In my story, my MC has a shitty life and thinks about killing himself constantly because men are oppressed by a feminist police force. But I'm worried that these types of stories would come off as overused and cringe. Is this true? Are gender tropes overused? Or are they just like any other trope?
Even the best ideas can come off as overused and cringe. It's really how a person approaches the subject. A lot of people might be offended because "Huff, men are never oppressed." Well, I don't that matters.
Personally, anytime something seems to go overboard with gender-based bias I get annoyed. From what little I've heard here, this would fit in that box for me. That said that's just my opinion, maybe I'm just not your target audience.
It depends on how deeply you develop it, and how immersive you make the world. A few people here said it comes off as cringe, and it will if you slap it in without thinking. But if you developed a detailed dystopian society filled with laws and legalities that you researched and built, you could make one hell of a good story. It depends on you--how much thought you put it, and with how much skill you execute it.
I think it sounds fun. Actually, I was thinking about writing a story where men completely lost interest in women for year, but I think I would get banned for it.
I would say if the OP wrote it as Infel described above, it might make for an interesting read. The premise rubs me the wrong way but if it's actually thoughtful, I'd be intrigued. But to be honest, if we're going for thoughtful premises on gender, I wouldn't personally target feminism. I would rather target toxic masculinity, which is a different thing to feminism. Or it might be an interesting premise to shed light on how men find themselves in situations where they're abused, which is something still pretty taboo to talk about. But if it's gonna be just another "Bash the feminists me no like them!" then erm, no. The current premise from the OP, the little that he's shared, doesn't sound anywhere near this thoughtful. If done badly, this book will go very bad indeed. You'd mostly be selling to extreme "men's rights" fundamentalists, probably self-published, because trends in publishing today want to see strong women, not demonised women.
What if the MC was kind of an incel after a false rape accusation that ruins his life? And it's written in first person, so maybe he demonizes women in his own mind?
Gender is built into our culture, our language, AND our genetics. A person's gender or their apparent lack of gender is important to how we perceive them. And how we respond to our perceptions is an important part not only OUR story but that of the person we are considering. What I'm trying to say is, gender considerations are inescapable even for people who have no identifiable gender, or gender preference.
Don't worry about trope. As has been said, it's all a matter of execution. If it's whiny, Gillette-fueled "men's rights" propaganda, don't bother. No one worth selling to will buy it. If it's thoughtful gender reversal, especially with a high degrees of irony or satire, it might be worth exploring. The comment you made about a false accusation throws up a red flag for me though. If you don't deal with that correctly, you'll be destroyed by feminists. Believe me, I'm no crusader, but it's a fact than many of the sentiments on both sides of the modern internet vitriol over gender have, in reality, nothing to do with equality. One that pertains to your quarry specifically is the idea that since the number of false accusations pail in comparison to the number of scot-free assaults that take place now or have taken place historically, these accusations don't warrant outrage, let alone investigation. It's very difficult for many people to see both things as bad. They think acknowledgement of one is tantamount to condoning the other, which is ridiculous and primarily the result of thoughtless rhetoric replacing discourse. "What you're upset about is nothing, because this other upsetting thing happens." No, you jackasses. Both are important and both are terrible. So if you're going to tell a story about a falsely accused man, please, in the name of America's tenuous sanity, include obvious and prominent views on the horrors of real assaults. On a broader note, I've noticed you often post questions expressing concern over major plot elements in your work that might be controversial. I think at this point, you should just own it. If you want to write stories with gender role reversal, cross-dressing, robot-assisted incest, etc., then you should. Just go for it, dude. You're a writer. Filter is artifice. Read some William S. Burrows, Vladimir Nabokov and Anthony Burgess. See how it's done. Go bold.
“Incel” and “oppressive feminist police force” are concepts that are going to be a pretty difficult sell.
This is a thread for discussing the plot point - we are not having a discussion about the rights and wrongs of feminism itself in the plot discussion board. If anyone wants to do that, take it to the debate room.
What's an incel? I fail to see how that could carry an entire book. A single such character with some prejudice against women based on this, sure I can believe it. Would I want to read an entire book in such a character's head? No. Flip it over and ask: Would you want to dwell in a woman's head who demonises men the whole time? Sure, she has good reasons (let's use your idea of rape). But would you want to stay in her head for the entire book where this was the core motivation for the plot? No one's obliged to read our books, even for free. I'm guessing you wanna be published which means you'll be asking for people's money for it. Would people pay to read such a thing? You can write anything you want. And people can read anything they want - this might not be it. I'm reminded of the American blunder of 47 Ronin. The Americans do it again, adapt something Japanese for Hollywood, cast a non-Japanese actor as the lead (Keanu Reeves). Americans didn't like it. The Japanese obviously didn't like it because it was nothing like their infamous historical event that it was supposed to be. Result? Mighty giant flop. So, while you should not necessarily write for an audience always, it doesn't hurt to keep your audience in mind. Who's your target reader? Given the obvious misconception that it would be for someone to demonise an entire gender, as a reader I'd be waiting for the guy to snap out of it, or just spend the whole book frustrated - likely if there's no journey to his realising his wrongs, I'd just stop reading. What's demonising women supposed to achieve? What message do you want to convey? It's all about purpose - if there's a clear purpose and message, a reader may indulge you in the hope that there's still something to learn or something interesting to glean from it. Otherwise if the character's just obviously wrong and never learns from it, then no, I'm not interested. Now, I'm not Japanese, I did not enjoy tales such as Princess Kaguya whose sole point seemed to be that of utter frustration and tragedy. Unless tragedy was what you were going for? That is, the tragedy of never learning from your mistakes and in so doing, destroying the life of someone you dearly loved. (yes, that was in fact the message of Princess Kaguya. Beautifully made but I shalln't be watching it again!) But from your premise, I'm not exactly seeing this...
If you wish to create a genuinely 'feminist' police force, I think you'd want to explore feminism and represent it, or aspects of it, honestly. Which means actually exploring feminist writing and theory, at least to some extent. For the feminism to be 'oppressive' you'd want to explore elements of feminist thought, which could plausibly lead down a path of tyrannical oppression. That kind of thought experiment would certainly be achievable, and I think it could make for an interesting and thought provoking story. An alternative to doing that, would be to reproduce unthinking and usually sexist stereotypical cliches about feminists, which are plentiful, popular and hail back to the earliest days of female liberation, but which usually misrepresent, or badly mangle, actual feminist thought. I think going down this kind of route, is where you'd likely end up with 'overused and cringe'.
It stands for "involuntary celibate". It's a group of men who've turned their depression into rampant anger. They equate all their mental/social issues with lack of sexual success. They blame women as a whole. Violence is a common theme (killing women, killing men who are successful in relationships) as well as barely considering women as human. I wouldn't be uninterested in a story about an incel per say...but honestly as a woman they sort of freak me out. I grew up surrounded by shootings and other news worthy violent acts. Perhaps my fear is ridiculous but I hear incel and I go the other way.
As a man, I would give that book a hard pass. And I would likely for the same reason @marshipan gave for her being afraid of incels. Which I agree with. Maybe I didn't grow up being surrounded by violence. But I did hear LOTS of stories of men being falsely accused of a heinous crime (ie: rape) by a woman, and having their lives forever ruined. It became pretty apparent that this could happen to me. And I hate to admit it, but hearing all these stories lead to me being often fearful of women. That fear that what happened to those men, would happen to me. I don't really follow the "Mike Pence Rule". It's just I sometimes do little quite frankly discriminatory things here and there. Things that seem stupid, even by my own admittance. But when you have so much of your life ahead of you, and you know that one accusation can blow it all away in the blink of an eye. Ask me again if it's "irrational". I was going more towards this: Pre-Story, MC was a fucking Chad who had it all. Before a false accusation ruins his life. Once those accusations happen, he becomes the hateful incel you see right now. Then he becomes a fugitive, and his life becomes infinitely better. Even though he's actually a criminal now, he gets to live freely within the shadows. He even gets over those irrational beliefs when he himself temporary becomes a girl, and while in girl form, acts the exact same. Except he (she) fucks his (her) younger brother. So even if legally, his life is fucked, and others still see him as an evil criminal, he's the happiest he's over been.
I didn't say it's irrational. Also, you heard "stories" - are these hearsay or actual people you knew who had this happen to, or at least reported in a reputable newspaper? Anyway, you don't need to answer that, but definitely think about it. I just don't wanna derail this thread Your story sounds like it could potentially be thoughtful - not the kind I'd read but that doesn't have to matter. So what's your message? It doesn't sound like you approve of this incel, but that you can understand his point of view? I think if you portray the incel's ugliness and violent crimes for what they are, rather than justify them because of his backstory, you could potentially have something good there. I think if you want to show how ruined he really is by the false rape accusation, then showing the realities of his crime and violence and ugliness of spirit will have to be part of it. Equally, did the false rape charge ruin his life, or did his own choices ruin his life? What is happiness, really? Have you thought of his relationships with his friends and family and the people he holds dear and how his lifestyle will affect them? What does he gain, and what has he/does he lose? And does one outweigh the other - was it worth it? I think if you dug deep and genuinely tried to explore these questions with your premise, you could have something quite interesting
I just want to run this through, you're thinking of writing a story with an incel protagonist, who is that way because of a false rape accusation, in a world with an "oppressive feminist police force"? A character who thinks a woman is obligated to have sex with them, is the protagonist against a group that has historically stood for women's rights.
The boy is not getting any? Tell him to buy a guitar and not be so particular, but then there's no story... never mind.
I've been trying to figure out how to approach this question without pouring fuel on anything. I think the basic story (as I see it): Successful man is falsely accused of rape, loses everything, and becomes embittered as a result. is a good setup for a story, but where do we go from here? Is he in a battle to clear his name (cue walking back into his company boardroom to applause), or does he Meet Someone and become less embittered over the course of time (cue comfortably snuggling in a small but cozy apartment far from the penthouse where he used to live), or maybe it's a revenge story against the person/persons who orchestrated his framing (cue "INNOCENT! But Billionaire Bad Boy Still Shot By Police!") I think, however, that if you explicitly reference red-pill terminology (incel, Chad, Stacy) you're going to limit your market. It's a polarizing worldview that, IMO, will probably turn off more readers than it attracts. ETA: Did a quick google for "falsely accused" and found this. It looks a little slim and click-baity as a site, but doing further research on the people mentioned might give you more insight into what happens during and after a false accusation.
