Babel Clash

I’ve come up with so many reasons why I like writing female characters, but I think what it all boils down to is that I like contrasts. Good SF&F creates a contrast between the real and the imagined worlds, and by that contrast, draws the subject into clearer relief. Likewise, putting a woman into a role more traditionally reserved for men creates a contrast between audience expectations, which are often subconscious, and the reality being presented. It makes everything fresher and more interesting, and as a writer it makes me consider things that I might otherwise have just taken for granted.

On Terry’s point, women in the role of trickster, I think there’s something to that… but on the other hand, many character types can play that role, I don’t think there’s anything inherently female about it. My key point is that different genders, in a medieval-style society in particular, will have to do things differently. Difference makes contrast, and contrast makes drama and thus entertainment. When everyone’s all the same, in any respect, I get bored, as a reader and a writer.

On Tom’s point about the role of frailty, I agree that frailty’s only fun when imposed upon a character who’s not accustomed to it. And here all the Buffy fans can recall the episode where, like, Buffy totally lost her powers, and like, it was so cool, ‘cause she couldn’t kick butt so easily, and she was all like, totally freaked out ‘cause she had to use her head and stuff instead of just beating things up? In ‘Petrodor’ I have a scene where Sasha is imprisoned, and writing how this hyperactive, hot tempered fighter handles doing nothing for a while was actually lots of fun.

I don’t really know if women’s relative scarcity in fantasy makes them more or less important to the plot — ‘A Trial of Blood and Steel’ is about evenly split, gender wise. And as the main character is female, there ends up being more ‘page time’ given to women than men. I can’t find fault in most fantasy for not having more female characters in the sense that I know my history and sociology and women in this world just don’t feature in big historical events like men do. But then, we’re talking about fantasy, not history. So if fantasy writers are excluding female characters from their stories, are they doing it out of concern for any sort of ‘accuracy’ (why should real world accuracy matter in a land of magic and dragons?) or merely to represent a medieval-style society that they feel personally most comfortable with? I say the latter. Which I find a little dull.

Related posts:

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