An Unfortunate Tweet

Camp Nano has been one heck of a journey for me this year. Normally, my editing takes the process of reading my book, assembling it in the correct order, and editing page by page from there. However, when I was working with my new editor on my last book, I found a new way. I went over the book and wrote what each chapter was, put them on post-it notes and stuck them inside my notebook while I played around with it. It helped me to really see where I was missing plot points and make sweeping changes if needed from a top-down approach that my old way of working wouldn't have allowed. I decided to see if it helped me with editing this next book. 

I should start by saying I knew it had problems. I was expecting a lot of rewrites. However, I was not expecting this method to show me that my entire plot was wrong and needed to be rewritten essentially. And I'm only exaggerating a little when I say that. I just finished the top-down overview and I have 17 chapters that are listed as "rewrite from scratch"... there could be more by the end of this pass, but that's what I'm working with now. 

Despite that daunting number, I'm actually pretty hopeful. Fox's Facade was a really difficult book to write in the first place. It was going a few different places, but at the time, I don't think I was a good enough writer to anticipate what exactly it would need. Regardless of the actual reason, I think the way I have restructured the plot will work a lot better now. I began rewrites a few days ago. Hopefully, it won't take me too long to do them. I'd like to have the edits out to my beta readers by September, if possible, though I'll have to see how my editing is going before I set that as the goal. 

That finished, I'd like to talk about a tweet that was posted earlier this week. 

This tweet from @dntmakeitworse to be exact. If you've read my blog for any amount of time, I'm sure you know how false this is. Yes, women tend to be overlooked in publishing. I'm not saying that isn't a problem. I've read the story all too many times about fans walking up to female authors and thanking them for writing under a pseudonym or their initials. "I never would have picked up your book if I'd known a woman wrote it" is something that all too many have heard. 

That said, while I think this was what the tweeter was trying to convey, they are horribly wrong. Even leaving aside solid staples such as Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Anne McCaffery, and Agatha Christie, there are hundreds of others. Margaret Atwood, Harper Lee, Ursula K. LeGuin, Baroness Orczy... this isn't even counting that the first novel in the world was written by a woman; my personal hero of Murasaki Shikibu, the lady-in-waiting who wrote The Tale of Genji. 

If you think women haven't always been there, doing the same things men were, you are sorely mistaken. Our tale often isn't told; the women warriors of Shaka Zulu's armies, the female samurai of Japan, the women of Scotland trained to defend the homestead when the men were away. 

And that I think is where I'll end it today. Let me know who your favorite female author as a kid was. Personally, I will also hold a place in my heart for Anne McCaffery. I loved her story of psychics, dragons, and cats. 

Heroes

          A week or so ago I picked up The Geek Feminist Revolution; its a book of essays dealing with (you can probably guess) feminism and pop culture. It's a good book thus far, and I heartily suggest you pick up a copy. Despite that endorsement, I can't say I agree with the entire book.

          In particular, one of the essays titled Hero (I think, my book is a few feet away) is about how the hero that people get in their mind when you say the word is a male, white, Greek-Adonis type of character. Hercules, Conan the Barbarian, Captain America (not the Hail Hydra version) and Superman (Justice League rather than Justice Lord) are all examples of this character. Hurley suggests that we need to change that.

          While I agree with the theory, the practical isn't so clear cut. First of all, when I was asked that question, my first thought wasn't Captain America and the like. The first thing I saw was a feminine face filled with determination and kindness. When I realised that she wanted a view of somebody, I saw my own heroes. While I do admit that one of my heroes, Jocelin, fulfils that stereotype, the other heroes that came to mind for me were Richard, a dark-skinned man, lithe and intelligent and Kuzunoha, an Asian woman who is slim, tiny, and doll-like.

          Obviously, I was not the type of person she was expecting. Since I like asking the hard questions, I put it to my Facebook page as well thinking that maybe because I'm an author and don't generally differentiate between hero and heroine in my own mind that perhaps other people would give the more expected answers.

          The first thing I realised is that, like me, most people (or at least everyone I have following me) do not see an image of a hero when you say that word. They don't see anything, or they see an expression on a blank face that encompasses qualities they espouse in a hero. If pressed, they see their heroes.

          Some of them see the face of Tsukino Usagi (otherwise known as Sailor Moon), or they see famous people they respect (Margaret Bulkley and Elizabeth Gregory MacGill). Some of them did see Superman (heroic preferences include dark hair over blonde hair apparently) and one person said "Baymax sacrificing his big plump robo body to push Hiro and the ship to safety."

 

 Pictures used as example only and are owned by their respective and awesome companies.

          So no, I don't agree with her. Or at least, I don't think its anywhere near as bad as she thinks it may be. I think it's clear that while there are many white, muscle-bound heroes, there are also many heroes that aren't. What do you think? What (or more correctly who) do you see when you think of a hero? And is that the same as your favourite hero? If not, why/what do you think the difference is?