Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

So I was cruising through Dreamspinner Press' open calls since I did decide to slow down and develop the vampire one into a longer piece. I thought no more short stories but let's be honest, I can't really do that. I just need to be more selective since if i want to build up the writing cred in this century (as opposed to what I'm bagging along from the last) I have to do SOME short stories.

Anyhow there in the open call was one for guardian spirits. Angel fic...eh. then it occured to me NOT all guardian spirits are angels. A dark curly head poked up into my subconscious as said 'set it in Pompeii with the Lares.' I said go away I'm working on ideas for springkink and nano. I was just looking to see what publishers wanted. These two gentlemen said WRITE US DAMN YOU.

Fine. But I don't have any of my Pompeii books here. It's all online they argue (they're right). Okay fine. You can't be named Tiberius. But it's like the number 3 most popular name of the time. Sigh. At least Pompeii got buried before the trinomic naming system took hold. I was not looking forward to typing out Tiberius Aelius Rufus all night.

which brings me to another post on writing I read this week where they discussed writing cross-gender (i.e. men writing women and women writing men) and the mistakes they make. The main contention was to make men very unemotional and very terse. I had a problem with that.

Yes men DO show emotion less and they DO talk less but the discussion sounded in favor of one step up from a robot. That said I KNOW I do have issues with making my men too girly on occasion and I've been called out on it. However, in reading a lot of male authors writing men they don't make them these alpha male say three words and never cry type either. So where is the balance? THoughts?

Personally I think one of the best ways to know if you got it right is to have a writers group that has both men and women. Usually these first readers will point out where you have work to do.

So this week's writing challenge, write a passage from the pov of the sex opposite your own.

I still have done next to no writing this week. Hell this week went by so fast I didn't even see it go. I did like a spare 900 words of orginal fiction. I'm going to have to scale back the fanfic writing with Nano looming. That's not a bad thing. I was getting a little burn out with fma_fic_contest so I'll take me a little break from that and I REALLY wish I hadn't picked so many springkink prompts. I feel obligated to do them since they're for someone else. Oh well, it's kink. They can be short.

115501 / 175000 words. 66% done!

Comments

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

That's what makes Sean Patrick such a good Nano character, since his name is two words every single time. *g*

Seriously, I envy your ability to write good, coherent short stories -- I never can quite make it; they're always obviously a part of something larger OR just simply lacking in something. Good luck!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

i'm making that face in your icon right about now...

Haha I did the same thing with a young miss Lee Ann before i killed her off in Taz and Killian's story.

And thanks. I wish I felt I did coherent short stories well. I get the same feeling you're describing. The steampunk I plan for nano was a short story as I mentioned before was a short story that simply had to be larger and the short I just sent off...lacked something. If they take it, I'll be shocked.

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Good luck!!!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

thanks and icon love

[rahirah]

I just don't worry about the whole men-writing-women-writing-men hooha. I just figure out what the character is like and write them that way.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

in all honesty this is mostly what I do too unless I get called out on something or I come back to edit something and it really feels like something a man wouldn't do/say.

Part of my issue with the above mentioned blog is that it was written by and for romance writers who do have this whole ideal of manhood they adhere too. I think that's one of the reasons wildrider was having an issue finding a market. Sean Patrick isn't an alpha male douche. He's too nice (a complaint I've seen on another friend's novels when her male love interest isn't being this overbearing jerk. You would think that the modern woman would not find that kind of man still fascinating)

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

That's why I switched it to Urban Fantasy, where male characters are allowed to be sympathetic... (It is weird--and somewhat disturbing--that's still the pattern for Male Leads in Romance novels.)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

i definitely think that's a better fit. When you originally introduced it as romance I was quivering in fear. There are reasons it's not my favorite genre, still too much with the alpha male

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

But my former agent complained that one of my male lead characters in my romance novel was *too* alpha. Romance readers are tired of the jerk men too -- they want a guy who's strong, but capable of showing emotion and not being ... well, a jerk. Turns out you can have a strong personality and not be an ass! :-)

My character, by the way, came off as a jerk at the opening because the female lead reminded him of people who'd harassed his family when his father died, back when he was a child. But the reader didn't know that yet, so ...

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

ah well i've seen reams of edits from romance contests from various friends, #1 complaint is always the guy is too nice.

this is why i dont' read romances

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Really? Hm ... strange that I'm hearing the opposite. My experience with the romances I've read is that the Type A personality is going out of style -- or at least, he has to be paired with a woman who's every bit his match.

Looking back on it, in all three of my manuscripts the women are forward looking career types, while two out of three of the men are laid back and casual. But none of them is a pushover.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

i can't see how that alpha male stereotype can stay around to be honest. I'mnot sure how women relate to it

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I don't know -- there are good aspects to the type A personality: Drive to succeed, directness, work ethic, and such. But each of the good aspects could be turned into something bad. A novel hero who's a take charge hero type is all well and good, until he starts pushing the heroine around and treating her as a prize instead of an equal. I can't stand that kind of person, so I'd certainly never write him as a protagonist.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

that's true too, I suppose. Though I see the typical romance hero as less Type A than as Type A times two or something. I'm type A. I know many other type A's and with a few exceptions of the super A's they aren't like the romance model.

But i agree, take charge is one thi ng, demeaningly arrogant another

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Now we have to have a Type Double-A? :-> Happily, the Super A's really are disappearing from the romance genre, and good riddance.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

no argument there

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Well, generally, I write romantic stories -- however, they're not strictly "romance" in the formula, so I've always had trouble placing them in today's world of sub-sub-sub genres. In the old days, it would just be fantasy/horror (and that's the genre it won, too).

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

that I can believe. Your stories are not what I'd think of when i think of romances. that is not a bad thing

[sillymagpie.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on that. "All men are emotionless and terse" is a stereotype.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

like i said there is some truth to it though, a whole lot of physiology going on there but yeah I think that article slanted too much to one side.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

The central male characters in my old novel are, to a man, nice, emotionally supportive guys. Every one of them. They all have the ability to be mad or manipulative, which the reader sees, especially towards the end, and there's a few men mentioned briefly that remain off screen who are no angels, but the main male characters are all *nice*.

'Cause my women characters, as a rule, are front-and-center and bouncing off the walls.

You write what you know, and most of the men I've known are *nice*.

::shrug::

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

points up to my comment to rahirah as to where I was reading the other blog about writing men. Romance I think has different standards than the rest of the world.

My males are nice or not depending on the situation but when I do get male readers saying a man would not do this, I tend to listen to them.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

Since the men in my novel aren't the point, and I have known men like them, I don't worry about it much.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

men are often the main characters in mine or co-main characters, I do worry about it

[mulzrule.livejournal.com]

Oh, interesting challenge. Don't you just love it when characters like to conflict with their own time periods?

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

those two are about to get hit in the head with their time period

[mulzrule.livejournal.com]

Just sic Winry and Riza on 'em. That oughta do it.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

probably true

[enemytosleep]

yeah, been busy and I applaud all of you crazy enough for nanowrimo.

If it helps, you picked three of my prompts at springkink. If you would like to drop them I'll let you know which ones they are.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

hahaha no no, I'll do them (i can probably figure out which they are since the others belong to ELD) but i might be late... or you'll hear lots of swearing here

[enemytosleep]

haha, true enough about the others likely being ELD. I went ahead and prompted there at your request a little while back. Figured it might fun for you two to write some FMAk ink fic that wasn't only for each other.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

and it will be. In fact if you don't mind, go ahead and tell me which ones they are and if there's anything special you'd like to see in the story (or a setting) let me know.

[enemytosleep]

12: FMA (Maes/Gracia) - Newly weds, want to have a baby

14: FMA (Roy/Maes) - pre-war drunk sex

24: FMA (Roy/Olivier) - femdom

Nothing special, except the Roy/Maes I'd love to have a good helping of comedy if you can (wasn't looking for angsty, but if you go there that's cool too). Otherwise have fun with them as you see fit.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

silly drunk sex is probably doable.

that and spelling Olivia that way. I don't like how Olivier looks..

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

The first and obvious point is that all people -- men and women -- have different personalities. Sometimes men *are* open in their emotions and talk a lot! Does it fit their upbringing, background, and character? If so, then it's normal for them.

Now I'm wondering. I've written a lot of female characters, both in fanfic and original fiction; not only have I never had a complaint about them not being "womanly", but I've been congratulated for getting them right. So am I a good writer, or am I a girly man myself? :->

[sillymagpie.livejournal.com]

I've known a lot of guys who are emotional and anything but terse, and they're engineers and scientists.

Something tells me that "all men are terse and unemotional" is as cliché as "all women are hysterical chatterboxes."

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

to a point it is a cliche

more to the point women having 30 times the connectors in their brains than men for speech we DO talk more on the whole.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Absolutely -- and, as the old saying goes, writers want to avoid cliches like the plague.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

snort that's a good question. THough I have seen male authors utterly butcher writing women having them do/think things I couldn't imagine any woman doing.

yes everyone has different personalities. I agree with you guys more than the article. That said physiology also determines a lot of things and men are not wired for lots of long speeches. The emotions thing, that is probably more cultural.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I try to get inside a woman's head when I'm writing her, but I don't know how well I succeed -- men are terrible at getting inside women's heads. I've heard that romance readers can tell within a page whether the writer is male or female, without knowing the author's name.

You've hit on an interesting point of discussion. How many of the differences between men and women are physiological, and how many are cultural? There are certainly some areas in which you could argue *most* men differ from most women.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

sometimes it's very obvious that a female character is being written b y a man. Other times not.

The nature vs nurture argument is always an interesting one and usually , to me, it seems it's mostly a little of both

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

My girlfriend tells me I write like a woman ... I still haven't decided if it's a compliment or an insult. :-)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

snort

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

I guess the thing to keep in mind about men is (a) they don't express their emotions that much, however much they might have them, and (b) they tend to displace many emotions (fear, grief) into anger. However, if we're talking romance leads, what real men feel doesn't really apply. We're going for the cave-man archetype here, not the modern, conflicted, very human everyman. (Since we both write mainly male characters, however, we both need to remember that men, while they definitely have emotions, aren't as ruled by them. I always remember what that female-to-male transgender said on a TV show I watched--that as the testosterone took effect and her body began to transition, she was able to _put aside_ her emotions in a way she hadn't been able to as a woman.)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

that last statement is very interesting