The Sto Po: A Hypothetical Rant Against the Knee Jerk Content Constabulary

By Marjie Alonso

Recently I posted to a Facebook group for fellow writers:

Would anyone be willing to be a beta reader and review the first draft of my book about my trip through White Sands National Park, New Mexico, when I was abducted by aliens?

Everyone in the group where I posted this request is a writer. As writers, we all need readers for first drafts. We’re all citizens of the same literary community. I have read people’s drafts in this way, and, while this was the first time I’d asked for readers, I was expecting a few helpful volunteers.

People I didn’t know responded, but not the way I was expecting.

Arizona Alice: I’m not sure if you know this, but many New Mexicans think this is better not written about.

GALaxy: I can’t believe someone referring to the differently-planeted as “aliens” is considering writing about this. The first thing you should ask for is sensitivity readers.

SolsticeSue: There are a lot of differently-planeted beings who think only differently-planeted beings should write about this topic.

Sensei-tivity: I’ve included a link to the Facebook group “People Abducted by Aliens While Traveling Through White Sands National Park in New Mexico.” I suggest you join and go listen to people there for a few months before writing so you can understand this phenomenon.

AreaFiftyOneFrank: You need to spend time listening to abductees.

I spent years working in animal behavior, so I understand the Premack Principle. It states that if high-probability, more desirable behaviors are made contingent upon lower-probability, less desirable behaviors, then the lower-probability behaviors are more likely to occur.

I sat in front of my keyboard and read each comment.

Instead of responding, I ate an M&M.

Is there anyone, I wondered, who listens less than people who tell people to listen?

Then I questioned if I was being unfair. You can’t listen if you don’t ask any questions.

But did they need to know my background and connection to the subject at hand to either ignore my post, or offer to be a reader?

Perhaps some. It would be annoying to spend time reading the words of an uninformed hack.

They’d have learned about my level of understanding and more if they’d reviewed my work, though given how they were responding, what would they have been reading it for, exactly? To find fault? To question my right to write it? To challenge my point of view?

Yes, questions of authority and point of view are valid when reading someone’s manuscript. As fellow writers, we need to help each other to stretch our perceptions and understandings. Writer-readers can help us with our perspective in a way that “civilian readers” may not, and that’s valuable.

But that’s different from story policing.

I texted a friend.

Me: I just didn’t use the C word.

Friend: OMG. Censurer?

Me: Yup. Also control freak, criticaster, and carper. And self-centerer. And cacophonous virtue signaler.

Friend: Jesus. How many M&Ms do you have left?

As writers (and readers) we’re often exposed to subjects and conversations we find controversial, and about which we have strong opinions and feelings: heritage, religion, sexual abuse, loss, death, love, and family.

Taylor Swift. Alien Abduction. Stuff like that.

We’re usually exposed to those topics by people with strong ties to the subject looking for feedback and creative betterment. They’re being brave when they ask. It takes guts for a person to put themself out there and absorb the opinions of friends and strangers whose observations and convictions might well differ from their own. 

These people are not usually asking for brainless praise or vapid encouragement, and we tend not to give it. But on the other side of the empty cheerleading coin lies didactic pontificating.

Imagine asking for review of an important piece you’d just written, and the response is people arguing your right to write it.

Other people’s mothers were kind, so how dare you write about an abusive mother! It dishonors all the kind mothers doing their best.

I don’t see color — why are you writing about racism in America? Don’t you think it destroys us to keep pointing out only our flaws?

When you write about addiction you shame people simply enjoying wine at dinner, along with my Italian heritage as a vintner.

The sorts of responses I’ve invented for the hypothetical beta reader query above aren’t from people responding as fellow writers—and aren’t helpful. They ask no questions, assume someone writing an entire book about a subject lacks fundamental understanding about it, and offer advice without review.

They are responding as the Knee Jerk Content Constabulary

They are the Story Police (or Sto Po as I like to call them), pulling writers over, profiling them for writing about a sensitive topic without a license awarded by a registry of strangers.

“You need to listen.”

Perhaps what we all need to do is read before we criticize, do some listening ourselves before we demand it of others, and ask questions before we prescribe remedies.

May I suggest a large bag of M&Ms?
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Marjie Alonso is a former executive director of small international nonprofits, where she promoted evidence-based education, developed professional standards, and acted as a “civilian-to-scientist” facilitator in all things animal behavior and training. Recently retired, she now writes full-time, which means spending her days telling the stories she loves to tell. Find more of Marjie on her Substack, Pieces of String Too Small to Use.