What I Should Have Said Was
I had every intention of putting the following up online on Saturday morning but I didn't want to write it in Lj and I could figure out how to select all, then copy and paste off my tablet (I'm sure it's possible, I just couldn't figure it out) so this is going up a few days after the fact. It's not at all time sensitive, but for referencing sake, pretend it's Saturday, January 18th and I'm at Arisia having had very little sleep and typing bleary-eyed in my hotel room before heading out to the convention.
I suspect I'm not the only person who leaves a panel and has a little voice in her head immediately start in on "I should have said..." While I write by the slow construction method, each thought, each sentence needing to be right before I can go on, I don't talk that way. I think out-loud, I get it all out blat then I start working at what I actually mean, teasing the relevant from the static, and, have been known after considering the implications of what I've said to disagree with myself by the end of process. (In a discussion with a single person, I will occasionally argue their position if a point occurs to me.)
Which is rather a long way of saying, I spent a good chunk of last night when I should have been sleeping editing the babble and chewing at what I should have said. And since all that masticating wouldn't let me sleep in, I figured I might as well share it.
I'm at Arisia, in Boston. The panel was Sheroes: Writing Heroines. How does one write a believable female protagonist. We covered She-Rah and Shego (from Kim Possible) before the panel started. (The other panellist was James Nicoll to whom I've already apologized for overtly dominant behaviour.)(Laura Anne Gilman was supposed to be on the panel but she unfortunately couldn't attend - I suspect self-editing would have been easier had she been around as previous experience tells me Laura Anne marshals her thought before she opens her mouth)(best advice I ever got, btw, was from my grade six teacher who said, "Tanya, I have no doubt you'll go far if you remember one thing: brain first, mouth second.")(it's an ongoing struggle)(oh, and all these parentheses; this is how I talk)
After reading the panel description, my opening statement: "You write a believable female protagonist the same way you write a believable male protagonist -- you respect the character, you respect the story, you respect the reader." That seemed pretty definitive but as no one was willing to then head for the bar, we went on. Or, in my case, on and on. And, possibly, on.
But what I should have said was:
To the gentleman who was concerned he couldn't write his female protagonist because he honestly felt he didn't know how women thought but was positive it was diffent than how men thought.
"If you can't write subjectively, if you can't put yourself in your protagonist's head, pick a different protagonist." is less than helpful -- although recognize that sometimes, it just isn't going to work for you; I can't write romance, so I don't -- so what I should have said was, "while you're learning to do this, give the writing you're concerned about to as many women as you can find whose opinion you trust. Get as broad a mix of ages and occupations and social/cultural conditioning as possible. If all six of them have a different opinion about Y, well, that's a personal thing and your opinion is as valid. If, however, all six have the same opinion about X, that's a gender thing and you've probably got it wrong."
To the gentlemen who asked after my slightly ranty observation about how writers make choices when creating a world and if you've created, say, a future society or a secondary world fantasy you can't then say but women are treated this way because it's realistic. Bullshit. You're choosing to treat them that way, you're choosing the parameters of your fiction. Take some fucking responsibility for your choices. (oops, sorry, got ranty again.) (Where was I? Right, the question...) He asked, "What if you're writing in say, the 1950's?" And I thought out-loud for a significant period of time and was not terribly helpful. (I asked him afterwards, I really wasn't.)
But what I should have said was: "if the 1950's are the parameters you've chosen, you now have to ask yourself, what is my story about because if it's about fighting the entrenched patriarchy, then you need to build one kind of female protagonist. If it's about the strength of enduring injustice, you need another kind. My stories are almost always about finding and accepting personal power. Except for the Valor books where it's about the use and effects of personal power. Space Marines fighting an intergalactic war or fighting dragons or recovering a magical artifact or Canadian vampires are just the crunchy candy coating. I personally wouldn't wrap a story in the 1950's but I'm not you."
And then I should have gone on to say, "creating a believable character is world-building on a personal level. What are the character's unique biological characteristics (internal sexual organs, lower centre of gravity, the sloughing off of the uterine lining every month)(if the story you're telling lasts longer than a month, and that last bit is a biological characteristic, you'd damn well better address it, even if it's only to reference that in this particular story it's been taken care of that through magic and or technology)(Once you've chosen this as a biological characteristic, denial is no longer an option, particularly if we're talking a point of view character. Suck it up.) These unique biological characteristics are just that -- they are not, repeat not, a reference to gender. You then consider how social/cultural/anthropological pressures have formed and conditioned this character. Yes, you need to know what the social/cultural/anthropological pressures are. If you're writing in the 1950's research the 1950's. If you're creating your own social/cultural/anthropological pressure, do one hell of a lot MORE research.
Remember, you are god -- in a metaphorical rather than religious sense -- assemble your raw materiels and then bring your character to life. And that is where art takes over from craft. Hey, if it was easy, everyone would do it."
I also should have pointed out... "that if your character, let's call her Rachel, is sweet and unassuming and wants nothing more than to settle down with a man and raise a family, that's a valid choice. As long as you make it clear that these characteristics belong to Rachel not to women as a whole. Flip side, if your character, let's call her Torin, is efficient, violent, and slightly emotionally constipated that is also a valid choice as long as you make it clear that THESE characteristics belong to Torin and not to women as a whole. And you know what, if Richard is sports mad and deeply empathic or Dave is a dancer and emotionally constipated, they're Richard and Dave, they're not representing men as a whole."
Each character should be unique. Vive le difference. Because difference only becomes a problem if judgement is attached.
That's what I should have said... Well, and a bit around a Tom Stoppard quote and maybe clarifying my rant about lazy writing, cookie cutter characters, and going for the easy emotional button, not to mention a few statistics about reading along gender lines and the rant that goes with that, and possibly I could have touched on how, sometimes, it's not about us and it doesn't always have to be, but it's not 6AM anymore and I have a convention to get to so...