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

[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