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Well, this advice bothers me...
Jan. 22nd, 2012 04:49 pmI'm reading a book called How NOT to Write a Novel. It's about avoiding some mistakes when writing/attempting to publish a novel. A bit of advice bothers me.
It's talking about unintended love interest in a story and how to avoid it. A subset of the "unintended love interest" is something they call "Alice in Lapland" and what they say about it is this:
Any undue interest in or physical contact with children will set off alarms. If you do not want your reader to think he is reading about a pedophile, dandling of children on knees should be kept to a minimum by fathers, and even more so by uncles. If your character is in any way associated with organized religion, whether he is a bishop, a minister, or the kindly old church caretaker with a twinkle in his eye, he should not even pull a child from a burning building.
Now, I understand that most of this book is tongue in cheek, but this bothers me. Have we become so reactionary that an affectionate, or truly caring, person cannot follow their instincts/natural inclinations without being suspected of something untoward?
Thoughts?
It's talking about unintended love interest in a story and how to avoid it. A subset of the "unintended love interest" is something they call "Alice in Lapland" and what they say about it is this:
Any undue interest in or physical contact with children will set off alarms. If you do not want your reader to think he is reading about a pedophile, dandling of children on knees should be kept to a minimum by fathers, and even more so by uncles. If your character is in any way associated with organized religion, whether he is a bishop, a minister, or the kindly old church caretaker with a twinkle in his eye, he should not even pull a child from a burning building.
Now, I understand that most of this book is tongue in cheek, but this bothers me. Have we become so reactionary that an affectionate, or truly caring, person cannot follow their instincts/natural inclinations without being suspected of something untoward?
Thoughts?
