So, I’m currently writing my first ever fantasy heroine, an urban shaman by the name of Sharon Li, who in the course of her many adventures is going to spend more than a little time getting very very angry at the Midnight Mayor for failing to fill her in on the full story until it’s too late, and in the course of doing this I figured I’d take this opportunity to blog about something I get asked occasionally… why do I write so many men?
First, let me point out that technically, I don’t write that many men – I just tend to have male narrators. As one mate put it, ‘you’ve got one weedy bloke surrounded by all these kick-ass girls’ which is actually a fair summary of some of my work. The problem I’ve found in the past with writing heroines is that, in fantasy particularly but also I suspect in any genre, there’s always a danger of writing too close to home. I’ve always promised myself never to write about either writing or theatre, as they’re far too close for me to have any objectivity about them. Likewise, on my few attempts to write heroines before the advent of Sharon Li, I’ve found myself writing stronger, taller, sexier, sword-wielding versions of how I’d like myself to be, who often spend so much time being Strong and Brave and Feminist that actually they have no room left for those pesky little details like character. I spent many years having a knee-jerk reaction against the role of women as either tame sidekicks in need of rescuing, or that very special form of humourless heroine who Does The Right Thing Despite Their Bitter Pain and who I personally always have the urge to throttle.
All this is rather tied up with my notion of what a hero is. I personally can’t stand any ‘heroic’ character who, when faced with an epic evil has any reaction other than ‘oh Christ, can we get someone else to deal with this?’ Heroes should be frightened, and make mistakes, and get things wrong, and try to compensate for all of the above by something more interesting than being overtly Strong and Brave, but it’s taken me many, many novels to find a way to write a woman who can be all of the above and yet not degenerate into the screaming-at-a-mouse syndrome that plagued so many sidekicks down the generations. Thus, you’ve ended up instead with a series of men, all of whom have reflected my personality and I freely admit that, but on who I feel totally at liberty to inflict any and all defects, accidents and simple brutal injuries that cross my mind at the time.
I also used to struggle with the fact that there is an urge to have a heroine point out, at key moments, that she is a heroine, not a hero at all. I personally haven’t encountered much gender discrimination in my life, although undeniably shards of it still linger in the theatre business, but when we think of all the great heroes of fantasy and mythology, of movies featuring epic bloodied good guys standing over the defeated bodies of a mighty evil, we either think of men, or we think of women with very big guns who don’t just enjoy their sexuality, they revel in it! And let’s face it, I’m not the kind of girl to try and write a Lara Croft mk 2 and get away with it…
In short, it’s taken me many books to write a heroine who can be more than just a symbol, more than just a mirror of my own doubts and aspirations, but can actually be a fully rounded character in her own right. (Not necessarily a glowing reflection on my writing skills, but hell, at least I’m growing as a person…) Will it work?
Watch this space…
8 comments
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Kevin says:
July 28, 2011 at 7:07 pm (UTC 1 )
I think it gets harder to write a character if you keep thinking how they might get misinterpreted by the reader or get tagged as some stereotype you try so hard to avoid. I say just ignore gender and don’t worry about making statements. Character traits that resonate with readers are gender-neutral.
Abi says:
July 28, 2011 at 8:39 pm (UTC 1 )
This is fascinating. I had noticed that there weren’t that many female characters, or at least that they have a nasty habit of getting killed off. Interesting to read why you have found it easier to write men.
Incidentally, lovely point on heroes who react any way other than “oh Christ, can we get someone else to deal with this?”!
Looking forward to meeting Sharon Li in due course.
Morgan says:
July 29, 2011 at 3:21 pm (UTC 1 )
I wonder: aside from characters you yourself have written, do you find your favourites tend to gravitate towards one gender over the other? Personally, I’ve noticed my favourite literary leads are overwhelmingly male, but in other mediums they’re usually girls.
This post makes me reflect and feel a little guilty. I have a habit of overlooking books with a female narrator, because I fear that frustratingly ever-present stereotype: the obligatory romantic sub-plot. They seem to fall victim to it more frequently and more distractingly than males. Nooo, I don’t want to hear you fussing about the bloke you met only two chapters ago, get on with the story!
I feel exceptionally guilty because not -every- book does that, and even if it’s there, doesn’t mean it’s done poorly. A few bad apples spoil the bunch, I s’pose.
(P.S. All your ladies are aces, I find, but my favourite is Teresa. She cracks me up something fierce.)
Emma says:
July 29, 2011 at 9:46 pm (UTC 1 )
Awesome. Looking forward to a heroine who’s as ballsy and scared and messy and fun and passionate as we are in real life.
I always think C.J. Cregg in the West Wing is a great female lead. She’s a woman, she’s got problems, but they’re not ‘women’s problems’, you know?
AdrianH says:
July 30, 2011 at 1:08 am (UTC 1 )
I’d never really thought about this that much, but it did get me thinking about various books, and I read *lots* of books, and their characters, and it seems that in the ‘hard’ SF field, it’s more likely that a major character, or ‘hero’ if you will, will be male, although even there there’s exceptions, as in Alien and Aliens, where there are two strong female characters, particularly Ripley.
In Fantasy, I’ve just had a quick shufti at my old books, and there are quite a few with strong females; Katherine Kerr’s ‘Snare’, Liz Williams ‘The Poison Master’, Mary Gentle’s ’1610′, Kristin Cashore’s ‘Graceling’, Jacqueline Carey’s ‘Kushiel’ series, and Barbara Hambley has consistently written good female characters, particularly in the Antryg Windrose books, ‘Silent Tower, Dog Wizard’, and ‘Silicon Mage’. There’s probably more, but I can’t think of specifics at the moment.
Jeanne says:
August 1, 2011 at 9:43 pm (UTC 1 )
If you genuinely have a goal of writing a realistic and truly heroic female lead – do a little research on what it is that makes the current female CEOs successful. They/we are learning that there are female dominant traits that really do work well in crisis situations. If you really think about the traditional female role – who’s traditionally been home alone and expected to deal with absolutley anything that happens to the house or children? No delegation allowed and you gotta fix your issues with whatever is at hand? (Who knew the original MacGuyver was a woman?) Not so bad for the “fairer” sex!! It’s only men who think they rule the world. (LOL) And somehow we have fallen for it and are afraid of our own strengths. I agree with Kevin that good strengths and character traits are gender neutral – both in practice and in our appreciation of them.
Anna_Wing says:
August 6, 2011 at 7:23 pm (UTC 1 )
Try the Hong Kong and PRC martial arts cinema. Female action stars are a normal feature of this genre, and not infrequently have vehicles made particularly for them. Most Chinese female action characters also do not suffer from the tedious emotional inadequacies inflicted on allegedly strong women in English-language genre fiction, especially in the US. They frequently die heroic and bloody-minded deaths, but no more often than their male counterparts.
AdrianH says:
August 7, 2011 at 11:22 pm (UTC 1 )
Good point, Anna. Not overly familiar with much Asian martial arts movies, but Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and House Of Flying Daggers both had good strong female characters, and Japanese Anime frequently does, as in the various Studio Ghibli films like Spirited Away, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro, plus Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ghost In The Shell and Appleseed.
Commonplace Post (3) » Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog says:
September 17, 2011 at 8:01 pm (UTC 1 )
[...] of related to the above: Why So Many Men? @ Kate Griffin’s [...]