I admit, one of my favorite parts of "An Ounce of Prevention" has been getting to write three women -- Sakura, Tsunade, and Anko -- being kickass in various ways.
I used to get annoyed that most of my stories seem to revolve around women -- not because I dislike writing women, but because I wondered if I was incapable of writing men. But I seem to be able to write men when I want to, or when a man works better in a certain story position than a women would, and I am thus not resigned, but actively pleased that I write women so often.
I always come back to a rather uncomfortable epiphany I had in my teens. I was contemplating story ideas -- idly juggling fragments in an attempt to piece together an interesting plot -- and came up with a story that involved a teenage girl becoming a warrior and defending a kingdom. And I thought to myself, "No, I can't do that. Tamora Pierce already did that in her Song of the Lionness quartet."
About two seconds later I felt like smacking myself. Because seriously, how many THOUSANDS of stories have been written about young men becoming warriors and defending their homes? And I thought I couldn't write about a young woman becoming a warrior because I'd seen ONE version of that story?
...
Which is a long and tangential way of saying that I like writing women. Not just women kicking ass (though that is, indubitably, fun), but women being people. We're half of humanity -- maybe even 51 or 52 percent of humanity -- and we have every right to be seen and heard and respected.
[TL;DR] thoughts about writing women
Date: 2008-06-28 04:04 am (UTC)I used to get annoyed that most of my stories seem to revolve around women -- not because I dislike writing women, but because I wondered if I was incapable of writing men. But I seem to be able to write men when I want to, or when a man works better in a certain story position than a women would, and I am thus not resigned, but actively pleased that I write women so often.
I always come back to a rather uncomfortable epiphany I had in my teens. I was contemplating story ideas -- idly juggling fragments in an attempt to piece together an interesting plot -- and came up with a story that involved a teenage girl becoming a warrior and defending a kingdom. And I thought to myself, "No, I can't do that. Tamora Pierce already did that in her Song of the Lionness quartet."
About two seconds later I felt like smacking myself. Because seriously, how many THOUSANDS of stories have been written about young men becoming warriors and defending their homes? And I thought I couldn't write about a young woman becoming a warrior because I'd seen ONE version of that story?
...
Which is a long and tangential way of saying that I like writing women. Not just women kicking ass (though that is, indubitably, fun), but women being people. We're half of humanity -- maybe even 51 or 52 percent of humanity -- and we have every right to be seen and heard and respected.
So yeah. Writing Tsunade is fun. :-)