I’ve managed to acquire some secret documentation!
Minutes For the Second Meeting Of the Forbidden Words List of the Christian Booksellers Association (the CBA)
OVERVIEW:
Project Name: Forbidden Words List
Meeting Date: January 19th, 2008
Subject: validation of intent plus call for additions to prior list
FIRST POINT: Reviewing our mission statement. Statement amended to:
-
We God’s chosen publishers, in order to portray a more accurate vision of the world to the people who pay us fifteen bucks apiece for books, have gathered together in a spirit of shepherding our weaker brothers. Our customers consider our authors trusted friends whom they have invited into their homes. In order to prevent boycotts or the return of unsold product due to questionable language, it is necessary to codify a list of words which are so shameful that there is no way they can ever be acceptable in any CBA title.
SECOND POINT: Determining additional words for our forbidden list.
Publishing CEO: We need to avoid that word.
CEO’s Attorney: Which word?
CEO: You know…
Attorney: No, I don’t.
An Actual Editor: What does it mean?
CEO: {turns bright pink up to his ears}
Editorial Assistant: Oh! That word.
CEO’s Attorney: That word should definitely go on the list.
CEO: I can’t even stand to type it.
Actual Editor: I still don’t know what word we’re talking about.
CEO: It begins with an E.
Editorial Assistant: The one I was thinking of begins with an I.
Attorney: I’ve taken the liberty of jotting down the two most egregious words.
Actual Editor: Do you really think you should have written them on a pad
that has ‘Things To Do Today’ imprinted across the top?
Attorney: {gasp!} Dear me!
CEO: Hey, watch your mouth!
Legal Secretary: Before we get too far afield, let me read back the list we’ve compiled so far.
General Outcry: NO!!!!!!
[There was a fifteen minute break while the CEO was revived with smelling salts and two editorial assistants treated for trauma-induced deafness.]
THIRD POINT: The current list of forbidden words:
{censored}
{censored}
{censored}
{censored}
{censored}
{censored} even if used in prayer
{censored}
{censored}
{censored}
{censored} because it rhymes with {censored}
{censored}
{censored}
{censored}
{censored}
{censored}
{censored}
{censored}
ACTION ITEMS:
• Read widely to find as many objectionable things as possible (by next meeting)
• Ban said things (by next meeting)
• Provide example of sterilized fiction that thrills and excites non-Christians (pending)
Oh, this is so funny!
Oh my goodness! What a delightfully irreverent post!
From time to time this subject comes up at the Lost Genre Guild so we can relate.
Provide example of sterilized fiction that thrills and excites non-Christians (pending)
Exactly what what went through my mind while reading last week’s Publishers Weekly article about Thomas Nelson.
The authors in the Lost Genre Guild write Christian and Biblical speculative fiction that is too “edgy” for the CBA market. Whether the Christian message is overt or subtle, it shines with realism — if violence is necessary, it is shown not told; sometimes characters drink or smoke! sometimes they enter into premarital relationships . . . imagine that, Christians are real people and they sin (and seek redemption). There are Christians who want real fiction, not the watered down variety that pleases the CBA. Any crossover fiction has to meet the standards of mainstream novels where the rule is show not tell (opposite of what one ECPA member explains is the rule of thumb for their company — yes, it was written!).
Novels that are unacceptable by the CBA standards such as Frank Creed’s Flashpoint: Book One of the Underground, Sue Dent’s Never Ceese, Caprice Hokstad’s Nor Iron Bars A Cage, Karina Fabian’s Infinite Space Infinite God are good examples of edgy fiction that readers want to see. Well, except for those readers who make up the demographic the CBA markets to.
Pretty soon the CBA and ECPA are going to exclusive themselves right out of business.
Cynthia, I was at a Christian writers conference a couple years back where an editor said, flat-out, that there’s an unwritten rule in traditional CBA standard fiction that *everyone* acts as a Christian, including the villains and the atheists and so on.
Behavior-wise, the villains might (for example) rob a bank, but they wouldn’t say a Bad Word (well, nothing worse than ‘dingdangity!’) or sleep with a girlfriend/boyfriend or other things like that.
If the villains can’t get away with that, well, the protagonists are even more restricted.
When I published “The Guardian,” Thomas Nelson made me change a number of uses of the word “damned” to “condemned.” And these *were* angels that had been damned. They were demons — they were in HELL which means they were (really) damned. Yet the style manual said the term had to go, so out it went. :-b
I wish I could still participate in Lost Genre Guild. My life just got away from me. 🙁
This is the funniest thing I’ve read in days. Please tell me you are sending it over to those guys at the Wittenburg Door. Just by changing CBA to a fake Christian Publishing House (because Door readers won’t know what the CBA is), I think this ranks among your best stuff there (although maybe not the Cat Gnostic Gospel, or whatever that was. Hard to beat that one!)
Thanks, xdpaul…but bad news. The Door rejected this one. Wasn’t funny enough for them. 🙁 Really.
I love the Door. They’re an awesome market, and I highly recommend them to new funny writers because that’s how a magazine should be run.
Glad you liked the kitty gospel too, and welcome to Angeltown. 🙂
Those Doorknobs! If their funnybook wasn’t so dern funny I’d swear those guys were illiterate!
I absolutely think this one’s a gem. I’m going to cancel my subscription in protest. Spirtually, though. My flesh really can’t do without the Door.
“{censored} because it rhymes with {censored}” is your gift to humanity. I’m going to swipe and use it conversation at every opportunity.
Oops. Can I say “dern” on your blog?
Oh, that’s hilarious. But just FTR, some CBA publishers have, errr, loosened up a bit. WaterBrook, for instance, with Jeffrey Overstreet’s Auralia’s Colors series.
It’s good to see you, Jane!
Shannon, good to hear from you! Where is the traffic to this page coming from? My stats aren’t showing anything, but suddenly after 11 months this one page is going crazy.
Truly, truly laugh out loud. It is great that we can laugh at ourselves.
Thanks for starting my day. Elaine