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Bedtime Stories posted:"our hero" Yeah, don't do that, it sounds horrible. Reminds me of this turd: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3527428&perpage=40&pagenumber=102#post418079196 quote:Slowly, he raised his arm, our man, our hero man, trapped in the gullet of the Enemy and reaching out, and the guard reaches out as well, another baggy of some drat honky poison, and he lunges, our hero man, and grabs the guard by the wrist, and yanks him forward, the guard bounces off of the bars, until our hero grabs him by the head, and pulls his head through the bars until it's stuck.
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Mar 11, 2014 19:14
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Editors despise epithets for a reason. Although the goal of minimizing tedious-sounding sentences is a worthy one, there are definitely better ways to go about it.
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Mar 11, 2014 19:25
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Jagermonster posted:Yeah, don't do that, it sounds horrible. Haha...classic. One of the easiest losers in Thunderdome history.
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Mar 11, 2014 20:52
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Has anyone here had to write a character that was of a different sexual orientation than them? I have a female character that I'm pretty sure is gay. It's not that I wrote her to be gay or anything. I just feel that she is and it's not because of any specific other trait she has. I'm kind of nervous to write anything too concrete to do with her and another woman because I feel like it would come off as odd or as being some kind of wish fulfillment. Maybe I'm explaining it wrong, but if I do something even slight with two women I want to approach the subject carefully. I've never actually run into many lesbian characters in books or non-offensive gay characters.
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Mar 12, 2014 04:50
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CB_Tube_Knight posted:Has anyone here had to write a character that was of a different sexual orientation than them? I have a female character that I'm pretty sure is gay. It's not that I wrote her to be gay or anything. I just feel that she is and it's not because of any specific other trait she has. I'm kind of nervous to write anything too concrete to do with her and another woman because I feel like it would come off as odd or as being some kind of wish fulfillment. Maybe I'm explaining it wrong, but if I do something even slight with two women I want to approach the subject carefully. I've never actually run into many lesbian characters in books or non-offensive gay characters. I'm in a similar situation with my novel. I know my character is probably gay, or at least bisexual, but it's mostly implied more than anything as far as the readers are concerned. Really, she's not being written any differently than any other character. The love interest is there, it's just that her feelings are towards another woman instead of a man. Unless you're doing some in-depth sex scene or something, overthinking it will probably leave you with more problems than anything. Gay love is really no different than straight love, so unless it's a major factor towards how other characters in the book react to them due to social norms or whatever, then just write it like you would anything else.
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Mar 12, 2014 05:01
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I'm not a pro at this (I've only done a couple of gay characters), so this might not be the best advice. I've found that the trick to writing gay characters is to not think of them as gay characters at all. Unless it's a factor in the story, their orientation for me is background information, like eg their love/hate for kale. Unless you're writing some porny sex scene I wouldn't worry about it coming off as wish fulfllment. So my advice is to not approach the subject carefully; the best way to write any gay relationships is to treat them like straight ones, and I can't imagine you're particularly careful about those. There isn't any difference. edit:^^Glad to see that I'm not far off the mark
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Mar 12, 2014 05:07
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I have a very general question for anyone who does writing on a regular basis, whether you do it as an amateur or professionally. Do you ever look at your ideas, and writing, and think 'my god people will be so bored by this I can't believe I thought these ideas were good?'. I've tried changing my perspective: taking books I really enjoy and imagining myself proposing them to someone with a synopsis. I think about how I would feel if I say, proposed the Harry Potter books to someone. I always feel really awkward and stupid then too. Even though I know they were great to read the moment I step into the alternate reality where they were my ideas they just wilt and become awful. Pretty much figured out that I could have the next Hunger Games, Harry Potter or Hobbit in my head and I would still think it was terrible because I'm the one writing it. Before anyone gets the wrong impression I know I'm not a good writer yet. I am not trying to compare what I currently produce to those authors. Really just curious if anyone else gets this, or experienced it in the past, and how you developed some faith in what you were doing. (Or realized it meant you were an awful person who shouldn't be allowed near a pen and quit!) Edit: In regards to writing gay/queer characters, as a queer young lady myself I always appreciate it when it's just treated as a normal everyday thing by the characters in a story. I think unless conflict about LGBT issues is the point of the story it's a nice difference to just get to read about people being decent and normal around the characters who are 'different' in some way. It's actually a bit tedious to see negative encounters wedged into some plots as a side event just because a number of writers think they HAVE to have something confrontational or negative in there if the characters are openly gay. Can't remember the last book I read with LGBT characters in that didn't at some point have some semi-drunk person in a bar take the time to call them a human being or similar. Despite not having anything to do with the plot. It's like these authors were convinced people wouldn't really believe their character was both 3-dimensional AND gay if they weren't abused about it at some point. Lethemonster fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 05:17
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Lethemonster posted:I have a very general question for anyone who does writing on a regular basis, whether you do it as an amateur or professionally. Most creative professions consist of a perpetual tug-of-war between your work ethic and your neuroses. This is a common thing.
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Mar 12, 2014 05:32
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Lethemonster posted:I have a very general question for anyone who does writing on a regular basis, whether you do it as an amateur or professionally. Honestly, just write because you want to write and feel like doing it. If you're having trouble building confidence, it may be because you're worrying too much about something that doesn't matter yet: what others will think about your story. If you're thinking from the get-go that you'd like to publish a story, then, yes, what others think will effect how you want to write. But, if you're writing just for you or just to share a story for free with some people, then the only thing you can do is just open that word processor and give it a go. You'll develop your skills with time, and artists tend to be their own worst critic anyway (which is good! It means you care about improving)! If writing is something you want to take seriously, and you're having trouble with ideas or concepts, I'd recommend reading a book called Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder. It's a Screenwriting book, but a lot of his advice is just as important for novelists. One of the big things he focuses on, before the writing ever begins, is the logline. In film, a logline a one-sentence overview of the entire story, and he goes into detail about how to really craft a great one. If you have a weak logline, then your story may be weak! If your logline has juxtoposition, a setting, and conflict all packaged nicely, you may have a good story! Plus, since it's one sentence, you can ask random people at Starbucks, work, wherever and get immediate feedback. If you're really nervous about ideas and how they'll be perceived, try doing loglines for movies or books, just like you have been! Keep tightening them and practicing on random strangers if you need. You'll get the hang of it. Some examples: An ill-treated young boy from England is pulled into a magical war after learning that he is actually a famous wizard. Bored with life in a small town, a boy encounters larger-than-life characters as he escapes down the Mississippi River with a freedom-seeking slave. A simple, teenaged girl from a downtrodden village sparks a civil war after being forced into a televised fight-to-the-death against her peers. Axel Serenity fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 05:41
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Save the Cat is great for basic strategies, but keep in mind that Blake Snyder, RIP, wrote two movies and then this book on how to write a successful screenplay. One of those movies was Blank Check. I'm sorry that I missed the conversation about gay characters because one of the main characters in my novel-in-progress is a lesbian, and there might be an explicit scene with her. And being a straight guy who is all too aware of how commoditized lesbian porn is, the prospect of writing such a scene that has to work on levels beyond "erotica" is awkward at best. My strategy is this: if I end up describing a very intimate, personal act for my reader in explicit detail, it can't be just because I want to do it; I have to need to do it, and "I need a situation that forces my reader on a date with his/her old friend Myra" isn't enough. It has to contribute something vital to the reader's understanding of the characters or the expression of a theme. And yes, I hope it gets people a little hot as well, because if it's not funny or sexy, it's just taking up space. But this is a strategy that can really be applied to any sex scene, gay or straight. There's just additional pressure because you/I don't want to be seen as yet another rear end in a top hat guy that goes "AND THEN THE TWO HOT CHICK 69ED AND IT WAS HOT BECAUSE THEYRE TWO HOT CHICKS ALSO BIG TITS" But in the end, it's like everyone else has said: just as you would ideally treat a gay person no differently than you would treat anyone else, you should write your gay characters just like anyone else. Most likely, their sexuality will only be a minor to moderate detail that won't affect your story at hand. CB_Tube_Knight, you can watch this space if you want and I'll go dig it up, but there's a video on YouTube: "Real Lesbians React to Lesbian Porn." (EDIT: There you are!) Very funny, very informative. Even if you don't plan to write anything explicit, I found it to be helpful in sorting reality from pornographic fantasy. Even thinking that you know the difference may help you get over feeling gunshy. DivisionPost fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 06:49
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DivisionPost posted:Save the Cat is great for basic strategies, but keep in mind that Blake Snyder, RIP, wrote two movies and then this book on how to write a successful screenplay. One of those movies was Blank Check. That was pretty funny. The thing is that it might come down to it that two of the main characters do eventually end up doing something, not sure what. I almost feel like it is more powerful if they just kiss or something than if they have sex because it seems like the kind of thing that you're talking about above is what people expect. I do know better than to watch lesbian porn or any kind of porn and decide what is happening in sex for writing. I have seen that kind of stuff in writing and movies and it just seems stupid and usually it's there for no reason other than to be hot and it has no bearing on the story.
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Mar 12, 2014 07:12
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Just cut to black unless there's vital emotional text/subtext that needs to be put in the sex scene. This is possible but rarely done well. I am a straight guy, and I write almost entirely gay/lesbian characters, in part due to my background in the social sciences and what it taught me about how people learn attitudes. I will probably get called out for a mistake at some point, but so far across a dozen+ professional sales I've had very positive response. I'm not going to write queer characters as well as queer people, but I do all right. My advice is to write your character as a human being and watch yourself rigorously for defaulting - slipping into cliched, easy imagery or thought. Whenever you detect defaulting (like describing your lesbian character from the third person with a male gaze, or writing her dress, gender presentation, or turn-ons using material you've drawn from the cultural presentation of lesbians), shoot it down and find a subtler, truer alternative. Show your reader that you thought about everything. Never take the easy route. I wouldn't even write an I Confront Homophobia scene or an I Come Out Awkwardly scene - the stock narratives about gay people in straight eyes - unless I felt it was necessary and true and I'd bounced it off some queer friends. Make sure you are writing a character, who is queer, rather than A Queer Character whose 'characterization slots' - whatever you want to call the details you know and understand about a person you're writing - get filled up with 'is gay', 'deals with homophobia', so on. You should have a fully fledged character and they're gay. Which is not to say that being gay can't be central and important and critical! But it's not the whole of someone. It is a part of someone that does not substitute for any other part of what makes them interesting. They must have wants and needs and an arc and - man, I'm just finding news way to say, a human being like everybody else. And a real hero. Real human being. And for the love of god, if you get called out for loving up, listen, apologize (if necessary), and do better. Don't argue or try to explain. General Battuta fucked around with this message at 07:27 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 07:23
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General Battuta posted:Just cut to black unless there's vital emotional text/subtext that needs to be put in the sex scene. This is possible but rarely done well. The other issue is that she's only partially a person. She's a supernatural being, but I tend to treat them more human than not anyway. I wasn't planning on having anyone come out and my book is all from female perspectives (one straight girl and one who...is kind of all over the place). My goal in this book is to try not to take the easy way out with any of the characters and one of my edits is going to be looking for simple yet more interesting ways to have issues be resolved by the person doing the action.It's not the main focus of the book so I will more than likely cut to black when it comes to that.
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Mar 12, 2014 07:30
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CB_Tube_Knight posted:The other issue is that she's only partially a person. She's a supernatural being, but I tend to treat them more human than not anyway. Does it have a personality? Then it's a "person." This isn't something that needs splitting hairs. Also all your characters, if they're important, whether they're actually human or not, should have some aspect of humanity or they'll be unrelatable. I don't know what pointing this out has to do with anything.
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Mar 12, 2014 07:40
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Echo Cian posted:Does it have a personality? Then it's a "person." I wasn't meant to be splitting hairs. It's just that I have to take into account how the experience of someone with her abilities would shape her view on things. It makes it a little harder since no one actually has the kind of ability she does in real life.
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Mar 12, 2014 08:01
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CB_Tube_Knight posted:Has anyone here had to write a character that was of a different sexual orientation than them? I have a female character that I'm pretty sure is gay. It's not that I wrote her to be gay or anything. I just feel that she is and it's not because of any specific other trait she has. I'm kind of nervous to write anything too concrete to do with her and another woman because I feel like it would come off as odd or as being some kind of wish fulfillment. Maybe I'm explaining it wrong, but if I do something even slight with two women I want to approach the subject carefully. I've never actually run into many lesbian characters in books or non-offensive gay characters. This is just one queer girl's opinion, but I would consider working out the particular nature of her sexuality before too long. (Unless of course her discovery of it is part of the story itself, but that doesn't sound like the case here.) I definitely appreciate wanting to be sensitive and accurate when portraying something so different from your own experience, and it's certainly possible for an author to do that, but authenticity for something as integral as sexuality requires at least a solid understanding of how said thing works. DivisionPost posted:But in the end, it's like everyone else has said: just as you would ideally treat a gay person no differently than you would treat anyone else, you should write your gay characters just like anyone else. Most likely, their sexuality will only be a minor to moderate detail that won't affect your story at hand. quote:Gay love is really no different than straight love Well...I promise I am not trying to kick up poo poo in here, but in most instances I can think of, the only people I've heard say these kinds of things are straight white men. Similar to this getting thrown around: "just write a black character like you would a white character" or to write an "Indian character just like you would a Mexican character". We're all just people! Color blind! Gender blind! That's exactly the kind of thinking that leads to embarrassing stereotypes, even in spite of good intentions. Through absolutely no fault of their own, people born with the default majority race, gender, and sexual orientation can take a lot of things for granted--again, because these are the default positions according to society and so they've have never had to question why those particular things are the way they are. I think this is where the "if there's no sex scene, then don't even worry about if they're gay or not!" thing comes from, because most heterosexual people don't have to explicitly think of just how much their sexuality really affects their own lives, how often it influences their decisions and interactions with people. Life is different for LGBT folks, even while we're outside the bedroom. Lesbian relationships really aren't the same as gay male relationships, which aren't the same as heterosexual relationships, etc. Even notwithstanding social mores and pressures, men and women usually relate to each other in different ways; gender really does make a difference, even if we preferred that it didn't--and the differences here are not just sexual, either, though they are certainly the most obvious. Even if you plan to write no sex scene at all, a character is still likely to be a sexual creature, something in which gender does play a role. So that should still be accounted for by the author, even if it never shows up on the page. The nonsexual differences between straight and gay relationships are subtle, but certainly still present. Like, because women in most countries are not conditioned, as boys are, to be assertive in pursuing a love interest, women in a lesbian relationship might struggle to progress to the next level because neither woman knows how to make the next move. Sometimes one woman is more stereotypically masculine than the other and thus makes all the moves, but this isn't always common. These are just quick n' dirty examples, but still something to think about. In any case, I really hope I'm not scaring anyone off the idea of trying something different. It is perfectly possible for non-queer folks to write LGBT fiction well. If they are in full control of their characters, have done the research required that any good author would do, and don't let their subconscious needle in little stereotypes here and there, then it would be very difficult to make that character offensive. And just as I would recommend reading science fiction to an author who wants to write science fiction, I would recommend reading lesbian fiction--or at least, fiction with good lesbian characters--to anyone who wants to write about such a character. While decent LGBT fiction is certainly a bit thin on the ground, it's out there. Lethemonster posted:Edit: In regards to writing gay/queer characters, as a queer young lady myself I always appreciate it when it's just treated as a normal everyday thing by the characters in a story. I think unless conflict about LGBT issues is the point of the story it's a nice difference to just get to read about people being decent and normal around the characters who are 'different' in some way. It's actually a bit tedious to see negative encounters wedged into some plots as a side event just because a number of writers think they HAVE to have something confrontational or negative in there if the characters are openly gay. Yes, yes, yes, agree 100%. None of what I said above should be construed to mean that a character's sexuality must be the entire point of a story, or even that it must factor into the story itself at all. All I'm saying is that a person's sexuality does matter, and will necessarily inform what kind of character they are and how they see the world around them. If the author simply addresses that, they're gold! General Battuta posted:Show your reader that you thought about everything. Never take the easy route. I wouldn't even write an I Confront Homophobia scene or an I Come Out Awkwardly scene - the stock narratives about gay people in straight eyes - unless I felt it was necessary and true and I'd bounced it off some queer friends. You nailed it. You're awesome. Nika fucked around with this message at 08:59 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 08:51
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Nika posted:This is just one queer girl's opinion, but I would consider working out the particular nature of her sexuality before too long. (Unless of course her discovery of it is part of the story itself, but that doesn't sound like the case here.) I definitely appreciate wanting to be sensitive and accurate when portraying something so different from your own experience, and it's certainly possible for an author to do that, but authenticity for something as integral as sexuality requires at least a solid understanding of how said thing works. I think for me it's less about being offensive and more about not adding to the material out there that perpetuates offensive behavior, if that makes any sense. Early on when I was still planning this whole book and playing with ideas I decided I wanted to tell a story about women from the perspective of women and I wanted to not make romance a huge factor in it because it seems that there's a lot of that out there already. I think that not using at least the subtle parts of the lesbian characters interactions would be a bit of a waste. Also you've already said some things I never would have even considered, like how women aren't conditioned to be assertive. I'm trying not to avoid the stick subjects when they're a bit of an elephant in the room. Like I have a black guy dating a white character and it gets mentioned that there are some people that have issues with it. Even if she isn't completely human.
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Mar 12, 2014 09:14
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CB_Tube_Knight posted:There was a Writing Excuses podcast maybe a year or two back about Writing the Other where they invited a black author on and just talked about how not to make a fool of yourself. But you're right, I'm going to have to address the whole thing here eventually because I feel like it's kind of unrealistic to leave it up in the air considering her age and how I go there with so many other characters, even if it is kind of behind the scenes. Can you maybe just post some fiction and we will give you advice on the fiction, that would be nice.
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Mar 12, 2014 09:53
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sebmojo posted:Can you maybe just post some fiction and we will give you advice on the fiction, that would be nice. I actually did before. I'm not really done with the parts I'm referencing to the point they could be posted. But I posted a nice chunk in a thread here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3610706
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Mar 12, 2014 10:00
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Lethemonster posted:I have a very general question for anyone who does writing on a regular basis, whether you do it as an amateur or professionally. All the drat time. I know exactly what you're talking about. I didn't experience that feeling for the first year or so of really intense writing, because I wasn't clever enough to see my faults. Then I rapidly became aware of my faults but had no idea how to fix them. Back then I consoled myself by imagining there would be some future point where my skill and understanding would outstrip whatever bad things I was seeing in my own writing, but it turns out that never really happens. I think I eventually dealt with it by accepting that it's okay to make mistakes, and rejecting perfectionist principles for productive ones, which is something I'd guess applies to any pursuit, creative or not. I still deal with that sort of feeling all the time, I just ignore it harder these days. Also, fake edit: queer characters! I'm queer myself and I though I don't exclusively write queer characters I do tend to place them in protagonist roles, for both personal and social reasons, and I think General Battuta has said pretty much what I would say on this topic - don't let yourself default, don't let sexuality take up all the characterization slots, and watch out for male gaze! That last one can be a doozy.
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Mar 12, 2014 10:37
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Hungry posted:I think General Battuta has said pretty much what I would say on this topic - don't let yourself default, don't let sexuality take up all the characterization slots, and watch out for male gaze! Frankly, you can take Battuta's comments and apply them to any subject in writing. If you want original, compelling writing you don't have to do anything fancy. Just put real thought into whatever it is that you are writing about and don't go with the first societal default/expectation/whatever that comes to mind. This reminds me of that world building debate we had in this thread some months ago. Extensive world building can be good (so long as you don't punish the reader for it) because it forces you to think about the setting in depth. So if you think of a tree or a building or whatever, you are much less likely to automatically default to whatever is available in ye old middle euroland that 99% of the other authors are also defaulting to. Specific qualities/personalities are what lend character and originality to stuff that you will never get if you are stuck using stereotypical generalizations or other short cuts all the time. Just be willing to go for it, make mistakes and learn from them. So if you want to write about perspectives that aren't yours, go for it. In the spirit of this, its also a good idea to read from genres other than the one(s) you are writing in and to try to have varied experiences in life. There is valuable stuff to be learned from just about anything. It is good to open yourself up and be as well rounded as possible. As far as comments about anxiety or being self critical about writing goes, welcome to being a creative. I don't believe that ever goes away. I sometimes read various author blogs cause I'm nosy and whatever, and this is a common refrain in pretty much all of them. No amount of publishing credits, hugos, or success makes it any easier. If you feel like a hack now, you will probably always feel like a hack regardless of reality. All you can do is write on. But I think it's a good thing, just means you care about your work and want to do a good job.
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Mar 12, 2014 11:54
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Here are some good (and bad) examples of people trying to write outside of their comfort zones by writing 'otherized' characters : http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?week=3quote:Check Your Cis Privilege in Swaziland For me, this was the first time I tried to write a trans character and it was set in a country I knew nothing about to boot. I was DQ'd for length (and I had a plot hole) but it was a really excellent exercise. I would suggest reading through the stories and seeing what works and what doesn't. And try to write some vignettes about the characters before you go and work on a novel.
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Mar 12, 2014 13:46
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Nika posted:Well...I promise I am not trying to kick up poo poo in here, but There's no way to express how much I appreciate this post. Thank you for making it; I will keep it in mind as I develop this book. As far as reading LGBT fiction, a friend of mine pointed me towards the Lambda List a few months ago. However, I think I went in looking for something too specific; I may have even somehow misunderstood the purpose of the site entirely. Are you familiar with that site? If so, is there anything there that can help me find some legit crime/mystery novels with LGBT overtones? For that matter, is there anything you'd personally recommend, regardless of genre?
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Mar 12, 2014 14:37
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Jagermonster posted:Yeah, don't do that, it sounds horrible. I really, really love this. Its pretty great. EDIT: "Our man, our hero man" Its catchy!
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Mar 12, 2014 14:45
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This post owns, thank you. Gender is very complicated, and it's something I think almost every writer needs to think about more, especially when doing historical work, or work in an SF/F secondary world. Our society does a bad job of teaching us where our gender behavior - the bundle of responses and behaviors tied to a gender - comes from. We assume a lot of it is biologically inevitable, or we find it so invisible we don't even realize it's there (the way men vs. women speak up in conversations, for instance - most men have no idea how much conversational space they swallow). When you're writing you should try to think about every little quirk of blocking and dialogue and what it's saying about that character and how they perform their gender. I know this sounds kinda out there, but it's really useful! Men in all kinds of societies across the world today hold hands and kiss as an ordinary part of friendship. Polynesian societies have additional genders that don't fit neatly into any Western category. Men in the Homeric epics weep openly in moments of strong emotion. Medieval marriages often occurred for pragmatic business and legal reasons, sometimes between people of the same sex. Yet fantasy and science fiction rarely explores this range of possibility. You hardly ever crack open your next ten-volume epic fantasy potboiler to find that God's dead and the Bane of Kings has seized the ur-Throne and, by the way, this culture's sexual gaze is female and men are the only ones called beautiful or delicious or whatever, while the attractiveness of a woman is more status and power-driven. Or, to get away from the cheap 'this world is the opposite of ours' construction, perhaps women are seen as better at mathematics and abstract reasoning, making them dominant in engineering and navigation and turning the stone and the sea into 'women's work' - leading to a society that no longer ties femininity so closely to domesticity. There's a huge space of cultural and historical decisions available here that writers rarely touch. I would bet that most writers aren't even aware that the modern construction of 'being gay' is a pretty recent invention, that queer relationships were not just widespread in large chunks of history, but accepted enough that they didn't get their own names and social categories. Think about gender! Use it! The rabbit hole goes really deep and every new world or character you create will give you a new set of tough, fascinating choices. And don't be afraid that thinking about this will turn your stories into esoterica nobody will read. People like and appreciate thoughtful writing. General Battuta fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 15:58
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Cool and helpful posts from everyone! My first novel attempt had a gay male protagonist, and his boyfriend was another character who sometimes had POV chapters. Both of these gay men were Chinese with Chinese names (ones that did not make gender clear to non-Chinese speakers) so some people in my reading group actually thought one of these characters was female even after three or four weeks. It's a running gag now in the writing group to say, "Wait, this character is a guy???" 40,000 words into someone's novel. I had sentences like, "he told him" that should have made it clear, but my takeaway is that I over-corrected and tried too hard to make both characters "just regular guys that were gay" rather than thinking at all about gender. Beyond my bad writing, there are unfortunately "default assumptions" that people make. If you have two characters in a fantasy novel named Zarthen and Al'an'ira who kiss each other, most readers are going to assume one of them is female unless you show otherwise. It's good to be aware of default assumptions like this so that you can challenge readers' assumptions with creative ideas and good writing.
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Mar 12, 2014 16:27
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General Battuta posted:
Yeah, it is very unfortunate that most fantasy or science fiction authors refuse to tackle complicated and vitally important subjects like gender roles and instead just rehash the same stuff unquestioningly. You'd think that would be the one genre that would allow for the most thoughtful explorations of gender because of the freedom it gives you but the potential is usually wasted. For every James Tiptree Jr. or Octavia Butler you have fifty Terry Goodkinds and that is something that really needs to change. By the way, Tiptree and Butler are both wonderful writers and those who've not heard of them should go and read their work.
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Mar 12, 2014 19:23
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It can be hard to break out of what you know of the world or what you've read and write something really different like that.
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Mar 12, 2014 19:52
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systran posted:If you have two characters in a fantasy novel named Zarthen and Al'an'ira who kiss each other, most readers are going to assume one of them is female unless you show otherwise. Also, if you have a person named Al'an'ira in a fantasy novel, the apostrophe police should arrest you.
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Mar 12, 2014 20:52
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Chairchucker posted:Also, if you have a person named Al'an'ira in a fantasy novel, the apostrophe police should arrest you. The outlandish hard to pronounce name trait is getting to be more than just out hand. I'm shocked that publishers let it happen. The most awkward name I've allowed myself is Lissette.
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Mar 12, 2014 21:44
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I was using that name as a joke, just to be clear.
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Mar 12, 2014 21:45
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This link is packed full of awesome.quote:Yeah, it is very unfortunate that most fantasy or science fiction authors refuse to tackle complicated and vitally important subjects like gender roles and instead just rehash the same stuff unquestioningly. Whereas this - I dunno. If it's the story you want to write, sure, but ideology almost invariably makes terrible fiction. For every Left Hand of Darkness you're gonna get 99 SpoonfullOfBromides, you know what I mean?
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Mar 12, 2014 22:40
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So, I have trouble staying focused when I have access to the internet. I went ahead and bought a cheap 30 dollar bluetooth keyboard for my 10-inch tablet. It finally arrived today and I went out the park to test it out. So far I've been really happy with the result. The tablet has long enough battery life to make it easy to get a lot done without having to find a power source. The best part is, compared to a laptop the inability to multitask on a tablet or phone has made focusing on writing a lot easier. I'm also able to use the keyboard for my phone as well -- I'm using it to type this post actually -- so it might be worth trying out if you don't have a tablet. I'd suggest getting an app like "Freedom" if you are using a phone to block access to the internet, and stop you from cheating and reenabling it. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eightypct.freedom I know that folks here had talked about getting that typing device that basically just works as a keylogger that spits the keypresses back out when you type them in. But, so far, the ability to see what I've typed has helped spark some new ideas. Overall I'm pretty happy and would suggest a 30 dollar keyboard and a trip out to the park if you're having trouble staying focused on writing fiction (or any writing really). Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 23:16
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sebmojo posted:This link is packed full of awesome. I'm reading the first part of the article, and Jonathan Franzen's do list is incredibly irritating. The guy just seems like an irascable dick.
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Mar 12, 2014 23:51
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Shageletic posted:I'm reading the first part of the article, and Jonathan Franzen's do list is incredibly irritating. The guy just seems like an irascable dick. That is because Franzen is an irascible dick. The Corrections is a good book, though. Zadie Smith, however, is p much a perfect human being and this is bang on: quote:3 Don't romanticise your "vocation". You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no "writer's lifestyle". All that matters is what you leave on the page. Edit: quote:Jonathan Franzen Hang on, what's wrong with these? Seem fine to me. sebmojo fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Mar 13, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 23:59
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I like one of the things to do (from Richard Ford) was not have kids. Most of his points were fun to read, in fact.
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Mar 13, 2014 00:04
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Personally as a queer male I find too often that writers who include queer characters in their stories think far too much about the concept and end up coming across as incredibly shallow. I don't know about you but my sexuality doesn't define my personality very much. Sure I'm more aware of certain oppressions, but how I act largely is predicated on my personality not my sexuality, because (go figure) my personality was developed long before my sexual identity was established. Certainly it can get complicated when you're writing about a queer character attempting to establish or engage in a queer relationship, but that's the only time I've ever found there to be necessity to reference in detail how a character's sexuality impacts their actions within the story. The thing is, it's not really the sexuality that impacts how this occurs though, it's the personality of the character more than anything. Personally, there's all sorts of methods that queers establish relationships with their counterparts, and the majority of it involves three things A. eliminating the variables B. promoting your sexuality and C. being observant of others. I would say that straight cis men use the same strategies to attract females. Many queer people tend to struggle with B, unless they're in an environment which allows that sort of thing. That's the only big difference between a straight cis man and his queer counterpart. That is, the straight man can express his sexuality pretty freely. We tend to rely upon queer groups, and behaviors which tip each other off. If you've ever heard of the concept of flagging, that's a big way that we tell each other, but it's important to note that flagging is cultural centric and not wide-spread or universal. I.E. the reference to green socks is waaay overplayed, and was only relevant briefly in a neighborhood of london. These are super subtle hints unique to each community. I think all too often writers get stuck considering queer characters as the lispy real life representation of Mr. Slave just because the few queers they know use these visible sterotypes to meet others that share their orientation. Really we're talking about a minority of the population here. That's my two cents at least.
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Mar 13, 2014 00:48
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Yeah, personality is most important to establish first, because all other aspects of the character's identity will be filtered through that lens. While some people don't think about their sexuality or gender often, for others that comprises a large part of their identity -- you could easily have two female characters in the same setting who approach their femininity in very different ways and put different weight on it. Likewise, personality will affect not only how the character views these aspects of themselves, but how they respond to how their culture views and informs what it "means" to straight or gay or anything else. Not that you have to start writing with some didactic screed in mind, but exploring these ideas can lead you down some interesting paths. In a fantasy world I'm working on, I decided to have one of my races be highly sexually dimorphic, because that's a concept that always fascinated me in zoology, and I'd like to apply it to a humanoid species. We humans think we're dimorphic, but we overestimate how much of that is a product of culture and presentation; let's have a race that really is. A simple enough concept, but that forced me to think about how the mating systems of, say, peacocks or elephant seals are different from humans', and put far more weight on female mate choice as a source of sexual selection, which in turn creates a vastly different set of cultural norms and gender politics, which affects how these characters behave on the page. Which makes me excited because I am a nerd. Crisco Kid fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Mar 13, 2014 |
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Mar 13, 2014 01:59
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sebmojo posted:This link is packed full of awesome. You're right about that. I don't think anyone enjoys being preached to, and even assuming the best intentions you'll probably see quite a few abject failures from people trying to tackle difficult stuff. Sturgeon's Law exists for a good reason. But I think its possible to engage a topic without necessarily taking a side or preaching for that matter. Though with anything, it's possible to go overboard and that is definitely a risk here especially if you are tackling a sensitive subject. Research helps a good deal, but no amount of research will make it impossible to screw up. Writing is drat hard, especially when you leave your comfort zone. I don't blame people for being wary. I just think it's laudable when people do try to take risks and open themselves up instead of just retreading the same ground as the next guy without putting anything else into it. And since fantasy and sci-fi invites you to reinvent the rules, I'd rather see more stuff like what Crisco Kid is writing about then just another passion-less retread of the hero's journey complete with wise cracking sidekick accompaniment. Yet it feels the latter is far more common at times.
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Mar 13, 2014 04:31
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| # ? May 14, 2024 01:09 |
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All stories contain ideology - you might as well examine and make it intentional, so it can serve the themes and emotion of your work.
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Mar 13, 2014 05:09
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