Controversy in Writing
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Without having any real evidence to back up the theory, I have always thought that writers could be divided up into two categories: those who court controversy and those who avoid it. (I later realised there was a third category – writers who are controversial without realising it – and you can read a bit about that here.)
I also figured out a long time ago that getting involved in any type of controversy tends to leave me upset in greater proportion to any change I may be able to effect in advocating for one side or another. So I generally try to stay quiet unless I feel very strongly. And even then, I moderate myself and think long and hard about how to phrase what I want to say in order to avoid reactions from trolls and people who never change their mind about anything even in the face of overwhelmingly logical arguments. After all, the vitriol of stupid people can be vicious and my greatest ambition is an easy life.
Besides, how much controversy is there in writing really?
Okay, sure, there’s plenty of controversy in writing when opinion pieces are considered. It’s the nature of opinion by definition. The Macquarie Dictionary defines it as “judgement or belief resting on grounds insufficient to produce certainty”. And since there’s no certainty, it’s almost guaranteed people will come down on both sides of the argument.
But controversy in fiction? In novels? Surely not? Surely not much, in any case?
It was partly why I chose writing (or why it chose me, the definitive answer may never be known on that score). I could sit at home tapping out words that turned into sentences that turned into paragraphs that turned into chapters that turned into entire books. If people liked what I wrote, great. If they didn’t, not so great but I could cope. (My foremost reaction to my first – and only to this stage – one-star rating was not anger or offence or sadness but curiosity. Why? Since it wasn’t accompanied by an explanation, I’ll never know what it was about my book that had so greatly disappointed that reader.) But I would mostly be shielded from the (nowadays) online yelling matches that erupt from time to time, particularly in relation to politics and social justice and education and the law and morals and… well, just about everything else. The world of fiction writing would be a place where I could retreat from all that.
It’s taken me a while but I’ve realised, as I should have from the start, that there’s as much controversy in fiction writing as in anything else. I have social media to thank for that. I follow a lot of other writers and they aren’t nearly as squeamish as I am in getting involved in controversy. Here are just a few recent examples.
Cockygate
This is a strange one. One of the very first things writers learn about the legalities of writing is that titles can’t be copyrighted. If you want to call your book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, you’re well within you rights to do it. You’d probably be plum crazy considering that JK Rowling has already had immense success with a book called exactly that. But there’s nothing to legally stop you from doing it (although you can guess Rowling’s publishers and the production companies responsible for the movies would try like crazy).
And yet in the first half of 2018, a self-published writer by the name of Faleena Hopkins trademarked the use of the word “cocky” as an adjective in the title of romance books and wrote to several authors asking them to remove their books with “cocky” in the title from sale, rename them or face legal action. Some of them did because they didn’t have the resources to fight against it.
The trademark is currently being challenged through legal avenues by retired lawyer and writer Kenneth Kneupper because:
*The word “cocky” was used in romance novel titles long before Faleena Hopkins ever used it
*Generic terms generally aren’t able to be trademarked
*It’s “a dick move” (according to Joanne Harris, the author of Chocolat – “…if it were really possible to legally forbid authors from using a certain common word in their book titles, then the whole publishing industry would be down the drain in a matter of days.”)
Romance Writers of America are also working with an IP attorney to resolve this issue, which is currently ongoing.
Ebook Stuffing
Ebook stuffing is when writers publish supposedly new content that is primarily composed of previously published material. For example, the first 250 pages might be never before seen but the remaining 3,000 pages are not. Because of the way Amazon was paying authors that are part of the KDP Select program (based on a percentage of page views to disperse a limited fund of money), it meant serial book stuffers were often earning up to $100,000 a month and reducing the funds going to other writers who weren’t doing the same thing.
It violated KDP’s terms of service but not much was ever done about it, some say because it wasn’t really hurting Amazon. They paid out the same amount of money, regardless of where it was going. In early June 2018, they implemented some new guidelines in an attempt to prevent ebook stuffing from continuing but as David Gaughran reported, some offenders claimed almost immediately they had found a loophole, simply by adding the word “compilation” to the title.
There will always be people who operate according to the letter of the law but flaunt the spirit of it and this is a perfect case in point.
Jennifer Weiner and Jonathan Franzen
I will freely admit I have never read books by either Jennifer Weiner or Jonathan Franzen. In fact, I only know who both of them are because of this controversy. In 2010, when Franzen was releasing his novel, Freedom, Weiner complained about the wall-to-wall coverage it was receiving (dubbed “Franzenfrenzy”), including not one but two reviews in the New York Times, saying it was evidence of the over-representation of white, middle-aged, male writers in a fawning literary scene. Jodi Picoult backed her up, saying the New York Times “favours white male authors”. Although he was probably just unlucky to be at the apex of a conglomeration of feeling about the attention these white male authors receive, Franzen became a lightning rod for it and the term “Franzenfreude” was coined by Weiner, becoming a rallying cry for female writers and authors of colour. As the Schott’s Vocab blog on the New York Times website pointed out, “Though he may well benefit from it, sexism within literary culture is no way Franzen’s fault.”
However, instead of calmly making that point himself, Franzen has ever since engaged in personal attacks on Weiner, saying, “there’s something about [her] that rubs me the wrong way, something I don’t trust…” Therefore, it’s hard to begrudge Weiner when she says, “Okay, I don’t hate Jonathan Franzen. What I hate is the way the New York Times transforms itself into his personal PR machine when he has a book out, to the exclusion of the books people are actually reading, so he’s sort of a symbol for a whole binary hierarchical… oh, fuck it, I hate that smug motherfucker, and I vote we TP his house.”
*****
The one thing that all these – and most other – controversies have in common is that they divide the writing community that so often benefits from remaining a strong united front, particularly given that the majority of us will never make it into the JK Rowling-level stratosphere and rely on the kindness of a few random readers (often other authors). It’s a shame. Particularly because if we’re devoting our energies to picking sides, then it doesn’t leave a lot of time for the things that will deliver the most benefits to our careers, our royalties and our mental health: writing.
