In other countries, the government can throw you in jail for no cause. It can keep you there indefinitely awaiting trial. And it can manipulate the trial to prevent you from mounting a defense.
In other countries, there is no trial by your peers. Instead the government is prosecutor, judge, and jury.
Our criminal legal system has so many wonderful protections in it. But there are times, as good as it is, when it convicts people of wrongs they didn’t do. Including murders they did not commit.
I can’t imagine being in that position. One day I’m pursing my dreams, enjoying my family, going to the movies, walking my dog, hiking. The next I’m hauled off to jail, convicted, and put on death row. And nobody will listen to me.
Luckily this doesn’t happen in the vast majority of cases. But it does happen. And if it happens to you, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone show up one day and say, “I’m going to work like a dog to reveal the truth and get you out of here.”
The movie Just Mercy tells the true story of just such a case. Walter McMillian is on death row for a murder he did not commit. And then one day a young defense attorney shows up and says he’s come to help.
This movie will have you on the edge of your seat and make you think. There are two or three moments where some crass language is used. So check it to make sure it meets your requirements. If you end up watching, I think you’ll really enjoy this tale. We did.
I had seen a lot of good reviews of Wonder. My wife told me a lot of her students enjoyed the book. But I thought it was going to be a heavy topic, full of sadness and heart-wrenching drama. I’m happy to report that while Wonder does indeed have some difficult moments, it’s also full of humor. And triumph.
It’s a story about Auggie, a boy with a rare medical deformity that has put him through multiple surgeries. His parents have homeschooled him, but now that he’s at the age where he could go to middle school, they feel it’s time for him to navigate the world. The perfect time, right?
But it’s not just about Auggie. The film is also about Auggie’s sister, her former best friend, and Jack, Auggie’s classmate. We get to see their stories as well, and they are woven into a wonderful, poignant story.
You’ll laugh and wince and cry and cheer. You’ll enjoy Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson, who do a wonderful job as Auggie’s parents. And you’ll enjoy the children and teens. Me, my wife, my married daughter, and my teen all loved this film. I will be watching it again. If you want a great movie to watch as a family, I think you’ll love this.
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As soon as I saw the preview for the Darkest Hour, I knew I had to see it. And, boy oh boy, this is yet another movie I can’t wait to watch again.
The phrase “The Darkest Hour” is used in Britain to refer to the time when the United Kingdom appeared to be under direct threat of invasion from Germany at the beginning of World War 2. Germany had launched its attack on France, Belgium, and the Netherlands and had smashed their armies, sweeping all before them. The bulk of the British army was trapped at Dunkirk and looked like it would be annihilated.
The British government was split between those who saw no path to victory and wanted to make a peace treaty with Hitler and those who wanted to resist him. The opposition party in parliament forced Neville Chamberlain to resign. And the only man they’d accept in his place is Winston Churchill. But Churchill was not the lion we think of him as today. He had a poor reputation among many of the leaders of his party and was not someone they wanted to elevate.
So the film starts with the ouster of Chamberlain. We then get to watch how Churchill deals with the catastrophe of what’s happening just across the channel and all the voices pressuring him to make peace.
There’s humor, suspense, and a number of one-liners that we all began repeating to each other immediately after the film ended. You get a feel for what it must have been like at the time and why so many wanted to sue for some peace treaty with the monster across the channel. You also get to see a slightly different picture of Churchill as a man. I particularly loved the exchanges between him and his wife.
If you are interested in World War 2 or Britain in even the slightest degree, you simply must see this film.
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I have now listed to the audio book of The Sea Wolves by Lars Brownworth twice.
Yes, it’s that good.
In this book, Brownworth tells the history of the Vikings. And he tells the history the way history should be told, bringing to life the old Norse world of epic poets, sea kings, and raiders, including Ivar the Boneless, Eric Bloodaxe, Harald Hardrada, Rollo the Walker—all the major figures.
And Brownworth does it in a way that helps you understand how their dominance was possible and what their effect on the wider world was. Did you know, for example, that Russia comes from the word “Rus”, which was the name for the Swedish Vikings that started that nation?
What? Russia was started by the Vikings?
Yes.
Read or listen to the book. You’ll learn that plus a whole bunch more that will make you look at that time in a different light.
And if you want to get the other side of the tale, let me recommend reading Bernard Cornwell’s historical fiction series that starts with The Last Kingdom. The series tells the story of the invasion of the Danes during King Alfred’s rule from the point of view of Uhtred of Bebbanburg. It’s a terrific series.
By the way, I do not recommend the TV series based on the books—too much sex for my tastes. But the books are fabulous. As are the audio versions. I’ve listened to six of them so far, and they have provided hours of enjoyment and interesting insights about the time and the events that took place.
Most of the time when you go to hole-in-the-wall restaurant, it’s a hole-in-the-wall.
But sometimes you strike gold.
And my youngest daughter and I struck big-time gold last week two miles east of Morgan, Utah, in the canyon between Morgan and Henefer off of exit 108. I’ve driven that stretch many times and never knew anything was off that exit. Literally, if you blink, you’ll think nothing is there.
It’s nestled in some trees up against the northern slope. The first thing that strikes you when you get out of the car is the delicious aroma. Then you notice the peacocks running about. And then you enter the diner and see a display case of tantalizing, large desserts such as cheesecake, carrot cake, and huge pink-frosted cookies.
The diner itself has a wonderful airy feeling with a high ceiling and lots of windows that offer views of the grove and garden surrounding the diner. There are seats outside in an area with a small waterfall. But we sat inside with the walls of log-cabin wood and the stained glass panels hanging in the windows.
They serve a variety of dishes from sandwiches and soups to pizza, burgers, and fancy plates of salmon or tenderloin. And while the views and setting is awesome, the food is where they really shine.
The beef stew was thick and amazing. The battered fries perfect. The sandwiches were wrapped in thick and soft flat bread that was delicious. And speaking of bread, they asked if I wanted a roll with the stew. I said yes. They didn’t bring out a roll–they brought out a small loaf of what appeared to be freshly baked bread. We of course had to try one of the desserts and opted for the
carrot cake. It was lovely with a hint of almond in the cream cheese frosting.
The portions were huge and so we took enough home for another meal for three.
We’re going back.
I want to try one of their burgers, the halibut, and the BLT.
If you like great food at a great price and are anywhere near Morgan, don’t blink at exit 108. Just pull off and enjoy an awesome meal.
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Parents of Rich Middle School students, what if I told you that researchers have uncovered a secret activity that teens enjoy that has the side benefit of actually raising their grades in all of their classes.
But that’s not all. This one secret thing will help them get better jobs years in the future.
It will help them make more money.
And they won’t even know that it’s doing this for them. They won’t care. Because they won’t be doing it for the grades or money. They’ll be doing it for the enjoyment it brings. They’ll be doing it just because they like to do it.
One little surprising thing.
And it’s backed up by lots and lots of research.
Do you want to know what this activity is?
Do you want to open up opportunities for your child?
If you do, come to the meeting Mrs. Brown is having at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 12 at the Rich Middle School.
Last week, I was booted out of Codex Writers, a private, online writer’s group that I’d been a member of for somewhere around fifteen years. I’m not broken up about it, but the reason for said booting is interesting, unexpected, and worth a post.
Over the years, writers moved in and out of the group, but there were usually somewhere around fifty to a hundred members active on the boards. We discussed the writing craft and business. We held writing contests. We provided critiques. People shared interesting things about their lives.
The group has moderators. And the moderators got together last week and decided John Brown had to go.
Why?
What, of all the sins one may commit online, triggered this?
Was it refusing to stop posting pictures of cats?
Using too many emoticons?
Infecting everyone’s pages with Russian spam bots?
Nope. Nope. Nope.
I know what you’re thinking. Surely, John, you must have
been posting in a belligerent, arrogant, and strident way. You must have been a
jerk.
That’s what you’d think.
I assumed that’s what the problem was too. I invited those
who were angry and hurt to come to my personal thread and explain what it was
that was making them so hurt and angry. A number took me up on the offer. And,
to my great surprise, one of their criticisms was that I was too polite.
One person posted that my politeness made her think I was sealioning (a new term to me). Other’s agreed.
Another person said that my polite manner surely indicated I wasn’t sincere. Other’s agreed.
In fact, one of the moderators stated that being polite was part of the insidious problem that was John Brown. She said that my politeness had suckered folks in to letting my awful behavior go on too long.
I was offensive, and I was too dang polite about it.
So what was I doing?
Well, I was asking for evidence.
Don’t ask for evidence
My sin was suggesting that some claims being made about a
certain topic seemed to be premature. My sin was in looking at the evidence
being offered to support some of these claims and firmly stating that I
couldn’t see how it supported the conclusions.
On every topic on the forum, we could question claims and
discuss evidence in an effort to figure things out. But there was one topic, as
I learned, for which a number of the active members and the moderators decided
that was forbidden.
The topic was systemic or “institutionalized” discrimination.
On the forum, most of the discussion was how it related to publishing.
They explained to me that it was offensive for me to want to
see if the evidence actually supported the claims. It was offensive to post when
I couldn’t see that it did.
You might wonder how in the world can that be offensive.
After all, evidence is one of the first things we ask for when people make
claims.
If Billy Joe comes up to you and says, “Son, aliens done landed in my yard last night. I swear it on a stack of Bibles.” Most of us would want some additional evidence.
We’d want to see the video he took and look at the burn mark
in his lawn and the broken branches he said were made when their ship landed.
And we’d want to see the report showing that the residue collected off the
swing set was a substance unknown to mankind.
But it isn’t just claims about aliens that we do this with.
Historians do it about history.
Scientists do it about science.
Courts require it for reaching verdicts.
Heck, we even do it when we look at movie reviews—we use
those reviews as evidence that the movie is going to probably be good or bad.
Evidence.
We’re always looking for evidence to see if our guesses are
right. But on this topic, wanting evidence was offensive. I was told it was
“hurtful” and “damaging.”
The logic of micro-aggressionism
How could folks get to the point where wanting and
challenging evidence for claims was a bad thing?
Well, quite easily. And they aren’t the first to do it.
And lest you think this unfortunate logic is found only in
obscure writers groups, you need to know it has spread to many American university campuses.
That means it’s eventually coming to an organization near you. And that means
chances are good that you or someone close to you will have to face, at some
time or another, online or elsewhere, an angry mob (or moblet, as the case may
be).
So let’s examine the logic so that when you do, you’ll be
able to see the response for what it is, name it, and bring its tenets out into
the light and show them for what they are.
Here’s their logic.
ONE, each of us
has our individual prejudices, biases, and beliefs about the world.
I’m sure you agree with this. It seems pretty obvious. One guy might think soccer is for wimps, and another might think football is for lumbering meatheads. Of course, it’s not just about sports. We also hold views about people from other groups. Depending on your experience, the media you’ve been exposed to, and the statements and behavior of those around you, you might have unconsciously picked up certain beliefs about Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, Germans, Swedes, Whites, engineers, clowns, etc.
TWO, it’s likely there are others out there with the same prejudices and biases. Some of those ideas will be held in common by smaller percentages of the population. Others will be held in common by larger percentages of the populations.
I’m sure you agree with this too. A lot of Americans like football, but some don’t. A lot of Europeans like soccer, but there are some who don’t. We can see this with our beliefs about various groups. For example, ask anyone in the USA what they think about Nazis, hippies, or hockey players, and you’ll find a handful of common responses.
THREE, various prejudices
and biases can get perpetuated in the society. This is what the
micro-aggressionists call systemic discrimination.
I’m sure you’re nodding along here as well. Americans have
loved football for generations. Europeans have loved soccer too. Views are passed
on from parents to children. They’re passed on via the media. There’s a
systemic introduction to and reinforcement of those likes, dislikes, and
beliefs.
I think we’ll all together here.
However, this is the point where the micro-aggressionists diverge.
When those who have bought into the micro-aggressionist
views see any disparity between groups they focus on (ethnic minorities, women,
and minority genders), they claim, FOUR,
that the disparity between the two groups MUST be because of systemic discrimination.
Nothing else could be the cause.
I was told it wasn’t up for question. Furthermore, I was told that you can’t prove such things anyway. It’s “like ecology.” And so I shouldn’t ask. I was also told that questioning simply proved that I was lazy and ignorant, because if I’d done any amount of thinking or study, I’d agree with them.
But it didn’t stop there. They claim, FIVE, that if you question their default answer, you’re not only an ignoramus, but you are also hurting others. Literally hurting them.
The very act of asking for evidence, they say, is a micro aggression,
a micro threat, a micro attack. It’s a tiny assault. And those tiny assaults
perpetuate the discrimination. So if you disagree, you’re bullying and hurting.
If you question, challenge, or want evidence, you’re damaging people’s lives.
And this all leads them to their final conclusion—SIX, if you won’t voluntarily stop, you
must be made to stop. You must be silenced. And if you can’t be silenced, then
you must be banished.
Did you see where they went off the rails?
Multiple factors
The fact is that there are a LOT of factors that could cause differences in the situations between two people. And commonly held prejudices or biases is ONLY ONE of them. And until you’ve really dug into it, there’s no way to tell how large a factor it is, or if it’s a factor at all.
Here are just a few of the factors that have been shown to
have significant effects on a person’s success:
Birth order
Beliefs about self-efficacy
Grit
Work ethic
Whether you were born and raised in a single-parent family
How wealthy your family was
Self-control
Whether you graduated from high school
Certain pollutants in the environment
Where you lived
Your height
Your level of attractiveness (and it’s different attributes for men versus women)
Your age
Learning disabilities
Reading ability
Level of activity in a religion
General health
Notice that none of them have anything to do with ethnicity,
skin color, or gender. To ignore these as contributing factors in any given
situation is not only simplistic and wrong-headed, it can be harmful.
For example, why do Blacks have such high murder rates in
some of our biggest cities?
Micro-aggressionism would ignore all the many factors above
and assume that it must be some form of systemic racism. It would demand you
accept that explanation. And tell you you’re ultimately contributing to a
perpetuation of high murder rates if you question it.
Luckily, there are others who are looking into that issue. One strong correlation is with high out-of-wedlock birthrates. Another, with the spike in the late ’70s, is with unleaded gasoline. Or was it simply the boom in males aged 15-24? Or is it possible that murder rates are caused by different mixtures of factors at different times? Look at the graphs here.
What if a major factor is out-of-wedlock births? That has nothing to do with discrimination. It has everything to do with a life choice. And if that is indeed one of the main causes, then we can help save thousands of lives by figuring out a way to help the kids in those cities make better life choices and avoid getting pregnant outside of marriage. What if a pollutant is a compounding factor? Working on fuzzy claims of racism isn’t going to take lead out of the air.
But those under the sway of micro-aggressionism gloss over all of that. They are like doctors who diagnose every symptom as a sign of a broken leg.
Your chest hurts?
It must be a broken leg.
You’re bleeding from the head?
It must be a broken leg.
Your belly is distended?
Dang, another broken leg.
Criminalizing disagreement
The second error the micro-aggressionist philosophy makes is
in thinking disagreement is bad.
Yes, it can be uncomfortable when people disagree with you.
Yes, disagreement, even when polite, can stress you, raise
your anxiety level, or make you lose sleep.
But if you forbid disagreement, then you lose all of the
good things disagreement and the challenging of ideas brings.
Things like science and the search for truth.
Things like votes for women.
Things like civil rights.
The progress of our society has only been possible because
we’ve been able to disagree. When we begin to think disagreement is bad, we
start down a road that ultimately leads to a tragic end. One we’ve seen over
and over.
It’s the road of the Taliban and ISIS. The road of the Inquisition.
The road of the KKK. It’s one of the main roads that leads to oppression.
In the last century, Joseph Stalin, the champion of
socialism, the champion of the common man, the one who wanted to wipe out
inequity, killed an estimated 9-20 million non-combatants. Compare that to the estimated
11-12 million Hitler and his Nazi regime killed. What was Stalin’s view on
disagreement? “Ideas are far more powerful than guns,” he said. “We don’t let
our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?”
Indeed.
To Stalin, disagreement with his socialist ideas was
hurtful. It was damaging. It perpetuated inequality. Those that expressed even
a whiff of it were either shot or shipped off to the Gulag, the wonderful
forced-labor prison camps where people died in droves.
Mao, Pol Pot, and others all felt the same way about their
programs.
But the micro-aggressionist philosophy blindly ignores that. It ignores they all started with the righteous cause of equality.
Sure, in the beginning, it might feel like the yellow brick
road, but that path doesn’t lead to Oz. It doesn’t even lead to the witch’s
place. That road leads to Mordor.
If you go there and raise that regime, you’d better hope two
little fellows show up who have the courage to disagree.
The truth is that disagreement is like the tension and stress you feel when you workout and build muscles. It leads to a healthy, vibrant, and strong society.
Banning disagreement is like banning exercise. The result is a dramatic loss of health. A society of couch potato, Ding Dong hunchbacks.
What now
The writer’s group I got kicked out of is filled with good and interesting people. I wish them no ill will. And, again, I’m not broken up about being thrown out. Oh sure, there were good conversations and helpful insights. But, ultimately, it means one less distraction. And that’s good for me getting books out the door.
However, the ideology that some there hold is simplistic, unhelpful, and wrong. It’s not going to take them where they want to go. We know because we’ve seen how that movie ends.
And it appears it hasn’t run its course yet in our society. Which means at some point in the future, you’re probably going to meet folks who have, out of the goodness of their hearts, fallen for this logical trap.
I hope you find opportunity to speak up.
When you do, I hope you treat them politely and with good humor.
And I hope you clearly and unfailingly disagree.
Extras
If you want to know more, here are some great reads and
interviews to get you started.
How we pick up unconscious biases
“The Hidden Brain”. This is a Radio West interview of Shankar Vedantam. Nobody conducts interviews better than Doug Fabrizio. In this one Vedantam shares fascinating insights about how we pick up our unconscious biases.
Thinking,
Fast and Slow by Daniel Khaneman. A good-humored and groundbreaking
tour of the two systems in the mind that drive the way we think and the
resulting cognitive biases.
“What
exactly is a microaggression?” By Jenee Desmond-Harris. Another article
from Vox that explains what microaggressions are from the point of view of
someone who agrees with that philosophy.
The First Amendment by the Cornell Law School. An overview of what speech is currently protected and what isn’t.
An example of civic dialogue between a classical liberal and someone who disagrees.
Did you know that there is one thing that kids can do outside of school that’s been proven, over and over, to lead to them doing significantly better in all other subjects?
And I mean all subjects. Math, history, science, criminology, psychology—you name it.
There’s one thing, and numerous research studies have proven it, that kids do that leads to them getting better jobs later in life.
This one thing, proven by research, leads them to grow up to make more money.
And it doesn’t matter if they start in a rich or poor family. This one thing leads them to greater opportunity. Over and over again.
It’s a thing that kids actually can learn to love. For some it becomes as delicious as eating ice cream.
The kids are back in school. Parents want them to do well. They want them to succeed. How wonderful that there’s one thing that parents can focus on that will so dramatically change their child’s life.
And it doesn’t take long. Even just twenty minutes per day of this activity can change everything.
Twenty minutes.
Is there a parent anywhere that can’t find twenty minutes?
So what is this one thing?
Reading for pleasure.
Notice I didn’t say reading for academic purposes. I didn’t say reading to finish homework. I said reading for pleasure. For the enjoyment it brings.
And it doesn’t matter what the subject matter is. It can be fiction—fantasy, love stories, horror, action. It can be non-fiction—like material on bugs, robots, horses, motocross. It can be fairy stories or funny anecdotes. It can be short or long. The key is that they’re reading for pleasure.
I know some of you might be saying, “But John, my kid doesn’t like to read.”
That’s okay. You can change that.
If you want to find out how to help your child learn to enjoy reading, let me recommend Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do by Daniel T. Willingham, a professor at the University of Virginia whose research has focused on the brain and learning. In the book, Willingham debunks the myths about literary instruction and provides practical, engaging, research-based tips for sharing the joy of reading with kids of all ages.
While you’re waiting for the book to come, here are some things you can do start doing right now to help your child read for pleasure.
First, start reading something fun or interesting with or to them every day. For little kids, this can be picture books. For older kids, this can be anything–an article from a magazine, funny stories online, or books large and small. If you want to start with a joke book, that’s okay. If you want to start by listening to a book on tape, that’s great too.
Wait a minute? A book on tape? Isn’t that cheating?
No.
There are four keys to helping your child read for pleasure. They need to learn to:
Decode the sounds letters make.
Comprehend what’s meant, which is driven by their general knowledge of the subject they’re reading about.
Enjoy reading.
Identify themselves as a person who likes to read books
When you listen to a book on tape, you’re doing numbers 2-4.
Remember: the goal is not to improve the child. It’s not to get them a better job ten years from now. It’s not to make them wealthy. It’s to simply help them enjoy reading. Because once they enjoy reading, once reading for pleasure is something they see as one of the things they do, they will begin to read more and more. And as they read, they become better at reading, which leads to more enjoyment, which leads to more reading. Which leads to all of those other awesome benefits. It’s a virtuous cycle.
So the first thing you need to do is simply start having a good time reading with them. You can read to them at bedtime, after dinner, on weekends. You can have them read articles to you while you’re making dinner or washing the dishes. You can have them read to your or themselves while you’re on the road driving somewhere.
You can make a rule that they have to read with you for twenty minutes before they go play with friends or watch TV or play video games.
And above all, you need to let your child’s interests drive most of the topics you read about. If they want to read about spiders and dinosaurs, then read about spiders and dinosaurs. If they want to read horror stories, then read horror. If they’re into skiing or horses or guns, then help them find interesting stuff on the topics they’re already interested in. And if they don’t like a book, teach them they can abandon it and go find another.
And if you yourself are not someone who reads for pleasure, well, now’s the time to start. You can make reading for pleasure something your family does, just like families make enjoying boating or hunting or riding horses or eating Mexican food part of what they do.
It’s never too late to start.
And seeing that this is the one thing that has such an impact on your child’s success, is there really anything else that would be a better use of those twenty minutes per day?
Reading for pleasure—who knew that having a great time could have so many wonderful effects? Start today. Don’t wait.
It might take a little work. You and your child might run into a few unpleasant spots. But that’s true of anything. How many times do kids fall when learning to water ski or snow ski? How many times do they experience something unpleasant when practicing football or basketball or volleyball?
So start right now. Figure out a time with your child. And begin learning to read for pleasure.
The best way to change someone’s mind: use the skills you learned writing fiction.
John Scalzi recently wrote a post about White Privilege. You know: the idea that Straight White Males (SWMs) have all the cards stacked in their favor. It’s called “Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is.” I assume he wrote it to help SWMs have more sympathy for those who aren’t SWM.
It’s a noble cause. Not as noble as true love, but that’s so rare–not one couple in a century has a chance at true love (at least when you live in Guilder).
The problem is that Scalzi’s post is a great 101 on how To NOT Win Friends and Influence People. Actually, that’s not right. He will win new friends and increase his influence among those who are like-minded. But if he was hoping to win over those who didn’t already see things his way, I don’t think he’s going to be very successful.
His posts generated hundreds of comments. When you look at the comments, you’ll see that the vast majority of them are folks arguing Scalzi’s side with smug condescension and other folks arguing points against Scalzi with an equal lack of tact.
In short, it’s a classic online bring-your-guns-to-the-party event.
Alas.
Except I must admit such events can be a lot of fun if you’re on the side with greater numbers. Furthermore, there is sometimes a tremendous pleasure to be had in being provocative. Sometimes we simply must publish something with teeth in it. And maybe that’s what Scalzi was trying to do.
But if not, here’s where Scalzi’s post went admirably wrong. And it has everything to do with principles that underlie influence as well as writing fiction. You see, when you’re writing fiction and you want someone to root for your character, you do not turn to the reader and insult him. Insults don’t bring readers into your world.
Equally as important, telling, or demanding someone feel a certain way towards someone else, will fail every time you try it. You cannot demand (or whine) that a reader must feel sympathy and admiration for the character. Why? Because emotions don’t respond to demands. They just don’t. It’s like trying to freeze water by seasoning it with pepper.
The advice “Show, don’t tell” works in real life as well as it works in fiction.
Emotions are automatic. If someone presents the right stimulus, we WILL feel the desired emotion in response. We don’t experience a sympathetic change of heart when someone gets in our face and demands we feel sympathy. We do feel that change when we see the antecedents which prompt the emotional response in us. Show me. Make me believe. And the response is automatic.
This is what happened with Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the movie Ghandi and the TV series Roots and the more recent movie Believe in Me and the novel Les Miserables and thousands of others. It’s what happens every day when someone in one group meets someone in another group they feel some distrust for and begins to build a friendship.
Show the antecedents, help folks identify, and you’ll move millions. Get up and rant at someone, and all you’ll get is the bird. And applause from the true believers.
Scalzi claims that if you feel offended by his post then you’re hypersensitive because all he was doing is pointing out the facts. Um, no. Jim Hines is trying to establish potential facts. You could try to verify those. You could try to separate out causation from correlation. But Scalzi is not doing that. He’s telling all SWM that they are playing on the kiddy version of the life video game. Your life is so easy. Everything is rigged for you. You’re playing the baby version. And because of that everyone else’s life is so much harder.
No, he didn’t say those words exactly. But there is this thing call connotation. There is this thing called tone. And no matter how hard you try, you’re can’t separate the non-verbal communication from the message.
Everyone knows that some people have it harder in life and some have it easier. Like, duh. I think we all learn that when we showed up to the first grade. So what’s the point of telling all the SWM’s reading his blog that they are playing the dweeb version of life, the one with training wheels?
Furthermore, instead of helping all of us pampered SWMs identify with our brothers and sisters, he tries to erect more boundaries that would push us apart by giving all of us another way to discriminate and another reason to be resentful.
Lowly, pampered SWMs at the bottom. Gays, people of color, and women farther up.
So now we’re going to go around with a My Life’s Harder Than Yours number? The opinions of those with low numbers will have less weight. How could they have anything as worthwhile to say when their life has been so easy? Those with higher numbers will have more weight.
A whole new group calculus will have to be developed and standardized. And it will have to go beyond which shade of brown your skin is (yes, White people really are just a lighter shade of brown), your gender, and sexual orientation. Because those who are handicapped, by birth or by accident have it really rough too. We’d have to figure out if they had it more or less rough that someone who was gay, and would that change if that gay person lived in San Francisco versus Laramie, Wyoming? A geographical element! And what about those with idiot parents who teach their kids to take meth and don’t get them to school or beat them in alcoholic rages or who are never around? I wonder what score that would bring. And what about the kids who grow up with grandpa molesting them? And what about the short, the fat, the plain? What about those with glasses? Those who are runty bully targets? Or those with a minority religion. What about those born with AIDS?
Are we sure it’s a good idea to start ranking ourselves, using color, gender, and sexual preference to tag our status?
Wait, haven’t we already tried that?
When someone comes up to you at a party and condescends, when they’re always one-upping you with a “you think you’ve got it hard you haven’t seen squat” line, what is your response? Even if it is legit. What about when they get in your face for someone else? Does that change your default response?
It’s the same at internet parties and gatherings.
So.
Lesson 1: If you want to influence someone, don’t start by insulting them and continue by talking down to them. If you want to have a good time with like-minded friends, then, by all means, skewer.
Lesson 2: Remember “show, don’t tell” to win someone’s affection. Present the person’s story, and the reader will feel respect, trust, sympathy, sorrow, regret, and admiration automatically (okay, you’re right, some of that depends on the reader). Tell or demand, and none of that will occur.
Lesson 3: Don’t raise barriers between two groups when you want members of one group to identify with members of another.
Here’s a better way.
Tell me a story about a real gay black woman. Make me love her. Make me care. Tell me a story about her I can sympathize with. Just show me the woman. Make it about her, not her group category. Or tell me a story about a Mexican man who is just trying to provide for his children in America. Or tell me about a sympathetic SWM who goes to Asia or Polynesia and finds the cards stacked against him. Stories like this abound.
In fact, why don’t you drop the whole “SWM” business. If you want me to identify, to experience-take (yes, that official jargon), it’s probably best not to slap SWM on me and set me in one corner and slap GBM on someone else and set them in another. Help me identify. Focus on how we are alike. When you do discuss the differences, magnify those things that are wonderful and unique, or eccentric and unique, or goofy and unique, or weird and unique, or whatever, but make it positive. And when you must talk about old or continuing grievances between two groups, do so with respect, with a desire to calm, not enflame.
Lest you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, I grew up working in a family business where employees were White, Black, Hispanic, Tongan, and Japanese. Male, female, homosexual, heterosexual. And we were a big family. My father and mother held out big welcoming arms. I have Whites and Blacks in my biological family. I hope my daughters find great men to be their husbands. And if they happen to also be Indian or Puerto Rican or Black or Asian or Maori or Scottish or Southern or whatever, I would think it was grand. It’s possible I might experience some of that mild “other group” anxiety that sometimes comes when you meet someone that’s not just like you. But I know it’s possible to get beyond that by seeing what’s common, building friendships, and celebrating and laughing at and with the differences.
My father, God rest his soul, liked to quote Edwin Markam. I thought it fitting.
He drew a circle to keep me out,
A thing of scorn, and a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
You want to laugh with the like-minded? Draw the first kind of circle. You want to win hearts and minds? Draw the bigger one.
I was invited to present a master class at the 2022 StoryMakers conference in Provo, Utah.
We all want to develop plots that delight readers. Maybe we have ideas for the characters. Maybe we have ideas for the setting. Maybe we even have a couple of scenes.
But a novel needs 40, 50, 60 or more scenes.
How do you figure out what happens next, and do it in a way readers love?
There’s one tool that can help.
Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and The Da Vinci Code all had it. So did Star Wars, Raider of the Lost Ark (1, 2, and 3), Taken, James Bond, The Wheel of Time, and thousands of other stories, TV episodes, and films.
It’s what I call the wanted object, sometimes known as the MacGuffin.
A good MacGuffin will not only make your plotting easier, it can also inject a wow factor into your story that readers love.
In this session, the writers learned what a MacGuffin really is and how you can use it to propel the plot and keep readers turning the page.
Most of the time when you go to hole-in-the-wall restaurant, it’s a hole-in-the-wall.
