Thank you for all your comments on yesterday’s post, and hello to anyone who has found this site through the quote that’s been tumbling around on tumblr. I hope, more than anything, that the post yesterday served to clarify some of the issue surrounding the current drama, and “boost the signal” as one of my critics put it yesterday. The important thing is to get the correct information out there, so people’s rightful anger and frustration is not misdirected.
One of the unfortunate things about situations like this is that they often overshadow the work. For instance, now people who might have been proud to have been winners of the More than Magic contest (people like Sloan Parker, author of More), may no longer like to talk about having won the contest on their websites or bios. And because I mentioned the controversy surrounding the creation of my most recent anthology, it’s kind of taken on a life of its own, and I almost don’t feel like I have the right to talk about it the way I usually would, which is more along the lines of:
Yay! I have a new anthology out. It’s a really cool anthology, and it has some of my favorite writers in it: people like Carrie Ryan and Carrie Vaughn and William Sleator. (William Sleator, guys! Where is my time machine so I can go back in time and tell my teenage aspiring writer self that one day I’ll be in an anthology with the author of THE HOUSE OF STAIRS!)
But let’s just pretend we can go back to that place.
My story in the anthology is called “Foundlings,” and it’s set in a near-future world where women have lost all their reproductive rights, and follows a teenage girl who is on the run with her pregnant twin sister.
This is the first thing I wrote when I came back from my maternity leave last year, and on one level, I was inspired to write this story as an exorcism of all the outside pressure I’d felt while pregnant to do XYZ exactly right. It was about the dirty looks I got if someone caught me drinking a soda or eating seafood, or the way total strangers felt they had the right to grill me about my birth plan or breastfeeding intentions.
It’s also a world that I’d had in my head since around 2002, though back then it had been an adult thriller inspired by a rash of recent murders of pregnant women (including the disappearance of Laci Peterson, as early on in the case there’d been a theory that she’d been kidnapped by someone who wanted the baby), and an article I’d read about some of the truly wild security measures that were being implemented in hospital obstetrical wards. When I had my baby, the hospital put a multitude of computerized bands on our bodies that would play lullabies if and only we were reunited. And while that was very cool, I could see a way that increased security around pregnancy might be used as weapons against women, very quickly.
And then I started reading about bills being introduced in US state legislatures that would require the investigation of every miscarriage, or outlaw birth control pills. I read about a law passed in Brazil that requires the registry of pregnant women. I researched the fate of the pregnant Desaparecidos (disappeared) in 1970s and 1980s Argentina, and the forced pregnancy testing that happened in Romania under Ceausescu.
In the non-governmental, societal side, I read about what actually comprised the “abstinence only” education that’s so prevalent in schools now, and the way these classes so often vilify sexually active youth and characterize teen motherhood as a penance a girl should pay for daring to have sex. I saw that teaching in action when I watched teenagers taking to task the people on the MTV show “16 and Pregnant” that chose to give their baby up for adoption, because, as these viewers put it, if they got pregnant, then they “deserved” to be forced to raise the child, no matter what would be best for them, their child, and the infertile couple who wanted to adopt said baby. I saw how even the pregnant couple in question’s own parents were telling them that they had no other choice.
Some of this happened long ago and far away, and some of it is happening here and now. And all of it is extremely scary.
All of it went into the big cauldron in my head, and what came out was “Foundlings.” It’s a story about sisters and unconditional love. It’s a story about babies and criminals. It’s a dystopian, but it’s not set in some distant, domed city where everyone eats food pills and has cybernetic eyeballs. In fact, the world it presents might be a little too close for comfort.
I hope you enjoy it. If you want the chance to win one of two copies of the anthology it’s in, go comment on yesterday’s blog post. If you want to talk about “Foundlings” (maybe you’ve read it?) or any of the things that inspired me to write it, feel free to comment here.
I’ve gotten a lot of emails this weekend (because somehow folks think I’m some sort of RWA spokesperson?) about the current kerfuffle over some RWA chapter I’ve never heard of prohibiting homosexual romances in their published novel contest (a contest I think I may have heard of once or twice, but honestly, I don’t keep track of regional published author contests and have never entered one myself).
I am not a member of this chapter. I am a member of the chapters WRW — my local DC chapter — and TARA, which is the Tampa chapter, and which I’m still a member of for nostalgic reasons. (I’m not even a member of YARWA, because 2 RWA chapters is already too many for me.) The only thing I know about this kerfuffle is what I have read on the internet and on the private RWA loops discussing the issue.
Because things on the internet are sometimes completely inaccurate, it has been erroneously reported that this is an RWA National stance. Which is not true. Here is a link to the rules of the RWA national published author contest,w which is called the RITA awards. I am currently judging this contest.
Other things that have been left out of a lot of reports:
RWA has many members who write LGBT romances. In fact, there’s even an LGBT special interest chapter of RWA. Here is a list of its members. Go buy some of their books.
This all blew up on the internet on Friday. This is Monday. Just because there has been no official statement from the all-volunteer board of RWA yet does not mean there will not be one.
My understanding is that RWA National doesn’t have a lot of control over the chapter contests, and if it did, that would be globally bad for the contests for a myriad of reasons relating to the way contests have freedom to make up their own rules (for instance, about what constitutes “published”) that RWA doesn’t necessarily agree with. I don’t know what will happen now, but as it stands, even if RWA National wanted to do something, they might not have jurisdiction.
The contest has been canceled.
This small regional contest that hardly anyone ever heard of before Friday had at least one winner last year (I was told two, but I can’t seem to find it) that was a gay romance. The book, called MORE by Sloan Parker, won the award for best first book. Go buy it.
This last point is probably the most relevant of all. Because here’s what I’ve noticed about a lot of these kerfuffles, is that there’s a lot of outcry, but not a lot of follow up. The people on the internet like to pounce and loudly complain about discrimination and threaten boycotts of every book written by every RWA member (no, seriously, that was one email I got this weekend), or boycotts of every book by every RWA member in the chapter in question (another suggestion, to which I say — the only reason I actually know the rules of the contests of the chapters I’m a member of is because I went and looked them up this weekend, given that I am not on the boards, nor on the contest committees, and wouldn’t be entering them myself, so why in the world would I know?), but they aren’t saying, “Hey, you know what? This contest awarded an LGBT romance last year, let’s go buy it and show our support for what they say is an excellent LGBT romance and how it was brought to our attention as such by the judges of this contest.”
Or, hey! Let’s make a list of the people who were GOING to enter their LGBT romances in this contest and read them.
There is an outcry, but there isn’t a lot of follow up.
Last year, there was an outcry over a YA anthology that was prohibiting same-sex stories. There were a LOT of posts about it on the internet. There were a lot of authors who got up in arms and dropped out of not only that anthology, but an anthology being edited by the same editor, an anthology that I was writing for.
In the end, what ended up happening was that the anthology lost half its line up and the editor was removed from the project. We got a new editor, and a new line-up (an AMAZING line up, if I say so myself), and the publisher pledged to donate the proceeds to a homeless shelter for LGBT youth. The new anthology includes several LGBT stories. I’ve read them, they’re great.
And the internet? Is silent. I haven’t seen ONE blog review of this anthology. I haven’t seen ONE comment about the fact that there’s this great new anthology out there with all these LGBT-friendly YA stories in it. About how hey, look at the GOOD we did, by getting all kerfuffly on the internet. It gets better, guys! We complained about discrimination, and there was a response, and now there’s a book out there that would not have existed before, and it’s helping gay homeless youth, and it’s helping gay youth in general, because it’s representing them, and there’s really not enough of that out there.
But hey. Maybe that’s not as fun as being outraged.
You can ask Sailor Boy, I love me some righteous indignation. But I think, if we really want to make things better out there, the best way to do it is to make the fact that there great gay romances out there more visible. I haven’t read More, but I know it beat out debut books in every other genre in that RWA chapter contest in 2011, so that’s a pretty strong recommendation. And I personally think theBrave New Love anthology is fantastic, though I am biased, given that I am in it (though not financially biased, because it could sell a million copies, and I wouldn’t see a penny, being that it was a flat fee).
But don’t take my word for it. Read it yourself. Go out and buy it, knowing that your dollars will be donated to help homeless youth, or enter to win it in the giveaway contest on this very post.
That’s right. Giveaway. Leave a comment in this post, and enter to win your very own copy of Brave New Love. Contest goes until Friday. Since i have two copies to give away, THERE WILL BE TWO WINNERS.
ETA: Hello to everyone here from tumblr. Thank you for coming. I hope you enjoy the post.
ETA2: I have blogged about my story in the anthology (which is not, just to be clear, an LGBT story) and my inspiration for it.
While I will not deny that there are a lot of novels out there that have borrowed the love triangle formula (in the mathematical sense) that worked so well in Twilight, it’s not a singular occurrence. Also incredibly popular after the worldwide, game-changing, publisher-floating, industry-saving and genre-creating success of Twilight? Books about EVERYTHING that Twilight was about. Books about vampires, books about beautiful immortal people, books about unusual families of paranormal humanoid creatures living amongst us, books about girls with paranormal boyfriends, and books in which high school girls fall into extraordinarily quick and everlasting love. All of these are available in ready supply right now, all of them owe at least some part of their current popularity to Twilight.
This is a good thing. People finding new things they like in books and then reading more books about those things? Wonderful.
And one of those things, yes, is “a girl in love with two boys” love triangles.
I have only published one book with that kind of love triangle in it: My first novel, Secret Society Girl, which came out in 2006, right when Meyer was lighting the world on fire with New Moon. Like Bella, my character Amy has to make a choice between two boys she likes who both like her.
However, I have written two books with this supposedly rare “two girls one guy” love triangle: Rites of Spring (Break), in which Amy competes for the affections of a guy, and the upcoming For Darkness Shows the Stars, which is based on Persuasion, and therefore includes the Anne Elliot — Captain Wentworth — Louisa Musgrove triangle so beloved (or beloved-to-behated) by its fans.
So, having published one of these and seen years worth of reader reactions (and read enough reactions to the Persuasion one to know it’s the same), I can tell you right now why the Twilight kind is more popular:
most of the readers of these types of novels are girls
These readers are moved by the “tough decision” facing a heroine with two fabulous guys after her.
Which leads to “team” formation, by individual readers, in fan circles, and by publicity departments.
Whereas the heroine competing for the affections of a guy against another girl gets one reaction: beat the “other woman.”
(Note: this is very typical Louisa Musgrove treatment in Jane Austen fandom.)
If the other woman is a normal woman with faults like the heroine, she is labeled an irredeemable b****. If the other woman is a saint, she is allowed to be pitied, but we still root for the heroine to get the man. Why? Because to do otherwise would mean the reader is rooting against the heroine. And, almost without exception, that ain’t good.
In Rites of Spring (Break), Amy does not win her love triangle. And despite the fact that I very clearly demonstrate that the guy at the center of it is NOT the one for her, and soon after I embroil her in a fabulously delicious romance with a new guy, you would not believe the number of emails I get demonizing both other parties and wishing that Amy had won. Even though, if she HAD won, she would not have going on to her wonderful romance that they also say they love so much.
The way I look at it is like this: even if you know your ex or the guy who would never ask you out in high school was TOTALLY wrong for you now, you still want to look drop-dead gorgeous at your high school reunion, right? Just because you’re better off without them doesn’t mean they shouldn’t still pine for you. It’s not the most enlightened of all feelings, but it’s a fantasy.
(Hello, exes. Yes, this is what I Iook like every single day. No, I do not currently have bags under my eyes because Q was up half the night or applesauce in my hair because, well, see previous.)
And it’s that fantasy — of having multiple people madly in love with us, that is so compelling to so many readers.
But here’s the problem: because it’s so compelling, and because publisher publicity departments (understanding this visceral response readers have to this storyline) have pumped it up, its prevalence in the book on the shelves and, perhaps more importantly, in the marketing material for books on the shelves, has trained readers to expect a love triangle in their novels When people complain “why does there have to be a love triangle in every YA novel” they are often complaining about things that a few years ago would not have been considered a love triangle at all.
How do I know this?
Because there was no love triangle in Twilight.
Bella loved Edward, and Edward loved Bella. There might have been a few other people who were interested in dating Bella, just like there was some lingering resentment on the part of Rosalie that she hadn’t good enough for Edward while Bella was, but neither of those things weighed particularly heavily on either of these characters’ minds (and Rosalie has been long since happily matched up).
But if that book were published today, with the microscope readers have been trained to place on any whiff of something that might be a love triangle, they might see this:
And maybe that’s a compelling story, told from the point of view of Mike or Jacob. Poor guys, they secretly love Bella, but she only has eyes for the vampire. Indeed, as the series progressed, Meyer chose to dwell on this facet of Jacob’s story. But that’s as the series progressed.
I read reviews of books all the time where they talk about love triangles that range from a stretch to completely non-existent. I have received emails about the “love triangle” in Ascendant. At first, I spent a lot of time scratching my head. Then I realized they were referring to the fact that Astrid is pursued by one boy while dating another.
To me, that was no more a love triangle than the fact that every boy in Forks instantly goes ga-ga over the “new girl” Bella is somehow indicative of a love tetrahedron.You kinda need love to have a love triangle. Or at least the idea of choosing one over another. The love triangles in my friend Carrie Ryan’s books (The Forest of Hands and Teeth, etc.)? LOVE. TRIANGLES. Mary is in love with Travis but betrothed to his brother. Gabry feels enormously guilty over her growing attachment to Elias after her old boyfriend got infected with the zombie plague… for her. Angst galore! What will she choose? Who will she end up with?
If you’ve read Ascendant, you know that’s not Astrid’s problem. And not in the sense of “she has bigger problems” (which she does), because girls on the run from zombies ALSO have bigger problems, but more in the sense that those questions are not on the plate for her.
“To me, that’s the essence of a love triangle — each man is a viable choice for the heroine but each speaks to a different part of who she is. The heroine isn’t choosing between two men, she’s choosing who SHE wants to be and that will dictate who the right match is.”
I first read about this conceptualization of a story’s love triangle in a screenwriting class in 2005, and it really stuck with me. When I looked at the love triangle in my first book through this lens, I realized not only why neither prong would work but who, in fact, it was that was right for my heroine.
(When Meyers claims in interviews that the books are anti-human, this is what it means. If you can swing your vampirism the way the Cullens do — going off and eating venison in the woods — there is absolutely no downside to vampirism. Bella’s choice reflects the fact that, very reasonably, she’d rather be an eternally healthy, beautiful, young, powerful, awesome vampire then get old, get sick, get hurt, and die in a frail human form.)
But of course, all choices a character makes is reflective on who she is. The choices that Astrid makes in Ascendant regarding her love life have very little to do with the boys involved, and everything to do with her depression, isolation, and eventual nihilism. And though you can argue that Giovanni is a reflection of one facet of Astrid’s character, choosing him would not magically make that Astrid manifest, and Astrid knows it.
One of my favorite scenes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes from season five. Buffy and her friends have just overcome a spell that was meant to split Buffy into her component parts: normal girl and vampire slayer. Her boyfriend Riley tells her that he loves all of her — both parts. That to him, she is indivisible.The tragedy comes when later in that same episode, he posits that it is this elemental wholeness of Buffy that makes her unable to love him. (And where he goes from there is truly tragic.)
(I know a lot of people dislike Riley because of the things he did AFTER this revelation, and I used to be right there with you, but upon repeated rewatching, I’ve come to the conclusion that Riley’s mistakes — and he makes plenty — are not so much him having a problem with a strong woman — since he ends up marrying another — as him deciding, maybe or maybe not falsely — that he’s not good enough for Buffy without magical powers. To be discussed in detail later. People often liken Astrid and Giovanni to Buffy and Riley, though I think a more apt corollary would probably be Buffy and Xander, which never happened on the show.)
Buffy may have chosen Riley, but choosing to have a relationship with this nice, normal guy (instead of her occasionally sociopathic vampire ex-boyfriend) doesn’t make Buffy a normal girl. Over and over in the series, Buffy is forced to make a choice between her love life and her job, often explicitly. Save Angel, or save the world, etc.? Again and again, they ask Buffy who she is, and her answer is “slayer.”
Sometimes, the triangle doesn’t even involve another guy. Sometimes it’s about the heroine choosing not to be with someone, full stop.
A fun review of Ascendant. I’ve said it before, but there’s really nothing like a review where the reader nails and loves what you were trying to do with the book. The killing of an endangered species like unicorns is not just a gray area — it’s a downright charcoal black one, and it was important to me in Ascendant that it’s not just Phil whining about it and everyone patting her on the head (as so often is the case with people ignoring totally rational points made by conservationists), but also that the main character, Astrid, really starts to question the role she’s been handed and is expected to fill. I think teens are doing that all the time — the adults in her life are telling her this is what she’s supposed to do, but she looks at the evidence before her and goes, wait, this doesn’t add up.
I know with the killer unicorns series I’m working against the tide of most modern fantasy fiction. The magic in these books is an unfair magic, and in some cases, it’s even an evil magic — a magic that it would be totally rational and acceptable — even preferable — to reject. That is not the case in most fantasy fiction — in most cases, it’s “non-magical people don’t matter” or “non magical people aren’t as good.” Why would you be a Muggle if you could be a wizard, goes the trend. The Harry Potter example is especially illustrative here. Though much is made of how it’s okay to be “Muggle-born,” actual Muggles are shown as being clueless, ineffective, or easily discarded (one of the saddest parts of Book Seven is how Hermione “erases” herself from her parents lives). The takeaway is clear. Muggles < wizards.
The same is true in another mega-hit of the genre, Twilight. Author Stephenie Meyer is on record saying that she’s “anti-human” in the series, as it’s obvious from the way she’s constructed her world that vampires and werewolves outclass the human race on every possible level. Bella realizes it — she wants to be a vampire from day one. Who wouldn’t? There’s no downside. You live forever, young and ridiculously beautiful, and with a little willpower (i.e., the way the Cullens act) you don’t have to eat anything but venison and polar bear. The only possible downside is the predilection the Cullens have for eternally repeating high school. THAT doesn’t sound fun. The rest of vampire life is peachy, though. (In fact, one friend of mine is fond of pointing out that it’s the Cullens, and not Victoria, who have a moral imperative to spread vampirism around.)
So readers understandably come to a fantasy series going magic = good. Having magic is better than not having magic. I get emails every week from readers who wonder “what Phil will do now.” And I always think about Astrid, who would probably rather be in Phil’s position (she wouldn’t like to have had Phil’s experiences, but she would like to be freed from her hunter duties). Phil’s world is wide open, and she chooses to be part of the killer unicorn thing. She doesn’t on any level have to be, which, indeed, is the choice you see Marikka make in Ascendant.
However, most readers of fantasy are coming to fantasy because, you know, they LIKE magic. Thus it is very rare for a fantasy series to focus on how the acquisition of magical powers is something to be avoided — two prominent examples are Justine Larbalestier’s Magic or Madness series and Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone (though even in that one, the character judiciously uses it). It’s an interesting paradigm, to be sure.
People have been asking for my take on the whole Bitch Magazine debacle. There’s some incorrect information out there, so I thought I’d try to clarify my position.
Last week, I learned that my novel RAMPANT had been placed on the Bitch Magazine’s 100 Young Adult Books for the Feminist Reader. I was initially very pleased — it was a great list, I’d read a bunch of the books on it, and I was glad that the list compilers recognized the feminist themes in my book.
I was looking at the list and saw that a discussion had sprung up around one of the titles on the list, specifically, Sisters Red, by Jackson Pearce. One comment stated “surprise” that the book was included, because there had been a blog review of the book that took issue with one passage and said it “promoted rape culture.” The response from the list compiler, Ashley McAllister, was basically “thanks for letting me know, I’ll replace it.” I was shocked by that, since I thought that the list was made up of books that the compiler/s were familiar with and, you know, recommended.
Having read both the book and the blog post in question, I disagreed with that interpretation, so when the compiler came back on and said that the editors had decided to re-read (or read for the first time) three of the books on the list that “dealt with the subject of rape” I contacted them and said that there were LOTS of books on the list (I counted at least a half a dozen, very quickly) that dealt with the subject rape, including my own, and if they questioned the appropriateness of Sisters Red because one reader who has a blog disliked/misinterpreted a single pagssage, they could certainly find something similar on every other book on the list. I urged them to keep the list as originally published, as a diverse and varied selection of literature that would be of interest to a feminist reader.
In the ensuing day and a half or so, I was not online — I was in Florida, visiting with my parents and watching my three month old’s bottom gum erupt with four teeth. Yes — FOUR.
Anyway, I came back to see that they had chosen to remove Sisters Red from the list, as well as Tender Morsels and Living Dead Girl. At that point, a bunch of YA authors were asking to be removed from the list because they took issue with this behavior and the arguable cowardice of the editor. As I was reading their comments, I saw that McAllister had responded to my comment from a day earlier, saying how happy she was that I was happy to be part of such a diverse list. There was no comment about whether or not they reconsidered Rampant.
At that point, I asked them to remove Rampant from the list. There is a lot of talk going on right now about how the authors who asked to be removed from the list did so “in solidarity” with the removed authors. While I definitely support that motivation, it was not my motivation. Frankly, my motivation can be summed up in the graphic accompanying this post. (Credit for the graphic goes to Sarah W. of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.)
Sisters Red was removed following: 1) there are characters in the novel who express anti-feminist, “victim blaming” views which may be traumatic to the reader, 2) there was a reader of the book who chose to interpret that character’s viewpoint as being the one sanctioned and championed by the author.
Yes, and George Lucas really hates kids, since he let Anakin go on that child-killing spree in Revenge of the Sith.
If this is the justification by which Sisters Red was removed from the list — that someone on the internet read a passage of it and didn’t like it or didn’t understand it — then Rampant does not belong on the list, either. There have been people who didn’t like or understand passages of it. There have been people who interpreted the fact that immediately after being raped, one character experiences confused, guilty feelings about what happened to her (and is also blamed by another character), as being anti-feminist and triggering and the other buzzwords that Bitch Magazine is so concerned about.
Here’s an example (whited out for spoilers):
“Is it?” Lilith folded her arms over her chest. “Guess I’m just not like perfect, easygoing Neil, who is far too polite to say the things that need to be said. Well, maybe it’s not proper, but if you’d stayed inside, where you belonged, this never would have happened.”
“Enough!” I shouted so loudly that the words reverberated off the mosaic walls. Phil’s chin was high but trembling. “How can you possible talk that way to her, knowing what she’s been through?”
“Because Philippa knows full well she’d get a hell of a lot worse from her father. Why do you think she’s staying here rather than going home?”
Phil wouldn’t meet my eyes.
My novel includes passages such as these because the characters live in OUR world — a world where one in six women is sexually assaulted, a world where women can and do feel confused or guilty after being raped, a world where women are sometimes — even often — blamed for being raped. We write to explore these topics. I wrote because I, personally, find this subject matter to be very close to my heart. I would never attempt to speak for every woman who has been sexually assaulted, but I was very concerned with crafting a story that reflects with integrity and honesty the experiences of those around me who have been through similar situations.
That the supportive role is played by the heroine of the novel and the victim blaming comes from the mouth of a character who is wrongheaded and insane at best and villainous at worst should probably make it pretty clear how I feel about the issue, but whether or not I was successful in portraying what I set out to is not the issue here. The passage (and others like it) exists, and some people have had problems with it. If this is the metric by which the Bitch List is judged, then Rampant is only on the list because they didn’t happen to get a complaint about it yet.
I was initially honored to be on the list because I thought it meant that Bitch had read my work, appreciated its feminist outlook, and was recommending it to others. Now I think they just didn’t happen upon one of these negative reactions.
I’ve recently learned that the editors of Bitch have chosen not to honor the request of writers that asked their books to be removed from the list. It seems to be a misunderstanding as to the nature of the list — we were considering the list to be an honor (one we could deny), and they were considering it as a review. We were considering it to be a published list that could be printed out and passed along to librarians or teachers interested in tracking down recommended reads. There are many such lists in the YA world — ALA’s lists for reluctant readers, NYPL’s “Stuff for the Teen Age,” Locus’ list of recommended SFF reads — but apparently, that’s not what this was, since the most recent comment from the editors is that the list will be in a state of constant flux (rather like the IMDB top films, or the Amazon bestseller list, perhaps?)
Anyway, that’s my take. I think it’s inappropriate for them to have removed those books from their list, but I also think it’s inappropriate for my book to remain on it, given the way the editors seem to give a lot of weight to the misguided complaint of a reader or two. And, as a former journalist, I think that’s not how good journalism works — stand by your opinions, correct your facts.
I’ve recently been watching a lot of old Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn films. I adore Katharine Hepburn films, with or without her real-life love, Tracy. The African Queen, Phiadelphia, The Lion in Winter — Hepburn is a presence — regal, clever, riveting. (In fact, I think the only film of hers I don’t like is Bringing Up Baby, in which she plays a ditz, albeit a secretly clever one.) And in her romances with Tracy, I have noticed a common theme: Tracy’s character is usually quite explicitly attracted to her character because of her intelligence. In Woman of the Year, he does not want her to be a housewife — he wants her to be her high-powered, world-changing self, just with a little more consideration for him and their life together. In Desk Set, there’s that marvelous scene on the roof where you can actually see Tracy’s computer programmer falling head over heels for Hepburn’s research librarian as she nails every trick question he asks her.
It’s rare to see this trope in romantic films, but I love it. This probably comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me or has read my books. I tend to write characters whose intelligence is very important to them, and who would rather be valued for their brains than anything else. Nothing makes Amy more angry than to be called stupid. Nothing makes Astrid more frustrated than to be told that knowledge and intelligence won’t help her. And when these girls find love, part of the way they can tell is that the person who loves them is really attracted to their smarts.
I was struck by this, watching a Hepburn/Tracy the other day, that it’s not something you see so often in films or stories these days. For all the talk of “strong female characters,” they seem to focus on physical strength. I think a lot of romances fail because there isn’t that THING where the audience recognizes why character A is utterly perfect for character B — but even when they succeed, when they have that THING, it’s very rarely, “Oh, baby, you’re so SMART.”
Long-time authors talk about author theme — or they used to; these days it’s all “brand brand brand.” Author theme is often described as something you find yourself writing about over and over again, even subconsciously, regardless of what genre you’re writing in. It’s not often something you can recognize after a handful of books — you need to have a substantive body of work. (The authors I hear talking about it most have usually been in the biz for decades.) I know that my two series are feminist books — they deal deeply with modern women’s issues like sexism, sexuality, and the expectations and limitations placed on modern young women. (That they deal with them disguised as comedies and fantasies is my own little trick.) But that’s the nature of those series — even though it’s six books. I don’t think the book I’m working on now is like that, or the one-that-isn’t-Ascendant coming out in October. However, each of those books are still about women who are valued for their intelligence — and I was attracted to the latter project in large part for that reason. I don’t think this is necessarily an author theme, but I do think it’s clear that I have a “type.” I probably wouldn’t get too far if I tried to write about a ditz.
What movies or books have you read recently that present this kind of story? I want more!
Today we have a very special treat: a guest blogger. I hardly ever have a guest blogger here, but I think I should start doing so more often. All the fun of blogging, none of the pressure of staring at that damned blinking cursor. (Ah, Hemingway, your white bull has been replaced by something even more phallic).
But I digress. Today we are visited by the utterly awesome Saundra Mitchell, whose debut novel, SHADOWED SUMMER, knocked off my flip flops when I read it last year. (I wasn’t wearing socks because her descriptions of a steamy Southern summer were so spot on I felt like I was getting heatstroke just turning the pages.) It’s a very creepy ghost story, and to my genre-loving heart’s eternal delight, it’s been racking up the award nominations and wins ever since it was published. (I am the girl who defiantly turned in a ghost story as a final project after the instructor of the one creative writing class she ever took sneered to another student that he did not accept genre works in class.) This book was an ALAN nominee, a Junior Library Guild pick, on the VOYA summer reading list, and up for an Edgar Alan Poe award. Y’all — read it.
Oh, how I love it when the ghosts win, and when savvy genre writers like Saundra show the world that family secrets and coming-of-age can fit perfectly into stories that go bump in the hot, humid night.
Today, Saundra is here to promote hte release of the SHADOWED SUMMER paperback and to talk about one of my favorite topics: strong, kick-ass heroines. And — I blush to type it — she is talking specifically about Astrid. Take it away, Saundra!
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INDEPENDENT WOMAN
Astrid Llewelyn is the ideal kind of awesome. I found myself thinking this often while reading RAMPANT on a train toward Chicago. I forgot to be nervous about the trip, because I was so wrapped up in watching Astrid grapple with her unexpected destiny.
Now, there are a lot of awesome female characters in fiction and in film. Gwen from Merlin is awesome. Hermione Granger from Harry Potter is awesome. Katara from The Last Airbender is awesome.
And Astrid is awesome, not because she’s perfect at everything, or gets it right all the time, or makes ideal decisions–but because she’s not, and she doesn’t. In fact, her reaction to discovering that her mother’s seemingly dippy attachment to killer unicorn stories is true is one of the best portrayals of dumbstruck incredulity I’ve ever seen.
In short, Astrid is exactly what a real girl would be, if confronted with an Ancient Destiny, a Mystical World, and Her Part In It: conflicted, and confused. And I love that she doesn’t rebel just for the joy of it. When she comes around to her mission, it’s not for the convenience of the plot.
Even though RAMPANT is full of mythology and mystical creatures, it’s completely honest. I believe in it, and that’s why I eagerly await September, when I can dip back into this amazing universe with ASCENDANT. It’s why Astrid Llewelyn is the ideal kind of awesome for me:
She’s real.
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Hey, guys. It’s Diana again. So, who wants to read SHADOWED SUMMER NOW? I hereby provide you with six easypeasy ways to do so:
Borrow it from your local library (Since it’s a JLG selection. you can find it at a lot of libraries)
(I know this is the one you’re waiting for) — win it here, today!
All you have to do is leave your name in the comments. And yes, I know i never announced winners from the ASCENDANT ARC giveaway contest. Oops, sorry. But I will on MONDAY, as well as announce winners for this contest. That means you have until Monday to enter this contest and the other one.
Yesterday, while working on my first science fiction novel (I really never get tired of saying that), I started to recognize one of my characters from the outside and think of her the way a literary critic might. It’s a thing that happens when you spend four years getting a lit degree — you can’t turn off the analysis, even from your own work.I think it can actually help in writing because I can start to more consciously incorporate those elements of who I want her to be into the text.
Who I want her to be is pretty badass. I was describing my thought processes to my husband as we walked Rio last night, (Quoth a passer-by: “What a beautiful dog!” I know I’m biased, people, but really, she’s insanely pretty) and I think I said something along the lines of “[the character's] like Toph Bei Fong meets CJ Craig.” I love Sailor Boy. He kind of grinned, then said “Okay, I can see that.”
(By the way, this is not the main character I’m talking about.)
So anyway, as one can imagine, she’s heaps of fun to write.
But so are most badass female characters. Astrid is so conflicted about her abilities that I really did relish the scenes where she was like, “I do actually know what I’m capable of here, and you do too, so why are we playing this petty little game?” Just because you aren’t certain of the morality of using your powers (see also: Katsa in Graceling) doesn’t mean you aren’t completely self-assured about your ability to do so if needed.
It’s interesting to me now to look back on the three female main characters I’ve created and how different they are, but maybe it’s even early for that, because I’m not done drafting the third yet. She may change (though it is unlikely much because she isn’t entirely my creation — she’s based on an Austenian blueprint). And I do love her, too. I love Anne, therefore I love my Anne-like cognate. But badass she ain’t. Her strength is subtle and often stealth, as it must be in her life.
So I’m glad I got to sneak a badass in there somewhere. Also, I do so love the concept of mirror characters. I loved writing Phil and Astrid, and seeing the way Phil’s self-assurance and extroverted nature were things that Astrid admired (perhaps over-admired).
And in general, I do love me some badass female characters. Live for them. Was especially happy to see this one, which cleverly combines elements of Saffron *and* Joan Holloway for maximum Christina Hendricks geekery:
I’ve been a lazy blogger since coming back from vacation. probably because I haven’t been lazy in any other aspect of my life. We’re doing a lot of redecoration Chez Diana, I had houseguests, and I’m super busy with the draft of PAP. The blog, she suffers. However, I recently ran across a review of Rampant that reminded me of somethign I wanted to write about here: worldbuilding, sexual politics, and variations on a theme.
This review of Rampant by Aimee of To the Wolves, in which the reader is very interested in talking about the sexual politics of the novel (minor spoilers if you click through to the actual and more comprehensive review, but not here):
“Peterfreund remains faithful to the unicorn folklore that states that only virgins can tame them, and I loved how she used this; in the hands of a lesser writer, it’s the kind of thing that could potentially make me want to throw a book across the room. The topic of sex and virginity in YA novels can always be counted on to get folks raging on all sides of the sexual politics spectrum. Peterfreund’s unicorn characters are all discovering their powers – and how conditional they are – right at a point in their lives where they’re also discovering their sexuality, and deciding what they want out of their relationships with boys, and the confusion that all this causes is pitch-perfect.”
What is interesting to me is that as I see the different reader responses to Rampant, this issue seems to be the most polarizing. I’ve seen readers praise the approach and really dig into the ramifications of what happens to the characters and I’ve seen readers metaphorically (and perhaps physically, I don’t know) throw the book across the room.
My point of view on the subject, as it pertains to Astrid’s story in particular, is that the configuration of a unicorn hunter’s magic is something that we, in today’s society, would view as particularly misogynistic. In many ways, it mirrors the unbalanced valuation system that our society places on female virginity as defined, at times confusingly, by heterosexual sexual intercourse. It is young girls –not young boys — who are taken to “purity balls” and told that their virginity, specifically, is a precious gift. There are also a lot of young people today who are led to believe that “everything but” vaginal intercourse is a virginity-preserving option. Even as a teen, I knew people who would have anal sex in order to “preserve their virginity.” It’s rather bizarre, if you think about it. It doesn’t really have any benefits, either in the “physical intimacy” or the “disease” spheres. It’s an entirely artificial construct based around this definition of “virginity” (that the book’s magic mirrors).
As an abstinent teen, I dealt with a lot of the same questions and criticisms that Astrid does; this idea that a teenager (and especially a teenage girl) is not capable of making her own decisions on the subject, and must be shielded or kept ignorant of her options or terrified. The system in place trains people to think that teens aren’t capable of making this choice themselves without some outside force like shame or religion or etc motivating them. I don’t think that gives teens enough credit. Like me as a teen, Astrid just knows she’s not ready to have sex yet, and she really shouldn’t have to explain that to anyone. I also thought it was important that the different hunters have different reasons for the choices they make — and that all of these reasons are valid as well. If Rosamund chooses to remain abstinent because of her religious beliefs, that’s every bit as valid as Phil or Astrid choosing abstinence without the help of God.
The flip side of this is that the idea of abstinence has become such a polarized one that a lot of people have a knee-jerk reaction to it. If I discuss abstinence, that means I’m trying to control the minds of teenage girls and teach them that their desire for sex (if they have it) is evil and wrong. I have gotten this reaction to my book as well. I think sometimes, it’s because magical powers are so often presented as being the ultimate “good” in fantasy novels. It’s better to have magical powers than not to have magical powers. Therefore, the argument goes, it’s better to behave in a way that allows you to have magical powers. And therefore, the author is making the argument that this behavior is the better one.
Am I? That decision is, of course, up to the reader. Not everyone who reads my book is going to come to this website and listen to me say, “Oh, wow, no! The magic in Rampant sucks! It’s misogynistic and antifeminist!” I either succeeded in getting that across in the book to that particular reader, or I didn’t. I am interested to see how the opinion changes, however, when they read Ascendant this fall. (Or perhaps not, as I don’t think it likely that most folks who disliked Rampant will continue with the series.)
At the same time, that’s Astrid’s story, which is very much concerned with the role of the woman in today’s society and today’s sexual politics. In Ireland last year, a discussion with my soon-to-be editor Holly Black on this exact topic led me to challenge myself to write a story set in my world that wasn’t about those topics. The result is “The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn,” in this fall’s Zombies vs. Unicorns, in which there is nothing about sexual politics whatsoever.
Later, fresh from finishing Ascendant, and in need of a breather, I took an entirely different tack on the world. If the magic is misogynistic in today’s society, what might it be in another society? In more ancient times, institutional virginity or the perception of it (Vestal Virgins, Catholic nuns, Queen Elizabeth I) was actually a form of feminine freedom. Retired Vestal Virgins had rights that no other woman in Rome did. Catholic nuns were some of the only female intellectuals of the European middle ages. Queen Elizabeth consolidated her power by not marrying a foreign head of state. Depending on the configuration of society, could a unicorn hunter actually have more freedom than the alternative? The result of that trail of inquiry is “Errant” my first historically-set story and my contribution to July’s Kiss Me Deadly anthology.
I have been thinking a lot about how different the three stories I have coming out this year are. They each explore a facet of a world I built for the purposes of one particular story — Astrid’s story. But as different as she and her situation are, Astrid has a lot in common with Wen, Gitta, and Elise, and I hope that I do each of them justice as young women who are trying to make the best choices they can for themselves.
There has been a lot of chatter on Twitter lately about the role of gender in YA books. On one hand, women writers and female-centric books dominate the YA market. (An interesting phenomenon given the “general knowledge” that a girl will read a book by or about any gender, but most boys will only read books about–or sometimes by–males.)
On the other, there’s still a lot of sexism. Female characters are held toridiculousstandards (especially by female readers!) and vilified for having faults. In YA fiction, as in adult fiction, male writers are showered with praise and awards while comparable books written by female writers are not. Year after year, critics “best of” lists are all about the men. In that post, critic Lizzy Skurnick writes:
I got a glimmer of an answer last year as I sat in a board room hashing out the winners for one of the awards for which I am a judge. Our short list was pretty much split evenly along gender lines. But as we went through each category, a pattern emerged. Some books, it seemed, were “ambitious.” Others were well-wrought, but somehow . . . “small.” “Domestic.” “Unam –” what’s the word? “– bititous.”
Oh, those damn scribbling women and their little domestic novels!
A few months ago, I visited the Jane Austen exhibit at the Morgan Library in New York City. The exhibit displayed some of Austen’s letters, first editions of her works, things like that. But the exhibit that stuck with me the longest was on on Nabokov. Seems he wasn’t such a fan of Jane (along with Emerson, Twain, and other males):
“I dislike Jane, and I am prejudiced, in fact, against all women writers. They are in another class. Could never see anything in Pride and Prejudice.”
He was called out by Edmund Wilson, a famous literary critic. Great, huh? Well, wait until you see the manner of the calling-out:
“You are mistaken about Jane Austin. I think you ought to read Mansfield Park. Her greatness is due precisely to the fact that her attitude toward her work is like that of a man, that is, of an artist, and quite unlike that of the typical women novelist, who exploits her feminine day dreams . . . She is, in my opinion, one of the half dozen greatest English writers.”
So she’s good, but only because she writes like a man. Astounding, huh? Because no male writer (and certainly not Nabokov), ever made a great work of literature out of exploiting his own daydreams. Right? Anyway, Nabokov revisited Austen, found an appreciation for Mansfield Park, and proceeded to teach it in his lit classes at Cornell. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.
As I said in yesterday’s post, I watched the new PBS version of Emma. I have to say it won me over in the end, but only because I am a sucker for the proposal scene and the way the two characters, who have had such an unequal relationship throughout the entire book come together in a moment of true mutual respect. Yes, it’s due to a big misunderstanding, but it’s quite moving, and it makes you realize that when they are married, he won’t treat her like the child he spent the first half of the book treating her as.
But I digress. My point here is that each episode of the mini-series began with actress Laura Linney addressing the screen and lecturing: “Is Jane Austen too ordinary and narrow for today?” she asks us. Linney’s point turns out to be that Emma Woodhouse is not Harry Potter or Edward Cullen or Wolverine. That she’s just a normal human with normal flaws. (Those magical guys all have “normal flaws” too, though.) However, the use of the word “narrow” is suspect. Ordinary? Fine. But narrow far too closely echoes another famous critic of Austen’s, Ralph Waldo Emerson:
I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen’s novels at so high a rate, which seems to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. The one problem in the mind of the writer is . . . marriageableness . . . Suicide is more respectable.
Oh, Ralph, tell us how you really feel!
It must be nice to live in a world where your options are wider than “marriageableness” or not. I feel like Emerson must have read the first line of Pride & Prejudice, took it at face value, and then went for a walk in the woods. The women in Austen are concerned about marriage because marriage was the only “business” they were allowed to conduct. And Austen’s characters do in fact realize the folly of bad marriages. Elizabeth Bennet would rather risk the kind of poverty that ends up befalling the Dashwoods than wed Mr. Collins. Her friend Charlotte decides that the stigma of being an old maid rates higher on the humiliation scale than that of being married to a fool with good prospects. In Austen’s novels, the onset of love goes hand in hand with the onset of respect. They are romantic within the realm of practicality. Talk about a woman’s daydream! Those were high hopes for the 18th century gal. (And if you want to read about how easily it can all go wrong, check out Millenium Hall by Sarah Scott.)
So Austen is narrow. But it doesn’t stop in the 18th century. I recently read a New York Times profile of the writer/director/producer Nancy Meyers. Meyers is famous for her women-focused domestic comedies. She writes about affluent women and their families and their romances. Sounding familiar? Something’s Gotta Give, The Holiday, It’s Complicated — these are hers. The first page of the long article is devoted to talking about how Meyers was asked to move from her table at a tony LA restaurant. Ha, see? Even powerful Hollywood moguls get no respect — you know, if they’re women.
Then the writer goes on to talk about how important and influential and successful Meyers is — never letting go of the fact that gosh, it’s hard since she’s a chick. In response to a complain about the number of takes she likes to do of every scene, her (male) agent is quoted as saying there wouldn’t be a complaint if Nancy was Mike Nichols. And gosh, Jack Nicholson respects her, too! I especially loved this bit:
It would be tempting to attribute Meyers’s uninflated manner to her being female — to having been trained from birth in the art of the soft sell — except for the fact that she is more straightforward than girlish, more clear than coy. “She’s just really smart and doesn’t seem to be impeded by all the weirdness that everyone brings to whichever gender they are,” says Helen Hunt, who starred in “What Women Want.”
In other words, just because she’s powerful, don’t fear that she’s that horrible, aggressive kind of female. Don’t fear that she’s a bitch.
Later, the writer, Daphne Merkin, calls Meyers’s women-centric, romantic films “retro” and “post-feminist” — tags I find rather shocking. Because they are romantic? The women in Meyers’s films are successful and (usually) wealthy from their own accomplishments. Diane Keaton’s character in Something’s Gotta Give is a hit playwright with a tenured professor (in Women’s Studies, yet!) for a sister. Cameron Diaz’s character in Holiday owns her own movie trailer production company (and a mansion in Beverly Hills). Diaz puts it bluntly in that film when she tells Jude Law’s single-dad character that she feels comfortable telling him about her success because she knows he won’t be intimidated, having been raised by a mother who was a high level executive editor at Random House. The romantic elements of the film do not detract from the feminist ones.
And the writer momentarily agrees:
“These women are self-sufficient and notably energetic. They may not have men, at least when we first meet them, but they make do with friends and children and siblings, for whom they whip up tasty dinners and homemade pies and laugh over their own situations. When men do appear on the scene, whether in the form of a babe-chasing player like Jack Nicholson’s Harry or Alec Baldwin’s renewedly impassioned Jake (or Dennis Quaid’s Nick Parker in “The Parent Trap,” for that matter), they awaken dormant desires that nevertheless have to be fit into pre-existing, busy lives.”
But then she spends a few pages obsessing over the filmaker’s focus on set dressings. She criticizes the thread count in the upholstery as being needlessly lush and overindulgent. Let us unpack the following quote:
“Whether her insistence on “softening the message” [Meyer's quote, which I for one believe was taken out of context] through plush surroundings ultimately weakens the films — renders them more glossy and insular than they need be, even for a genre that is inherently fizzy — is a question I have debated with myself and others.”
So, because women-centric romantic comedies are “inherently fizzy” we should make doubly sure to grit them up in a visual sense? I wonder how many other filmmakers are asked not to put their characters in fancy cars or film in exotic locales in order to, you know, make something real. These damn domestic female stories!
“At worst, her films can give off an air of tidy unreality — and it is this unexamined aspect, I think, this failure to even hint at darkness, that most fuels critical ire. Richard Schickel condemns Meyers with faint praise, hinting that she and the studios have struck a devil’s pact of sorts. “Clearly there is an audience for sweet little middle-class romances of the kind she makes, and it pleases the studios to indulge a woman, whom they would not trust with more vigorous projects. It’s as if they’re trying to say: ‘Hey, we’re not sexists. We make Nancy Meyers movies.’ ””
“Sweet little middle class romances.” (First of all, anyone who lives in a house like the Hamptons mansion in Something’s Gotta Give is NOT middle class, fwiw.) But can’t you just hear Emerson’s or Nabokov’s dismissal of Austen in those words? Can’t you hear the dismissal of that roomful of critics deciding on literary awards? Why is domestic a dirty word? Why is a character driven movie about a successful person dealing with their personal lives a Best Picture nominee if it stars George Clooney, but not if it stars Meryl Streep? I think I’m inclined to agree with Meyer’s agent. An article like this would never be written if Nancy was Ned.
I leave you with this (there’s a little bit of language at the end):
But let’s just pretend we can go back to that place.
I’ve recently been watching a lot of old Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn films. I adore Katharine Hepburn films, with or without her real-life love, Tracy. The African Queen, Phiadelphia, The Lion in Winter — Hepburn is a presence — regal, clever, riveting. (In fact, I think the only film of hers I don’t like is Bringing Up Baby, in which she plays a ditz, albeit a secretly clever one.) And in her romances with Tracy, I have noticed a common theme: Tracy’s character is usually quite explicitly attracted to her character because of her intelligence. In Woman of the Year, he does not want her to be a housewife — he wants her to be her high-powered, world-changing self, just with a little more consideration for him and their life together. In Desk Set, there’s that marvelous scene on the roof where you can actually see Tracy’s computer programmer falling head over heels for Hepburn’s research librarian as she nails every trick question he asks her.
