Mother BonesThree reminders:
"Handmaid's Tale" has already been here the whole time, it was pointed at racialized women.
#Racism is fascism that hasn't yet come for the white people.
The #future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed. [@GreatDismal]
Crazy Cat Witch
punIssuerHow to write a dystopian novel:
Write about what already happens to marginalized folks, but let it happen to white people
Write about what already happens to marginalized folks, but let it happen to white people
Old Man Mike@punissuer and then watch the dollars roll in
Statmonkey 🙊@punissuer
Perfect. But I'm sure the mainstream audience would find it too unrealistic.
Perfect. But I'm sure the mainstream audience would find it too unrealistic.
NTFB Scott@punissuer You can still write about it happening to marginalized folks, don't worry they'll be white in the movie.
nonlinear
nonlinear (@[email protected])
@[email protected] thing is, white people may have experienced 1st and 2nd level racism, internal and interpersonal. But they never experiencedd 3rd and 4th levels (institutional, systemic). Frankly they don't even believe it exists, and fantasize it as YA dystopian fiction. And that's by design. Im a Brazilian watching the debate in US, and when people talk racism, black people mean 3, 4 and white people mean 1, 2. They don't even have the same concepts.
Stefan Rother-Stübs@punissuer
Sounds like that episode from Sliders, where the USA is spanish and Caucasians try to illegally cross the US border from Canada - but more realistic and darker.
Sounds like that episode from Sliders, where the USA is spanish and Caucasians try to illegally cross the US border from Canada - but more realistic and darker.
plsburydoughboy (I/het/him)@punissuer oh you mean the Avatar movies?
@plsburydoughboy not exactly, as they made it happen to aliens. But yeah, as someone already mentioned, white people would have a hard time believing it could happen to them
Profane Mystic
Amanda Carson@punissuer I've always thought it would be fun to write a novel with a character who experiences all or some of the things that happen to people with disabilities, but the character is abled.
Socar Myles@arush @punissuer I'm not sure I understand--why make them abled? It's uncommon enough that disabled people get to see themselves as the main character. It feels a bit off to take a story that should be about us, and apply our experiences to somebody else. (I don't think this post is RECOMMENDING this approach to writing dystopian novels--rather, pointing out that it's already happening, often with POCs' experiences applied to white people.)
@packbawky @arush because they know already. I'm not sure enough people in the privileged group care sufficiently about othered people. If that were the case, maybe the things the new story is about, wouldn't have happened in the first place
@punissuer @arush I don't like the idea that readers won't care about minority experiences unless they're reframed as happening to the majority. When publishers buy into that notion, they buy fewer books from minority writers, and we're heard even less.
If I tell a story based on my experiences, I'm not just telling it for people like me. I want other people to hear it, and hope they will--but at the same time, I want to be represented as I am. Not so I'm more relatable to non-disabled people.
@packbawky @arush I'm pretty sure many will care. But I fear of you want to reach the masses...
"Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she's white."
— A Time To Kill (1996)
@punissuer @arush That line made me absolutely cringe at the time, and it hasn't improved with age.
The more minority stories are published, the more likely it'll be that some of them DO reach the masses. Visibility and easy access are the first steps, I think. That's why I push back when I'm asked to reframe minority issues in this way: not only does it feel appropriative, it's one less opportunity for a more authentic story to be heard.
@packbawky @arush that's a good point, thank you!
@punissuer @arush Thank you! :-) It's only my perspective, of course, but it IS something I feel quite strongly about.
Madeline Konrad 🏳️⚧️ ⚢⚧🌹@punissuer "In the FUTURE, people will be grouped into, like, four or five categories and mercilessly judged for it, but our PROTAGONIST fights against it and also has two hot guys interested in her ... "
G@punissuer how to write a utopian novel: ERRRRBODY gets cis het abled white male privilege -- and humans are forced to reckon with a definition of "worth" that doesn't require there be someone worth LESS than you for your worth to matter.
FeralRobots@gennisaisquoi @punissuer
This is basically Ayn Rand's career, except she lacks the imagination to think of a way that privilege leveling could be good.
This is basically Ayn Rand's career, except she lacks the imagination to think of a way that privilege leveling could be good.
Rob needs sci-fi 🚀🛸@punissuer painfully true. Never thought of it like that.
BethPerfect post.
HLGEM@punissuer Exactly
Make Fascists Afraid Again@punissuer I think #atlanta plays around with this some
Catherine is not complacent
Phlawless@punissuer This is a similar observation to: fascism is what happens to poor brown people in far away countries suddenly happens to your white middle-class neighbours
@daphlawless other thing I read: white people fail to recognize fascism because to them, it's not marketed as "We're gonna detain or kill minorities", but as "We're for traditional values" or "Make [your country] great again"
Elle Morse@punissuer
This is exactly what Margaret Atwood did when she wrote The Handmaids Tale. Everything described in that book was happening somewhere on earth in the 70s and 80s.
This is exactly what Margaret Atwood did when she wrote The Handmaids Tale. Everything described in that book was happening somewhere on earth in the 70s and 80s.
pericopín@punissuer If I'm not mistaken @Annalee said something similar.
Annalee@Pericopin @punissuer I did, but it didn't originate with me
Denn Mann ✔️@punissuer so very true
strawberrypigtails@punissuer As a white guy, I think can say this is uncomfortably accurate.
Doug Baker - Elbows Up! 🇨🇦@punissuer Margaret Atwood says she doesn’t write fiction: “it’s all happened already somewhere”.
Audun@punissuer does this work the other way around? Write an utopian novel by having what already happens to white rich cishet males happen to everyone?
@audunmb I'm not sure it works that way, as many things rich people do are not scalable to the masses; eg., if everyone owned a private jet, we probably had traffic jams at every airport
@punissuer probably true. Though, if I were a novelist it would have been worth a try, just to see how it would look.
jfml - Jonas Laugs@punissuer Or androids/robots.
poetaster@punissuer or read Texaco, Patrick Chamoiseau ... There are many literary inroads into other worlds even for wasps like me.
sceptre1067 (he/him)@punissuer sadly I agree even w/ “hashtag, but Octavia Butler…” (love her books, still sad we lost her way too soon)
adamrice@punissuer But bear in mind that some people may treat your dystopian novel as a how-to manual.
Abi Sutherland@punissuer
I have long said (riffing on @GreatDismal) that the dystopia is already here. It just isn’t evenly distributed.
I have long said (riffing on @GreatDismal) that the dystopia is already here. It just isn’t evenly distributed.
CGLambdinWrite about what the core does to the periphery, but done by some new power to the core.
Curioso 🍉 🇺🇦 (jgg)A teenage girl in Mali forced by her parents to marry an older cousin. Gender and race bend of the main character only. Instant white supremacist homophobic macho nightmare.
DMX2022@punissuer true and so sad
Josh Ourisman 
ChookMother 🇦🇺🦘Shocking because it's true!
Coach Pāṇini ®
slatt.eth
Luke UX 💡@punissuer that reminds me of the series “Years and Years”. Lots of people saying: “OMG! So terrifing this future!”.
The series just shown in England, what had hapoen in America Latina from the 60s to the 90s. While watching, I could trace parallels with the 20th century history of Brazil.
Jason Petersen (he)@punissuer ha! Saw this and immediately thought of handmaid’s tale before I saw what it was in reply to
testing@punissuer
read:
jonathan swift
karin boye
yevgeny zamyatin
stanisław lem
NotMaddie!@punissuer
Wow…I really need to think about this one. Just wow.
Wow…I really need to think about this one. Just wow.