Talking meme 5: Female characters
Jan. 26th, 2015 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dhampyresaI kind of forgot about the Talking Meme until now, for reasons, but I'm getting back into answering it now.
apgeeksout : "Talk to me about female characters - some of your favorites? things they do or don't have in common? the ones you're writing? & anything else that strikes your fancy"
Okay, so female characters are one of the groups of characters for which I have immediate sympathy. Like doctors or nerds or little brothers or grumpy people or only-non-USAmerican-in-a-group-of-USAmericans or lots of other groups of characters that are more or less big, it's very hard to get me to dislike a female character (or a member of one of the other groups. For example, I'm pretty sure I'd like Reed Richards about 85% better if he was Doctor Fantastic instead of Mister Fantastic).
The better question, then, becomes, what female characters don't I like? And I honestly can't think of any. When it comes to characters, I tend to ignore rather than hate and so I don't really remember the ones I don't like. Attia of the Julii from HBO's Rome, I guess, but even then I alternate between mild dislike and complete apathy.
On the other hand, asking me to pick favourites is super hard. I could tell you all about Wanda Maximoff and how much I love her and how much I've loved her from the start, even though the first comic she was in I read was House of M (it was the reason I started liking her, actually and I think I really should explain this at some point. She's just so kind). I could tell you about Steph Brown and rising above the worst of situations to come back stronger and as determined to do good. I could tell you about Doctor Kavita Rao, who is a genius geneticist and is still atoning for what is both her greatest sin and her greatest scientific breakthrough, but will still think about saving other's people lives, first and foremost. I could tell you about Horsewoman, immortal paraplegic archer who doesn't take shit from nobody and bonds with horses and Muslim engineers. I could tell you about Cassie Lang, who decided to runaway to become a superhero and about Kate Bishop, who decided she'd do the same. I could tell you about Cass Cain, who found a way to greatness outside of the path her parents had built for her and ultimately found a way to forgive them. I could tell you about Arya Stark, who is slowly (or not so slowly) turning into a small, grumpy package of murder. I could tell you about Valeria Richards, who is so tiny and so smart -- too smart even -- and yet doesn't seem to see the path she's on. I could tell you about Gwen Stacy, who was a punk or goth and once saw the thing that had killed her on TV and thought 'I have to get there and help'. I could tell you about Layla Miller, who is trapped in her myriads of futures she cannot change and the things she's seen and the things she's been. I could tell you about Kinsey Locke and how she pulled herself out of all the tragedies she's been through and won that happy ending.
And that's just some of the ones I've written fic about (and posted). I mean, I could tell you about Rose Vitrac, or Verity Willis or Jordan Gates, or Yoko Tsuno or Khâny or Monya or Fantômette or Jace Valchek or Annabeth Chase or Rachel Elisabeth Dare or Clarisse or Silena or Thalia or Reyna or all the rest of them, really, because I love them all so fucking much.
As for things they have in common, I think most of them are survivors of sort and they're usually trying to do the right thing. A lot of them are superheroes, but then I'm writing a lot of comics fic lately.
It's funny, though, because I never actually sit down and think to myself "alright, time to write about some female characters". I usually want about specific characters. I'll think "I'll write about Rachel and Hazel shopping for art supplies when Rachel gets an attack of the oraculars" or "I'll write about the Jordan who escaped Lovecraft just before Dodge sold it to the Echo Bazaar and is now returning" or "I'll write about Pepper Potts being a Horsemanperson of the Apocalypse" or "I'll write about Parker timetravelling" or "I'll write about Maya Hansen surviving Iron Man 3", much in the same way I'll think "I'll write about Hannibal and Scipio writing each other letters after the war" or "I'll write about Al Jabr living to the present day". And by that I mean that it'll usually take me a while to get a clear idea of where I'm going with a fic beyond the basic idea (and even that can change).
I don't want to write about generic female characters. I want to write about these specific characters who happen to be female.
It's the same when I write original fic, by the way. I tend to default to creating female (or non-binary) characters, but that's never all they are. It can't be all they are, because then they're not characters anymore, they're cardboard cut-outs and I want to write about characters. I want to write characters and some of them will be female and some will be queer and some will be thousands of other things besides and while that will inform who they are, I am never, ever going to let that define who they are.
Like, uhm, okay, as an example, one of the novels I'm working on features several women crossdressing to get into the army. They're crossdressing because they can't join the army as women, which is as much about them being women as it is about the side of the war they're on, but they've all joined for different reasons: there's the one, who, if asked, will tell you it's because "chicks dig soldiers", but really, she has seven younger siblings she has to feed; there's the one who wants to be a doctor more than anything and maybe field doctor is not doctor doctor, but it's better than no doctor at all; there's the one who got conscripted pretty much by accident in place of her brother thirty years ago and stayed on all this time because she liked the power and respect raising through the ranks brought her and whose ambition rose her as high as she could go. (These are all supporting characters, by the way. People who've read the first draft of that novel should hopefully be able to tell who's who without me naming them.)
In the end, it boils down to thinking of them as characters before thinking of them as characters, as people, before thinking of them as female characters.
Does that make sense and/or answer the question?
Speaking of questions! You can still ask me stuff over at the talking meme post, if you'd like to go tl;dr in your general direction about anything at all. I swear, I never intend for these to get this long, it just sort of... happens. because I Have Feelings, probably. Anyway, I know it says "December" on the talking meme post, but I'm pretty sure no one will mind if I carry on answering these throughout February. (Hell, I still have one question from last year I need to answer.)
apgeeksout : "Talk to me about female characters - some of your favorites? things they do or don't have in common? the ones you're writing? & anything else that strikes your fancy"Okay, so female characters are one of the groups of characters for which I have immediate sympathy. Like doctors or nerds or little brothers or grumpy people or only-non-USAmerican-in-a-group-of-USAmericans or lots of other groups of characters that are more or less big, it's very hard to get me to dislike a female character (or a member of one of the other groups. For example, I'm pretty sure I'd like Reed Richards about 85% better if he was Doctor Fantastic instead of Mister Fantastic).
The better question, then, becomes, what female characters don't I like? And I honestly can't think of any. When it comes to characters, I tend to ignore rather than hate and so I don't really remember the ones I don't like. Attia of the Julii from HBO's Rome, I guess, but even then I alternate between mild dislike and complete apathy.
On the other hand, asking me to pick favourites is super hard. I could tell you all about Wanda Maximoff and how much I love her and how much I've loved her from the start, even though the first comic she was in I read was House of M (it was the reason I started liking her, actually and I think I really should explain this at some point. She's just so kind). I could tell you about Steph Brown and rising above the worst of situations to come back stronger and as determined to do good. I could tell you about Doctor Kavita Rao, who is a genius geneticist and is still atoning for what is both her greatest sin and her greatest scientific breakthrough, but will still think about saving other's people lives, first and foremost. I could tell you about Horsewoman, immortal paraplegic archer who doesn't take shit from nobody and bonds with horses and Muslim engineers. I could tell you about Cassie Lang, who decided to runaway to become a superhero and about Kate Bishop, who decided she'd do the same. I could tell you about Cass Cain, who found a way to greatness outside of the path her parents had built for her and ultimately found a way to forgive them. I could tell you about Arya Stark, who is slowly (or not so slowly) turning into a small, grumpy package of murder. I could tell you about Valeria Richards, who is so tiny and so smart -- too smart even -- and yet doesn't seem to see the path she's on. I could tell you about Gwen Stacy, who was a punk or goth and once saw the thing that had killed her on TV and thought 'I have to get there and help'. I could tell you about Layla Miller, who is trapped in her myriads of futures she cannot change and the things she's seen and the things she's been. I could tell you about Kinsey Locke and how she pulled herself out of all the tragedies she's been through and won that happy ending.
And that's just some of the ones I've written fic about (and posted). I mean, I could tell you about Rose Vitrac, or Verity Willis or Jordan Gates, or Yoko Tsuno or Khâny or Monya or Fantômette or Jace Valchek or Annabeth Chase or Rachel Elisabeth Dare or Clarisse or Silena or Thalia or Reyna or all the rest of them, really, because I love them all so fucking much.
As for things they have in common, I think most of them are survivors of sort and they're usually trying to do the right thing. A lot of them are superheroes, but then I'm writing a lot of comics fic lately.
It's funny, though, because I never actually sit down and think to myself "alright, time to write about some female characters". I usually want about specific characters. I'll think "I'll write about Rachel and Hazel shopping for art supplies when Rachel gets an attack of the oraculars" or "I'll write about the Jordan who escaped Lovecraft just before Dodge sold it to the Echo Bazaar and is now returning" or "I'll write about Pepper Potts being a Horse
I don't want to write about generic female characters. I want to write about these specific characters who happen to be female.
It's the same when I write original fic, by the way. I tend to default to creating female (or non-binary) characters, but that's never all they are. It can't be all they are, because then they're not characters anymore, they're cardboard cut-outs and I want to write about characters. I want to write characters and some of them will be female and some will be queer and some will be thousands of other things besides and while that will inform who they are, I am never, ever going to let that define who they are.
Like, uhm, okay, as an example, one of the novels I'm working on features several women crossdressing to get into the army. They're crossdressing because they can't join the army as women, which is as much about them being women as it is about the side of the war they're on, but they've all joined for different reasons: there's the one, who, if asked, will tell you it's because "chicks dig soldiers", but really, she has seven younger siblings she has to feed; there's the one who wants to be a doctor more than anything and maybe field doctor is not doctor doctor, but it's better than no doctor at all; there's the one who got conscripted pretty much by accident in place of her brother thirty years ago and stayed on all this time because she liked the power and respect raising through the ranks brought her and whose ambition rose her as high as she could go. (These are all supporting characters, by the way. People who've read the first draft of that novel should hopefully be able to tell who's who without me naming them.)
In the end, it boils down to thinking of them as characters before thinking of them as characters, as people, before thinking of them as female characters.
Does that make sense and/or answer the question?
Speaking of questions! You can still ask me stuff over at the talking meme post, if you'd like to go tl;dr in your general direction about anything at all. I swear, I never intend for these to get this long, it just sort of... happens. because I Have Feelings, probably. Anyway, I know it says "December" on the talking meme post, but I'm pretty sure no one will mind if I carry on answering these throughout February. (Hell, I still have one question from last year I need to answer.)
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(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-27 12:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-27 10:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-27 10:16 pm (UTC)(Also, I am very glad you Discworld. This is an important thing in anyone's life.)
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-30 11:49 pm (UTC)(I got my dad into Discworld! He loves it and Vetinari's his favourite.)
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-31 12:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-27 03:30 am (UTC)On at least one occasion I've consciously changed characters from male to female, or vice versa, when I had too few female characters or their roles were too skewed. I was depicting a sexist society, though, or one that I saw as sexist. (Many of my readers disagreed about this interpretation of the Fire Nation, which helped me realize that what I really wanted to do was write historical fiction.)
Speaking of sexist societies, I saw an interesting example in the Frostflower fantasy duology by Phyllis Ann Karr (reviewed here). In the stories' world all the warriors are women, which led some feminists to think it was a matriarchal world. However the author makes it clear, both in the books themselves and in her comments, that it's actually very much a patriarchal society. I thought that was an interesting deviation from the usual fictional portrayal of violence and privilege.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-27 10:46 pm (UTC)Yeah, I've changed the gender of characters several times too. In original fic my problem is usually that I have too many women, but you know, whatevs. There are so many authors who only ever have the one, I'll do my bit to rectify the balance.
Your review was very interesting! I'm tempted to give the books a try if I can find them.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-28 05:04 am (UTC)I think the physical books are out of print, but I got them on Kobo and they're probably available on Kindle as well.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-26 10:39 pm (UTC)I would be interested in hearing this story! I feel like Wanda is one of the characters who I've never quite "gotten," so it would be super interesting to hear what makes her awesome to you. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-27 10:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-28 03:20 am (UTC)