Okay, so I'm approaching an important scene in my novel draft. My main character works for an organization that's basically devoted to assassinating sorcerors, and part of their "protocol" is to be washed over with this eldritch device to determine if their abilities have been compromised or not. The abilities themselves aren't relevant so I'll get to the heart of the matter. This "device" is essentially a spire formed entirely out of crystallized women. Essentially for one to join this organization, they are forced to sacrifice something of great importance to them to show their devotion, which in pretty much all cases consists of their loved one. So with each new member, their loved one is added to the spire. I'm throwing in the idea that their former bond is what enables this device to serve so flawlessly, and while I won't go into details of the abilities its supposed to be checking, it's an entirely necessary creation for preserving the security of this organization. The thing I'm wondering is, this is the only situation in the entire novel where I mention a female. I'm probably going to end up not caring and include it anyway, because it's supposed to get a big reaction from the audience, but I figured I'd get some input on it.
A few questions you may want to consider first. 1) Are all the assassins male? 2) Does this spire keep growing and growing with each new additional body? Eventually you will need a really big hiding spot for it. 3) Do all these sacrificed women voluntarily join the spire? I know its the assassins sacrificing their most beloved thing, but you know, the sacrificed woman still has a mind of her own.
Haha! The only females in the entire novel? That's kinda weird for fantasy. How come there are no female assassins, who sacrifice their husbands? I wouldn't think it's sexist of you, but that's pretty sexist of that magical society.
I actually haven't delved into other assassins, but I could easily change the organization to be composed of both males and females and just have the spire be composed of loved ones. EDIT: Actually I guess this solves the problem right here. Hiding it isn't an issue, it's already hidden. As far as how they join the spire, I am using it as a bit of leverage to show that this organization is nothing but betrayal at its core. So the addition of loved ones to the spire would be forced by the "recruit" I guess as a sort of initiation.
That is scary. I don't think it's a problem having sexist organizations in your novel, but not mentioning females anywhere else sounds a bit weird. A you writing in some sort of sexist dystopian world, where females have vanished except to become part of spires?
Nope. Write what you like without thinking about those labels. But why not introduce some female characters? It may spice up the story.
LOL My book is heavily male too- I just find men easier to write for some reason. No to be honest I probably wouldn't notice. Women in my books tend to be evil or canon fodder. Not sure why it's just the way they came out I have a couple of really great one and two female horses.
Of course! Males are more focussed, less complicated than females. The Chinese know that too. The symbol for woman is the same as home; written 2x means quarrel, written 3x means ..... [what do you think?] (NB: I am obviously male so not representative nor qualified).
