you then you need a tin foil hat my friend, not to change the whole rest of society so people will think the way you want them to.

As for media shaping people's views; why don't we take a step back and realise that there is more violence in our media now than ever before. We have a whole genre of media that is almost exclusively violent (video games) which is a bigger industry than hollywood and that people engage with in a very deep way. And yet violence continues to fall in our society. So really I think this is something that we can be flippant about. If people can play violent video games all day and be less violent in society then surely racist, misogynist characters would make us less racist and sexist? Or do you think that people just uncritically process media? Do you think, in fact, that they don't even realise how terrible the media is?

If people want to be offensive that is up to them. And even if you could demonstrate harm from offence (which by the way is not the same thing as bigotry) they would still have the right to be offensive if they want. Because you don't have to read it.

No, that's totally incorrect. You can go and buy Mein Kampf right now. I've seen it in book shops. It's been on the market for some sixty years. And those who don't want to read it don't have to. And that's all it takes. You decide for you, I'll decide for me. You don't have a right to say that because I might react that you need to stop that.

 

I read OP as saying officials, not officiants, like when Kim Davis, a state employee, refused to fill out the necessary paperwork for a gay couple to get legally married.

 

Yes, and it's a shame we've allowed the distinction between bigotry and racism to disappear. If I hate you because you're black (or gay, or whatever), I'm a bigot. If I refuse to hire you because you're black, I'm a racist. Having to acknowledge that there are stupid people in the world isn't harmful.

 

I am going to quote Walt Whitman (who during his life was considered one of the most offensive writers of his time).

"Understand that you can have in your writing no qualities which you do not honestly entertain in yourself. Understand that you cannot keep out of your writing the indication of the evil or shallowness you entertain in your self [.] If you love to have a servant stand behind your chair at dinner, it will appear in your writing -or if you possess a vile opinion of women, or if you grudge anything, doubt immortality- these will appear by what you leave unsaid more than by what you say. There is no trick or cunning, no art or recipe, by which you can have in your writing what you do not possess in yourself." -Walt Whitman (Journal entry 1855-56)

-

The part that sticks out to me is there is no trick or cunning, meaning that if what I value is offensive, there is no way for it not to seep into my writing, no trick to avoid it.

-OJB

 

I hadn't come across that one myself; normally I think of that kind of issue as gay people being refused marriage on religious grounds. If they are a state employee then they have a duty to process paperwork in line with the law.

 

Well quite. And that's part of the argument for allowing people to be offensive. Because then we'll know what they think and we'll respond by arguing against it. It's important that we allow these things to go on the market so that we know how to handle them when they appear. We're used to having an adversarial relationship with our media, with critiquing it and arguing and wrestling to find the meaning and the authorial intent. And that's because we allow offensive things to exist, things that we wrestle with and ultimately reject.

Just the fact that there are books that deny the holocaust means that pretty much our whole society knows to sneer and deride those who say that. And that's why we let them write those books. Horribly offensive books. We don't fear them, we don't try to destroy them, we just let them speak for themselves and everyone sees exactly the kind of author we're dealing with.

 

But it can go too far. Everyone here who knows me at all knows I'm a card carrying, rainbow flying gay dude, but...

Did you watch Downton Abbey at all? I had a real problem with the way Thomas the Gay Footman (later under-butler and finally Butler) was handled. I was fine with the way the actor portrayed the character, to a point. I was fine with the fact that he was neither demonized (though he is rather a dick) nor idealized. I did have an issue with the way the whole staff knew he was gay. That was informed by a very 2017 sense of "Why should he have to hide it?" And the way everyone was so blasé liberal cool about it. It was the 1920s in an English country manor, not a New York flat during the Harlem Renascence. This is not the way this would have gone down. I felt like the whole thing was too concerned with a modern sense of how things should be, which felt insincere, preachy, and ultimately self defeating. Pretending that things weren't shitty in the past isn't how we fix the present.

Again, this is just an example of things going too far in the other direction. I think a writer can be perfectly true to crappy events while still handling it sensitively as a writer.

ETA: Just saw the Whitman quote above, with which I concur.

 

That's not what I'm talking about, of course you can't and shouldn't control people's thoughts.

I'm talking about when those thoughts do translate into actions - when people do make racist, sorry, bigotted, comments on the bus. You brought up Mein Kampf, no you don't have to read it but some people who have read it have then felt justified in committing violent acts against others at least in part because of it.

In the Thailand uprisings a few years ago people started using the Hunger Games salute as a sign of solidarity https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/world/asia/thailand-protesters-hunger-games-salute.html?referer=https://www.google.com/ and I'm not saying that case is harm but it does show how influential literature can be.

Also never did I say in my post that books with those topics should be banned. I don't think banning something you don't agree with and censorship is a good way to go about things, all I'm saying is that you should be aware of the impact your writing can have.