Unintended Audience Reactions You Fear of

I always wondered if anyone else ever thought of something like this. While you're writing, do you ever worry of how your audience could misinterpret it? I understand the whole point of Death of the Author, but still. Personally I wouldn't appreciate any of the Complete Monster villians (especially because I plan on including a couple Sympatheic Villians) as a sexy widdle Anti-Hero who does no wrong. Oh, and creepy incest fanfiction.

• Note: This is mostly just for fun, so don't take it too seriosuly

edited 10th Jan '13 5:35:11 PM by TheMuse

"Too saccharine - not reading any further"

The one thing I think would genuinely bother me is if people criticized my planned webcomic - deliberately meant as a parody of/homage to various works of space opera and the genre as a whole - as a "ripoff" or something similar.

Most of the other stuff wouldn't really matter to me. Just part of Sturgeon's Law of Fandoms.

edited 10th Jan '13 5:39:39 PM by nrjxll

Eight Deadly Words and overall thinking my story is just another "generic YA story" and no one giving it a chance.

That would not help with my inferiority complex.

edited 10th Jan '13 5:42:24 PM by Masterofchaos

Like trolls and economists, I am fueled by the hatred of those I despise as much as I am the admiration of those I seek to entertain. But scumbags misinterpreting my work and loving it for that misinterpretation? Eurgh...

Generally, anything that might result in my work being unread.

More specifically, as noted above, Misaimed Fandom.

Interpretation is always a fun and scary thing for me. On the one hand, the idea of fostering discussion and playing with the audience's expectation holds great appeal for me; on the other, the idea that someone might see something ugly in my work or in me, be it appealing to them or not, is a disturbing one.

The worst thing would probably be for me to realise something unpleasant about myself through others' responses to my work. That might be genuinely traumatic, depending upon what that revelation is.

There is also the potential fetishisation/glorification of at least one character that I am almost certain would happen despite my own horror at the prospect. At this point, I am resigned to the inevitability of such things—house rules and all that—but still... eugh.

In a novel I'm writing, one of the protagonists is female-to-male transexual. At one point in the novel, his best friend is being threatened with rape and he offers to take his friend's place. Though they both escape before anything happens, I definitely worry about Unfortunate Implications.

The novel I am writing takes place in a region I made up called Melahawk Sea, with the word 'melahawk' derived from the Nahuatl word 'melahuac', meaning 'truth'. It can also be translated as 'straight'. What I hope does not happen:

"Melahoc means 'straight' in Aztec, so [Author name] is a homophobic bastard!"

If such a conclusion is reached by Fan Dumb, my planned response is:

"One of my major recurring characters is gay, and its a plot point!"

If Fan Dumb indeed rises to such levels, be ready for foam-mouth crusaders going "ooh, so a GAY guy's sexuality is a PLOT point huh? How about not giving a hoot about his sexuality?" :P If it goes there, there's no winning.

I think a more appropriate response would be: "you're a friggin' loony."

And the most appropriate response would probably be to just ignore them.

For once (or twice), I side with nrjxll.

I doubt anyone will make that conclusion anyways, and even if they do, they'll probably won't think it as homophobic, and if they do, you don't need to worry, as your sane fans will just ignore them.

Now, my stance on the topic? The closest reaction that I fear at the moment is that my female characters will come out as flat, but considering how I arranged my story, I doubt that I'll have to worry about that, so...

-shrug-

edited 11th Jan '13 3:44:46 PM by chihuahua0

The plot point isn't "Oh, this guy is gay!", its that he was in an arranged marriage, but in love with his fiance's brother. Then dragon attack, and scorned fiancé becomes an evil sorceress bent on his destruction. Condensing that a bit.

"The person who wrote this is disgusting!"

Basically, people might think your writing sucks, but to take personal offense by it to the point that they think you're nothing but a rotten human being is worse, and what I fear.

What's worse is the idea of being lambasted purely on the grounds that you are, in their mind, a bad person. Not a bad writer, but a bad person.

I try not to judge people's writing based on whether or not they are or were morally questionable to me. While I think that Whittaker Chambers was a truly vile human being, his review of Atlas Shrugged is one of the funniest book reviews that I have ever read. Likewise, H.P. Lovecraft was astoundingly xenophobic, but that doesn't diminish the power of "The Rats in the Walls" as a stunning work of fantastic fiction. On the flipside, there are many writers with very progressive views and affable personalities that I simply find dull to read.

Yet many people cannot separate the two, and even if they can, the accusation still stings to a degree.

However, as I suggested before, the notion that they might take away something that you find morally repellant and rally around it might very well be worse. For a particularly extreme example, consider what Nietzsche might have felt if he had lived to see the rise of Nazism. Or Marx the ascent of Stalin, for that matter. Granted, being an ideologue or a philosopher is a different kettle of fish, and far more easily subject to this problem, but still: It's a sobering thought.

My biggest concern is simply that people don't enjoy it. I'm definitely worried about people getting offended, but since I just post my shit over on Fiction Press, I include little notes pretty often apologizing in advance for anything that might be offensive. And if I'm writing something that could be considered offensive, I try to make sure the context makes sense.

Other than that, I'm not concerned about anything. Honestly, if people are interested enough to turn a villain into Draco in Leather Pants, awesome, I'm glad they're enjoying my story. Pretty much any actual reaction would make me happy, because it is a reaction. Getting a reaction out of readers is a major part of why I'm writing in the first place. Having a yaoi fan leave a review saying that she ships two of my characters filled my heart with joy.

I'm kinda afraid of the Unfortunate Implications reaction, and the Scrappy one too, especially if it's a character I personally like.

I wouldn't characterize it as fear, because I find the trope highly irritating (little more than an excuse to whinge really), but Unfortunate Implications lists for me.

Ditto but less so for Too Soon, because I'm spiteful and will try to make people say Too Soon so I can deride them (thus it wouldn't be unintentional. :P).

This is sort of funny, in a sad way.

Honestly, I worry about this too sometimes. People do have the unfortunate tendency to identify a creator by what they create. But you know, it isn't worth sweating over too much.

Readers don't know you as a person. If they want to make a judgement call about you based off what you write, they are demonstrating a sense of shallowness that renders their judgement somewhat suspect.

I only judge authors when they go on record as saying that their writing reflects their beliefs (Stephanie Meyer, take a bow). Otherwise, I'll levy my criticism at what I know - which is their work. And since they put it out for public consumption I figure that's fair game.

Death of the Author is a perfectly valid concept. When you put a story out for public consumption, you accept that the audience is going to picture something other than what you did - that's human nature really, and we as creators ought not to fight it. On the other hand, people shouldn't assume that we act as our characters do, or feel as they do, unless we as people give them some sign that we actually do.

If stupid people want to confuse an author with his work, that's their problem. Mark them as stupid and move on. It's what I plan to do.

That's fair game as well, as far as I'm concerned.

Irony will get you every time. Whinging about a trope that mainly exists as an excuse to whinge.

Actually, I was talking more about your preceding your fear of Unfortunate Implications by calling it "little more than an excuse to whinge", which is a pretty unfortunate-implication-filled sentiment in its own right.

What implications, unfortunate or otherwise, are present in my characterization of the trope as an excuse to whinge?

edited 17th Jan '13 11:30:38 PM by Eagal

Basically, people certainly might be abusing the concept to whine - that's human nature for you - but denouncing the whole idea of Unfortunate Implications as "an excuse to whinge" is dismissing the idea that there's ever such a thing as unintentionally/subconsciously offensive works, and that leads to a whole host of problems.

See also: some of the stuff talked about in Political Correctness Gone Mad's description.

edited 17th Jan '13 11:21:49 PM by nrjxll

You make a good point. Perhaps I was overzealous. Old habits die hard.