Who are we loving when we write?

I recently stumbled upon a Son of the Storm reader on Twitter who was confused by reviews that tagged the book as grimdark. (As a quick explainer, grimdark is a subgenre of fantasy that carries a “tone, style, or setting that is particularly dystopian, amoral, or violent.” Basically, it’s the noir-ish version of fantastic literature.) This reader was adamant that SOTS did not, in fact, carry this tone or style, and was neither particularly dystopian, amoral or violent. Grim, yes, but only in slices, as opposed to the whole pie. So they went to bat for the book, correcting every such instance they came across, while I watched from the sidelines with interest.

Then they made a comment that struck me, saying (and I paraphrase): “People think Son of the Storm is grimdark because the fantasy they read often sanitizes the perils of imperialism.”

I thought: Wow, someone gets it.

I like to think of Son of the Storm as a merry book, actually. Most of the characters get what they want, even though not quite as they would have liked. And there is violence, some blood spilled, yes, yes, but mostly, people struggle with various challenges and end up getting what they desire...kinda. Comes with some costs, sure, but what doesn’t?

So, why do some consider it grim and dark, while others think it simply usual? I raised this question with some author and reader friends and soon began to realise there may be a pattern. This term grimdark has also apparently been used to describe many recent adult fantasy novels written by BIPOC folks: NK Jemisin, RF Kuang, Rebecca Roanhorse. Apparently, these stories do a lot of “unpacking” in a manner that makes them feel, well, kinda grim.

This buttresses the point that perhaps prior to this crop of authors, while we all basked in the battles of Good Side vs Evil Side, no one quite asked how Good Side kept its subjects in check, or who actually gave Evil Side its name, or who was forced to give up their lands and selves so that both empires could exist in the first place. It’s the asking of these questions, it turns out, that makes the stories seem grim--because we already know the answers will not be great. And who better to ask these questions than those who have had to exist in these grim spaces all along?

It took me a while but I finally arrived at the understanding that such dissonance in readership and interpretation doesn’t just lie in the content or authorship of the work, no. To ask why such truth is grim for some but a breath of fresh air for others, we must examine who the work was written toward.

Writing toward as love

Poet and author Destiny Birdsong makes a comment in the essay “Interrobang and Myth” that has since stuck with me:

““Who are you loving when you write?”...I return to it whenever I’m afraid to put something on the page, whenever I make a cultural reference I’m not sure everyone will understand. I can’t say that it makes me less fearful, but remembering who I am loving reminds me to shun the universal for the idiosyncratic...It reminds me why it’s important to be brave.”

I like to think of writing as a collection of choices, decisions. When we use a word instead of another, it is not just a matter of preference, but a decision made based on who we’re writing toward. Sometimes, this person is ourselves or those like us. Sometimes, it is an ideal reader, or the market, or the publishing ecosystem. It may be the social zeitgeist and those tapped into it, or it may be something spiritual, an existence outside of timespace. We are always writing toward something outside of ourselves that we’re loving or hoping to love.

Whenever I put on the writer’s hat and think about things like story and readership and editors and book sales, I also put on another hat--that which is worn on the collective heads of those I want to love when I write. For me in particular, these are people I like to call Middlers. Those who exist in society’s margins and crevices: liminals, straddlers, square pegs in round holes. My stories most love Middlers who share any modicum of my identity and lived or assimilated experience as a young, Black African person existing in a multifold world.

Often, we think writing from somewhere means we’re doing the work (e.g. I’m of African heritage so writing African fantasy means my stories are doing it right.) But we may still do both that place and our stories a disservice when we write toward something that doesn’t offer a receptacle for this work or doesn’t make space for it to settle and create meaning. Therefore, in order for our stories to do their work of loving, we must be intentional about who they’re loving and written toward.

An example of this distinction is two recent Prime Video productions: The Underground Railroad  and Them. Both discuss the violence of slavery, segregation and discrimination, and both intend to shed light on these matters. But Them fails to do so adequately because it chooses to love something other than the people who it’s telling this story about, the people with the most skin in this game (pardon the pun). A lot of what the series does ends up lacking sensitivity, becomes traumatizing and overall tragic. The Underground Railroad, on the other hand, even though it spends more screen time in the doldrums of tragedy, is intentional about who its story is loving. It stays the course, never wavering, and ends up being an enlightening, hopeful and enthralling production.

“The way we’re taught to read, we’re taught to appreciate.”

Viet Thanh Nguyen said the above line in a recent conversation with Paul Beatty. It caused me to assess why I like my work to do what it does (e.g. for my fantasy to “unpack empire”) and I learned that I’ve come to see the best stories as those that don’t always have easy or simple answers. Perhaps because people like me have never had easy or simple answers, and part of that is what appeals to us in stories. If I’m writing toward and loving people like me, such stories will carry this understanding. As will the stories of NK Jemisin, RF Kuang, Rebecca Roanhorse.

"They don’t compare any white writers to Vietnamese writers or to Asian writers,” says Viet Thanh Nguyen to Paul Beatty in the discussion. “Like, I have never seen a book by a white writer compared to Toni Morrison." And he’s right! Toni Morrison’s stories weren’t always about race and Blackness, just as Viet Thanh Nguyen doesn’t only write about the Vietnam War. But both authors have chosen to love a particular people when they write, and it shows. Which is why, until a white person is writing to love these same people--and it shows--they cannot be compared to these authors.

Perhaps it’s a matter of knowing, as a reader or viewer, when a story isn’t written toward you, and making your peace with that. This is what readers from non-dominant groups have always known--that most stories are not written toward us, and we will not always receive love from them. So, when we get to choose who to write toward, we are intentional about who we love.