Well, this advice bothers me...

[dragonjournal]

I'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?

Comments

[jehanne1431]

The fact that they file what they believe would be interpreted as child sexual abuse under "unintended love interest" disturbs me far more than their advice concerning it (which is stupid in its own right).

[kay_brooke]

This. It's hard for me to get past that to the stupidity that follows.

[aearonlinn.insanejournal.com]

This and this. Seriously. Wtf.

[komikbookgeek]

...I can't even put into words how much that bothers me. And I can usually put words to something!

I look at how I play and write Mags - not just a man but a bisexual one, sexually active, and "old" and one who doesn't hesitate to cuddle a child if that's what the child needs and I just don't get it.