I write because my passion is to tell people stories.
Stories of love and hate, of fear and hope. Stories where good people do bad things and bad people do good things. Stories of lives that are unexpected, horrible and beautiful.
I write these things because I believe they are true in real life, therefore should be in fiction too. But not matter what I write, I always seem to be asking 'why'?
Technically this is the fifth post in the week long series. The comments just got so interesting that we needed more time between each. So, here is my second and final post in the series...
Wow. What an amazing discussion this has been. Lynda’s post on Friday got some really great comments on Facebook. Like from Cenobyte B:
“…Because the genre developed in this predominantly male audience, there
developed certain tropes, and I think one of those tropes is that female
characters must either be lovers or adversaries… I think the era of
multi-faced female characters is just now coming to the forefront of all kinds
of literature, although more ‘mainstream’ literary fiction has had more time,
more space, and more of an audience to develop these themes. Science Fiction and
Fantasy are still eking on to the ‘literary’ scene, and so, as genres, are still
having to overcome some of those traditional tropes.”
This and other comments over the last week have prompted me to ask myself a question.
As a writer, does the gender we are born to (or choose to embrace) have an impact on our ability to write from the opposite sex?
Many of the writers I know have asked this question at one point or another. It’s normally asked if a man can write from a women’s point of view convincingly or vice versa. The answer always seem to depend on the author, but for the most part authors are more comfortable writing from their own sex’s point of view. There are of course exceptions to this rule. Our own Lynda Williams has a very male dominate cast in her Okal Rel series. I, on the other hand, find is easier to write from the female point of view even though I tend to write from both male and female perspectives equally.
Could this be the cause of these “tropes”? Is it because men were the storytellers? But why would women not write from women point of views when they finally broke into the genre? Was it because the “normal” storyline and characters were expected?
I agree that true women characters are just starting to be seen in genre fiction, and perhaps this is because it’s only now become acceptable to portray that in genre fiction. I think fantasy caught on to this much sooner than Science Fiction, but it’s coming. A new era perhaps?
I know that Lynda will write a closing post shortly, and I won’t take away from that, but for myself I would like to close by saying I think that a strong female character doesn’t need to have a fist fight or beat up a guy to captivate an audience. She can be hero without lifting a finger in anger, just as some of my female hero’s have done in real life… but sometimes kick butt stories can be really fun to read.
Yesterday’s (Day Two) post by Lynda was a great way to start things off. We spoke about the social sphere of influence that women in our history had and how society changed to take that away.
Society is funny like that. The 1960’s were really the decade for Science Fiction. It was popular, Star Trek and Outerlimits were on the television, and more mainstream people where becoming interested in “those kinds” of books. The changes that started in the 1950’s with Rock ‘n Roll (which had a profound effect on society) continued into the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres. Racial segregation or integration, women in roles other than the damsel in distress, and the space race/exploration were all things that North American audiences wanted to see and so the genre catered.
In the 1980’s and 90’s it became more common place for women to be seen in what once were traditional male roles. Women became leaders in industry, medicine and finance. Women have a dominating presence in the office/ corporate world, but can be found in positions like welder, pilot and labourer. Women have integrated into the “man’s world” but most are still responsible for the “woman’s world”. Child rearing, cooking, cleaning.
Today, women are learning how to balance their lives in a completely new way. What’s interesting is that statistics show that more women are watching Science Fiction shows. They are reading more genre books. Is this because they are finding something in the genre that they want, or is it because they are looking for something and hoping that the genre will provided it?
During this chaos, a funny little subgenre called “women’s fiction” popped up. Danielle Steel made her millions selling books about strong female characters, timeless values (love, children, home, family), and women’s issues (cancer, divorce, children problems). Her characters are women who face tragedy and emerge stronger. This is a genre unto itself now and it’s picking up speed.
Is this what all those women are looking for? Or is it that they are looking for something similar but mixed in with something fantastic?
For decades, Science Fiction and Fantasy have shown us what could be, what might be. They have been tools for escape, places of retreat from the real world. But perhaps it’s time for a little realism to show through into the genre. Perhaps it’s time for a little bit of “women’s fiction” to find a place within Science Fiction and Fantasy just as Horror, Mystery and Romance have.
Both of the flash fiction stories that I submitted to the Absolute Xpress Flash Fiction Challenge: Creatures of the Night, have been accepted for publication.
That means that by Christmas I’ll have 5 short stories published this year alone. How awesome is that?
Here is something else that’s awesome. While I was at Con-Version (Calgary’s Science Fiction and Fantasy conference) I met a very nice man named Mike Plested. He runs a podcast called Get Published on his website The Irreverent Muse.
He decided to interview me as an up and coming author and get my impression on how going to Con’s can help writers make connections and “get published”. The podcast is now live on his website and I would love to know what you think of it. Click here to go to the podcast. Pointers are greatly appreciated because I’d like to do more of these podcast interviews.
All in all, August has been a wonderful month for my writing. I hope September is just as good.
Starting on Sunday, author Lynda Williams and I are doing a continuation of our panel from Con-Version: Calgary’s Speculative Fiction Conference.
At Con-Version, I did a panel with Lynda called “Women who don’t kick butt: Can they still win hearts and minds?”. We discussed how women have been portrayed in genre fiction and how our society changes have affected how we, women, perceive power and strength. It was a great panel and it’ll be an interesting adventure as a week long blogging event.
Starting on Sunday with an introduction, Lynda and I will be posting articles and responding to each other on this topic. I will be posting on Tuesday and Thursday, with Lynda posting on Monday and Wednesday. Friday and Saturday are days to pick up on topics that have come up through the comments – because I hope you will comment
Lynda will be hosting this unique blogging event on her blog “Reality Skimming“. I will be posting summaries on my blog so you can follow along. Any comments that you post on my blog during the week, I’ll transfer over to Lynda’s so there is one central place for the whole conversation.
This is going to be fun. I hope you will follow along.
I read a blog post today that bothered me. You can read the post here written by Andy Shackcloth. The summary of the post titled “Why you shouldn’t write your novel” is as follows:
- You need to be able to market before you should even think about writing your first book.
- You should try your hand at smaller projects first to get a feel for marketing.
- If you do this you will be ready to take on a novel.
I have a few issues with this.
While it is good to get to know the in’s and out’s of the “other stuff” (marketing) there is still valuable education to be had from writing your first book. How do you keep track of multiple plot lines and make sure they are resolved by the end? How do you create believable characters that a reader will want to follow? How do you build interesting worlds? What’s the difference between too much description and not enough?
Perhaps your first novel won’t get published. Perhaps when you are finished writing your first book you will have learnt so much it looks like one person wrote the begining and another the end. Why is that a bad thing?
I don’t believe that by writing something completely different, like Andy’s smaller projects, you can avoid the mistakes you WILL make in your first novel. You will make them. And not just in your first novel but in every book you write you will find a new flaw, and you will need to correct it in every subsequent book. Writing is a continually learning process, we become better the more we write, and that’s the way it should be.
In Andy’s post he uses the example of F1 racing and Go-Kart racing. An F1 race would be equal to a novel and Kart racing would be smaller projects like “a small collection of shorts, history of your town, review of the new British Olympic village, the plight of sharks”. I will agree that marketing is one of the big things that goes into publishing and selling your novel. With Go-Karting you might learn the rules of the track, some pit lingo, how to change the tires, etc. which are bonuses to F1 racing but better if you want to make a career out of Go-Karting. That said, you will never learn to race a Formula One car if you only practice on a Go-Kart.
There are other things that I would do instead of “karting”. Get involved in the industry, go to conferences. Talk to writers, editors and publishers (they aren’t as scary as you think). Be a slush pile reader for a publishing house that publishes the genre you want to write in. Get involved with a critiquing group – have people read your writing and read others. You will learn what works and what doesn’t. You will learn what makes a good story and what doesn’t. What readers and publishers want.
Let me ask thia: if you don’t have something to market, should you really be focusing your attention and energy on it? I know I’m guilty of answering yes to this question at times, but the more authors I talk to the more they tell me not to worry about it right now.
“Just write”, they tell me. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t have some sort of presence even before you have a book ready to hit stores. I have a blog and my website. I’m on Twitter, MySpace and Facebook. But until I have something to market, this is about all the “marketing” I should be worring about.
So I think you have write your novel first and then worry about the “othe stuff”. You have to jump into the Formual One car and take it around a few laps. It’s ok if it’s a crappy drive and your time sucks. It was just your first run. With practice you will get better. You just need the persistence and perserverence to keep going.
Starting on Sunday, author Lynda Williams and I are doing a continuation of our panel from Con-Version: Calgary’s Speculative Fiction Conference.