Literally Privileged

Privileged hot-takes in the fantasy literary world devalue the labor of storytelling

First came the loss of nuance

In the slew of discussions happening around reader responsibility when engaging with the literary market, there is an overt bias that seems to be overlooked by the most prominent voices. Readers with significant disposable income and overwhelming representation are defining what's right for everyone else. What we should spend our time and money on, how we should select our next series or author, and how we should approach artist integrity. None of these things are inherently wrong or unexpected in any environment where readers come together, but there's an element of entitlement that just hasn't been sitting well with me. Too often, these directives enable readers to justify withholding support for marginalized writers on the blatantly incorrect assertion that a good story will "speak for itself" against ingrained bias and established norms in language, culture, or even sensory experiences.

Despite the long recognized limitations that many marginalized people face when trying to engage in publishing and/or literary spaces, the privileged majority rarely considers how these demands may play out for readers who have less than they do. Less time, less access, and certainly less representation in the traditional publishing arena. As an actively engaged black member of predominantly white European, American and Australian groups, I have often found that the nuances of race, class, phenotype, ethnicity and/or nonWestern nationality, often get disregarded by both readers and authors. Many of the discussions about reader habits don't account for lifestyles and preferences outside of what's assumed to be the "average" consumer of certain genres.

Conversations about gender representation of women are not taken seriously by male members unless it's to praise male authors for portrayals that women readers weren't actually that fond of. Trans and nonbinary folks hesitate to engage in general because they know mainstream spaces often label their very existence as an agenda enacted by the "woke." Hopeful posts tentatively requesting stories of disabled or neurodivergent characters are often riddled with responses that scorn the very idea, or they turn antagonistic with demands to provide reasoning with "proof" from the source material.

The audacity of strangers dictating my TBR pile

With the rise of Amazon as a titan in the market, both as a vehicle for self publishing and as the major distribution agent for traditional and audio publishing, a large portion of readers have taken a strong stance against investing in incomplete series. The primary reason for this, ensuring reader satisfaction with a completed arc, is ironic because it is a complaint most often made of successful white writers who had enough resources to finish their series, if not the good health, mental stability and/or motivation. Sometimes, no amount of money or attention is enough of an incentive for a writer who's just "not feeling it."

In contrast to this, Sister Soldier's "Coldest Winter Ever" is infamous in the households of black readers across the United States and Caribbean, specifically because Ms. Ma'am left us hanging for decades before finally blessing us with Midnight, the much awaited sequel to a story many of us had been waiting for since hitting puberty. Commiserating over this incomplete work was almost an unspoken rite of passage for black girl readers, and it occurred for quite some time before social media spaces proved it was a culturally relevant, familiar piece of literature that linked Black women across state and country borders. Had Sister Soldier published the follow-up work on her original schedule, countless literary conversations would have never happened. Hilarious and often embarrassing accounts of the original - paired with extreme reactions to the finally arrived sequel - have inspired book clubs, groups and reading challenges within our community. I've absolutely seen the same thing within the mainstream literary groups as well, but rarely does the general conversation reflect any joy or gratitude for the silver lining of an unfinished series.

The list should *not* go on, and yet...

Some other aggressively suggested reading habits have included:

• fan fiction

Don't read it because it plagiarizes the original author, but also authors are entitled to whatever "inspiration" they get from fan works.

• reader reviews

Unless the reader has some expertise to back it up,

• self-publishing

• cultural awareness

I'm not saying readers aren't partially responsible for the integrity of the publishing industry, but no more so than the established corporations with controlling interest and gate-keeping power of the authors who get published. Readers aren't responsible for carrying struggling writers on their backs. If the "as long is it's a good story, nothing else matters" line works in conversations about diversity, conversations about problematic tropes, and conversations about problematic writers, I really don't see what metric or logic all of sudden changes the goalpost for something as individual and personal as a reader deciding what to pick up next. Seems utterly ridiculous to me and bizarre when contrasted with the expectations for self-published writers. The most commonly repeated advice for selling your work is to have more books completed in the series so readers have an incentive to pick up the first one. Now the supposedly rational take is not to give the first in a series consideration at all, unless it’s complete.

Saying the quiet part out loud

Western readers' profit driven bottom line is a detrimental mindset that comes from being over-represented in an industry that thrives off the appearance of diversity, without ever really providing it. While this has only recently begun to change, many of the standards and pressures put onto readers today seem to serve the status quo. When over-represented readers with unfettered access to stories make assertions about the morals and character of less privileged readers, its a loud suggestion to preserve the privilege of being the most well represented in the industry.