Literary Clusterfucks 2013

adults who exclusively read and think about YA novels should try doing other things with their time for a while

What's weird is that YA is missing the zero-sum element that, say, Hollywood has. Like, for instance, if there's a black filmmaker with a script about the Green Book, that movie is likely not going get made now. However if your Kosovo War novel is successful there will probably be 10 other YA Baltic war books published in the next two years.

srebrenica the teenage witch

ok no

Lol

IRL lol.

cancel cancel cancel

most disgusting ilx post i ever read 2/5

You mean you've never been so disgusted in your life.

Unë kurrë nuk kam qenë kaq i neveritur në jetën time

i would like to apologise to everyone affected by this. my forthcoming book of YA atrocity-related puns is off to pulp city, my loves!

The harm, imago—think of the harm!

also we're overlooking Keyes writing 'Baltic War', maybe a YA novel set amidst the Finnish guerrilla struggle against the Red Army is next

a YA novel set amidst the Balearic War of mid-noughties ILM

oh sorry, I'm cancelling my post

I feel like i’d be good at writing YA historical fiction tbh

Whoever dares riff on the Ceaușescu years will be cancelled by my FPs.

Treesh you should write YA set in Renaissance Italy obv

Angsty teen michelangelo and his faithful neapolitan mastiff Dante solve a series of mysteries in 15th century Florence, finding themselves more often than not on the wrong side of the Medicis

“Looks like I’m not going to make it to the studio today!”

I’m already counting my money.

Round it off with a Chuck Tingle-style erotic interlude.

These would be good books honestly

Angsty teen michelangelo and his faithful neapolitan mastiff Dante solve a series of mysteries in 15th century Florence, finding themselves more often than not on the wrong side of the Medicis

― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, March 6, 2019 11:13 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao

I'm so on board already

tick.jpg

See you’re all joking about this & I’m thinking about this infamous supernatural fanfic that was set during the Haiti Earthquake aftermath and was about the two lead actors being white saviours. It was a MESS. Just this utter intersection of the grotesque and hilarious.

Did someone drop the “rockist” bomb up thread? If so, yeah—there’s some valuable discussion here, but whenever the conversation veers away from awful YA fans into critiques of the thing itself I’m just reminded of Bill Maher’s rants, post-Stan Lee’s death, about how comic books and everyone who reads them are all stupid. The thing that bums me out about this whole trend is basically some stupid adults threatening to ruin the very good thing that is the current onslaught of diverse representations in stories for younger readers.

Angsty teen michelangelo and his faithful neapolitan mastiff Dante solve a series of mysteries in 15th century Florence, finding themselves more often than not on the wrong side of the Medicis

― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, March 6, 2019 11:13 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

didnt matthew pearl write this already

See you’re all joking about this & I’m thinking about this infamous supernatural fanfic that was set during the Haiti Earthquake aftermath and was about the two lead actors being white saviours. It was a MESS. Just this utter intersection of the grotesque and hilarious.

― gyac, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:42 (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i know youre just going to shout at me for saying this but...why are you thinking about this!

i mean you could think about *anything* why this

regardless of how it is achieved?

― Mazzy Tsar (PBKR), Wednesday, March 6, 2019 8:34 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh the means justify the ends do they

― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Wednesday, March 6, 2019 12:06 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I just mean the fewer Harry Potters and descendants, the better.

xp because it was so incredibly weird as a concept and because there was so much discourse around it, just the “why????” sense of the setting

see

thats what caught the publishers eye you just know it

the "publisher" of fanfic is the fan tho -- and i think by definition fanfic is looking to get a bit out of order, so limits are bound to be crossed somewhere

Angsty teen michelangelo and his faithful neapolitan mastiff Dante solve a series of mysteries in 15th century Florence, finding themselves more often than not on the wrong side of the Medicis

― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, March 6, 2019 6:13 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

WOULD READ THO

i did not know we were discussing fanfic obv all involved should be braised

I can't get too worked up about any layer of this "scandal" I guess. I know there are good books in YA literary history that are set in another time or country or culture written by people who shared NONE of that history or country or culture--some of them are books I think of fondly and often. But it's not a good state of affairs. That should stop being encouraged in the industry, possibly even stop being allowed. More YA should come from people with personal experience in the topics & identities they weave into their books.

On the whole Jackson probably is probably getting unfortunately harsh treatment considering that he has several other complicated marginalized identities and deserves support and chances to succeed! Still, you'd think it might be possible not to A. set your work in the middle of a real historical genocide and B. not make the bad guy one of the persecuted minorities? I mean it's kind of a mess.

That should stop being encouraged in the industry,

hmmmm

possibly even stop being allowed

ah ffs madness. madness!

I know there are good books in YA literary history that are set in another time or country or culture written by people who shared NONE of that history or country or culture--some of them are books I think of fondly and often. But it's not a good state of affairs. That should stop being encouraged in the industry, possibly even stop being allowed.

What, like no more historical or science fiction? U extreme man

Hm yeah okay I probably could have tried harder to put that clearly: I mean like fiction in which the main characters are people of other countries or races of cultures that the author does not share any of, is not the inheritor of any of. Like a white American writing about the challenges & struggles of uh idk a young Chinese girl during the cultural revolution or something. White people should not be assumed to have the ability to just "impersonate" anyone of any group throughout history, we're not a neutral body that can absorb infinite other identities and accurately depict them and whatever their struggles mean to their current descendants.

otoh do we really need more books written about and from the perspective of white ppl? maybe it's best if the whites just stop writing fiction altogether.

i dont think anyone assumes that anyone has any ability in fiction tbh.

but i dont think theres anything to be gained by even nodding towards the direction of someone, anyone, not having the actual right to write fiction from any pov

xp They can keep writing about white people, that's fine. And if they want to research their own ancestors' history and build something on that foundation I would encourage them to submit 100000 "Scottish lord romances time-traveling suffragette" romances to the slushpile and see what happens.

This is fun! I was ignoring this thread but thanks for keeping it going all day while I did work!

otoh minorities have a perspective of white ppl that white ppl themselves don't have (bc whiteness is invisible) so i'm not sure white ppl should be writing about white ppl which they don't know very well. only minorities should be writing about white ppl. let white ppl just read and be quiet for a little bit there are plenty of [bad] white books already.

Again, I'm not 100% sure but I think it seems like you think that's a bad idea whereas I feel fine about it.

white ppl post too much

the only problem of representation that actually exists is that there is inequality in who gets allowed to write and create works of fiction for a mass market audience. in a world where white men do not get most of these opportunities, we will have more representation of other identities.

the idea that white people should not be allowed to write fictional characters that aren't white is ludicrous, notwithstanding some of the egregiously terrible attempts writers have made (dfw writing a poor, black character's internal monologue in infinite jest will make you cringe yourself inside out).

I don't think programmatic and consistent rules about who is or isn't allowed to represent whatever is likely to end up benefiting anyone, least of all the oppressed or disenfranchised or voiceless, who are probably more hurt by such rules historically than helped by them. Let a thousand flowers bloom imo.

i think it's fine if we ban white ppl from writing ever again i think there's too much writing period and banning white ppl will stop the deluge, we can work on stopping non-whites from writing next.

I was planning on checking out a couple of Albanian writers but I can already guess what they'll be on about, being white myself.