UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
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Censoring books. There's an app for that.
My last novel contained a grand total of one F-word. It came near the end, allegedly on Radio 4's 'Thought for the Day', so the gag would have been somewhat slightly undermined by replacing it with a "drat".Children learn these words long before they've outgrown Peppa Pig. Our daughter's second word after "dog" was "bugger" (I gallantly won't say where we believe she picked it up). Sensitive readers should just cover their eyes.
Aside from the potential ramifications of what else these apps might altered further down the line, it doesn't really bother me.
I don't want my reading censored by a narrow-minded group. That's how we lost much 'degenerate' Polish art to the Nazis.
It makes me very very cross. How DARE they do that to someone's work? If they are offended by the vocabulary, then don't effin read it. Arseholes.Oh and Ian Rankin rocks
What happens if you set your story in Scunthorpe?
I find censorship objectionable in all forms, and as someone else said, if you let them get away with the little things they'll feel even bolder when it comes to the bigger ones.If we let them get away with censoring swear words it won't be long before they start banning whole books (actually not that uncommon already in so-called "land of the free" America).
David wrote: "What happens if you set your story in Scunthorpe?"Funny you should say that, my mate's previous company had huge problems with their computer filters and all because their main office was based there.
My first word was bollocks. My mother even recorded it in the baby book! In my opinion, used appropriately, a curse word or two can emphasise a character's mood. In my own work, one of the secondary characters says horseshit during an argument. I don't think half the kids I teach would even bat an eyelid at it.
David wrote: "What happens if you set your story in Scunthorpe?"You wouldn't be allowed to. Scunthorpe must be a swear word!
Many books would just lose their effect if expletives were deleted or diluted. The characters in Chris Ryan's or Andy McNab's simply would not say "oh, bother". Some situations/characters need expletives to properly colour the canvas.I'm not sure what is a swear word these days. All seem to be in common usage therefore why should authors be constrained to use 'BBC' English? Personally my characters only use the stronger ones where emphatic objection is raised to something.
Another thing - whilst it may be necessary for characters to swear strongly, what about authors doing that in the narrative? I am currently re-reading Matthew Reilley's 'Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves', which is written in the narrative. He uses strong expletives and I find this disturbing. eg: "blah blah and he was blown to f***ing shit.' It's just not right, somehow - suggests the author has a limited vocabulary.
In a similar vein I object vehemently to the PC brigade using Photoshop to alter history. Nothing wrong with the original Abbey Road album sleeve.
It is the slippery slope. Quite apart from having an app changing what the author intended, why do we have to protect everyone from offence?
I always thought that writing was supposed to provoke a response/thought or create a talking point. It's bad enough that TV is censored to suit the majority, we shouldn't have to censor literature as well.
I think that the use of expletives is a powerful tool, especially if you don't use that many. But because of the background I have and the characters I have, I don't need many.If I was writing the sequel to 'Trainspotting' then I could well use a lot more :-)
As Theo cunningly points out, they've been well used in classic literature and are remembered for their effect
On the other hand, "motherflipper" conjures up a rather charming image.
It always surprises me how few swear words I use in my writing.But this whole concept is obscene, and I stand by my soon-to-be-colleague Joanne Harris (that's literally never going to get old) in this.
I caught the end of what she said this morning. I can't see how it's different from changing anything else in an author's work. Character names, for instance. Nobody seems to suggest that would be okay.I use the very occasional naughty word in my stories when I think the character would say it. I never use the f word myself, not even 'sanitised' versions like frigging. I think my vocabulary is big enough to come up with something else - but I sometimes think it!
It's the thin end of the wedge, giving people the ability to bowlderise a book. Just don't read them, people.
Haha! Himself thinks that someone should get hold of the app and publish their list of alternatives! Then we could all call our characters mother forklifts (just saw that on FB!) and not have anyone mess with our work!
Just read this - 'I've downloaded the Dirty Reader app and it's done wonders for Miss Marple.':)
Hmm. I do like the idea of a dirty reader app though. Oh hang on, I already have one... It's called predictive text
And to repeat my boring old sound bite... No teenager gets its porn from ebooks. They know exactly where to go for that sort of thing
I don't have the slightest problem with this.My watchword is that the customer is king. If they want a book without swearing, then that is their choice. They are paying for the book. It is only right that they should be able to customise the book to their tastes.
This app allows them to access a book that they might otherwise not buy and to read it in a way that suits them. From the perspective of an author, that's another sale. Hopefully another happy customer.
As an analogy, my wife doesn't like nuts. Okay, okay, I don't know why she married me, but that's another story...
She has been known to buy a cake in a coffee shop and then carefully pick off the flaked almonds from the top. Then she will eat the rest of the cake.
We have never once had the owner of the coffee shop rush out to object to this. "No, no, no, Mrs Once, you must eat the whole cake. That's exactly what the chef wanted."
A book is a product. Once we have sold that product it belongs to the customer. We might not have the same tastes and sensibilities as the customer, but then it isn't our book any more.
You must have thought my Ian Rankin comment was seriously random Kath!I feel that the same argument applies to books as it does cakes Will - if you don't like swearing, don't read a book with sweary words - if you don't like almonds, don't buy a cake with them... If I were the chef, I would be annoyed, or at least slightly irked! ;)
I can cope with random Rosemary - I almost expect it of you!
Rosemary (The Nosemanny) wrote: " if you don't like almonds, don't buy a cake with them... If I were the chef, I would be annoyed, or at least slightly irked! ;)"I seem to remember reading somewhere about a chef who went ballistic because someone put salt on one of his dishes, because in his opinion it was seasoned to perfection and the customer was ruining it.
Years ago there was - just Googled, there still is - a site called Melon Farmers, which detailed film censorship on TV, so named after apparently one TV station use melonfarmer to replace another common expression in American films.Never understood rude word censorship, if you are replacing it either with melon farmer or m*th*rf*ck*r, you must at least have some inkling of what the word is you are covering up, replacing or whatever.
Tim wrote: "I find censorship objectionable in all forms, and as someone else said, if you let them get away with the little things they'll feel even bolder when it comes to the bigger ones.If we let them get away with censoring swear words it won't be long before they start banning whole books (actually not that uncommon already in so-called "land of the free" America). ..."
ironically much censoring of books in the US comes from campaigns by Joe Public not the government. They usually target books in libraries & schools they object to and then those libraries & schools cave in and ban them. The will of the people eh?
This particular app isn't doing any censoring though.
Will wrote: "I don't have the slightest problem with this.My watchword is that the customer is king. If they want a book without swearing, then that is their choice. They are paying for the book. It is only r..."
I disagree Will. Any writer worth their salt writes a woven text, swear words are part of the weave of the character. If the reader doesn't like swear words, then they are unlikely to like the book just with swearwords changed, because the rest of that book's weave is likely to contain the violence or sex or moral extremity that comes with a character who readily draws on swear words. If they're sensitive to the word f**k, they're likely to be sensitive to the act of f**king which is also likely to be referenced or described in the same book.
This smacks of when in a bid to avoid using the lord's name in vain, God's Truth was shortened to S'truth/ S'trewth and all that malarkey.
Did anyone ever play this game in their childhood? It's called Sausage and Mash. You read a bit of one of your school textbooks and whenever there's a word starting with s you say sausage and if there's one starting with m you say mash. When you're 12 you laugh like a drain but it makes about as much sense as changing the expletives.
Marc wrote: "sausage & mash or sado and masochism?"Go on, go the whole hog: boiled duck, sausage & mash.
Interesting article about the app here:http://www.romancenovelnews.com/jooml...
'The app is not nuanced. It can’t distinguish between chicken breasts or women’s breasts.'
Which suggests using with caution on recipe books.
anytime you apply algorithm searches into language patterns, it will be flawed. English is not divisible by maths
Chicken breasts, women's breasts... any hole's a goal.
Rosemary - what would the chef rather have: a paying customer buying a cake (and then taking the almonds off)... or that same customer walking out of the door without buying anything because the coffee shop doesn't give them what they want?By all means be irked. But then take the sale and please a customer. Or would it change your point of view if that same customer has a nut allergy and this is the only way of making a sale?
Marc - readers will choose whether to use this app or not. If it doesn't work, they won't use it. If it does work, they will use it and could be more likely to buy books. I don't think it will help a prude to read fifty shades but if it gives at least some customers a chance to read some books then it will be worthwhile.
We may not want to use it, but it's not our job to dictate how other people choose to read. That for me would be the biggest censorship. If a customer wants to read books this way, that's their choice.
Eww Michael, 'pass me another chicken, this one's split'.
Okay, enough of that.Next you'll be talking about hamsters and duct tape.
Why would a hamster want to use duct tape?
G.J. (Gaff to my friends) wrote: "Why would a hamster want to use duct tape?"To mend the chicken, duh!
Why did the chicken cross the road?Because he was attached to the hamster with duct tape, of course.
Will wrote: "They are paying for the book. It is only right that they should be able to customise the book to their tastes."No, they are paying for a licence to download and read the book. (unless they buy the paperback). They are not paying for a licence to alter it.
A book is a product. Once we have sold that product it belongs to the customer. We might not have the same tastes and sensibilities as the customer, but then it isn't our book any more.
NO IT ISN'T. An ebook book is a service - that's why it has VAT charged on it and that whole hoo ha that's been going on for the last few years. At no point does an ebook ever belong to the customer in the sense that a paperback belongs to the customer.
Tim wrote: "Will wrote: "No, they are paying for a licence to download and read the book." Tim wrote: At no point does an ebook ever belong to the customer in the sense that a paperback belongs to the customer... "Therefore the author should have the legal right to block any apps that alter the text?
Are mobi's, epubs etc 'read only', or can recipients mess about with them? There must be a way to lock them tight.
Hmm, interesting about the auto-swear converter app. I'm not sure if you'll know this, but I use a bit of foul language in my books, hehe.I do it because that's the world I live in. Like it or not, our office is awash with swearing to such an extent that it forms part of relaxed and heated conversations. Of course, when we're out and about, we retain our 'professionalism' and speak as though we were in company with Aunt Agatha. Swearing was used in books and on telly, as far as I can tell, as a shock for the reader/viewer, but it's so commonplace now that it doesn't shock anymore when used in context and above a certain age. I've just come in from an estate in Leeds where I heard 5-year olds cussing. And I didn't appreciate it because I felt they were using it parrot fashion without any understanding of it, and without any idea about being tactful. None of my kids swear (at least not in front of me!), and I won't tolerate it from adults when there are kids around. Does this, I wonder, make me a bigot?
So why use it? I use it because I aim to mimic real life, nothing more.
I received a US review recently for The Third Rule claiming that Brits can barely string a sentence together without dropping the f-bomb. I couldn't argue really. Of course I can and do string sentences together without any swearing (see above), but I believe it has its place when used correctly to add a little emphasis or to illustrate the emotional state of a character. It's not there to offend the reader (something I would never intentionally do).
Right, I'm off to write some more Eddie Collins. And I'm adding extra swear words to see if I can break their app!
Tim - they aren't altering it. The app changes how they read it, which is no different from me adjusting the volume on a piece of music or fast forwarding over a boring bit of a DVD. My kindle allows me to adjust the font size, to highlight words or phrases - in other words to customise my reading experience. This app is no different.
There is an interesting argument going on at the moment about whether electronic media are goods or services, with products like apps, computer games and ebooks in the grey area between the two - part product and part service.
But that isn't particularly relevant. Whether it is a product or a service, it is the consumer's choice how to consume it provided that they stay within the law.
Will wrote: "Tim - they aren't altering it. The app changes how they read it, which is no different from me adjusting the volume on a piece of music or fast forwarding over a boring bit of a DVD. My kindle a..."
If you read the second blog, it is changing words and it is then not how the author wrote it
The only thing I can think to add though, is that it's like taking a magic marker to a work of art, just because the left eye isn't where you would like it to be.
If someone bought a print copy of the Mona Lisa and drew on it, would anyone care?
Michael wrote: "If someone bought a print copy of the Mona Lisa and drew on it, would anyone care?"But it wouldn't be the Mona Lisa anymore....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celeb...