Writerly Ways
Mar. 25th, 2012 03:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cornerofmadnessI’ve been thinking a lot about The Hunger Games. Honestly, I wasn’t all that impressed with the book. It’s pretty much Battle Royale and The Running Man with a cute girl lead. However, the one thing that makes me cheer it on is that it IS a girl lead. Another moment of honesty, I don’t get that worked up if there are mostly male characters in a story. I DO get upset if the girl is only there to weep, wail and get captured every moment.
When it comes down to it, I’d rather the tweens get excited by a strong girl like Katniss than Bella. But it did get me thinking about my own writing. I’m more comfortable writing men. I do not know why. I just am. Even when I start out writing a female lead eventually a male lead crops up and takes over. The closest I’ve come is Splinters of Silver and Cold Iron with Tazia Dragonetti and Machiavelli Moon with Maddelena (who is an older female well at least in vampire years).
I think some of my unhappiness with the female lead stems from childhood where we often didn’t see any or the ones we did see were rather bitchy. I’ve always found C.J. Cherryh’s females to be more bitch than strong though the Nebulas and Hugos she’s been lauded with don’t seem to mind.
The other day two challenges came to mind, one fannish and one original. Granted, it would be a hard challenge to do so I will put it out there more as a request, I’d love to see some of my friends try doing a strong female lead (YA or otherwise). If you’re doing it, I’d be interested in seeing the result.
Also I thought this might be of interest. I got it from my author’s list. It discusses when and how to use social media to promote your latest work. When to use social media to promote your work
Total word count –
22511 / 75000 words. 30% done!
Kept Tear –
13420 / 17000 words. 79% done! (yes I shifted the word count up)
Geeklove – currently abandoned because of deadline issues and work. I’ll come back to it later sadly
Machiavelli Moon – unedited
Splinters & Until the Ice Breaks – ditto
Riding with Strangers – got a scene done. Imagine that!
All my help this charity stories are in limbo STILL. I am SO sorry.
When it comes down to it, I’d rather the tweens get excited by a strong girl like Katniss than Bella. But it did get me thinking about my own writing. I’m more comfortable writing men. I do not know why. I just am. Even when I start out writing a female lead eventually a male lead crops up and takes over. The closest I’ve come is Splinters of Silver and Cold Iron with Tazia Dragonetti and Machiavelli Moon with Maddelena (who is an older female well at least in vampire years).
I think some of my unhappiness with the female lead stems from childhood where we often didn’t see any or the ones we did see were rather bitchy. I’ve always found C.J. Cherryh’s females to be more bitch than strong though the Nebulas and Hugos she’s been lauded with don’t seem to mind.
The other day two challenges came to mind, one fannish and one original. Granted, it would be a hard challenge to do so I will put it out there more as a request, I’d love to see some of my friends try doing a strong female lead (YA or otherwise). If you’re doing it, I’d be interested in seeing the result.
Also I thought this might be of interest. I got it from my author’s list. It discusses when and how to use social media to promote your latest work. When to use social media to promote your work
Total word count –
Kept Tear –
Geeklove – currently abandoned because of deadline issues and work. I’ll come back to it later sadly
Machiavelli Moon – unedited
Splinters & Until the Ice Breaks – ditto
Riding with Strangers – got a scene done. Imagine that!
All my help this charity stories are in limbo STILL. I am SO sorry.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 07:43 pm (UTC)I agree Battle Royale is better literature but Hunger Games was a fun.
I have to pause here because some teen girl is getting embarassed as hell after her mom convinced the rest of those waiting here to sing Happy Birthday.
Ok... I look at Katniss as being the anti-Bella. She has no real interest in romance and just concerned with survival. Obviously its a product of her life to that point but I agree it was nice to see a strong young female character taking such a proactive role.
As for works I read I've never been bothered by reading books with female protagonists. Young Wizards come to mine and Muriel of Redwall.
As for writing I'm fine writing either.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 07:49 pm (UTC)And I agree that Katniss is definitely the anti-Bella and thank god for it. I had problems with the world building in it (and the physiology but the average reader isn't going to know that)
I STILL need to read Young Wizards
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Date: 2012-03-25 07:58 pm (UTC)Oh... yes you should read YW. If you like female protagonists you'll like Nita.
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Date: 2012-03-25 08:25 pm (UTC)I need to make myself a note for YW
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Date: 2012-03-26 02:57 am (UTC)Bella, from Twilight i see as one of the worst characters in my opinion, she just doesn't have anything going for her, seeing you describe Katniss as being anti-Bella makes me a little excited about actually reading/seeing this.
And i always use Buffy Summers as the benchmark. LOL
As for writing, it's not a matter of gender for me, it's a matter of the actual characteristics. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 05:02 pm (UTC)I don't remember as a kid noticing that the girl/woman characters were any less prevalent or poorly presented relative to the male characters, but I am pretty sure I self-screened for that without even noticing. I'd just get bored of those stories and stop reading them without absorbing why.
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Date: 2012-03-26 05:42 pm (UTC)There weren't that many when we were young and now I hear people complaining about fantasy getting too 'girlie.' now THAT irritates me
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Date: 2012-03-26 05:48 pm (UTC)That frustrates the hell out me, not knowing many female writers who are naturally drawn to female characters.
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Date: 2012-03-27 08:36 pm (UTC)I would hope they would just see it as a cool sci-fi/urban fantasy story and not pre-judge what the content is upfront and pass it over for that reason.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-27 08:41 pm (UTC)On the other hand, you're not going to get every reader, and with the female reading audience being a pretty significant one, what's the value in sweating the audience you might be losing to 'girl cooties'?
That's not a rhetorical question; I think 'how much ground do we give to other people's prejudices'/ how much do we let it compromise our work is a legitimate issue!
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Date: 2012-03-26 07:04 pm (UTC)And it remains with me today. I like writing strong women and I do so consciously. 90% of my stories have female leads and I like that. I do occasionally write male POVs but only if the character is interesting or needs to be male. I have one short story on submission with a male doctor lead and a failed MG with a boy protag (who I liked a lot).
AND OMG! I should asked you to beta my short with the doctor! I'm sure I got piles wrong! And he didn't have as much as personality as I wanted...
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Date: 2012-03-27 03:18 am (UTC)It's very coo l that you're writing female heavy stories and yes you could have done that with that story
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Date: 2012-03-26 08:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-27 02:58 am (UTC)At one time, I wrote more females for both original and fanfic. In the 80's - mid -90's I wrote mostly female characters. Then in the 90's, I started my residency and medical practice. I think this is about when I started switching my focus. Maybe it was because I was in a more traditional male job and most of my coworkers were men. I don't know
But now I do tend to write males slightly more in fanfic (and definitely more in original). I'm still drawn to the strong female. I did love Buffy and Willow but I found Spike (and Dru) and Giles easier to write. I didn't really like that many of the women in Angel other than Kate and Lilah but I did find Angel, Wes and Connor easier to write (Gunn and Lorne less so)
I love Riza, Olivia Ran Fan and Winry, all strong women but I do end up writing about them not alone and almost always with their male compatriot. I find Roy easier to write than Riza.
Some of my fandoms barely even have women in them (Saiyuki, Dogs: Bullets & Carnage, Black Butler)
So I guess the answer is no, both fanfic and original have a male bias and that's regardless of if I'm doing shippy stuff or general. I'm trying to remember a general story that I've written from a female pov. I know I DO have them but they aren't coming to mind.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-27 03:56 am (UTC)I am interested in this idea about 'strong women'. I see that term a lot without understanding exactly what people mean by it (and I think people use it to mean different things.) It seems like you are most interested in writing about women who you classify as 'strong.' Do you also prefer the men you write about to be strong? Is it strength that you have a bias toward, or is the point to avoid a particular type of female behavior, and "strong" means "not that kind of behavior"?
Could any of the male protagonists you've written by changed to be women or would it fundamentally alter them? It's interesting that we're talking about this in relation to FMA, because I've had several conversations about how Edward Elric could have been 'Emily Elric' and the story wouldn't fundamentally change at all. Do you agree with that, or is there something I'm missing that says Ed *needs* to be a boy?
Is that question making any sense?
no subject
Date: 2012-03-27 04:15 am (UTC)And I am wondering why I'm more drawn to the male characters not being male myself.
For me strong means capable, intelligent, independent. As opposed to serving little purpose in the story other than to be the love interest who gets captured every five minutes because she's made a stupid move. The typical princess who'd be nothing without her prince charming.
Often times my men aren't that strong. They are often damaged physically or mentally (but that's a whole other topic) but even with that, they have strength of character.
Sometime I see women either written as clingy and helpless (romance genre used to be very good for this but I understand that's changing) or snappish and bitchy and that was considered 'strong' That doesn't fit my definition.
Honestly, no, I don't think I could interchange the sex of any of my characters, or at least I hope not. I do think men and women think about things differently. Our brains aren't even wired the same and cultural expectations are often very different, obviously.
That is interesting. I guess in theory Ed could have been female. There is nothing really that demands him being male but to me his world view and attitudes are more distinctly male. I couldn't imagine him as female (though I know that doesn't stop fanfic authors, I see Girl!Ed stories all over. I haven't really ever read them)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-27 04:26 am (UTC)If it's a conscious choice to write about a man, why that choice? If it's a default that you go to, are there tweaks you can make to change up those defaults?
Or do you think that to write more about women, you'd need to write about a fundamentally different type of character than you've written?
no subject
Date: 2012-03-27 03:55 pm (UTC)I don't really plot out stories the way you're suggesting. I know people who outline everything before they begin but I'm more on Stephen King's track of 'letting it spin.' I'm character driven. I almost always know the characters first then craft the story around them so I take them as my mind comes up with them. I can only remember once in recent times have I thought this character would work better as this sex and only because it fit an open call to an anthology (I could see the story working either way so i went with what was paying)
So I guess it's almost a subconscious choice most of the time. I think about the characters and my brain picks which to write about. I almost always have female and male characters in equal measures (barring the m/m erotica of course). They start out on equal footing but somewhere along the road I almost always hear the male voices stronger.
I think I need to identify why that shift in focus occurs rather than it being a fundamental difference in the type of c haracter.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-27 05:04 pm (UTC)It seems like you have a higher (or at least different) standard of behavior for women than for men. You want the female characters to be strong, however you define strength, and if they aren't strong you find them less interesting. Also, if their 'strong' behavior manifests in unpleasant ways, you find that a turnoff.
If the above is true, which your meta suggests, you may be restricting your female characters' freedom to act. They don't have as much of a range to make choices -- to try things and fail -- as the men do, because in your head they don't just stand for themselves as individuals but for 'women.' Therefore, writing those characters feels more restrictive, therefore you have more creative freedom with the men.
Using Riza as an example, since she's come up a few times and since I've spent the last six months writing and thinking about her -- she often gets name-checked as a 'strong' character, but IMHO some of her most interesting moments are ones where she comes across as submissive, or when she literally bursts into tears and loses her shit during a firefight. I don't think either of these things keeps her from qualifying as a strong character, or a strong person, but if they were just on an abstract checklist of character traits, I think most writers would hesitate to assign them to a 'strong' character. And since I don't see a lot of fic or meta focusing on these aspects of her, I'm not sure if people who think she's a strong character just think these are embarrassing incidents to ignore and file away and pretend didn't happen, or if they are uncomfortable exploring these aspects of her because they don't fit the 'strong character' mode.
The thought process in the above paragraph has a lot to do with why I wrote the Big Bang stories that I did, but even then I was constantly terrified that I was writing her as too unlikeable -- and honestly, if I didn't perceive the character as being extremely popular (if under-examined) in the fandom, I don't think I could have brought myself to write and post it.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-27 07:47 pm (UTC)I think that Riza losing her shit was perhaps some of her most human moments and I agree do not make her less strong. I find it made her more believable. I think if she were more icy like Olivia I would find it less believable (or at least more sociopathetic)
thanks. this has been a really interesting discussion
no subject
Date: 2012-03-27 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-28 01:40 am (UTC)