I agree with the list of questions. It helps simplfy some of the things I've been thinking about with regard to female characters. I really love fic with good female characters but I find it really a lot harder to find that fic with good male characters which makes sense I suppose given the fandom inclination toward male characters (I know I'm guilty of that myself and it's something I want to change).
I really like a lot of canon het ships and it bugs me no end when a wife/girlfriend does the understanding thing to get the slash couple together. I think there are ways to write that trope so the story is well executed but it's something that I think would also be very difficult to do. In some ways I'm much happier if it's a magically wifeless/girlfriendless universe than one where the wives/girlfriends are treated as either villians standing in the way of the True Slash Love or the helpful catalysts to get the Slash couple to realize their True Love. However, that type of universe bugs me a bit too but I'm not sure how to explain why it does.
Yet, what really annoys me, even more than the badly done characterizations of wives/girlfriends, are the accusations that to write a wife/girlfriend - especially one without much known canon - is just the writer projecting themselves. The accusations of projecting are something I've run across in both RPF fandoms (for ex. in bandom especially with regard to Jamia and Alicia) and FPF fandoms (for ex. Lisa from Supernatural). It's only with female characters. There are male characters who get written about who have just as little known canon but I've yet to come across accusations that writers writing those male characters are just projecting themselves onto the character. I think this is maybe another facet of the Mary Sue debate?
As a writer I'm always worried that I won't write female characters as well as they deserve but at the same time I find that I really struggle with the idea that I might be writing a "Mary Sue" instead of a well-rounded interesting female character. I guess I just have to hope that if I blunder my flist/betas will tell me.
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Date: 2010-07-02 07:27 pm (UTC)I really like a lot of canon het ships and it bugs me no end when a wife/girlfriend does the understanding thing to get the slash couple together. I think there are ways to write that trope so the story is well executed but it's something that I think would also be very difficult to do. In some ways I'm much happier if it's a magically wifeless/girlfriendless universe than one where the wives/girlfriends are treated as either villians standing in the way of the True Slash Love or the helpful catalysts to get the Slash couple to realize their True Love. However, that type of universe bugs me a bit too but I'm not sure how to explain why it does.
Yet, what really annoys me, even more than the badly done characterizations of wives/girlfriends, are the accusations that to write a wife/girlfriend - especially one without much known canon - is just the writer projecting themselves. The accusations of projecting are something I've run across in both RPF fandoms (for ex. in bandom especially with regard to Jamia and Alicia) and FPF fandoms (for ex. Lisa from Supernatural). It's only with female characters. There are male characters who get written about who have just as little known canon but I've yet to come across accusations that writers writing those male characters are just projecting themselves onto the character. I think this is maybe another facet of the Mary Sue debate?
As a writer I'm always worried that I won't write female characters as well as they deserve but at the same time I find that I really struggle with the idea that I might be writing a "Mary Sue" instead of a well-rounded interesting female character. I guess I just have to hope that if I blunder my flist/betas will tell me.