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Dear YA novelists of all shapes and sizes: there is an infestation spreading through the ranks of our beloved genre. Distorted by centuries* of grotesque overexposure and abhorrent inescapability, these clichés have wormed their way into even the best-intentioned novels. Watch out! They may be … read more »
Storytellers setting out to create a love story face many obstacles, and one of the more serious obstacles is an underdeveloped love interest. This is what you get when the protagonist’s sweetheart doesn’t seem like a complete character in their own right. They might just … read more »
You’d think patriarchy would be good for men, but it isn’t. Patriarchy enforces strict standards of masculinity that are impossible to meet. But because masculine traits are glorified, it’s easy to lose sight of how toxic they are to men. As storytellers, we may think we’ve created strong central characters when … read more »
As Chris handily pointed out a few weeks ago, keeping sexism out of our stories is more complicated than not being a misogynist jerk. Most authors nowadays know enough not to directly insult women,* but sexism still rears its ugly head. This beast is a … read more »
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if making a story sexism-free was as easy as not being a misogynist jerk? Unfortunately, living in a patriarchal society means that sexism feels normal to most of us. If you want to prevent sexist tropes from getting into your work, you have to learn about them. Read more »
Mythcreants hosted a panel at this year’s GeekGirlCon in Seattle. Chris, Oren, Rhys, and I discussed gender in spec fic and how you can create matriarchal, patriarchal, or egalitarian societies for your stories. It was a lively event with many challenging questions from the audience. … read more »
Telling an egalitarian story means fighting back against a lifetime of cultural programming, not to mention systematic bias in production, publishing, and marketing. So even when we try to make our stories just, problems we haven’t noticed can sneak their way in. Graded on a … read more »
We tell the same stories to ourselves over and over. That’s okay; people are comforted by the same themes and drawn to the same conflicts. Unfortunately, we also can repeat tropes just because we never thought critically about them. And when we do that, we … read more »
Grace joins Oren, Mike, and Chris in discussing how artificial personalities are gendered. They mention computer voices in use today and the explanations given for their gender. They describe female and male robots and AI in science fiction, and how their depiction differs. Read more »
What could be more straightforward than Outlander, a novel published in 1991 about a character from 1945 going back in time to 1745? This historical fantasy romance blend is so popular, it’s been adapted into a TV series for Starz. Read more »