storytelling

I've seen a lot of commentary lately on the (alleged) fact that main characters (heroes, to take another approach) in romance novels are always enlightened and never racist or sexist. (Please note: I refuse to use the term PC, which has been co-opted.)

So I was thinking about this, and I tried to come up with heroes in novels other than romances who are openly racist, sexist, unenlightened. I can't think of one. Even moving away from contemporary novels, I can't. Did Jane Austen ever write a hero who spoke about the inferiority of non-white races? Did Dickens? Hemingway? Even Mark Twain's characters start out one way and end up another.

The most that can be said is that authors keep their heroes away from situations where such inclinations and beliefs would be revealed. Because if you knew that Oliver Twist wouldn't let the black footman touch him, he wouldn't be Oliver Twist anymore, right? You couldn't like him.

So if you can come up with main characters/hero types who are obviously sexist or racist, please let me know. My guess is that there may be some sexist types, but no racist ones.

Posted by at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

There's a lot of posting about rejection going on just now. An interesting piece over at Romancing the Blog, for example (don't skip the comments -- good discussion going on there). For my part, I have no real advice for people who are trying to get published and haven't found a way in yet beyond the standard: you do need an agent; to get an agent, you have to write a story.

And two observations:

1. Lots of people are very bad at self evaluation. They truly believe they are capable of a given task when in fact they lack even basic skills. Watch American Idol, and you'll see what I mean. There's some serious work in psychology which takes a less sensational path to the same conclusion.

Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. An article from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (this is the abstract):

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.

2. Editors make mistakes. Every editor has stories of rejecting books that went on to sell millions of copies and/or win major accolades. Some examples from Rotten Rejections by Andre Bernard:

The Diary of Anne Frank ‘The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the “curiosity” level.’

Carrie by Stephen King 'We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.'

I suspect the primary reason editors send out generic rejection letters is they don't want to be on record saying something dismissive about the next Cold Mountain or The Time Traveler's Wife.

Posted by at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)