Niggling problems in reading other stories.

Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by The Tourist, Apr 13, 2012.

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  1. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    I totally understand this. Actually, I agonised over my novel, because I knew deep down that one of the main reasons I am writing it because I wanted to write a female protagonist. And then I ran into basically a blank wall. No template for what I wanted to do. I think partly why it is easier to nail a male hero, even for female writers, is that there's so much already written from male perspective that we have a lot of help knowing how it feels to be a guy, whereas there's so little out there that truly, and in various ways, portrays what it is to be a female. An essential female, not what she does but who she is, no matter what she does.
    The conclusion I reached so far, and I don't know what to do with it yet but for the moment it will do. On some level, biological or enforced through culture, women aren't comfortable with being alone the way a man can be. That's why women tend to socialise more, have supports and even remain in abusive relationships just so they don't have to be alone. I am totally generalising here, but through my own troubles in writing a female hero, I realised that I just can't write her to be "alone". So what happened is that she will end up with a male ally. Again, she is not independent as I'd like her to be, but she is the hero, which for the moment is good enough for me.

    And I completely agree with you, reading such a kick-ass masculinised character just doesn't feel natural. In all that I think issues are being mixed up a lot. The issue of women comprising less that 5% of the important positions for instance. I've worked in a very male dominated profession and I know for a fact that there is severe discrimination against women in power. I've seen it, everyone who works in practical professions knows it, even though more misogynist elements (and they are for some people the norm) deny it. But it's true. The working practices are tailored to male biology and there is discrimination in the workplace. A few targeted changes could and should enable women to be equally represented, and I think that will happen with time becuase it is an injustice that needs correcting and will profit the society as a whole.

    The myth of female biology interfering with their decision making is just a myth. I have seen nothing but desperately flawed men (of course there are exceptions, and thank god for them), in clutches of sexual instinct, the higher they are, the more unreasonable they get. But that is tolerated because for centuries it was only men who were even allowed to work, let alone rule, so it's a case of "it is the way it is". We are used to it and it doesn't get questioned as much.

    Women in power I see may be even better equipped to make good decisions because the whole sexual rouse doesn't really work on them. They also tend to ask for people's opinions a lot more, hence better decision making. Usually at this point someone brings up children and how lots of women will opt to stay home with their families, which is true. As true as that majority of men will, for one reason or another, shun heavy responsibility and long working hours, if they have a choice (and lots of them don't, which brings up the question of discrimination against men who refuse to act according to male stereotype). Positions of power are few, and not many people opt to take them, but realistically, roughly equal numbers of men and women choose to aim that high. The only reason why there are so few women inhabiting those positions even today is because workplace is so damn hostile to them, if they show any ambition at all (in some places more than others, of course).
    All this is gender discrimination, nothing else. When a woman applies they view her with suspicion, when a man applies he is given a chance to prove himself, and so it goes. I have seen it a thousand times, and it is very frustrating.

    What is a fact re: gender differences is that men are physically stronger than women, on average, and they don't have childbearing concerns (different reproductive biology. That's it. Other than that, we are all people, more similar than the stereotypes would have you believe.

    I got rather lost in trying to figure it all out. Are we independent but traumatised by the culture and history, or is our biology simply more sociable, less isolative? I shriek in contempt when I try to look the latter option in the eyes, because I feel like I am betraying a cause, but perhaps all this "war of the sexes" had gone too far and now nobody knows what's what, and whatever we get, we are not happy. I don't know the answers, the best I can do is try to write a believable character. Small steps :D
     
  2. digitig

    digitig Contributor Contributor

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    Had I been any of those things I would have aimed (!) to be at the bullet-goes-in end. :rolleyes: But there are getting on for two million residents of the UK who unfortunately know about guns without necessarily being any of those things.
     
  3. Late Starter

    Late Starter New Member

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    Yes it was a massive generalisation, apologies for any misunderstanding.
     
  4. The Tourist

    The Tourist Banned

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    I didn't take your response as an insult. I'm the kind of guy who is the life of the party and when I'm angry, you'll know it.

    I read your response through, and I do agree with most of it. My take was that most dialogue is a bit stilted, and whether it's a man or a woman, sometimes I read the line and just don't believe it. What helps me is going through my personal memory banks and discerning if a snippet of dialogue was ever addressed to me, or at least within earshot. And I've heard some doozies.

    My story's lady in red is a classic example of some of the up and comers I knew in the 1970s and '80s. Very qualified, objectified and very touchy about the use of power. I think that defines my strong female lead due to the place in my story.

    In an odd twist of fate, I was also that woman's 'mercenary.' She didn't know much about finance or how to handle guys at the top, and I wrote her some generic letters (which she could modify for her uses) and pillow talked to her about confrontational politics. It is the same relationship in my book.

    The problem she had was crow-hopping from bed to bed to further her career--which she did successfully. Which also aided my plot. I saw the reaction her techniques and successes garnered.

    In short, a strong man doesn't mind a strong woman, and that goes for here, as well. Just don't get too irritated with me when I use my experiences with "the queen" to fully form a particularly nasty female lead. I knew one, I loved one, and tragically, I'm glad she's gone.
     
  5. shadowwalker

    shadowwalker Contributor Contributor

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    This kind of reflects another discussion - and I'm going to have to disagree here as well, I'm afraid. Just because I'm female does not mean I have some universal truth inside me about what it's like to be a woman. I know what it's like to be me. I have no idea what it's like to be a thirty-something woman who grew up in Fresno with a divorced mother. I have no idea what it's like to be a five-year-old girl growing up with seven brothers in Atlanta. I only know what it's like being this female.

    Writing about any other human being is a challenge - trying to understand what makes that human being tick. Frankly, I've had a hard time writing females because I keep thinking of them as females. When I put aside "gender characteristics", that's when they really start to grow.
     
  6. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    @Tourist: that sounds really interesting! And also, I completely ascribe to recalling dialogue, also I model my characters' speech on someone I know either in person or in roles in films or tv, as long as I got to hear them speak more than just a few times. The style of expression is what makes it, I think :)

    @shadow: I totally understand, but I think we are having a difference of opinions here. I might be wrong and you might be right. There may be no issue other than imagined (although it is difficult to ignore the biological differences and their effects on psychology, even in most basic form). All I know is that for me, female perspective, the essence of some kind if you wish, a yin rather than a yang etc, has nothing to do with what a woman does (is she a mother, a student, a criminal, a home maker, a banker, a widow, 78 or 12 etc) but what the experience of being a woman is like, no matter what she does or which stage of life she is in. As we age from children to old age, men and women have several different concerns, milestones, issues to work out. It's a fact of life that a man won't often worry about how much labour will hurt, or how he will negotiate breastfeeding with full time work, or how he will be treated once his beauty is gone (although, I am sure there are cases) and likewise, a woman most likely won't often worry about getting a receding hairline or erectile dysfunction or having to relentlessly compete with other males because that's kinda what they tend to do instinctively, on a biological level.

    Because, I hope you will agree, on this most basic level, no man can ever know exactly how it feels to experience a life as a woman, and vice versa. Yes, there are many individual experiences I am sure, and I do not advocate stereotyping of any kind. But I see a conspicuous absence (or general lack) of female heroes, so in my mind, that's gotta be an issue important enough to try and explore by trying to write a female hero specifically. Ultimately, we are all seeking our own truths in stories as much as in life, so it's all a matter of perspective. :)
     
  7. The Tourist

    The Tourist Banned

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    This is why I chose that real woman and the real experience we had. In fact, I often use two jokes when dealing with redheaded women.

    One, (insert whatever diety that floats your boat) created redheads because Satan can't be everywhere. And, two, dating a redhead is like juggling chainsaws--both pursuits are lots of fun, until certain tragedy strikes.

    Not only that, but I think a certain amount of angst, anger, passion, contempt and real emotional commitment bleed into your prose when the experience is very personal. You might not intend it, but anybody who reads it knows for sure. And this character needs that underpinning. She's hell on wheels. More to the point, my female lead character is going 90 MPH down a dead-end road, and I also watched that happen. There are degrees of 'success.' And success chained to hubris makes a good story.
     
  8. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    @Tourist: haha, yes, you know how they say, there's an element of truth in all the jokes :) Besides, people like cliches for a reason, they are just patterns of behaviour which are easily observed, that most of us recognise. As long as the pattern is not all there is about someone (which is where intimate knowledge comes in) the character will most likely be realistic. Even if they are an orphaned vampire refugee spy, lol :D

    And you are right about emotional commitment bleeding into a character with experience that is personal to the writer. In that sense we can write about anyone we can relate to, either because we've known someone like that, or we can recognise ourselves in it.
     
  9. shadowwalker

    shadowwalker Contributor Contributor

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    Oh, I agree there are basic biological issues which are concerns strictly of one gender or the other. But unless one is writing a story specifically addressing those issues, we are back to writing about human beings, whether they be male, female, white, black, old, young...

    On the most basic level, no human can ever know what another human has experienced. As a female, I find myself often confused by "women's issues". And most of my female friends are of the same mindset. So you see why I'm reluctant to say that men can't understand, when the group of women I belong to doesn't seem to either.

    I see the lack of female heroes as separate from man/woman perspectives, however. And I'm really not sure there is a gross lack. I look over my shelves of books and find a nearly even number of male and female heroes. Not necessarily the same genres, but they're certainly not lacking in representation. If one is to look at action/adventure, yes, there are more male MCs. But that's just a reflection of real life - there really aren't that many Lara Crofts or Ellen Ripleys out there. And too many times, I've read female MCs in such stories that are really nothing more than men with breasts - ie, an OTT attempt to show that a female can too be an action hero!

    Basically, I'm just saying that being able to write a believable character does not depend on the author's gender. It depends on whether or not the author has gotten to know that character.
     
  10. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    @shadow: I agree with everything you said except that there is no such thing as a lack of true female heroes in literature. And "Men with breasts" syndrome is exactly what I am trying to resolve in these contemplations. I feel they are a dominant form of "strong female characters" precisely due to generalised lack of rounded female perspective.
    Be as it may, I have tried to explain and if I haven't been able to make myself clear enough so you would connect with what I am trying to say, I don't think there's anything else I can bring to the table.
    However, I hope you will agree that nowhere did I say that writing a believable character has anything to do with a writer's gender. I never thought or implied that, I was talking about something completely different :)
     
  11. AmsterdamAssassin

    AmsterdamAssassin Active Member

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    Hi Jazz - I truncated your posts to address certain points:

    I live in the Netherlands, where the issues you speak of seem to be less apparent, if they exist at all. I've taken over the role of caretaker in our family, while my wife has a full-time career in ICT as a software tester. Lots of fathers here are either self-employed or part-time employed, sharing the 'burden' of taking care of the household and the kids with their wives.

    Also, I have multiple single female friends, who prefer to live without relationships that tie them down too much, so, while women might be more social and looking for support, the support systems here seem to be women helping each other out, instead of women seeking men and relationships to avoid being alone.

    I hope so, since I write a series with a strong female protagonist in what people might consider a 'masculine job', however Katla is of the opinion that women are better at her job than men, because they can melt in the background where a man would stand out.
    I have to say, I have a questionnaire for beta readers concerning the believability/verisimilitude of my characters, and several women have responded that Katla is a believable female character, not a 'man with breasts', despite her tomboy attitude and masculine occupation.
     
  12. Nakhti

    Nakhti Banned

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    Hmm, not sure I agree with that. I think women do communicate better than men, and definitely create better support networks (men often suffer in silence or bottle things up, whereas when a woman has a problem she's straight on the phone to her mum/sister/best friend to tell them all about it) BUT... I don't think this equates to an inability to be alone.

    I love being alone. Sometimes I just can't stand being around people and want to be antisocial for days on end. When I was doing my masters degree sometimes I didn't see anyone for weeks because I went nocturnal and hardly left the house, didn't answer the phone, and generally shunned human contact - even my mother ;)

    Regarding relationships, I have always been a committment phobe - does that make me particularly unfeminine?
     
  13. The Tourist

    The Tourist Banned

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    There's an exception to every rule.

    Look at the relatively unknown job of chicken-dangler at dog racing tracks. To my knowledge, there's never been one--not one--female in that job. If there ever was one, she obviously stunk at it.

    Lot at the bizarre slate of talents needed for that work. A knowledge of specialized dogs, a knowledge of the proper chickens (not to mention a thorough knowledge of chick sexing for proper breeding), then there's upper body strength and endurance, and piddling things like tenacity, the blood, the long hours. Before a owner or breeder turns a 6-figure salary over to a dangler to stimulate the dogs to chase the bait rabbit, the guy wants to know if his dogs are in good hands.

    And I don't blame the owners. With increasing pressuse to treat racing dogs more humanely comes strident rules for all phases of the sport. And considering chicken-danglers are often the first and last person a dog sees during the races, I don't blame the owners for demanding men for the job.
     
  14. Nakhti

    Nakhti Banned

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    Chicken danglers??? Now you're just making things up... right?
     
  15. The Tourist

    The Tourist Banned

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    You've never been to dog racing? Yikes, no wonder they don't hire women.
     
  16. AmsterdamAssassin

    AmsterdamAssassin Active Member

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    @Tourist,

    It could be that no woman could be a chicken dangler. On the other side, not many men would want to be a chicken dangler either. And I know more occupations that are geared more at women than men and vice versa. However, Katla's profession is assassin. And she's better at her job, not because of her physical attributes, but rather the general prejudice regarding the relationship of women and violence.
     
  17. shadowwalker

    shadowwalker Contributor Contributor

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    I think someone's pulling the collective leg, at least if we're talking about the US. For one, there's no way animal cruelty laws would allow live animals to be 'dangled'. Second, it's completely illegal to refuse to hire a female just because she's female. (All the dog races I've seen use mechanical 'prey' to get the dogs to run.)
     
  18. The Tourist

    The Tourist Banned

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    LOL. 'Shadow, how could you rat me out?

    I thought for sure someone would see "6 figure salary" and "men only" and come in here guns blazing.

    Perhaps I should have added 'women only make 5 figures' to really sell the idea.
     
  19. shadowwalker

    shadowwalker Contributor Contributor

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    Yeah, that would've sealed the deal! :D
     
  20. The Tourist

    The Tourist Banned

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    Or we could have written a story where Gloria Allred was filing a lawsuit to help women break through "the feathered ceiling."

    We could have hawked buttons saying "I'm the 99% of Dangling Dames."

    'Must I become a gray lady before I dangle for a greyhound?'

    "Do real men dangle?"

    Yikes, this stuff writes itself, and 'Shadow, you blew it for us all. Chicken feed...
     
  21. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

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    This has long since ceased to have any relevance to the original topic.
     
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