Forum: Author Hangout

And I will say that a large number of stories appear here without that tag that would warrant it be included when not.

And I will say that not all of the tags have been there since the beginning of SOL, so it's possible that stories about politics which are not tagged as such predate the existence of the politics tag.

The oldest stores on the site date to 1999, but the oldest story tagged as "Politics" is dated 2005.

Makes sense.

And I will say that a large number of stories appear here without that tag that would warrant it be included when not.

Although I'd oft accused of including politics in my works, due to the characters I include (their opinions, not necessarily mine) but also my general liberal bent (showing minorities struggling while rich politicians and political groups stack the deck against them), but I've NEVER used the politics tag (since the stories aren't inherently political, the politics are entirely character driven).

A case in point is my Singularity story, where the political opposition (Republican) is opposed to NASA's latest technology investments (since they diverted funds from the usual military suppliers like Boeing), personally attacking the returning astronauts on political grounds. (Stated in those terms, maybe I should, though again, that only covers a couple specific scenes, spearheaded by specific characters, rather than the entire books.)

maybe I should

Yeah. Otherwise, those who believe you're attacking their politics will be quite irate. Because, well, you are basically attacking a political party portraying them in such a way. Likewise, if you accurately portrayed politicians on the left, that would also be attacking...

but I've NEVER used the politics tag (since the stories aren't inherently political, the politics are entirely character driven).

Which is my point. It's a significant part of the story, especially as you're aware (or should be) just what a red flag those views are to the more conservative reader who may not exactly agree with those politics. Sort of like including the M/M tag in stories that contain such activity so as to warn off the readers who find homosexuality abhorrent. Generally, proper tags coupled with a good description go a long way towards warning off readers from stories that won't appeal to them.

Since you know such readers exist, might not it be a proper thing to do out of respect if for no other reason?

For the third, the game of power is the Game of Thrones. That very much was politics. In all four of my novels on here, I've included it as a sub-tag, because while political intrigue isn't the primary that's going on, I'd rather have it as a tag included, instead of someone complaining that I didn't have it. Especially when you have someone become ruler of a province, an Empire, or the world.

I'll admit, the book which I got the most flak for was one where I had a purposefully stereotypically character, Clara, make several outrageous claims, but that was character driven, as she was the type who listens to FOX news (long before Trump), which attacked the protagonist based on spurious religious reasons rather than political ones. So, I'd suggest that if you include any reference to either Fox or MSNBC, that you automatically label is as Political.

Unfortunately, that's unlikely to stop the hate mail or 1-bombing, but I've long noted that some of my most dedicated readers (those who read each chapter within a few days of it's posting) are 1-bombers.