Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire

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Sometimes you'll never know why.

So a little while ago, I posted about self-promotion and my basic thoughts on same, which boil down to "don't be a dick" and "don't go door-to-door across the internet." Pretty basic, reasonably close to universal (although I don't really believe in universal truths, beyond "don't French kiss a rattlesnake"), generally non-offensive. Which means, of course, that some people took offense.

Sometimes, no matter what you do, you're going to offend people. Sometimes you'll never know why.

Things I have done in the past week that someone has found offensive: listened to loud, "weird" music. Had an opinion about whether or not people who aren't me should be allowed to make decisions about my body. Enjoyed bad science fiction. Had my hair highlighted in preparation for the Hugos. Implied that there's a double standard in how women are expected to dress for the Hugos vs. how men are expected to dress for the Hugos. Implied that it's more expensive to be female. Bought children's toys for myself. Bought children's toys for a child. These are just the things I know about mind you, and I only know because in each case, someone told me. I'm not sure why most of these things were offensive. I don't actually want to know. And that, right there, probably offends someone.

I do my best to Marilyn Munster my way through life, leaving fields of happy zombies and sparkly plagues behind me. Sadly, though, nothing is that inoffensive. Not unless it's, say, a rock, and even that will offend, if it gets into somebody's shoe. There is no way to avoid giving offense. Not if you're a thing that actually exists.

And it can be hard, as someone whose audience is largely online, to deal with the thought that I might accidentally offend someone, lose potential readers, and wind up living in a cardboard box next to the creek. My cats aren't supposed to go outside! (This is the "worst case scenario" mindset. It kicks in when I think I've upset someone. My brain is a theme park that hates me.) Case in point:

A while ago—within the last year, although I couldn't tell you when—someone with whom I had communicated on Twitter, but who I didn't really know, asked me "Why did you kill character X?" I gave the response I always give to that question, which is completely honest, despite having been originally stolen from Stephen King: "I didn't kill them. They just died." I have made the conscious choice to kill very few characters. Most of them are sacrifices to the story, and I'm as surprised as anyone else when I see what's coming. It's an odd answer, but a totally sincere one.

(Example of me killing a character on purpose: I killed Rose. It was sort of essential, since her story hinges on her being, you know. Dead.)

This person did not find my answer sincere. They proceeded to declare on Twitter that I was a horrible person who disrespected her readers and didn't appreciate reader questions and was generally horrid, and then went and amended all their reviews of my books to lower their ratings, so that it would be clear that they did not give good scores to mean authors. So with one statement that I still don't regret making, because it was sincere, I lost a reader, and the aggregate scores of my books went down. And I'm lucky in that this is one of the biggest "bad author, no authorial biscuit" scandals that I've had to deal with so far.

Do I know exactly why my response was offensive? Nope. I've said that to other people without causing offense (that I'm aware of). Did this person explain? Nope. Is that the only time I'm going to cause offense in this world?

Nope.

No matter what you do, you're going to piss people off. Hell, me saying "offense is inevitable" is probably pissing someone off. So take deep breaths, and don't dwell on it too much. As long as we're all doing our best not to be horrible and hurtful, it should be okay, in the long run.

Even if we never know why.
Tags: contemplation, cranky blonde is cranky
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It constantly baffles me what people get pissed off about. This last weekend I lit a candle -- which I kept next to me -- I commented on twitter about the circus of keeping my Maine Coons away from it. Because really -- who wants singed cat hair? I was berrated for being a terrible, horrible, abusive cat mother. Um, what? Okay!

People are crazy. You're awesome, even if I don't agree with everything you say (so far I have yet to see something in that list I don't agree with, but whatever) that's the wonderful thing about opinions!!!!
You're a bad cat mother...because you didn't set your cats on fire?

I am not understanding the logic here. Are cats happier when on fire? Has there been a study that I missed? If no, can it not ever, ever be conducted, ever?

Sidney_Bristol

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

liddle_oldman

4 years ago

chris_walsh

4 years ago

qnofhrt

4 years ago

Sidney_Bristol

4 years ago

hasufin

4 years ago

dornbeast

4 years ago

hasufin

4 years ago

spiritdance

4 years ago

hasufin

4 years ago

spiritdance

4 years ago

spiritdance

4 years ago

don't really believe in universal truths, beyond "don't French kiss a rattlesnake"

Oh, great. NOW you tell me. *amends evening plans*

I really wish I could adopt Stephen Fry's famous attitude towards people who get offended by things:

'It's now very common to hear people say, "I'm rather offended by that", as if that gives them certain rights. It's no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. "I'm offended by that." Well, so fucking what?'
—Stephen Fry


Sadly, I'm too insecure to really pull it off. Even when it's indirect, like when I point to something I find funny or interesting and someone comes along to tell me they found it awful...I end up taking that as a commentary on me for liking it and thinking it was worth sharing.

Brains are weird.

Brains are weird.

Love you.
1: Silly worst case scenario! You would never be in a cardboard box; someone as awesome as you are could commandeer mere acquaintances and get a basement apartment like *that*. With indoor cats. Either that, or take over the world.

2: Must remember to go rate the books, 'cause I'm all for "just died" instead of laboriously-plotted deaths.
The cats would appreciate the basement apartment. As would the spiders.

archangelbeth

4 years ago

Characters are always getting loose and running amok and doing unexpected things like saving the world or falling out of love or dying or shit. What can you do?
Hit 'em with a hammer.

dornbeast

4 years ago

archangelbeth

4 years ago

dornbeast

4 years ago

archangelbeth

4 years ago

This is an important point that I must keep in mind, myself. Thanks for the reminder!

-TG
Ver' welcome.
Books are far more interesting when the characters get loose and manage to get themselves killed as a result. Nothing's more frustrating for a reader than seeing the author's fingers all over the plot - I want to believe in the story while I'm reading it, so "just died" is an excellent description of that process.

On the other, I am at a loss to understand why people feel your taste in music or bad SF or children's toys requires *them* to feel offended... they are free to agree or disagree, accept or dismiss, but taking offense just shouldn't be on the list. Although I suspect it's part of a continuum of thought that allows people to think they have any say in who other adults choose to love or marry, or to make laws based on religious belief...
Yeah, it's weird. I get it not.
Once upon a time, in the midst of a very long conversation, I responded to a rather overly-dramatic declaration with a well-known quote: Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
This, apparently caused enormous offense to the other party, to my utter bafflement. Why would THAT, out of the entire emotionally overwrought conversation, mortally offend them??
It was months before I discovered, via a third party, that they had never, ever seen The Princess Bride, and they thought that "highness" was vicious name calling on my part. *facepalm*

Whooooooooooooops.

mel_redcap

4 years ago

I'm pretty sure I manage to offend all sorts of people all the time and my job is actually to be nice to people and make them want to give my charity/employer their hard earned money.

Eh. Fuck 'em.

Hmmm...maybe I should change my icon to a non-picure-y one in case I'm offending someone who will encounter me in my work capacity.

You do nothing to offend. Can't say that I agree with every single thing you've ever uttered but that doesn't make you offensive.

And lest you somehow be offended by my implied disagreement I'll just say I assume we have differences somewhere along the line. Because we are human. And if we were so perectly aligned we'd spend more time together. /snark.

People need to get over theirownselves.
Sometimes I think we all just need to take a damn deep breath.

And world of no offense that gasp, WE'RE NOT THE SAME PERSON. Hell, sometimes I offend myself, and I'm supposed to be me, like, twenty-four/seven.

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seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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There are days when I have that reaction to life in general. This morning almost constituted such an occasion for reasons and/or excuses too numerous to list here.

:-)

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

dornbeast

4 years ago

My opinion, and my working theory, is that the world -- and the net -- is full of people just waiting to be offended. They like the drama. They like the feeling of control and power castigating someone -- especially someone better-known and better-accomplished then they. They watch for things to be offended by. It has very little to do with you (or with me); we're just convenient tools for their little dramas.

This is my theory, and what it is too.

Also -- no one else gets to complain or argue with what your characters do. You're telling us stories. (Thanks!) The dynamic is not that we tell you what the stories are and how they go. Someone wants characters to do something -- they can write their own stories about their own characters.

This is the second theory which is mine.
Sadly, I think your theory is very likely to be accurate.

brightlotusmoon

4 years ago

jennygriffee

4 years ago

'I do my best to Marilyn Munster my way through life, leaving fields of happy zombies and sparkly plagues behind me. '

I think this makes for a wonderful sttitude to a person's life :)
I think that anyone who reads this blog, interviews with you and reads your work would get that you are a fair and reasonable person not inclined to random malice. Some people just look for excuses to be mean. I have never understood this.

Hang in there!

I am hung!
I don't do Twitter, but it seems to me that by enforcing very terse answers to questions, it gives easily offended people a lot of extra chances to be offended. I know whenever I write something on LJ I spend way too much time and too many words trying to make sure I can't be misinterpreted by anyone vaguely reasonable, but if I had to say everything in 140 characters I couldn't do that.

The important thing to keep in mind is the vast gulf between someone getting offended by something you said and you actually having said something offensive.
Oh, absolutely. But sometimes trying to confirm that gulf's existence can be nerve-wracking.

phantom_wolfboy

4 years ago

autographedcat

4 years ago

I kinda needed to read this today. Thank you.
Very welcome, darlin'.
I can make sense of why that twitter person was offended. See, you're a writer. You're used to the notion of characters having minds of their own. You're used to going "No, no no! No romantic subplot, I've got these plans and... dammit, fine, you can go out on a date but I'm gonna mess with you." and your characters saying "Whatever, we're in love and- WHY DID YOU HAVE A SPIDER DEMON ATTACK THE RESTAURANT?!!!"
You get this. Youv'e set up a universe, and things happen. You can affect it, but you don't really control it.

To someone who isn't a writer, this doesn't make sense. You're the writer, you're in control, if anything happens in your books it's because you chose to do it, obviously. So your response comes across as flippant and frankly an outright lie. And someone who would flippantly lie to a reader who is clearly invested in your work obviously makes you a Bad Person.

What this amounts to, and which seems to usually be the case in major offenses, is lack of some context which one assumes is shared. In this case, you have that understanding of your interaction with characters which your reader lacks. I see one of the other commentators mentioning a quote from "Princess Bride" being horribly misinterpreted because the recipient had never seen that move. I've had it happen all the time - an innocent remark triggers something for the other person in ways I could never have imagined, or some comment of mine alludes to a meaning the other person has no way of getting. Usually it's just confusing, sometimes it isn't. And, unfortunately, when we're upset we don't tend to stop and think "could the other person have possibly known I would take it this way?" nor "Hey, until this point they were perfectly respectful - maybe they didn't mean to be offensive, I should ask."

Also, of course, some people really are assholes.
You know, that makes sense. What doesn't make sense is the person refusing to engage and tell me what was so offensive, because while we're not all totally calm when offended, usually people are happy to at least stop and yell.

Bah. Thank you for the perspective. It really does help.

hasufin

4 years ago

hvideo

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

hvideo

4 years ago

brightlotusmoon

4 years ago

hasufin

4 years ago

It can be very hard, avoiding offending everyone, and when different cultures come into the equation, it gets even worse. I think all we can do is do our best to stay polite and calm.
I swear, Humon (does "Scandinavia and the World") spends half her time explaining how her comic is not [insert American offense button here], because she's coming from a different cultural standpoint than her American readers.

She does a great job.

la_marquise_de_

4 years ago

melchar

4 years ago

la_marquise_de_

4 years ago

dragoness_e

4 years ago

melchar

4 years ago

Eh, I've heard it said that if you're not pissing off at least one person a day, you're doing it wrong. (Although what the 'IT' is they're talking about eludes me.) Maybe some people don't understand that for writers, we're not always in control of where the story goes - at least not consciously. What happens, happens. And sometimes the book is better for it. Sorry that particular reader got her tights in a twist.

On this end, I've already pissed off the daughter, but that's a mom's job sometimes. So I'm good for today. ;o)
Hooray for meeting your quota early!
User slweippert referenced to your post from Seanan McGuire: Sometimes you'll never know why. saying: [...] on the other end of the internet. Originally posted by at Sometimes you'll never know why. [...]
Y'know, we have this acronym around our household - it's long, which is half the joke right there - HTGWABOF. Stands for Honest to God, what a bunch of freaks. We use it when friends, online followers, note-to-editor writers, bosses, coworkers, whoever, get all squirrely on us, take offense at weird stuff. (Really - toy purchases and which gender more difficult to dress? Dude [that is, the offended party], get a hobby!). We shake our heads, figure maybe they forgot to take their pill that morning, and hope they feel better soon. (And lest I seem one-sided, let me say taking offense isn't necessarily a bad thing - sometimes, occasionally it's even warranted, and we all have our fur rubbed the wrong way now and again. But most of us just shake it off, keep on moving, maybe even indulge in some retail therapy to soothe our sore feelings ... )

That sanguinity doesn't apply, however, when the critics start to mess with your livelihood, change to neg feedback about your work onto Amazon, etc. in response to perceived personal slights. Because, really? Really?? Then, imho, it's time to Take Steps. Complain to Twitter admin folks, tell 'em you're being stalked. Complain to Fbook ppl re same. Unfriend them from Fbook, LiveJournal, wherever. Have your publisher send a note to the Amazon folks (can they do that?). There's such a thing as taking things too far, and nut job fans who get a little too stalker-y, and it sounds like you've found one. Or a few. Yuck.

Sending good thoughts your way in meantime. 8-)
Thanks, honey.

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I don't, really, especially compared to a lot of other authors; I really only had the one big blowup over DA, and some ongoing crap about HOW DARE SHE GET CATS FROM A BREEDER HOW. I just talk about it, because I unpack things a lot. :)

I'm so glad you liked the book! I love it, but I'm not objective.
And it can be hard, as someone whose audience is largely online, to deal with the thought that I might accidentally offend someone, lose potential readers, and wind up living in a cardboard box next to the creek.

Thank you for admitting that even rock stars like you have thoughts like this. I have them all the time, and it's a little less crazy-making to be reminded that I'm not the only one who does.

Maybe it's a universal condition and we don't know because we're all out there putting on game faces and pretending to be all confident and stuff.
I am a deeply neurotic soul. Fortunately, so is everybody else.

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Me, too. And character deaths I found unfair have driven me away from things, for good. That doesn't mean I berate the creators.
I am becoming a cranky old lady (hey you kids, get off my lawn!) But it does seem that many people online have way too much time on their hands if they spend so much of it taking offense. Or spewing hatred & bigotry. They need a time out to go clean their room or volunteer at a soup kitchen or floss the cat or something more productive. Your comments generally seem well thought out and logical - one may disagree but why waste time & energy being offended? Harrumph!
And not that you will ever need it but the cats & you can always emigrate to Canada & live in our basement - there are exciting dusty rafters 'n stuff!
Yay, basement!
*hug*

I had someone tell me their parents walked out of my concert because they were offended by one of my songs. Mind you this person had zero intention of making me insecure--their point was that they agreed with me and couldn't figure out how to tell their parents.

It weirded me out just a little because the song in question was something I worked very hard to make inoffensive. And I sometimes see people walking out of my concerts and usually figure it's about them, not me (as in "they just realized they promised to meet their daughter in the lobby ten minutes ago and they're getting tearstained text messages" or something like that.)

But I guess only way to offend no one is not to exist. Not worth it.
Absolutely not worth it. Agreed.

*hug*
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