Say you have the second sight

[sovay]

My appetite has evaporated thanks to the current medicinal cocktail, so I made myself a dessert with a can of sliced peaches boiled with coconut cream and honey in order to have something in my stomach for antibiotics and it was remarkably tasty. I will replenish my store of sliced canned peaches at the earliest opportunity. At some point in the future I will feel like making it again.

I am so very sick of not writing critically about things. That entire area of my brain appears to have gone on vacation without me (have the decency to send a postcard, you bum!) and I want it back. It's been weeks. The rest of this paragraph edited for Tiny Wittgenstein.

I left a comment on Facebook which I think I will want to remember, so with minimal edits for context:

"We were asked as part of the panel after the reading about this question of front-and-centering our own representation in fiction; when it came around to me, what I said is that prior to compiling my most recent collection, I would have said that my characters were relatively neutral sort of lens people, except that then I started reading the thirteen years of short stories and my idea of a neutral lens is apparently Jewish, queer, genderblarghy, okay; I can live with that."

Comments

[asakiyume]

When you say "neutral lens," do you mean that that, before you thought about it more, you were thinking of your characters not so much as people-like-yourself (i.e., not front and centering your own representation particularly)? I was thinking you were going to follow that by saying that, when you realized the types of characters you wrote, you realized you did front-and-center your own representation. But maybe what you're doing is calling into question the notion of "neutral"? In other words, Jewish, queer, and genderblargh is just as neutral (or ought to be) as white cishet anglo male? An unselfaware writer meeting that description might not think of himself as centering his own representation; he might think he was writing a basket of Everymans, but really he's front-and-centering himself--that kind of thing?

[davidgillon]

In other words, Jewish, queer, and genderblargh is just as neutral (or ought to be) as white cishet anglo male?

I thoroughly approve of this point!

[asakiyume]

yay!

I think a writer's own experience is a natural neutral for the writer. They just have to realize it's not a universal neutral (because there is none). That's a thing that some people, unfortunately, have bashed into them in early life, while other people (equally unfortunately) obliviously go about assuming their neutral is everyone's when it very much isn't.

[sovay]

When you say "neutral lens," do you mean that that, before you thought about it more, you were thinking of your characters not so much as people-like-yourself (i.e., not front and centering your own representation particularly)?

I knew there were a fair amount of Jewish themes, queer themes including gender in the stories; it wasn't like I was surprised to discover I wasn't writing straight white Christian cis men. I just hadn't realized how much the prevailing mode was best two out of three or sometimes hat trick.

(I differentiate the question of representation from whether my characters are like me in terms of personality or interests or reactions, which I suspect in some cases is yes, in some not. There are definitely stories of mine that feel slantly autobiographical. There are others that don't except insofar as I was interested in writing about the things that went into them. I don't think the only utility of fiction is what it tells the reader about the author.)

But maybe what you're doing is calling into question the notion of "neutral"? In other words, Jewish, queer, and genderblargh is just as neutral (or ought to be) as white cishet anglo male?

That was kind of my thought. That's my default, my neutral. What makes it a less legitimate center to start from? Aliens certainly make more sense to me than some of the mainstream behaviors of the country I live in.

An unselfaware writer meeting that description might not think of himself as centering his own representation; he might think he was writing a basket of Everymans, but really he's front-and-centering himself--that kind of thing?

I think this is exactly the problem with a lot of assumed neutrality in fiction, or the world.

[asakiyume]

I think this is exactly the problem with a lot of assumed neutrality in fiction, or the world.

Strongly agree