NAinUF: Indigenous and Colonial Approaches

Awhile back, I created a book list for Native Americans in urban fantasy. Since then, I've read a selection of the books. The biggest thing that struck me was how books written by Native American authors differed from those written by non-Native authors. Native American authors tended to take European elements and indigenise them - showing how they interacted in a Native American context. Books by non-Native authors tended to act in a colonial way, taking Native American elements and placing them in a European context.

This post lists some of those differences, with a few conclusions.

Colonising

• Fits Native American beliefs into a European belief system (all magic is from Biblical nephilim in 'The Phoenix Chronicles').
• Places Native American magic users into a European organisation (Joseph Listens-to-Wind in 'Dresden Files').
• Paints European beliefs as being Native American (European-style werewolves are said to be a Quileute belief in 'Twilight'). Sometimes there will be minor changes (skinwalkers in the Mercy Thompson series are like werewolves with added coyote, rather than actual skinwalkers).
• Makes European magical elements the majority and Native American the minority. In a world of vampires, fairies and werewolves, there will be a token Native American aspect or character.
• Heavy use of stereotypes (and not in a satirical way). The most common stereotypes are:
  • Noble Savage - Native Americans are closer to the Earth, serene, wise and cryptic. Their magic tends to be Earth based, even in a setting where people can have all kinds of magic.
  • Magical Native Americans - Obviously, urban fantasy has many magic users. The issue isn't that a Native American might have magical powers, but that they're shown as more magical than anyone else. It's as though they aren't actually human, but some extra-magical form of sub-human. For example, the Native American construction workers in 'Sacred Ground' can magically sense there's something wrong, when their co-workers of other races cannot. In a group of supernatural people, Native American ancestry is used to explain why someone is unusually magical (Zoey Redbird in 'House of Night') .
• Historical events involving Native Americans are described in a distant and impersonal way, even if the character is Native American. These events are not linked to the character's own family or tribe.
• Native Americans rarely socialise with other Native Americans, outside of their nuclear family. The importance of extended family and tribe is minimised. ('Sacred Ground' has the main character at a pow wow, yet she only socialises with her grandfather. She observes rather than taking part). Some characters may have no contact with Native American relations at all.
• All Native American characters share the same opinion on topics that real Native Americans disagree on. If opinions are allowed to differ, the main character's opinion will be shown to be the best way to be an Indian.
• Tendency for all Native American characters to look the same, outside of sex and age differences. Same hair colour, eye colour, skin colour and build. Hair style and clothing choices are also near-identical.
• Racism tends to be binary. Either 1) everyone is extremely racist to Native American characters, barely concealing their contempt; or 2) more commonly, no one mentions it at all unless it's important to the plot (such as announcing why someone is extra magical).
• Research also tends to be at the two extremes. An author may do a great deal of research, vomiting unrelated facts on the page at every opportunity (this probably contributes to why description of historical events are so distant... they're not there because they naturally fit in the story). Or the author has done very little, possibly using a generic all-in-one Native American culture, but more often giving Native Americans a European upbringing/culture.

Indigenising

• Shows the interaction between Native and non-Native beliefs, creatures and magic users.
• Attributes beliefs to the originating culture (the vampire in 'The Night Wanderer' was turned by a European vampire - vampirism is not shown to be Obijwa). This includes not inventing beliefs for a tribe.
• Has a stronger focus on identifying and differentiating between tribes. When someone states their tribe, it impacts things like the culture shown in their homelife. It isn't merely a label.
• Allows characters to have non-European elements to their lifestyle, without this being portrayed as exotic or bad.
• Includes contemporary Native American issues, such as conditions on reservations and institutionalised racism. Where there aren't any Native American characters, these issues may be shown through allegory (such as Cynthia Leitich Smith's books).
• Historical events involving Native Americans are described in personal way - how they affected the character or their family and tribe.
• Native Americans have different personality types and appearances.
• Native Americans may have magic powers, but they aren't more magical than everyone else. It doesn't limit their magical involvement to traditionally Native American roles (medicine men/women, skinwalkers, etc).
• Extended family and tribe members are mentioned and often shown.

Genre Classification Notes

None of the books by Native American authors were listed as urban fantasy (or contemporary fantasy or paranormal romance). In two cases, this is most likely due to genre issues. Sherman Alexie is mainly known for literary work, so any speculative elements wouldn't change where his book is placed. Joseph Bruchac's book is listed as horror (urban fantasy has horror roots, so it's not a surprise that some books are both).

On the other hand, Drew Hayden Taylor wrote a vampire story. The overall themes of the story are a little different to common urban fantasy (which often takes a mystery or romance approach), but there's nothing to take it out of the genre. Despite this, it's listed as a gothic novel. Most people who want to read urban fantasy aren't going to be searching for gothic*.

Cynthia Leitich Smith wrote books that fit very well in urban fantasy, under any definition of the term. Vampires and werewolves. A clear city setting. Her novels are also listed as gothic.

It could be that the authors preferred the term gothic. However, that doesn't usually stop a publisher from giving books a label they think will sell books (they're not always right, but in this case, an urban fantasy label would sell more books). The fact the publishers didn't means I had to go the other way around... searching for authors who were Native American and reading through their bibliographies for urban fantasies. This is not something the average urban fantasy fan is going to do. It's not really a surprise that when I asked people for recommendations for the list, all were for non-Native authors.

One of the issues of cultural appropriation is outsider voices replacing insider voices, rather than appearing alongside them. In urban fantasy, Native American authored books aren't considered to be urban fantasy at all. Unlike the other issues in this post, a writer can't do anything about it in their novel. It can be addressed in the community though, by raising awareness that some books may not be on the urban fantasy shelf.

Conclusions

It won't be a surprise that books by non-Native authors tended to colonise and books by Native American authors tended to indigenise. Comparing the two side-by-side, the Native American authors came across far more authentically (which also shouldn't be a surprise).

So the real question is why non-Native authors didn't try to indigenise. They may not do so successfully, but most didn't appear to have tried**. It was clear that research consisted of history and traditional stories, rather than modern life and modern stories. And in some cases, clear that research was minimal at best.

It's likely that most didn't see it as important to try. They wanted to cherry-pick a few elements to place in a European setting for a mainly European-descended audience. This European feel to urban fantasy may also be why books by Native American authors aren't labelled as urban fantasy, because they're less likely to have that feel (even though they have all the required genre elements).

This is a bad thing on many levels. For a start, the author isn't stretching themselves if they don't try to think from a different worldview. The genre isn't stretching itself if it only classifies European-worldview books as urban fantasy. And in the end, the readers are the ones who suffer. It makes people who aren't of European-descent feel excluded, and people who are miss out on the chance to see alternative worldviews.

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* My original book list gets many Google hits for phrases like "Native Americans Urban Fantasy". People aren't getting it from Googling "Native American Gothic Novel".

** The biggest exception is 'Sacred Ground'. The book has colonising issues, but there was an attempt at making a Native American worldview central to the story. In some ways, the book tried a little too hard, inserting chunks of unrelated research and having KKK-style racist white people on every corner***.

*** This misses due to lack of realism. I've faced issues due to my appearance. The depictions of racism in books by Native American authors hit home for me. The ones in 'Sacred Ground' were eye-rolling-worthy. I've had my share of very abusive people, but most of the time, it's a lot more subtle. It's never seeing yourself in a book, never being given a doll that looks like you and having people surprised at how wonderfully fluent you are at English.

[Photo by Chad K, used under a Creative Commons license. It shows a modern sign written in Cherokee (in Tahlequah, Oklahoma), with the photographer reflected. Written Cherokee is a good example of indigenising - the concept of written language was adapted and applied to the Cherokee language.]

Self-Publishing and Choosing Sides

Before the idea of writing fiction was a twinkle in my ears, I considered writing a non-fiction book about dragons. It wouldn't have been a very commercial book, due to the wordy mythological nature of the idea*. Nor did I have a platform (outside of having a dragon website). So I looked into the idea of self-publishing. In the end, I decided I'd stick to running the website (which is a form of self-publishing anyway).

For novels, I want to go the agent and publisher route. Novels have the potential to earn a reasonable wage, but that's much harder to do if the book isn't in the book stores, hasn't been professionally edited and all those other things that publishers make easy. Agents and publishers handle a lot of things, leaving more time to write, blog and social network.

Short stories and poems on the other hand... it's difficult to get a publisher for those. Some collections sell to small publishers. Many people self-publish their own collections.

This is why I don't understand the call to choose sides when it comes to publishing. There's no law that says a writer has to do the same thing with every project. Big commercial novel project? You're more likely to have success through a big publisher. Local history book? A local small press would be a possibility. Niche cookery book on recipes you never thought to try with a mango? Self-publishing would be a good bet. Maybe you'll start a mango cookery trend.

Not only does choosing sides not make logical sense, but it creates barrier between writers that needn't exist. I dropped out of a lot of stuff on MySpace, because it was clear the writing communities were all about choosing sides. This came to a head when a new small publisher appeared. The site had all sorts of red flags. My comments on it were ignored, but I mostly got away with it as I was unpublished. An author with a big house who commented was called names and denounced as an evil indie publisher hater. Why else would she tell them signing the contract was a bad idea? She was just trying to keep people down! She was afraid of the future of publishing!

About a year later, the publisher went under. Or rather, the owner vanished, leaving people out of money and books. All the warning signs had been there before people signed contracts and sent money, but people didn't listen because some of those giving warnings had books with big name publishers.

Writers are in this together, however we choose to publish a particular book. It doesn't hurt to remember that.

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* My experience has been that more people are in love with the vision of fantasy dragons, rather than the mythological basis. Myth books only tend to get away with it if they have modern fantasy art instead of historical images and/or a focus on cryptozoology. I wasn't intending to do either of those.

Autocomplete Answers: What would happen if...

They always say blog about stuff people want to know. How do you know what people want to know? I suppose you could ask, but if you don't have enough readers who want to know things, you still don't know. So I decided to ask Google autocomplete what people want to know, with the question "what would happen if"*. Using my powers of scientific knowledge, I'll answer the questions! The answers may even be right.

What would happen if there was no moon?

1. There wouldn't be any lunar tides. They would be solar tides, but they aren't as strong, so the tides wouldn't go up and down as much. This is bad news for rock pool critters, as many of them would either end up under the water all the time or out and dry.

2. The moon acts to slow down the Earth's rotation. Without a moon, Earth would speed up its spin, shortening the day and leading to faster winds around the Earth. This is great news for kite enthusiasts.

3. The moon men will be homeless.

What would happen if an asteroid hit earth?

If it's a big one, we die. If it's a little one, make a wish.

What would happen if we had no bones?

We die. I get the impression people ask this in the hopes it'd be okay. Maybe they'd turn into giant ex-human jellyfish monsters, escape down the drains and never have to work again! But no, you'll just die.

What would happen if there was no friction?

We die. This is one of those questions where people like to wax lyrical about how you'll fall over, because there won't be any friction between your feet and the ground, so you'll slide around. But before you get that far, you'll be dead. No friction in the universe means the laws of physics have suddenly changed. When that happens, life as we know it can no longer exist.

What would happen if the gulf stream stopped?

Snowmen for everyone! Or at least, anyone in an area currently kept warm by the gulf stream (like England). No gulf stream would mean cooler weather all round.

What would happen if you touched lava?

I die. Touching lava is not recommended.

What would happen if the sun went out?

Eventually, we die. However, people could survive for awhile if they were clever about it. The Earth's core would still provide heat, which could be used for staying warm and electricity.

What would happen if Yellowstone erupted?

Yellowstone would be bad news if it erupted. It's predicted that it'd be a ginormous eruption, leading to global climate change and many of us will die**.

What would happen if we didn't recycle?

Compared to the other questions, this one is remarkably mild and non-lethal. Except when the mountains of rubbish bury the Earth and cockroaches take their place as rightful overlords of the planet.

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* Funnily enough "What would happen if cats had thumbs?" wasn't on the list. Maybe everyone had that question answered by the Cravendale advert.

** Google searchers are very pessimistic. Either that, or they're trying to write the next post-apocalyptic bestseller. To be really original, I think you'd need to start combining these. Maybe have the moon vanish on the day the sun goes out and Yellowstone erupts.

Writing Diary: Novels and Reprints

It's been awhile since a writing update. Partly because things have been slow, but they've also not been totally non-existent. I sold the poem "Monkey Bait" to GUD Magazine. I've also had a few reprints. "Through Amber Eyes" is in an educational ebook, "Whirligig Fingers and Globular Thumbs" is in Crossed Genres: Year 2 and "The Dog's Complaint" is in The Best of Every Day Poets One. Here are some pretty cover pictures:

Yay!

My short story submissions have gone down a little, as I'm focusing on getting the novel done. I'm on the final pass before critiques. It'll take a little while to get the feedback returned and the very final edits done, but then it's on to queryland. I'd guess it may be a couple of months to get all that done. I have the first draft of my query done (yes, I'm keen).

In other news, I realised I was in my first year of eligibility for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Writers are eligible for two years. After that, I believe I officially get old fogey writer status.

And now, back to novel edits.

A Dyslexic's Thoughts On Webpages

In the writing community, an article has been doing the rounds: 6 Surprising Bad Practices That Hurt Dyslexic Users.

The ideas in the article come from the right place - making the web as accessible for everyone as possible. But at the same time, some of the advice worries me, because it'd make it harder for me to read webpages. This is the opposite of the article's intentions.

These are my thoughts on things that make webpages more accessible for me. They may not apply to all dyslexics, but it doesn't hurt to realise there's a range in any group.

Contrast and Colour

The article suggests that low contrast greyscale pages are a good idea (grey text on a grey background). However, dyslexics get eyestrain too. I find Kindles too low contrast to read comfortably for that reason. Greyscale also tends to swim for me, as everything blurs together.

A little bit of contrast reduction can be good, but only a little and ideally not in greyscale. I prefer a lightly tinted background. Yellows and tans* are best, but any colour is fine (as long as it isn't grey). This blog is a good example of my yellow/tan comfort zone.

Black text on white is fine though, as long as it has coloured titles, borders, dividers, etc. These help the text stay lined up. Black borders, titles and breaks don't help, as they merge into the main black text.

White text on black is much harder to fix. It always tends to swim a little for me, even with coloured elements.

Link Colours

Bright link colours tend to swim. More subdued tone don't. Rather than using the default bright blue links, consider using a darker blue (on a pale background).

Blank Space in Sentences

I don't have any issue with the article's comments on this. Extra blank space in sentences does make words swim and rivers run down the page. Keep things aligned to the left and don't leave big spaces after punctuation. Centre** and right alignment is fine if it's appropriate (such as a poem), but I wouldn't want to read a big block like that.

Paragraph Size

The article suggests short paragraphs. These do help me. It also helps to break things into sections and put space between those sections. For printed text, I can cover up sections to read long paragraphs, but this is hard on the screen.

Serifs

I do find extra twiddly bits on unfamiliar letters a problem. I recently commented on my problems reading pinyin (Romanised Chinese) because it has extra twiddly bits over the letters. However, I don't have this issue with familiar fonts. I've learnt to read them, serifs and all.

Some other (non-dyslexic) people find fonts without serifs hard to read, so removing all the serifs isn't a good solution (which is what the article suggests). I'd also note I find unfamiliar fonts without serifs harder to read too. Not as hard to read as an unfamiliar serif font, but being unfamiliar is the big issue.

The compromise is not to get too fancy with your fonts. Keep to relatively plain and standard fonts. Don't expect me to read a long article in a brand new font.

Font Size

Issues with reading ease and avoiding swimming are all helped by not dictating font sizes. Most sites set them too small for my comfort. The ideal way is to set the main font to 100% instead of a point size. Set other fonts relative to this. Your copyright statement at the bottom of the page might be 80%. A title might be 120%.

This way, I see it with my default browser text size (which is bigger than most of the sizes people set on websites). I can only imagine small fonts came around because web designers thought you should suffer for fashion. It's like wearing too-small shoes just because someone told you they were stylish.

Italics

Italics are harder to read, but if you keep the font sizes adjustable and use a familiar font, they're readable. I expect to see italics in citations, bibliographies and scientific names***. I'd struggle if they were used to emphasise every other word or as the default font.

As a general rule of thumb, I've overcome most of my reading/writing issues by familiarity. If you change standard formatting in an attempt to make it easier for me to read, you'll probably throw me because it's unexpected and unfamiliar (even if it should be theoretically easier to read).

A, B, C Lists

Ordered lists or examples are easier for me to read if they're numbered rather than marked with letters. Lower case letters are more of an issue than upper case. This is due to a number of very common dyslexic character muddles in lowercase letters (dbp being the most common). When tying, I avoid it due to training myself to hit the right parts of the keyboard rather than relying on letter shape. I can't use this method when I'm reading.

Roman numerals are harder to read than standard numbers.

This matters the most if the list comes with text telling me that if b) doesn't exist, I should do d), but remember to always do p). I may identify the wrong point and misunderstand the text.

Captcha

This is the biggest usability issue for me. Writing out codes is very hard. I have no context for getting the letters right (they rarely spell out words, or they spell out obscure words I can't spell anyway). They're also in very strange fonts, which brings up the issue with unfamiliar fonts being hard to read. This is a far bigger issue than anything else you can do to me. It makes it hard for me to respond and leaves me feeling frustrated.

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* This colour tint preference doesn't help all dyslexics, but it's something I know isn't restricted to me.

** Centred poems do actually swim for me, but it's more the words as a block swim down the page like a word fish. I can still read it and it's actually neat in its own way.

*** You'll annoy the scientist in me if you start to bold scientific names instead of italicising them.