Your Monster is the Wrong Colour!

[Jay Aitch]

Deep down everyone knows what they write and their intentions. No-one can consider everyone else's views or hang-ups [opinion, I know]. If we write to please (or not offend) then we write to an ever-fickle, ever-changing and never-satisfied mob [emotive language alert].

Write for you - your heart will know if it's offensive or not. Intention is your own. Interpretation is not. Never fear the interpretation of others. It is nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the Other.

 

[Carol Rose]

I agree. If you try to write in such a way that you don't unintentionally offend someone, your voice will be gone. It will stunt any creativity or spontaneity. Instead, write authentic characters, warts and all. Let them evolve on the page into who they are meant to be. Readers who are offended by authenticity and believability shouldn't bother reading at all. I firmly believe it you try to force diversity and awareness into your story, it will show in the writing. A good rule of thumb is that if something offends you, personally, by all means write it in there if it fits the story/character, and then give them a damn good reason why it's in there. Not to sooth ruffled feathers, but so that you don't compromise your own principles. Otherwise, don't stress over every single thing, wondering if this or that will offend someone. It might, but only to the people who go looking to be offended.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

@ 'per-kin.'

The virtual-sphere has gone potty. We're all special or no-one is. And there are situations where the individual is paramount but there are situations where the majority collective is paramount. If anything could 'unite' a species (temporarily) that was never meant, biologically, to live together in such proximity of numbers as we do then it is a threat. Not ideology, not love and peace and rainbows, but shared laughter at its best, and at its most extreme, a sufficiently urgent, common, unifying threat.

 

[Quillwitch]

I don't think you do get around it. You charge right into it.
We now live in a world in which there is something to offend everyone, if they seek it. As I read the other day in a meme, I am pretty certain that if we had a zombie apocolypse, right now, there would be people demanding rights for zombies. That is the level of idiocy we are dealing with.
So, I think you just have to go for it. Anyone sane will see the difference between fiction or satire and actual intolerance, and if they can't, then you are damned no matter what you do.
So just write what you want, says I!

To that end, I was actually inspired, a few weeks ago, to write something new. A comedy, in the style of works such as Hitchhikers Guide (which always shared some ground with Python, I thought) it is a flatly daffy book about a undeniably unpleasant man and the ridiculous adventures he falls into. I have no idea if I will finish it, but if nothing else, it has been cathartic to write it.

Hopefully we´ll get to read it!

 

[Howard]

Hopefully we´ll get to read it!

Hah!
No.

 

[Amber]

What about fairy tales?

 

[Gully]

I agree a writer can only use their own moral compass. If it is offensive to you then don’t write it. But there again, writers across time have written many things that in today’s society would be extremely offensive. I suppose we can only use the rules of our time.