Who To Represent?
There are a lot of topical issues close to my heart, and a lot of areas of diversity and representation I care about. This has wound up seriously stumping me more than once, in an unexpected way. Here's my most recent dilemma...
I really like sensitive men. (See: husband) One of the issues I care about is the image of masculinity in society, and how men are expected to act in specific, "manly" ways, or else they're less of a person. So I looooove subverting this by showcasing sensitive, emotional male characters, and getting deep into their fears and pains and using such things to drive their story. I conversely hate showing sensitive, emotional women, because sadly that's how women have always been portrayed--usually with the implication of being weak-kneed and needing a lot of support for their men.
Thus, I tend towards soft, gentle male characters and tough, independent female characters. Because the heavy emotional stuff is more weighted on the men, those are the ones more likely to end up with romantic tension, and I wind up rooting for gay couples, while the women are off being self-sufficient as warriors or leaders or something. (Yes, I know, I need to vary my characters more--I'm working on that)
The specific dilemma I ran into is that in my next novel, a dark fantasy, I have my typical emotion-driven male protag (in my defense, he's super different to the one in Pull of Gravity in other ways!). He has a spouse who's been presumed dead, who's the other major POV character. And even months down the road, I'm still not convinced whether this spouse should be a wife or a husband.
If he's a husband, I get to promote LGBT leads in non-LGBT-centric stories (they just happen to be LGBT, in this action/adventure tale). If she's a wife, I get to promote strong and capable women. And like... both of those are important to me.
Amber, you're probably saying, forget about that meta-analysis nonsense. How do you picture the character? Which one is right for the story?
Too bad that doesn't help in this case. Hans is sweet and adorable, and it will be fun to get him captured by the baddies and beat him up a bit. But Greta is capable and lovable, with passion and determination. Both candidates will have good chemistry with their travel companion, both will give the baddies a run for their money, both will approach the challenges of the plot in a way that makes me really root for them.
What do I do? Flip a coin?
Right now, I've been going with Hans. I slightly, slightly prefer him. But I love Greta so much, too, that I keep swinging back and forth on whether I should change it in the next draft. There are two other fun, strong female characters, and I love gay couples in fiction, so I think Hans gets the edge. We'll have to see what feels right after a few drafts.
I really like sensitive men. (See: husband) One of the issues I care about is the image of masculinity in society, and how men are expected to act in specific, "manly" ways, or else they're less of a person. So I looooove subverting this by showcasing sensitive, emotional male characters, and getting deep into their fears and pains and using such things to drive their story. I conversely hate showing sensitive, emotional women, because sadly that's how women have always been portrayed--usually with the implication of being weak-kneed and needing a lot of support for their men.
Thus, I tend towards soft, gentle male characters and tough, independent female characters. Because the heavy emotional stuff is more weighted on the men, those are the ones more likely to end up with romantic tension, and I wind up rooting for gay couples, while the women are off being self-sufficient as warriors or leaders or something. (Yes, I know, I need to vary my characters more--I'm working on that)
The specific dilemma I ran into is that in my next novel, a dark fantasy, I have my typical emotion-driven male protag (in my defense, he's super different to the one in Pull of Gravity in other ways!). He has a spouse who's been presumed dead, who's the other major POV character. And even months down the road, I'm still not convinced whether this spouse should be a wife or a husband.
If he's a husband, I get to promote LGBT leads in non-LGBT-centric stories (they just happen to be LGBT, in this action/adventure tale). If she's a wife, I get to promote strong and capable women. And like... both of those are important to me.
Amber, you're probably saying, forget about that meta-analysis nonsense. How do you picture the character? Which one is right for the story?
Too bad that doesn't help in this case. Hans is sweet and adorable, and it will be fun to get him captured by the baddies and beat him up a bit. But Greta is capable and lovable, with passion and determination. Both candidates will have good chemistry with their travel companion, both will give the baddies a run for their money, both will approach the challenges of the plot in a way that makes me really root for them.
What do I do? Flip a coin?
Right now, I've been going with Hans. I slightly, slightly prefer him. But I love Greta so much, too, that I keep swinging back and forth on whether I should change it in the next draft. There are two other fun, strong female characters, and I love gay couples in fiction, so I think Hans gets the edge. We'll have to see what feels right after a few drafts.
You could always do like one of those choose your adventure stories and try it both ways!
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