A #Writing thread

If you don't know Otto Penzler, he is to murder mysteries what Burroughs is to the Pulp folks, or Asimov to the post Campbell SFF. He's edited more anthologies than I can count, he runs his own press and his own bookstore.

Then there's this...

I think it's time for this rant.

Ahem.

Diversity.

Representation.

"Marginalized peoples."

These are of course, synonyms for bullshit.

If you ever get around to writing a story, & anyone, anyone tells you that you need more of X "character," smack the fool in the face.

The only characters you need are ones that drive the story forward. Anyone else is a waste of time and words.

This is funny coming from me; I've had people tell me I have great diversity in my novels. This is where I have nod, and say, "Thanks, what did you think of the book?"

Funny thing, those who like the "diversity" don't like my books.

But I don't care. I sincerely don't notice. It takes time to add up how many of X I may have. I may have one or two lesbian characters, but I didn't ask them. It hasn't come up, so I don't think about it.

Ask me if I have black characters, it takes me at least a few minutes to remember, oh, yeah, I have a Pope who is literally from Africa.

Why don't I know things like this off the top of my head?

Because they're characters, not tokens.

For me, every character I have is better defined by characteristics than by anything else.

Give me time, I can compile checklists. Aida Jones of the murder mysteries, who I have in my head as 6'4" Mariah Carey.

Brian Levine, body type is "big black football player #4", but I remember him best as ex-Delta who knits.

I've got a few more characters, but I'm already bored compiling THAT list. Because I hate "checkboxing."

I just thank God none of my readers give a damn about that sort of thing. Thankfully, they can't, especially given how I like to subvert the cliches--and let's face it, checkboxing is so cliche, it's painful.

Let's put it this way. I've been able to tell people about the cast of characters of TV shows I've never seen, just based on cliches. "Oh look, any team has to have an Asian--probably female--a black engineer / gadget man, someone with a disability, and maybe a token white guy."

We can thank God we don't get into sensitivity readers.

The first fucker who goes "I'm offended" while beta reading a novel will find themselves IN the novel, & far more offended.

Hell, I'm fed up with "Let's bash Christian," Dan Brown-lite novels, and I'm perfectly happy to offend someone who harps on about how X or Y is offensive.

Hell, someone called me a white supremacist in a review because I used MS-13 as a random encounter bad guy....

Because the biggest gang in the world, so big they're on a terrorist watch list, and run human trafficking operations has to be the villain "because they're not white."

Nooo. They're the bad guys because MS13 are bad people.

And I'm really tired of Ayran Nation gangs. Talk about cliche. I've only seen MS-13 as the villain in one novel, once. They were only in one scene as hired guns.

"But what about LGBTQMOUSE and the strong waman?", to quote @doomcock

What about them? I've seen numbers suggest LGBT may top off between 1% & 2% of the population.

As for the 2nd... my "strong wamyn" don't work for check boxers. After all, they spend no time trying to deliberately show up men, or be the bestest evar...

If you are confused by the above paragraph, watch an episode of Batwoman for the check boxing definition of "strong women"--women are "perfect," indestructible, no flaws, & don't need no man... men are disposable, easily replaced by any female character no matter the function.

If she's part of the LGBTQMOUSE faction, the woman gets extra invulnerability points.

I'm not even going to discuss trans-- the public face of which is so obnoxious, there's been at least one article on kicking "T" out of LGBTQ.

Especially with mediocre men declaring themselves "trans" so they can join women's sports to batter women (see MMA).

So, yeah, I don't play these games. They're stupid & lead to some of the worst writing I've ever seen or heard.

Characters **have to fit the story.** If Tommy Nolan wasn't married with children (both wife and kids are armed), trust me, no one would know what his sexuality was.

If Sean Ryan's girlfriend wasn't an agent who brings him clients in It Was Only on Stun!, it wouldn't have come up there either. I'm not even sure it is mentioned in Set to Kill. We won't go into the books with the romance subplots.

If the story is twisted to fit the check boxing, we get CW shows and Agent Carter. And no one wants that. Just look at their ratings.

So, write your own stories. Don't try to shoehorn anything or any one that doesn't fit in naturally.

You've just seen woke idiots fire 1 of the biggest names in modern mystery so they can virtue signal how diverse they are, solely by judging authors by the color of their skin, & not the quality of the writing.

Be judged by the quality of your writing,& not the BS you can jam in