Strong Women in Fiction

I'm probably going to beat a few dead horses here, but I feel like I need to repeat an oft forgotten sentiment that I'm rather staunchly standing by.

Strong women, by the standards of what makes men strong, are not that strong.

Often, we see authors trying to remove 'weakness'. Keep her away from the kitchen. Remove any sense of shame, kindness, submissiveness, or display of excessive emotion. If she's fat, she can't dislike her body. If she's muscular, she can take on any man in battle. If she's skinny, she's faster but God forbid she's ever manipulative or seductive or uses her looks. She's never illiterate and she never uses drugs. She can drink anyone under the table but she's not an alcoholic. She doesn't have kids, but if she does, she's not a nurturer. Tough love only. She can use sex to get her way, but is never used herself. She can't have been raped or otherwise traumatized because that would make her a damaged prop, a cheap piece of plot, rather than a fully-realized character.

See where I'm going? Contradictions abound as the list goes, somehow making a 'strong' woman into no woman who can ever relate to her. In trying to steer clear of the Stepford wife, we're left with another Barbie, more plastic than G.I. Joe. We're suddenly making the broken women who build their own lives up again, not giving the supposedly submissive-seeming character the room to reveal that she has the agency to wear a mask to build up her empire. The 'weak' woman is dismissed as flat before her layers are shown. She is no longer allowed to be mysterious because her perceived weakness will be consigned to satisfying the male gaze, to being nothing more than a punching bag, to not having her own mind or dreams.

Time and again, you see the nervous writer asking how to write a woman and you get the floods of defensive women looking to cut them down as sexist or misogynistic or shallow if the woman isn't some ideal that removes an feminine trait they consider weak. And I didn't gender the writer because, yes, they will even presume to infantilize a woman who isn't sure how to write female's of a certain level of socialized femininity. Maybe she was raised around men and just has no idea how women socialize or never uses make-up but her character does. The problem with their advice is that their increasing departure from socialized femininity begins to villainize any women who personify that role, as if to invalidate them as real women.

The trend is even to protect trans-women, gay women, women of color. Anything but the feminine aspect. In fact, the idea that we can't even define the feminine or masculine aspects because they might cause offense are what really end up causing the confusion. So instead, anyone who finds comfort in gendered roles becomes part of the problem and....

Ugggghhhh, no more. Really. 

People will continue battling this out, but as a writer, at some point I learned to just write. To look for the logic in a character's build and see if their actions, reactions and personality are plausible for themselves. To remember that I am misunderstood, that I am perceived as both weak and strong, that my stories will always display vulnerabilities and impassable walls, that those walls will crumble and when people feel safest with me, they'll sometimes hit invisible walls that confuse them as well.

If you want a strong woman, look at a characteristically weak one and ask what she might be protecting, what might be motivating her, what she is waiting for. Don't be so quick to dismiss her as weak or a victim. It's not always her failing that makes you uncomfortable but yours. Give her time to seem shallow, give her some time to be annoying and mysterious and able to change.

A strong character will not say all the right things, know all the right people, be confident in every room. They will also not be endearing in all their faults, be the pariah surrounded by peons, and suffer greatly just to prove a point. If they are any of those things, there's an organic way to get there without punching your reader in the face.

If your character is constantly signalling that they are kind but are actually stone cold assholes, then tell narration should at least be aware, making it comedic, creepy, or ironic. Otherwise, the reader just thinks you're ignorant of any device to drive the disparity.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, just be aware. At every stage of their actions, you as the writer should know what history or fears or delusion drives it. That is what keeps them from being flat. Don't try to be safe. Strive to deliver honesty at every dimension and you'll be all right. If you don't trust what you know of people, observe (but don't stalk) people who fit the bill. Don't always worry about being right. Sometimes the story is about your perspective or how others react to them in general. If you have a specific trait in mind, ask someone who has it rather than general forums that will confuse it with assumptions of their ideal.

Oh yeah, and have fun. Exercise your own strengths and enjoy the process.

Mother's Day

It could have been a harder day. I've endured a few of these without my mother, that turbulent relationship, a woman who was the high-definition two-way mirror and an impassable brick wall nonetheless. The first was still too soon after losing her to feel the brunt of it. I'd lost my grandma two months before her and I stood in shock of being suddenly matronless.

Not that my grandmother or mother passing meant any privilege was passed. I came to terms with it long ago, that I was family only at arm's length. There would be no inheritance and no acceptance there. There would be no change in my life, for better or worse, but for the absence. My mother seemed to have known her time was short and she'd made our visits about confessions of her mistakes and guilt so I made peace with that closure. Yet death doesn't wipe the slate clean. It's not the growing gnawing of a grudge that is left, just the gaping maw of a toothless gear that clicks pathetically against nothing at all.

Yet today, I spent a few hours with my sister and nephews in an arcade/skating rink/play area and I found some joy and peace in the people I do have. It's only when I've been alone that I wince at why a day keeps hooking into me when days never meant so much before. Because, maybe, I might have reached for the phone unconsciously to make a requisite call to someone who is gone.

It still hurts, the decision to not be a mother. Yet, I don't think I could bring a child into this world, knowing they could inherit what makes me dig way too deep into voids I struggle to share. It doesn't matter that I could be a great mother. I did well for my nephews, somehow, but as proud as I am of who they are, it's also the most terrifying responsibility. I get a lot of credit for them, but I didn't do it alone and it gets no easier over time. It takes more than being a good mother or wanting to be to take on motherhood and, at the end of the day, the children I bear must come only from the womb of imagination.

It's a tough day, as I've said, but it could have been harder. I have much to be grateful for, skills I've climbed mountains for, people who pull me out of places that could swallow me, wisdom I've nearly drowned in to drink. I stand on the edge and breathe. I cannot fly but I stand firm and dare the wind to shake me. If I fall, may the dive be spectacular. Although it's in me to grow roots and bend as the wind blusters. That much, I had in common with my mother. To all who give life, improve life, and preserve life, Happy Mother's Day.

Tomorrow is another day and one to start anew.

The Fiction Author's Journey

Writers, even before they are authors, often hear a lot of similar lines from the people in their life. If not being asked to be a character in their book, then something else; perhaps that they have some ideas that would be great for their story. Sometimes it's a shared misery (or pretended misery more akin to a humble brag), sometimes it's a bit of pleasant nostalgia. If, like me, you're in the latter group, then no matter how many times you hear it, it always warms your heart a little that people want to be involved in your work, even in a passive manner. Sure, some people can be pushy or relentless, but in most cases, they are coming to you with a vulnerability, a trust that you won't reject their interest. So even if someone can get a little defensive or stand-offish, it's mostly coming from a place we can relate to, maybe a place where we've lashed out from before ourselves.

One thing I'm learning to tackle more are personal alignments. While I've said before that I don't make characters that line up very well with myself, I've been more generous in offering up vulnerable instances in the guise of fiction. I might change the relationships of the involved characters or put it in a wholly different environment, but the psychological landscape is an internal conflict that can take place in anyone, resonating with people for the intricacies of those similarities. It's true enough that people who share a diagnosis are still, for all intents and purposes, alone in their suffering. Yet in support groups or forums, people still find comfort that other people can better describe a feeling they are troubled by as long as they can't name it. Because of that, I've learned to use my experiences without making it about me-- I can transfer these details and name them, creating an environment that can be discussed or understood.

Perhaps. I'm also aware that I might be too wordy for some people, which I'm not using to insult anyone's level of intelligence. I don't just fixate on what characters do or even observe. I also let them muse on what they think they are seeing on people's faces. Often, they aren't right so I do rely on the reader not automatically trusting a character's observations sometimes.

Conversations. Hoo boy, that one was not so easy for me. I wouldn't say it has little to do with any social ineptitude on my part. I just started asking myself if people really talked like I was making them talk. Back when Gilmore Girls first came out, that was a huge point of contention, how rapid and instantly witty the characters were yet how emotionally inept they were as the counterbalance. While it was an enjoyable show, too often it felt disingenuous and unrelatable. While I don't expect fictional stories to be overly realistic, it can really take you out of a story too much if a character can't be believable in and of itself. Conversations can't just be witty or enjoyable to be successful, but I do labor to avoid the small talk as much as possible because I loathe it and... I'd rather the reader just assume it happens rather than painstakingly recreating those boring and 'realistic' moments. I take it seriously that a writer has the power to decide what parts of the story are worth being delivered. It can be tough to decide but conversations... if they're there, make them count. Also, I try not to use them to bend the rules of exposition. While it's okay to let a character explain some finer points, I really don't want them describing what might be way more interesting to play out in real time.

As a fiction author, I can become personally fixated on what I believe to be strengths and weaknesses of mine, though neither of them become off-limits to my story. I certainly want to play to my strengths, but at the same time, those weaknesses could stand to be challenged and reformed as well. While I don't care to subject people to bad writing like subjects for my mad experiments, I find it worthwhile to go ahead and write them, then work out if they should stay or go or just get worked on over time. Play to your strengths, play on your weaknesses. While at some point, I have to make an executive decision for the good of the story, there is really no such thing as wasted effort.

Each writer's journey will differ and I can't say being a published, marketing author makes it any easier. No matter what paths you take, remember to include some room for self-discovery. Even in non-fiction, there's room for that, and not just for those memoirs either. I'm playing with the idea of a how-to-draw book that combines the technical with the intuitive, aiming to make it an experience that doesn't allow for the feeling of failure to inhibit you. To write a book that honest and evocative, I do have to delve into what I used to refer to as 'the zone', that place where you turn off the harsh critic and trade it for the helpful one. This is a place that does require conscious introspection into a mental process.

I don't think there is any such thing as a valuable book written by a completely detached writer. While we all need a healthy dose of logic and reason to create successful stories, we also can't completely distance ourselves from the subjects. Instead, there's ideally a place where our work is neither too precious for criticism nor too detached for emotional response.

In any case, keep at your own personal journeys. Back to editing for me, but think on your own strengths and weaknesses sometime. You may want to reevaluate that every so often, really assess what you found to be stronger or weaker in your writing and ask yourself how you can build from that.