How did all these men get in here?
Jan. 4th, 2007 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseRejection from F&SF came back. Only got to JJA with this one. Damn. I was rather proud that only one prior story failed to make it to GVG.
Both this and Strange Horizons said the same thing: Good writing, just not hooked/grabbed/held/ whatever by the story itself.
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I'm behind on movie watching, so you all probably already know that the Prestige is seriously good. Right. Right?
If you don't, go see. It's in the cheap theatre. Rival magicians, much illusion, and the kind of twists throughout (Not just at the ending, tough that twists too) that work, and more importantly, keep working even after you know or guess what's going on. Worth seeing again.
(And yes, Bowie makes a pretty good Nikola Tesla.)
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I think there's a reason I'm on the bad feminists list.
I find I read books with perfect comfort without registering anything wrong in the slightest, only going, "Oh, um. Yeah." where others later mention badly stereotyped female roles. In books written before 1950, I tend to give them intentional leeway, but I'm fearing now that this is bleeding into my modern day reading more than I meant it to. There's other ways I'm a careless reader, or a reader who notices but gives a pass, but this specific one has been bugging me, if only because I've been giving less leeway over time to steretyped racial concepts, anywhere I know enough to notice them, and less leeway to unconsidered stereotypes about sexuality. But other aspects of female life?
The reason I'm mentioning it? Well, it comes down to a dangerous trend in my own work.
Various pro female writers lately (In this case, by lately, I mean for the last few months, though![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala's latest discussions have certainly been among the most obvious) have been talking about gay characters as protags and male characters as protags.
I can't say it's something I've never thought about, considering that one of my mental labels for the current books is "the ones with the straight male lead". Yup, another (female) writer with a profusion of alternate sexualities.
It's not intended. With Raising the Storm, there are very good spoiler reasons for a major character to be male gay (and possibly even not to read as wholly masculine), therefore the main character has to be bisexual. (The female lead's story evolved so weirdly I can't even know wherre to start to discuss how her sexuality came into it.)
And frankly, unless it turns out I'm writing bad males with the ones who are supposed to be masculine, I'm not too worried about teh gay. Or, more commonly, teh bi (I really liketruepenny's label "janus", but since I use janus imagery for something else entirely, I can't steal it, darn). Or the sex-changy ones or the hermaphrodites or the transgendered, though they almost all hit in one specific series. Or the kinky ones.
But right now, that's not what's been bugging me. What has is, well:
Raising the Storm: Three major characters. Lead male, the other two are one male, one female. Others get their perspective throughout.
Bird of Dusk: Protag male, though there are occasional other points of view scattered throughout.
Labyrinth: Current point of view character female, but there's a second point of view pushing me to include it which would be male.
Serpent/Soldier: Two Male points of view in the first book, one continuing into the second. It's possible the theoretical third book will be from a female first person POV, because then I know how to open it, but right now I know when and why the two men are writing all this stuff out, and I don't have a justification for her besides "I wanna!"
Blood of the Woods: At least two books. Again, alternating points of view, two male, one hermaphrodite (Who self-identifies as female when given the chance to decide which to pretend to be.) Until the weird s*** kicks in.
Dark Water: One of each, and for once, the woman wants to get more point of view. But the titular character is also male, and the story centres around him even though he never gets point of view.
9 Men. 4 Women. 1 Other that's kinda sorta more female than male. The proportion in short stories seems more even, but then, I don't write many and I sell even fewer. I think my percolating novels also even out more.
The truepenny/matociquala discussions about men in traditionally feminized roles being the easiest way to discuss female cultural roles without people getting seriously ambushed by the girl cooties is insufficient explanation, as it doesn't fit the bill for why and how RtS turned out as it did, and definitely not for Serpent and Soldier, where the protag is if anything occasionally uncomfortably pushed into overly stereotyped masculine roles. Blood, too, the male characters have some weird stuff happen - one sex-related - but overall aren't in feminized roles - if anything, females end up in traditionally male roles in the course of things. (I can't deny it's present in Bird, considering what happens to the main character, but that book is about alienation, and atypical sexuality and atypical gender roles are present to support that theme, not vice versa.)
I've got good female characters, (or I do if I have any good characters at all). Some of them even let me in their head for a scene or two, even a novella (About a quarter the length of an average book and an eighth of RtS). None, not even Heather (Labyrinth), who was intended to, seem to want to support a whole novel all alone.
This is just random thinking. And there are enough ideas above to last me a few years, so I can't exactly go out of my way to amend this now. If I even "have to"; the diversity broadens as soon as you take culture, skin tone, species, and sexuality into consideration.
I just wonder about myself. Is it because in spite of myself I still think men get more adventures?
Both this and Strange Horizons said the same thing: Good writing, just not hooked/grabbed/held/ whatever by the story itself.
_______________________________________
I'm behind on movie watching, so you all probably already know that the Prestige is seriously good. Right. Right?
If you don't, go see. It's in the cheap theatre. Rival magicians, much illusion, and the kind of twists throughout (Not just at the ending, tough that twists too) that work, and more importantly, keep working even after you know or guess what's going on. Worth seeing again.
(And yes, Bowie makes a pretty good Nikola Tesla.)
_______________________________________
I think there's a reason I'm on the bad feminists list.
I find I read books with perfect comfort without registering anything wrong in the slightest, only going, "Oh, um. Yeah." where others later mention badly stereotyped female roles. In books written before 1950, I tend to give them intentional leeway, but I'm fearing now that this is bleeding into my modern day reading more than I meant it to. There's other ways I'm a careless reader, or a reader who notices but gives a pass, but this specific one has been bugging me, if only because I've been giving less leeway over time to steretyped racial concepts, anywhere I know enough to notice them, and less leeway to unconsidered stereotypes about sexuality. But other aspects of female life?
The reason I'm mentioning it? Well, it comes down to a dangerous trend in my own work.
Various pro female writers lately (In this case, by lately, I mean for the last few months, though
matociquala's latest discussions have certainly been among the most obvious) have been talking about gay characters as protags and male characters as protags.I can't say it's something I've never thought about, considering that one of my mental labels for the current books is "the ones with the straight male lead". Yup, another (female) writer with a profusion of alternate sexualities.
It's not intended. With Raising the Storm, there are very good spoiler reasons for a major character to be male gay (and possibly even not to read as wholly masculine), therefore the main character has to be bisexual. (The female lead's story evolved so weirdly I can't even know wherre to start to discuss how her sexuality came into it.)
And frankly, unless it turns out I'm writing bad males with the ones who are supposed to be masculine, I'm not too worried about teh gay. Or, more commonly, teh bi (I really like
truepenny's label "janus", but since I use janus imagery for something else entirely, I can't steal it, darn). Or the sex-changy ones or the hermaphrodites or the transgendered, though they almost all hit in one specific series. Or the kinky ones.But right now, that's not what's been bugging me. What has is, well:
Raising the Storm: Three major characters. Lead male, the other two are one male, one female. Others get their perspective throughout.
Bird of Dusk: Protag male, though there are occasional other points of view scattered throughout.
Labyrinth: Current point of view character female, but there's a second point of view pushing me to include it which would be male.
Serpent/Soldier: Two Male points of view in the first book, one continuing into the second. It's possible the theoretical third book will be from a female first person POV, because then I know how to open it, but right now I know when and why the two men are writing all this stuff out, and I don't have a justification for her besides "I wanna!"
Blood of the Woods: At least two books. Again, alternating points of view, two male, one hermaphrodite (Who self-identifies as female when given the chance to decide which to pretend to be.) Until the weird s*** kicks in.
Dark Water: One of each, and for once, the woman wants to get more point of view. But the titular character is also male, and the story centres around him even though he never gets point of view.
9 Men. 4 Women. 1 Other that's kinda sorta more female than male. The proportion in short stories seems more even, but then, I don't write many and I sell even fewer. I think my percolating novels also even out more.
The truepenny/matociquala discussions about men in traditionally feminized roles being the easiest way to discuss female cultural roles without people getting seriously ambushed by the girl cooties is insufficient explanation, as it doesn't fit the bill for why and how RtS turned out as it did, and definitely not for Serpent and Soldier, where the protag is if anything occasionally uncomfortably pushed into overly stereotyped masculine roles. Blood, too, the male characters have some weird stuff happen - one sex-related - but overall aren't in feminized roles - if anything, females end up in traditionally male roles in the course of things. (I can't deny it's present in Bird, considering what happens to the main character, but that book is about alienation, and atypical sexuality and atypical gender roles are present to support that theme, not vice versa.)
I've got good female characters, (or I do if I have any good characters at all). Some of them even let me in their head for a scene or two, even a novella (About a quarter the length of an average book and an eighth of RtS). None, not even Heather (Labyrinth), who was intended to, seem to want to support a whole novel all alone.
This is just random thinking. And there are enough ideas above to last me a few years, so I can't exactly go out of my way to amend this now. If I even "have to"; the diversity broadens as soon as you take culture, skin tone, species, and sexuality into consideration.
I just wonder about myself. Is it because in spite of myself I still think men get more adventures?
