Congratulations to all you NaNoWriMo-ers! How did it go? Any words of wisdom on plowing through, finding time, writing speedily? Any lessons learned?<\/p>\n
Here’s a\u00a0little more in this English thread that I\u2019ve begun. One of the things that made writing Stolen Magic<\/em> such a lengthy endeavor is that, under a spell of insanity, I decided to try not to use any words that entered English after 1700, so I was consulting the Oxford English Dictionary<\/em> (OED) on almost every word. It was nuts to do for a book that would be published in the twenty-first century. I will never indulge that exact madness again, but sometimes I still wonder about particular words. If they seem too modern to me, I look them up. Often, I discover that a contemporary-sounding word originated in the thirteenth century. But sometimes I\u2019m right. I looked up deadline<\/em> this week and found that its first appearance in writing was in the early twentieth century. What did they use\u00a0before then?<\/p>\n Do you do that\u2013look up the etymology of a word? I think any online dictionary will give you the date of origin of a word, although the OED shows the etymology of each use. Consider stand<\/em>, for instance. The OED gives its history not only as noun and verb, but also for all its shades of meaning.<\/p>\n On to the post! On July 7, 2016, Christie V Powell wrote, In my current WIP, my main character is facing an arranged marriage. I just started writing a soul-searching conversation with her and her father. Important stuff for their characters comes out but I can\u2019t help worrying I\u2019ve just alienated all of my male readers. Before whenever I have \u201cgirly\u201d parts I\u2019ve tried to include other elements of things going on, but I\u2019m worried about this one. So, do you consider the gender of your readers? Can you think of a way to make this scene less mushy?<\/em><\/p>\n This exchange followed:<\/p>\n EmergingWriter: Hmm\u2026 I\u2019m afraid I don\u2019t typically consider the gender of my readers. I suppose I probably should! You\u2019ve got a male character to work with\u2013 the father. Could you give him some thoughts that read as more \u201cmale”? Not fully understanding or relating to his daughter, finding her more emotional than he might be, etc. I\u2019m not sure, though, because on the other hand you probably don\u2019t want to fall into the quagmire of gender stereotyping. Maybe the father is really very sensitive!<\/em><\/p>\n Christie V Powell: Both of them come from a culture that is very stoic, so they will be talking more logically and rationally, but they\u2019re still talking about marriage\u2013 and I feel like that logical approach might be even more alienating to teenage boys.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m just remembering when I was a kid and thought Toy Story was too mushy because of the scene where Woody bares his heart to Buzz when trapped in Sid\u2019s bedroom. Not even romance, just high on emotion. Then again, I was a lot younger than my target audience.<\/em><\/p>\n Emma: I haven\u2019t really considered the gender of my readers very much either when it comes to things like this. I definitely should think of this more. I do consider my male readers when creating characters, however; I try to create characters, both male and female, that will not only connect with my female readers, but with my male readers as well (but then again, we all try to do that). I think that if your male readers love your story and your books, they won\u2019t be daunted by a few \u201cgirly\u201d scenes. I know when my brother reads books, he doesn\u2019t mind a few kissing scenes or highly emotional scenes, so long as that isn\u2019t the main focus of the book, and so long as most of the plot is action centered. He doesn\u2019t let the girly stuff stop him from reading a book if he loves the book (and as long as the girly stuff is kept to a minimum), and he\u2019s a 13-year-old boy who\u2019s a die-hard Marvel fan. There\u2019s no guarantee of how your male readers will react, of course, and since I haven\u2019t read your scene I can\u2019t give specific things to change, but I wouldn\u2019t worry too much about it. I like EmergingWriter\u2019s idea of giving the father thoughts that are relatable to your male audience. I was going to suggest adding a dash of sarcasm or humor to make it less mushy, but you said your two characters will be talking logically and come from a stoic culture, so this may be against their character.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ve thought about this, too. I believe my books are full of action, but they have titles like The Two Princesses of Bamarre<\/em> and covers that feature the female MC. I\u2019ve sat at book fairs and watched boys approach and then flee the girly cooties of my covers and titles. I should sell the\u00a0books with optional brown paper covers!<\/p>\n My publisher tells me that most\u00a0of my readers are\u00a0girls and I shouldn\u2019t worry about it. So I\u2019ve pretty much stopped. But, regardless of the gender of my reader, I want my male (and female) characters to be believable, which includes gender, and I, too, don\u2019t want to slip into stereotype. I\u2019m entirely with EmergingWriter that a dad or any male character can be sensitive. These days gender seems to be increasingly fluid. The Q in LGBTQ stands for questioning. And, just saying, my husband weeps easily and still comes across as solidly male. I hardly ever cry, and I think I\u2019m unmistakably female.<\/p>\n Admittedly, since I\u2019m writing fantasy and mostly drawing from an old-fashioned European fairy tale tradition, I haven\u2019t gotten very complicated so far, but I have fooled with gender in the character of my dragon detective Meenore in A Tale of Two Castles<\/em> and Stolen Magic<\/em>, who won\u2019t say whether IT is male or female. When IT meets people, IT both bows and curtsies. I don\u2019t even know which IT really is! If I write more books in the series, I doubt I\u2019ll ever reveal the answer. IT can even fall in love with another dragon\u2013who also won\u2019t tell ITs gender.<\/p>\n If our plot calls for emotional dialogue, then it does. I don\u2019t think we should duck it. I think we worry too much about what may turn off a reader. Readers bring unpredictable attitudes to\u00a0their reading. Some males may love the marriage conversation but may be left cold by something else. If our story is engaging and our writing is clear and occasionally sparkles, we\u2019ve done our job.<\/p>\n How our characters conduct themselves in the conversation and what they say will reinforce and expand what we know about them, including the way they inhabit their gender.<\/p>\n Anyway, pronouns do a lot of work for us. He, she, and even the relatively new they (for people with a more complicated relationship with gender) convey a great deal. As readers, when we read the pronoun, we form a limited idea of the character. When he<\/em>, for instance, does anything\u2013speaks, acts, feels, thinks\u2013we masculinize it in our minds. When she<\/em> does anything, we feminize it. If we have a they character, we’ll probably have to give our readers a little more information.<\/p>\n Physical description, including clothing, also helps. I don\u2019t mean we have to describe gratuitously, but when we\u2019re showing people, the reader will see them, including their genders.<\/p>\n As for the mushy factor, I\u2019d wonder about the relationship of the father and daughter and also the relationship between the father\u00a0and his wife. Are they sentimental about their love for one another? If they\u2019re not, the conversation doesn\u2019t have to get mushy. They can talk about affection rather than love, about negotiating differences, about respect and friendship. Depending on the society, they can delve into tradition and duty.<\/p>\n Doesn\u2019t have to be boring, either. Our MC\u2019s thoughts and feelings can keep the conversation lively. Also, she can have memories that illuminate what\u2019s being said, and these can be full of action.<\/p>\n