Now there's some writing advice I can get behind!
Has anyone read Blake Charlton's books? Because he sounds like an interesting and sensible person based on this essay in a series on strong female characters [link]. "So that’s it. My only bit of advice. It’s a simple idea really. If you want to write extraordinary women or men, don’t think about them, go out and talk to them."
It is truly astonishing how much ink and pixelage goes into debating about how male authors can get into female characters' heads without this bit of advice coming up.
One of the other essays in the series talked about post-apocalyptic stories and how so many of them are about a bunch of men doing man things because in the grimdark future, women turn into uniformly helpless plot devices. One link led to another: this essay [link] cites some books which mentioned how in the Great Depression and in '90s Russia, middle-aged, career-oriented men were pretty much the worst at adapting to massive societal changes. Much rumination about why this might be so follows, and I won't go into that just now. No, my thought was, if this is a demonstrable trend in multiple stressful periods, then does that mean that authors looking to write gritty, psychologically convincing post-apocalyptic science fiction are henceforth barred from using middle-aged male protagonists who run into a bunch of other middle-aged men setting up little kingdoms while women cower helplessly in the corner? It's one thing to complain that certain books act like women are agencyless props, but it could be quite a lot more interesting if we could complain on the basis that it isn't psychologically realistic, which seems to be the whole grimdark future schtick (since supposedly the reason the women are all cowering in corners is "it wouldn't be realistic for them to be powerful" or some such). Grimdark apocalypses: more realistic with middle-aged mothers as protagonists trying to hold it together after the men get drunk and roll over and die? It would be different, anyway!
On another note, should I worry about that sheriff's car driven by a young guy in a civilian-looking sweatshirt? Or do they let you borrow the car for your grocery run on your day off?
It is truly astonishing how much ink and pixelage goes into debating about how male authors can get into female characters' heads without this bit of advice coming up.
One of the other essays in the series talked about post-apocalyptic stories and how so many of them are about a bunch of men doing man things because in the grimdark future, women turn into uniformly helpless plot devices. One link led to another: this essay [link] cites some books which mentioned how in the Great Depression and in '90s Russia, middle-aged, career-oriented men were pretty much the worst at adapting to massive societal changes. Much rumination about why this might be so follows, and I won't go into that just now. No, my thought was, if this is a demonstrable trend in multiple stressful periods, then does that mean that authors looking to write gritty, psychologically convincing post-apocalyptic science fiction are henceforth barred from using middle-aged male protagonists who run into a bunch of other middle-aged men setting up little kingdoms while women cower helplessly in the corner? It's one thing to complain that certain books act like women are agencyless props, but it could be quite a lot more interesting if we could complain on the basis that it isn't psychologically realistic, which seems to be the whole grimdark future schtick (since supposedly the reason the women are all cowering in corners is "it wouldn't be realistic for them to be powerful" or some such). Grimdark apocalypses: more realistic with middle-aged mothers as protagonists trying to hold it together after the men get drunk and roll over and die? It would be different, anyway!
On another note, should I worry about that sheriff's car driven by a young guy in a civilian-looking sweatshirt? Or do they let you borrow the car for your grocery run on your day off?