The reason most indie novels are written like the author is terrified of doing something wrong is because the overwhelming majority of indie novelists get their start by networking in the violent panopticon of the social media indie publishing community, which favours the people who are able to win at the social policing game.
Okay so this comment got me googling because I hadn't heard of Isabel Fall
And if you also hadn't heard of her go read this because uhh... Holy Shit
I had heard of the whole messed up situation with this story, but I hadn't ever read the synopsis of the story before, and WOW
This story sounds like it could have been a brilliant exploration of gender and warfare and violence but instead it was attacked by people who didn't know how to confront a story that made them uncomfortable, and the author faced horrible consequences.
It's so important to be able to deal with stories that give you uncomfortable feelings in other ways than just attacking it. Being shown new perspectives sometimes has feelings of discomfort because it's an unfamiliar way of seeing the world.
You can read it Here
I’m sorry, but that is the opposite reaction you should be having. this is a story about how mob-behaviour and ostracization destroyed a trans woman’s career and sent her back into closet. the takeaway cannot be “well, we just need to mob and ostracize the correct people, then.”
During the Isabel Fall incident, I was active on Twitter and in the professional circles of scifi/fantasy writers. I watched it happen in real time as it grew from a few people going "As a trans person, I don't know what to think about this" alllllllllllll the way along the shitty, SHITTY fucking game of social media telephone to non-trans allies saying "trans people are uncomfortable with this story!!! so it's bad!!!" to "there's no way that the author could be trans, because SURELY no trans person would write a story like this" to "actually the author is CLEARLY a transphobic troll and the story should be taken down and the publisher should apologize." I truly cannot fucking remember whether I took part in the witch-hunt -- I do remember I was at my day job during the worst of it, so I hadn't read the story and therefore didn't have A Hot Take of my own and was confused about how quickly everything exploded out of nowhere... But I might well have retweeted things other people said -- people I trusted to have thoughtful commentary on queer topics, people who I knew believed passionately in social justice and had good intentions. I don't remember if I did. But I know that I might have. I know that in other situations, I have absolutely signal boosted commentary from people when I trusted them to know more about the topic than I did.
I am not saying all this to excuse my friends and colleagues by saying "Oh, they had good intentions, they didn't mean it." I'm telling you that because I want everyone reading this to feel deeply somber about the idea of what YOU could do when you truly, genuinely think you're acting with good intentions. I want you to see what could happen when YOU run your mouth unthinkingly on social media and lean into collective hysteria instead of practicing prudence and thinking for yourself. They had good intentions, and they ruined someone's life anyway.
No one person ended Isabel Fall's career. No one came at her with a knife to personally, individually stab her in the back. But hundreds and thousands of people threw just one little pebble and thought NOTHING of it, because it was just one little pebble, right? Except it contributed to ten thousand other pebbles. It was part of the five tons of pebbles all crashing down on Isabel's head at once.
Out of the authors I personally know who were involved with the debacle, all of them felt absolutely crushed with shame and regret when they learned the truth afterwards. I have spoken in person to people who, during the debacle, were calling for Fall's story to be taken down because it was "transphobic", and who later realized that they were the ones doing violence for absolutely no fucking reason at all except collective hysteria and getting caught up in the mob, and who even to this day are embarrassed and regretful of what they did and who wish deeply that they could take it back and sincerely apologize to her. They can't. It's too fucking late. And that's a tragedy all of its own. The people I've talked to know that. They mourn that.
The community that killed Isabel Fall's career was not a community of "bad people" or evil monsters or secretly-awful bigots. It was a community of people who cared deeply and had good intentions who nevertheless ended up doing a really really REALLY BAD THING. Being a good person doesn't prevent you from hurting others. Having good intentions doesn't prevent you from hurting others. "uwu listening and learning from my trans siblings <333" doesn't prevent you from hurting others. And no matter how famous and talented an author is, they are still a human being who is just as capable of making a horrible fucking mistake and hurting someone as you are.
Don't put people on a pedestal -- either as some kind of writing god or as a witch to burn at the stake. They are people. And Isabel Fall is a person. Be so fucking careful of what you say and who you say it to or where on the internet you say it, and if there's a loud bit of confusing drama happening and you aren't absolutely fucking sure that objective, real-life LITERAL MATERIAL HARM has been done to someone, consider shutting the fuck up and staying out of it instead of amplifying it. Consider watching from the sidelines and waiting a week or so for the dust to die down before you have a take, if you really feel like you must have a take. Consider using intellectual judgment instead of acting reflexively from your gut-reaction feelings. Consider discussing it with a friend in private instead of publicly airing your grievances.
And treat others the way you'd want to be treated. How would you feel, if you were in Fall's position? How would you want people to deal with your work if it upset them or if they disagreed with it? Would you want to be publicly stoned to career-death, or would you want people to discuss it calmly and with restraint, and for the ones who didn't like it to go, "I think it's not for me, actually," and for the ones who didn't understand it to say, "I think I need to sit with this for a while."? How would you want people to act, if it was you? Great, now act that way yourself.
Extending mercy and grace and basic fucking courtesy is HARD, and it doesn't always feel good -- frequently it feels frustrating and unsatisfying and bitter. Deal with it. Deal with it.
