Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

Fantasy writer Larry Correia offers some advice to other writers in a recent Facebook post —

Here is a quick object lesson for writers about why you should never ever give a crap what perpetually offended social justice reviewers say about your stuff.

Back in 2011, Mike Kupari and I released a novel called Dead Six. It’s a great book. A thriller with two competing narrators, trying to kill each other.

Well, one of the main bad guys in D6 is this mysterious crime figure known only as Big Eddie. This dude is so dangerous, and involved in so much organized crime, that at the beginning my main character things Big Eddie is just a term for a cabal of powerful string pullers. Eddie is just that connected and terrifying.

Only later on, we actually meet Big Eddie. And it turns out that his public persona is as a spoiled rich guy, heir to a big family fortune, and I based him on Carson from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Only deeply disturbed, incredibly violent, and a criminal genius mastermind.

He’s also gay. (in actuality, Eddie’s sexual orientation is Hurt People) but his hams it up in his public persona, as it helps hide his truly dangerous nature.

One of my favorite villains I ever created, really popular among readers, and he’s so over the top that when Bronson Pinchot narrated the audiobook, he told me it was one of the funnest roles he’d ever taken (keeping in mind, he was Serge in Beverly Hills Cop and stole the show from Eddie Murphy when he was at the top of his game). And it got nominated for the Audie for Best Thriller.

But angry Social Justice reviewers screamed at me anyway. Having a crazy bad guy be gay was deeply offensive. Homophobic. Triggered. Hatemongery. You know, all the usual stuff. HOW DARE YOU HAVE AN EVIL PSYCHO BE GAY! REEEEE!

So fast forward to this week, and there’s a petition floating around to force DC to make the Joker gay …

Yes … The Joker. So if they don’t make this charismatic psychotic criminal mastermind gay … Then they’re homophobic.

But when I wrote a charismatic psychotic criminal mastermind as gay, I was homophobic.

Basically, no matter what you do, they’re going to be pissed off. You will never ever make these people happy for long. If you comply with their demands, that’s just showing weakness, and the first time you cross one of their invisible lines, they’ll just start screaming at you again. So remember, just write whatever you want, and the critics can go back to eating Tide Pods.

I’ve experienced this sort of shrieking directed at myself in the libertarian movement, both inside the Libertarian Party and outside of it, as well.

I’ve witnessed this sort of hysteria levelled at others.

When people harangue me with this sort of nonsense, I find it difficult to stay pissed off at them. They’re mostly annoyances in the long run.

As Larry tells writers, don’t worry about your detractors. Any attempt on your part to appease them will fail in the long run — they’ll simply find another reason to stick knives in your back.

When they tell you "YOU CAN’T SAY THAT!" about something you’ve said verbally or written, reply with "What do you mean, I can’t say that? I just did say it."

When they tell you what sort of rhetorical style to use, respond with "Don’t tell me how to do this — SHOW ME."

In earlier days (1997-2011), I was producing and hosting a public-access TV show here in Albuquerque titled The Weekly Sedition. Someone told me you can’t be like that on the air. I replied to that with “Anyone who doesn’t like how we run the show is free to sign up at Channel 27, put their own show on, and show us how it’s done.” I then provided the station’s phone number and physical address, so he would have less of an excuse for non-performance. My detractor backed off almost immediately, saying that he “didn’t intend to offend anyone.”

Ghods, I LOVED doing that show every week.

In short, don’t do a thing to appease the Socialist Just-Us Whiners, because you’ll never appease them for long, and you’ll end up tossing your own soul into the trash bin in the process.

It. Just. Is. Not. Worth. It.

Just do it YOUR WAY, and have fun in the process.

Copyright © 2018 Mike Blessing. All rights reserved.