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: 2012-03-27 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)