writing in context when the context is the British Empire

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So, I have this North and South fic. This is, of course, Victorian England. In my story, there's a character with a serious case of Orientalism. While this element is not absolutely essential to the narrative, I feel that it connects to important things about industrialization, capitalism, and class that I would like to address. Industrialization, capitalism, and class are probably not essential elements either, as it is in essence a romance, but imo the best romances deal with the ideals and worlds of the participants.

The issue I'm running into is how to deal with this character without being offensive. Due to the setting of the narrative, and the people involved, I do not feel that I can say within the narrative, "Look, while this characters' opinions are interesting and innocent in her context as an individual, it is precisely this attitude of fascination and ignorance that can be a major factor in imperialism, colonization, exploitation, and a whole host of other problems." My goal is instead to make the reader feel as though there is awareness in the text of the historical context of this character's opinions.

I talked to stultiloquentia about this back when I was first writing it. She had some great advice (allow another character to comment on her fetishism, without being didactic, which I did), and also, "get a good beta". I also talked to my_daroga, who suggested making separate discussion posts concurrent with the fic, to talk about my intentions and problems, and allow people to air concerns and state opinions. I love this idea and am totally running with it when I start posting the story.

Here's where the request for help comes in. I had a beta for this fic, by name of kleindog from c-19. I don't know if she is on any of the journaling sites. If so--hi! I stopped writing the story, so stopped sending her chapters. She was doing a very nice job, but I realize what I want specifically for this fic is someone who feels in tune with this issue. There isn't always a way to please everyone, or be non-offensive to everyone. But I really feel like it would be nice to bounce some of this stuff off someone.

The ideal person would be familiar with N&S, period language, the historical context, how not to be offensive, Brit-picking, SPAG, being horribly ruthless to get rid of all my redundancies and awkward language, and would be willing. But I will settle for someone who is comfortable with addressing historical context and not being offensive, even if they don't know the canon, as long as they are willing.

If you don't match that description . . . do you know where I can go to ask for such a beta? N&S is a small fandom, which makes this particularly hard, but again, I'm not even concerned with someone knowing canon, although it might be difficult for someone to be interested in the story if they're not familiar with said canon.

Comments

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heeeeeeeeeee have you seen Rose of Versailles? It's a Japanese anime where Marie Antoinette's Captain of the Guard is a girl who had been raised as a boy. It is so sparkly and amusing and very wrong in some ways, but very interesting vis-a-vis gender roles. SOunds like an awesome fic!

My plan was to start posting in March, and to post a chapter a week. Chapters are shaping out to be between 6K and 11K. Like I said, I have 70K written, which I could give to you now. That's a lot to do before March (presumably when your classes start), but if I did send it to you now, it would give you a big jump-start, so that you would not necessarily have to do a chapter a week once March did hit.

I have this schedule for posting because if I don't make a plan, I probably won't finish. But I instated this plan for my last WIP and it worked rather nicely. I would be fine with posting every week and a half, or skipping some weeks, or whatever would make it easier on you. What I don't want to do it make it stretch out forever, because that would really weaken my resolve to finish it. I wrote these 70,000 words in such a fervor, and then I got stuck. I'm still kind of stuck, but I can force myself to come to some kind of ending. I just need incentive, and for me, knowing that people are reading is incentive.

Does this timeframe work out? If it doesn't, it's really no problem. If it does and you want to do it: YAY!

[hl]

I think it does work for me! :D

(I did hear about Rose of Versailles! But the ending is sad, so I've not attempted to see it yet.)

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Oh, I'm not finished with it! The thing is, I'm not fond of Marie Antoinette in this, so knowing her end is not that problematic. But I would be very sad if things did not turn out for Oscar (Capt of the Guard lady)!

Great! Thank you so much. How should I do this? Do you want me to email, which address, file format? I can't tell you how grateful I am. If you have the time and inclination, all the other stuff could stand a beta--I tend to be very redundant and explainy, and need people to tell me I can cut stuff out--but again, the main thing I'm looking for is the offensiveness of it, which only really comes to the fore at certain times. I'm really really happy you can take a look at it!

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I do tend to look at everything, so it's not more work to make a note when I strike something. Do you want me to ignore spag issues? Granted, I'm ESL, but I do beta spag in English, and I'm better at catching other people's mistakes than my own (what does that say about me, idk).

Mail: hele.br@gmail.com. Do send me the file(s) -- the shorter the better (I prefer dealing chapter by chapter, but if you would prefer to send the whole initial chunk, it wouldn't bother me); I use Open Office in Ubuntu, and I usually leave comments and use its track changes feature. I can also steal my mother's or my sister's PC and use Word if you can't detect OO's, since I do like the comments and track changes in general. Makes betaing so much easier.

Also, any instructions you want me to follow, tell me in the e-mail? Like, if you want me to be extra careful about tone or not (I've betaed people who need it, and I've betaed people who hate it when I do, so...), or do spag checking, or, 'in chapter X, look out about Y'. Just, whatever!

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You rock so hard. And I have observed your English to be excellent. I would love for you to do SPAG as well.

I'll send you chapter by chapter; track changes and comments is fine, and I think I'll be able to detect them because another beta did something for me in OO and it was fine.

I really don't know how to thank you!