WWN39 : And shun, the furious bantersnatch

Last week I introduced the two mortal foes of the writer with an adapted verse from Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky.

I warned you to

Beware the CAW-CAW birds, and shun
The furious bantersnatch!

And then I went on to define the CAW-CAWs who care only for attention and not how they get it.

But we ran out of time to discuss to the furious bantersnatch, also known as…

The many-tentacled Karen!

The Karen likes to drag writers down. To snatch away the banter, to be completely furious at every line crossed.

To make writing boring and bland and bound for the bin.

The furious bantersnatch is the the person who jumps on every post and says “source please” but is never pleased with the source…

…the smarmy “well, akshully science says…” replyguy when someone posts a diet win in the group chat.

…the unsolicited advice giver, the solicitous well-wisher, the purity-spiraller.

…the “but smoking is bad for you” whiner, the “never drink a drop of alcohol” guru, the “carbs will kill you” fitness freak.

…the “all adverbs are bad” numbskull or the “clear not clever” CAW-CAW.

…and of course the “I’m offended on behalf of…” or “this is offensive to [insert group here]”

The furious bantersnatch is the reason modern writing is so soulless and empty, TV shows are rammed full of virtue signaling and ham-handed preaching, and books are full of awkward modern messaging insert characters.

There can be no fun with the furious bantersnatch on the prowl…

Why? Because fun always requires a little risk, a little mess, a willingness to experiment, to break and bend rules, to go out on a limb and just maybe offend somebody.

And the bantersnatch can’t have that, because that wouldn’t be good for you.

(Trust the science.)

The worst part is that the many-tentacled karen, our furious bantersnatch, genuinely does believe that they’re a good person trying to save you from your own choices. They really do think that adverbs are bad, that adults shouldn’t be able to take a sensible risk, that you ought to be compelled to do what’s best for you (in their opinion of course).

C. S. Lewis nailed it as always:

But how does this work itself out in the world of writing?

By taking out all the colour in the world.

From the “clear not clever” crowing of the CAW-CAWs to the sensitivity Susans of the traditional publishing realm, the many-tentacled Karen shows up in many ways. But all of them have the same end goal: to make things black and white and boring!

After all…

…colour discriminates against the colour-blind.

The problem with the bantersnatch is that they’re incapable of banter. They don’t understand it. They don’t “get” humour and jokes and sarcasm and wit and metaphor. So they want you to “tone it down” and “be more sensitive”.

Let me give you three examples that are wildly different but have this same thread running through…

First up, plain-English which is inoffensive to normal folks but still riles up the sensitive Susans.

This morning I just read an email from Daniel Throssell. Someone emailed him complaining about the fact he used the word “handicapped” because it’s “insensitive” and you have to say “persons using a wheelchair” instead.

Quite rightly, Daniel told them to get bent.

I mean, fussing about that stuff is just retarded. If you spent your whole time worrying that you’re using the latest lingo, then you’re not going to be able to communicate well. And “disabled” is far more effective than “persons using a wheelchair”, which just makes you sound like a twat.

(And yes, I used “retarded” and “twat” in that paragraph because I can. Unsubscribe button is below if you’re a sensitive Susan.)

Second up, the genuinely-could-be-offensive language used for humour.

Like I mentioned in The Weekender last Saturday, I stupidly watched the execrably terrible Jason Statham film Crank 2: High Voltage. The only thing I remember from the entire film were the gratuitously offensive but memorable lines like replying to a jabbering Asian prositute with “what is that, c*ntonese? And no, that asterisk is not an A…

Good?

No, not particularly.

Memorable?

Yes.

The film took a risk, and it never landed it overall. But if a sensitivity Susan had watched it and made a list of grievances it would have been even worse.

Third up is from the other end of the quality spectrum. And that’s exploring the darkness.

Because last week I also watched 12 Angry Men, in which there’s an immensely powerful scene where the other men put a ranting racist in his place.

No high-handed lectures. No “you’ve got to do better” schoolteacher smarm. Just calmly and coldly turning their back on him until he breaks down in shame.

The kind of scene that too many modern writers are scared to write because the only way to make it work was to let the character be racist for an hour beforehand in order to build up to it.

And the many-tentacled Karen would quote it out of context and claim that the writer was racist because the character was racist.

But as Larry Niven once said:

Writers have to be able to walk in dark places.

We have to be able to show the darkness for what it is, before we shine a light on it. And sometimes you have to leave the reader sitting in the darkness when you finish.

And the bantersnatch hates it. From the ridiculous cultural Christians who get all huffy when an apologist goes on Joe Rogan because Rogan sometimes swears, to the modern wokescold getting all huffy if a tv show or novel series doesn’t pander to every perversion under the sun, the furious bantersnatch is always willing to whip up a mob to rage about anything that offends them.

But the real problem with the bantersnatch is what you don’t see…

They get at everything.

People start watching their words. You don’t make that witty reply because you’re worried someone might misinterpret it. You stop sharing your progress because you don’t want to be “well akshully”ed. The group dies because every post gets a sanctimonious reply.

People start to watch their words.

And watching your words like that is death for the writer.

You have to be able to write free.

Yes, you edit. Yes, you consider your words carefully. And yes, that involves an element of “does this communicate my message accurately to my intended audience?”

And yes, that involves removing any unnecessary offence where it would distract or detract.

But the stifling sanctimony of “you can’t say that!” needs to be completely and constantly rejected.

Yes, I can say that.

Yes, I will say that.

And if you don’t like that then you can stick that in your pipe and smoke it. There’s an unsubscribe button on all these emails for a reason.

Either get a grip or get lost.

That’s the attitude that you have to have if you’re going to make it anywhere as a writer, because if you don’t have colour in your writing, if you aren’t willing to experiment and go out on a limb, you’ll never stand out in a sea of same-old boring content.

But how do you tell when you’re acting out of fear of the furiously fuming Bantersnatch? Or just exercising your right as a writer to hone your message more effectively?

Well, let me flip a piece of guru advice on its head.

One of the good bits of advice in guru-land is to ask “why” of every sentence in your finished piece.

Why is this here? Why this analogy? Why that paragraph? Why that point? Why these rhetorical questions?

Because if you can’t say why it’s there, you ought to delete it.

(I think that’s a piece of advice in guru-land, but maybe I just made it up. It sounds too… sensible.)

But to fend off the furious bantersnatch…

…we need to ask the opposite question!

For every sentence you want to delete, ask yourself “why?”

Why are you deleting that?

Is is because you think it’s going to obfuscate your point? Or is it because you fear someone attacking your phrasing?

Is it because it’s genuinely morally wrong? Or because some sensitive Susan is tut-tutting on your shoulder?

Are you protecting your reader from missing the point or attempting to appease the many-tentacled Karen?

Sit down with it for a minute. Deep down, you’ll know.

I seriously considered taking out the Crank 2 reference, but then I realised that I found that line funny even if I “shouldn’t” according to some bores. So I left it in. I also left in the non-PC language because to be honest if you’re offended by the word retarded then I can’t help you anyway.

But every time you compromise, you train your writing to be weak and flabby.

Every time you say screw it, imma say what I want to in plain language and the easily offended can go read the boringly bland instead, you get sharper.

And you start to stand out.

One day we’ll come back to this topic, but meanwhile, may your pipe and prose offend the furious bantersnatch freely,

James Carran, Craftsman Writer

fin

But not quite fin for the fine folks in Craftsman’s Corner who keep the lights on around here.

For them, an underrated persuasion lesson from the conversation that inspired this whole newsletter. Due to the nature of the material though, this one won’t be available on the web version so it’s only for those who are sensible enough to be subscribed when this email goes out.

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