Holiday Re-Runs: Writing Holiday Fiction

Let's get seasonal, all you writerly girls and boys and those along the spectrum. This week we're going to look at what goes into writing great holiday stories.

What makes seasonal-themed fiction popular?

Lucy Blue: I think seasonal fiction is popular for the same reason some people start listening to Christmas music the day after Halloween. Readers want to cocoon themselves in that warm, fuzzy holiday feeling, and publishers are more than happy to feed that to make a buck. And writers are as susceptible as readers. The first time I see those Hershey's Kisses playing handbells or hear Nat "King" Cole, I want to drop every other project and write a Christmas story. Sadly, that's only about six months to a year too late to effectively publish, but never mind - so far, Christmas always comes back around.

Alexandra Christian: Even kids want to write and read about Christmas. When I taught 2nd grade, my kids would write and read Christmas stories well into March.

Mandi Lynch: When you're in the spirit, you're in the spirit. Alternatively, when you're buried under 14 feet of snow, the last thing you want to read about is somebody sweltering in the hot July sun.

Selah Janel: I think it has certain themes, tropes, and archetypes in a way that a lot of people relate to. Everyone has some sort of relationship with the holiday, good or bad, included or excluded. At times holiday fiction can be a comfort during a stressful time, at the extreme, some types can be an anesthetic. Because the go-to is cozy holiday stories, it's also ripe for subversion in the dark fiction genres, too, because that inversion can be really jarring.

Sean Taylor: Seasonal fiction taps into the general positive vibe of the holidays. It is able to reinforce those happy thoughts of holidays past and, if done well, cause the reader to reflect on something else to make their season a little more exciting, or spicy, or romantic, or action-packed, or just plain on more filled with warm fuzzies.

Do you find it to be as good as "regular" fiction, or does it tend to be mere marketing and/or sentimentalism?

Sean Taylor: I'm a bit of a snob, so I tend to find a lot of holiday stories to be melodramatic drizzle designed to cater to the easy plots and tired tropes of either love lost and rediscovered just in time for the holidays or to the Christmas Carol model of someone learns the "true meaning" (insert the author's personal definition of that here) and makes a permanent change for the better. I don't, however, find some truly enjoyable -- even to my snobbish tastes -- holidays tales.

Selah Janel: Depends. I've read enough to be able to tell when it's hitting an obvious formula. There are tons of bland or plain not great holiday fiction out there, but that doesn't mean they don't speak to someone. When it's done super well, whether it's because of well-developed characters, use of obscure folklore (because this time of year is FULL of it), or just really taking a chance on an unconventional plot choice (and doing it well), holiday fiction can strike a chord in people and be really exceptional.

Mandi Lynch: Depends. I've found both - but then again, I find good and bad in all genres. Depends on who writes the story.

Lucy Blue: Some genres lend themselves more to holiday stories than others, and their publishers quite obviously know it--the mainstream romance Christmas cowboys start riding onto the shelf at Wal-Mart by mid-October. But my hubs played a Christmas-themed DLC mission for Hitman last weekend, so no genre or format is entirely immune. I think a lot of them ARE callous cash grabs, playing on our sentiment or feeding our contempt. The overarching theme to almost every holiday romance is "You don't have to be alone at Christmas." The overarching theme to almost every holiday horror or pulp story is "You're smart to hate Christmas." The overarching theme to almost every science fiction holiday story is "Christmas is an illusion." As readers, we look to these stories not so much for originality or art but to find confirmation of our own feelings about the holidays. And as writers, we do the exact same thing. I don't think this makes these stories worse than "regular" fiction; they just have a somewhat different purpose. But because of that, they aren't nearly as effective in July. (There are many, many notable exceptions, of course.)


What makes for bad or mediocre holiday fiction?

Mandi M. Lynch: A story that's too worried about the pretty to worry about the storyline. It's fine that you want to describe all 42947 ornaments on the tree, but there needs to be something beyond, too.

Sean Taylor: Tired tropes. More Christmas Carol redunits. Anything that is satisfied with the low-hanging fruit of just warm fuzzies. A lack of surprise for the reader. And most of all, anything so steeped in sentimentalism that it requires more suspension of disbelief than an episode of Gumby.

Selah Janel: For me, if it's supposed to romance or a cozy read, it's bad if I can figure out the plot immediately, if the characters are cardboard audience-inserts, or if it tries so hard to be holiday that it breaks from reality. A lot of anthology Christmas reads are this way for me - maybe ok once but they fall apart on repeat reads. In the case of horror or even romance, if people try to be too out there or too clever-clever without backing up the idea with great plot elements and characters, it's just as lame. Everyone has done evil Santa, so if you make that choice you'd better give me a fantastic reason for it and a gripping plot arc. Every conceivable type of holiday romance has been done so if you go too out there, there'd better be some balance with the Christmas crazytown. The old legends work whether they're medieval or from different countries or what have you because they're short narratives. The moment you build on that with any holiday story, you need to be able to do it with some substance or else it's sugary icing with no Christmas cookie underneath.

I've had mixed reactions to my title Holly and Ivy, but my intent was to show the good AND bad of the season. People struggle that time of year, just like any other. People still hurt, they still die, but there's also family and relationships and hopefully some comfort, as well. There's magic, romance, holiday cozy rituals, and some faeries, but at its heart, it's about the choices the main character has to make and how she tries to grow and do the right thing, just like so many of us do. It's about trying to find the bright spots when things are shadowing the season, and I hope that's something that people can identify with, because it's definitely something I face every year.

What elevates holiday fiction into something that still stands beyond the season?

Ryan Cummins: I'm going to use one of my favorite films here as an example, DIE HARD. People argue it's relevancy in the holiday genre constantly but what I love about this film is that it has a great story that just so happens to take place during the holidays. Would it have worked just as well if it was set during Labor Day? Probably, but the fact that they used the Christmas as a seasoning instead of the main course is what gives the story its charm. That's why no one ever debates whether DIE HARD 4 is a Fourth of July movie or not. As long as what is at the center of the story has an emotional pull for the audience, its place on the calendar should be of little consequence.

Mandi M. Lynch: A story where the main issue could fit without a holiday. Blaire could just as soon bring Enrique home in April, it would still make a story. Luther could still want to keep within his budget. Frohmeyer will still be an overbearing neighbor in summer.

Selah Janel: For me, if it connects with my actual life experience. I love On Strike for Christmas by Sheila Roberts because I know women like those characters. I grew up with similar traditions. I've seen that clash of wills. Likewise, I like the graphic novel Marvel Zombies Christmas Carol because it takes a gimmick but makes it make sense without going completely off the rails and destroying the original story. In both cases, you actually come to empathize with the characters and identify with the familiar holiday rituals.

Sean Taylor: Personally, I think the best holiday fiction uses the holiday itself as setting more than marketing or moral. It should have something to say about the people celebrating the season rather than merely becoming more "true meaning of Christmas" propaganda. The characters need to be fully realized people, not just Colorforms stuck into the same old manger scene rediscovery or "Scrooge learns his lesson" fable. Regardless of the time period in which they are set, they should say something true and honest and meaningful to modern readers. They should get beyond marketing and be good stories... period.

Case in point, I can watch It's a Wonderful Life anytime during the year, as well as Gremlins and Die Hard, and even Scrooged, but not The Bells of Saint Mary's, Christmas in Connecticut, or any of the Hallmark seasonal movies. Why? It's the difference between being steeped in sentimentalism and using the season as a springboard to tell a genuinely human story.

And yes, mentioning Scrooged sounds like I'm disagreeing with my own criteria, but that movie transcends it's typical Christmas Carol plot in so, so many ways.

From my own work, I tend to use the holidays to let my characters reflect, but not in the traditional sense. I've had them have to figure out the true nature of being a hero while dying during the holidays, rediscover the spark that died long ago because of a robbery and a captive's life in danger, and deal with the life choices that led to going from superhero to street bum (and was it worth it?) -- and that's a far cry from your visits with family in the snow-capped mountains or your big-city lawyer discovers the true meaning of Christmas in the idealized, pastoral setting where his car broke down. But, to each his or her own.

Lucy Blue: My own holiday-themed writing usually comes from something silly. For example, the one and only Hallmark-Channel-ready, contemporary holiday romance I've ever written in my life, Jane's Billionaire Christmas, came about as I was watching a Southpark Christmas episode with my digital artist/writer husband. We were discussing how obviously the guys who make Southpark have some female influence in their lives--every once in a while, Stan's girlfriend, Wendy, comes out with a monologue that Justin swears I wrote. ;) And as we were watching, I was thinking, geez, what WOULD it be like to be in a relationship with the brain that came up with Cartman? Laws, can you imagine taking that guy home to meet your parents at Christmas? And out of that came a Christmas story that is very sentimental and romantic and smooshy, but also, I hope, very funny. 

Holiday Re-Runs: Writing Holiday Fiction

Let's get seasonal, all you writerly girls and boys and those along the spectrum. This week we're going to look at what goes into writing great holiday stories.

What makes seasonal-themed fiction popular?

Lucy Blue: I think seasonal fiction is popular for the same reason some people start listening to Christmas music the day after Halloween. Readers want to cocoon themselves in that warm, fuzzy holiday feeling, and publishers are more than happy to feed that to make a buck. And writers are as susceptible as readers. The first time I see those Hershey's Kisses playing handbells or hear Nat "King" Cole, I want to drop every other project and write a Christmas story. Sadly, that's only about six months to a year too late to effectively publish, but never mind - so far, Christmas always comes back around.

Alexandra Christian: Even kids want to write and read about Christmas. When I taught 2nd grade, my kids would write and read Christmas stories well into March.

Mandi Lynch: When you're in the spirit, you're in the spirit. Alternatively, when you're buried under 14 feet of snow, the last thing you want to read about is somebody sweltering in the hot July sun.

Selah Janel: I think it has certain themes, tropes, and archetypes in a way that a lot of people relate to. Everyone has some sort of relationship with the holiday, good or bad, included or excluded. At times holiday fiction can be a comfort during a stressful time, at the extreme, some types can be an anesthetic. Because the go-to is cozy holiday stories, it's also ripe for subversion in the dark fiction genres, too, because that inversion can be really jarring.

Sean Taylor: Seasonal fiction taps into the general positive vibe of the holidays. It is able to reinforce those happy thoughts of holidays past and, if done well, cause the reader to reflect on something else to make their season a little more exciting, or spicy, or romantic, or action-packed, or just plain on more filled with warm fuzzies.

Do you find it to be as good as "regular" fiction, or does it tend to be mere marketing and/or sentimentalism?

Sean Taylor: I'm a bit of a snob, so I tend to find a lot of holiday stories to be melodramatic drizzle designed to cater to the easy plots and tired tropes of either love lost and rediscovered just in time for the holidays or to the Christmas Carol model of someone learns the "true meaning" (insert the author's personal definition of that here) and makes a permanent change for the better. I don't, however, find some truly enjoyable -- even to my snobbish tastes -- holidays tales.

Selah Janel: Depends. I've read enough to be able to tell when it's hitting an obvious formula. There are tons of bland or plain not great holiday fiction out there, but that doesn't mean they don't speak to someone. When it's done super well, whether it's because of well-developed characters, use of obscure folklore (because this time of year is FULL of it), or just really taking a chance on an unconventional plot choice (and doing it well), holiday fiction can strike a chord in people and be really exceptional.

Mandi Lynch: Depends. I've found both - but then again, I find good and bad in all genres. Depends on who writes the story.

Lucy Blue: Some genres lend themselves more to holiday stories than others, and their publishers quite obviously know it--the mainstream romance Christmas cowboys start riding onto the shelf at Wal-Mart by mid-October. But my hubs played a Christmas-themed DLC mission for Hitman last weekend, so no genre or format is entirely immune. I think a lot of them ARE callous cash grabs, playing on our sentiment or feeding our contempt. The overarching theme to almost every holiday romance is "You don't have to be alone at Christmas." The overarching theme to almost every holiday horror or pulp story is "You're smart to hate Christmas." The overarching theme to almost every science fiction holiday story is "Christmas is an illusion." As readers, we look to these stories not so much for originality or art but to find confirmation of our own feelings about the holidays. And as writers, we do the exact same thing. I don't think this makes these stories worse than "regular" fiction; they just have a somewhat different purpose. But because of that, they aren't nearly as effective in July. (There are many, many notable exceptions, of course.)


What makes for bad or mediocre holiday fiction?

Mandi M. Lynch: A story that's too worried about the pretty to worry about the storyline. It's fine that you want to describe all 42947 ornaments on the tree, but there needs to be something beyond, too.

Sean Taylor: Tired tropes. More Christmas Carol redunits. Anything that is satisfied with the low-hanging fruit of just warm fuzzies. A lack of surprise for the reader. And most of all, anything so steeped in sentimentalism that it requires more suspension of disbelief than an episode of Gumby.

Selah Janel: For me, if it's supposed to romance or a cozy read, it's bad if I can figure out the plot immediately, if the characters are cardboard audience-inserts, or if it tries so hard to be holiday that it breaks from reality. A lot of anthology Christmas reads are this way for me - maybe ok once but they fall apart on repeat reads. In the case of horror or even romance, if people try to be too out there or too clever-clever without backing up the idea with great plot elements and characters, it's just as lame. Everyone has done evil Santa, so if you make that choice you'd better give me a fantastic reason for it and a gripping plot arc. Every conceivable type of holiday romance has been done so if you go too out there, there'd better be some balance with the Christmas crazytown. The old legends work whether they're medieval or from different countries or what have you because they're short narratives. The moment you build on that with any holiday story, you need to be able to do it with some substance or else it's sugary icing with no Christmas cookie underneath.

I've had mixed reactions to my title Holly and Ivy, but my intent was to show the good AND bad of the season. People struggle that time of year, just like any other. People still hurt, they still die, but there's also family and relationships and hopefully some comfort, as well. There's magic, romance, holiday cozy rituals, and some faeries, but at its heart, it's about the choices the main character has to make and how she tries to grow and do the right thing, just like so many of us do. It's about trying to find the bright spots when things are shadowing the season, and I hope that's something that people can identify with, because it's definitely something I face every year.

What elevates holiday fiction into something that still stands beyond the season?

Ryan Cummins: I'm going to use one of my favorite films here as an example, DIE HARD. People argue it's relevancy in the holiday genre constantly but what I love about this film is that it has a great story that just so happens to take place during the holidays. Would it have worked just as well if it was set during Labor Day? Probably, but the fact that they used the Christmas as a seasoning instead of the main course is what gives the story its charm. That's why no one ever debates whether DIE HARD 4 is a Fourth of July movie or not. As long as what is at the center of the story has an emotional pull for the audience, its place on the calendar should be of little consequence.

Mandi M. Lynch: A story where the main issue could fit without a holiday. Blaire could just as soon bring Enrique home in April, it would still make a story. Luther could still want to keep within his budget. Frohmeyer will still be an overbearing neighbor in summer.

Selah Janel: For me, if it connects with my actual life experience. I love On Strike for Christmas by Sheila Roberts because I know women like those characters. I grew up with similar traditions. I've seen that clash of wills. Likewise, I like the graphic novel Marvel Zombies Christmas Carol because it takes a gimmick but makes it make sense without going completely off the rails and destroying the original story. In both cases, you actually come to empathize with the characters and identify with the familiar holiday rituals.

Sean Taylor: Personally, I think the best holiday fiction uses the holiday itself as setting more than marketing or moral. It should have something to say about the people celebrating the season rather than merely becoming more "true meaning of Christmas" propaganda. The characters need to be fully realized people, not just Colorforms stuck into the same old manger scene rediscovery or "Scrooge learns his lesson" fable. Regardless of the time period in which they are set, they should say something true and honest and meaningful to modern readers. They should get beyond marketing and be good stories... period.

Case in point, I can watch It's a Wonderful Life anytime during the year, as well as Gremlins and Die Hard, and even Scrooged, but not The Bells of Saint Mary's, Christmas in Connecticut, or any of the Hallmark seasonal movies. Why? It's the difference between being steeped in sentimentalism and using the season as a springboard to tell a genuinely human story.

And yes, mentioning Scrooged sounds like I'm disagreeing with my own criteria, but that movie transcends it's typical Christmas Carol plot in so, so many ways.

From my own work, I tend to use the holidays to let my characters reflect, but not in the traditional sense. I've had them have to figure out the true nature of being a hero while dying during the holidays, rediscover the spark that died long ago because of a robbery and a captive's life in danger, and deal with the life choices that led to going from superhero to street bum (and was it worth it?) -- and that's a far cry from your visits with family in the snow-capped mountains or your big-city lawyer discovers the true meaning of Christmas in the idealized, pastoral setting where his car broke down. But, to each his or her own.

Lucy Blue: My own holiday-themed writing usually comes from something silly. For example, the one and only Hallmark-Channel-ready, contemporary holiday romance I've ever written in my life, Jane's Billionaire Christmas, came about as I was watching a Southpark Christmas episode with my digital artist/writer husband. We were discussing how obviously the guys who make Southpark have some female influence in their lives--every once in a while, Stan's girlfriend, Wendy, comes out with a monologue that Justin swears I wrote. ;) And as we were watching, I was thinking, geez, what WOULD it be like to be in a relationship with the brain that came up with Cartman? Laws, can you imagine taking that guy home to meet your parents at Christmas? And out of that came a Christmas story that is very sentimental and romantic and smooshy, but also, I hope, very funny.

Mocha Memoirs Press Focus #6: Alexandra Christian

This month I'm following up the previous series (eSpec Books) with a new one -- this time the amazing writers of Mocha Memoirs Press. Meet Alexandra Christian!

Tell us a bit about your latest work.

Falling Into Rhythm is my latest from Mocha Memoirs Press. It’s a contemporary small-town romance about a kindergarten teacher who falls in love with one of her students’ dads. It’s a seasonal story in the vein of a Hallmark movie. Nothing too complicated, but a light, feel-good read. 

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer?

My family is full of storytellers and readers. My father was the master of telling a joke or funny story and definitely passed that on to his children. My sister, novelist Lucy Blue, was the first to pursue writing as a career, and watching her put down stories that were entertaining and the kinds of things I wanted to read, was really inspiring.

What inspires you to write?

Finding stories that I want to read. I know I can’t be the only person that wants a good, character-driven adventure with a romance at the center. I always loved movies like Romancing the Stone and Crocodile Dundee that are essentially romances with an awesome adventure for the couple. 

Unfortunately, finding books with that same sensibility is not easy, so I decided to write my own.  

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

Unlikely pairings and small-town weirdness are probably my favorite things to work into a story. 

What would be your dream project?

I’ve always wanted to write a Harley Quinn YA novel. She’s one of my favorite comic book characters and I think she gets a bum rap for being a stupid nymphette in most iterations. 

What writers have influenced your style and technique?

My sister, Lucy Blue, has definitely been a big influence—by proximity if nothing else. I’ve also been heavily influenced (get this mix…) by Stephen King, Anais Nin, Nora Roberts, and most definitely all those “old school” romance writers — Julie Garwood, Sandra Brown, and other purveyors of the bodice ripper.

Where would you rank writing on the Is it an art or it is a science continuum? Why?

I definitely think writing is an art. Or it should be, anyway. Just like singing or painting, or acting—one can be taught technique, but to be good, one must have natural talent. Art is an expression of the soul that comes from the artist but can be interpreted in a thousand different ways by the receiver. It takes that little spark of magic to make that happen and not everyone is gifted with it. Which is great. I mean, I can’t do math. I was not gifted with that spark. If one approaches art from a scientific standpoint, it shows. If a writer is using a marketing formula to create, you might sell a few books, sure. But the books will never speak to the reader’s soul. They won’t be remembered in a few weeks’ time. 

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

Finding the time to do it. 

Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug?

I have a couple of things out right now that I’m super-excited about. First is my squishy contemporary romance, Falling Into Rhythm. It’s a small-town romance about a kindergarten teacher and a retired rock star. It was so much fun to write and the perfect “curl up with a cup of tea on a rainy day and read” book. The other is the second novella in my Shadow Council Archives series starring Dr. Watson, Dr. Watson and the Ladies Club Coven. In this episode, Dr. Watson finds out that his landlady, Mrs. Hudson, is a witch whose coven is charged with protecting the secrets of the philosophers’ stone. That one is especially dear to me right now following the death of Una Stubbs, the incredible actress who played Mrs. Hudson in the BBC’s Sherlock. 

For more information, visit:

I can always be found on Facebook and haunting the outskirts of Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. My website is under construction at alexandrachristian.com, but you can still find my links at https://lexxxchristian.wixsite.com/alexandrachristian 

Questions from a Brave and Stupid Man to a Panel of Women Writers #3: Men (Mis)Writing Women

NOTE: This post features adult language.

Being a white man, I willingly acknowledge I have blind spots, things that while they don't register to me like they perhaps should are things well worth my time and thought and important for me to know and understand in order to a member of a community of diverse writers.

That said, I've assembled an all-female panel of writers to be my teachers.

This is #3 in a series of articles. The first can be found here, and the second here. 

Today's discussion is this: 

Are there things you find often when men write female leads that drive you crazy? What are they, and how can male writers fix those issues?

       

Emily Leverett

(Most) Women ALWAYS (always, I mean always, no matter what) take serious inventory of their current location--that is, where are the exits? Is this well lit? Are there people around? How fast do I need to walk somewhere, etc. In bars, on the street, anywhere. Women often refuse to stay in motels where the doors open to the outside. Also, as per the Men Write Women Twitter account, women's breasts do not have a mind, emotional set, or physical capacity to move of their own.

And I don't randomly think about my boobs AT ALL unless they are either hurting or as I am dressing and even then only in passing. I don't dwell upon my long soft hair as I twist it up and clip it.

I am thinking "Is today a two cups of coffee day or am I good with one?"

We do frequently have a laundry list of things in our head, planning out day, mental notes for errands, checklist of things done to leave house. (Of course the fewer responsibilities one has the shorter that list)

Women are just as likely as men to be logical and pragmatic, or emotional and impulsive.

Corrina Lawson

They don't write a specific personality. When some male writers create men, they create a specific person, yes? When they create a woman, they create the same type over and over. (See Greg Rucka, frex.) Women are as varied as men, they have all kinds of different interests, body types, and personalities.

Also, women approach a date/encounter with unknown men with the same wary attitude that men approach a possible fistfight. 

I wanted to add even when they write well-drawn and complicated women, men tend to make them also fuckable. Not every woman in your story needs to be fuckable. Put older women in. Make them interesting too.

Ellie Raine

I’ve noticed men writing “strong female characters” as if they have zero flaws and are just amazingly awesome at literally everything without any struggle whatsoever as if they’re robots...

Sometimes they even come off as male character personalities but in a skin that men want to see, so it’s still men writing for men.

Just as often, though, I also see men writing only about an OPPRESSED WOMAN archetype who doesn’t have any actual personality other than being oppressed and being angry about it 24/7 in their sleep, in the shower, on the toilet, in the car, in the morning, etc. Literally, it’s like some authors think they’re not even allowed to give those characters a favorite color or a favorite beverage, because someone must have told them they’re not allowed to write about women unless their entire being and existence is only relevant to how much they’re oppressed... like, for sure, we HAVE and STILL ARE oppressed on too many god damn levels, and while I get angry about that bs a lot when it comes up, I’m still a damn human who thinks and does other things ASIDE from that.

Our purpose in life is not BEING OPPRESSED. Our personalities are not BEING OPPRESSED. Our goals are not BEING OPPRESSED.

Oppression is a viable and accurate OBSTACLE. I personally don’t want it to define who I am as a human being. I decide for myself who I am, as should all characters regardless of gender, sexuality, race, and belief. They. Are. PEOPLE.

        

Ruth de Jauregui

Women are complicated. 

A tough woman working in a man's world can also be caring and sensitive, but she might keep it out of sight of the world. Give us those little moments where we can see that she cares, that a memory is painful. Oh, and we have aches and pains -- it's not all sweetness and light...

Oh, and real women don't have breasts shaped like melons -- especially after kids. Hips spread, knees and back hurt, no more high heels.

Anna Rose

Women being one-note characters constantly in need of “saving”.

Fuck that shit.

My characters of all genders tend far more to fighting back than being passive.

Cynthia Ward

Women should have agency (so avoid female characters who are absolutely, utterly, totally helpless in body, mind, spirit, and imagination. As you would with male characters).

Skip making them damsels in distress. This doesn't mean they cannot need or receive help from a man (or a woman, or a group). What it means is that helplessness and victimhood are not their story function, any more than they are a male character's story function.

(It may be worth noting that Edgar Rice Burroughs, who died in 1950, rarely created females who were damsels in distress. Arguably, he didn't at all, because Jane gained a lot of competence and independence in later books.)

Don't have the women be there for the male lead, or for male characters in general. This is rather subtle and difficult to root out, I suspect. But it's a big part of the reason why I've joked that most fiction is fan-service for men. In the Travis McGee books I've read, excellent as they are, this is definitely the role of women. However much I like them, the women are there to have sex with McGee, comfort him, give him an excuse to demonstrate competence in and/or out of bed, etc.

Along these lines, do you only have one female character in the story or novel? It can make sense in some cases (she's the only character or there are only two characters, or you are recognizing multiple genders in a small cast). But it can often be avoided.

Remember not all women and girls are cisgender.

As a cis woman, I'll note that I don't pay nearly as much attention to my breasts, genitals, or (when I had them) periods as some male writers think.

Cis women also tend not to think about penii nearly as much as many cis men think.

       

Lucy Blue

I’m also very very tired of female characters who prove their worth as action heroes by hating all things stereotypically feminine, whether it’s dating men or nail polish. If I have to read how one more female protagonist has no time to wear makeup or doesn’t realize how beautiful she is or never bothers with a bra for her perky double D boobs (pro tip—double D boobs can be many things but perky ain’t one of them without the assistance of engineering), I’m going to vomit. And why can’t she be susceptible to flirting or romantic commitment without being perceived as weak or silly?

Nikki Nelson-Hicks

Off the top of my head, the thing that always makes me most angry is when a female character is merely there to prop up the male character. She's there to be pretty, to make him feel better, to show him the meaning of life. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope is the first thing that comes to mind. (The Bechdel Test also comes to mind. I often use it when I'm watching a movie. BTW, Hamilton completely fails the Bechdel test.) I mean, look at the first Star Wars movie, New Hope. We're supposed to feel so sorry for Luke losing Ben Kenobi, a man he's known for a few days, when Leia has not only endured torture by Empire needle bots, she's lost her entire planet! And who gets comforted? Yeah. That's pretty messed up. If you want to make a character interesting, worry about their humanity. Their goals. Their ambitions. My genitalia has very little to do with my ambitions or personal goals. I like a character that could be gender swapped and not a bit of the character's motivations be lost.

Alexandra Christian

Men often have a tendency to be obsessed with describing women strictly in terms of their physical appearance. I proofed a book where the guy referenced a woman's "shapely legs" 4 times on one page. There also seem to be two kinds of women: sex pots that every man on Earth wants to sleep with or a heinously unattractive bitch.

    

Krystal Rollins

Women writers treat their manuscript like their best friend. She can put it down for a while, come right back to it, and pick up her conversation just where she left off.

Sarah Lucy Beach

I was recently editing something and the female main character was described in one sentence as a "big chunk of a woman." I thought "chunk" a bit heavy handed, but it could mean tall, strong, Junoesque. But then a couple of sentences later, she is also described as "beautiful and sexy," with no other description to it. The other character in the scene is an older woman, a counselor. So the "beautiful and sexy" was totally irrelevant. Sexy to whom? How? Why does it matter if she's sexy or not, especially in such a scene.

Just calling a woman "sexy" doesn't make her so. It's laziness on the part of the male writer. Dude, if you cannot describe why she's turning you on, just drop it. She ain't sexy. But if it's the way her lips turn up, or the long slender column of her neck, or her graceful hands fluttering about, lightly caressing the surface of the table.... Anyway, SHOW us in her behavior (movement, voice, that sort of thing) what makes her attractive, don't just flat out TELL the reader, because that is FLAT.

Mandi M. Lynch

If you want a good female character, think about what makes a good male character. When we hear about male characters we hear about professional accomplishments, we hear about what they do and who they are, we don't hear about sexy rugged shoulders and the bulge in their pants. When a male character achieve something it isn't because he's blond and skinny and pretty with an upturned nose, it's because of how he got there. We don't hear about how their clothes pulled tight in certain spots. And we don't hear about them and association with other people unless there is an important reason for that.

Also, in general I am tired of hearing about strong assertive females being b***** or ugly or sturdy or whatever stupid word you have for the day. There's a strong woman in power somewhere, and she's either a nice princess or screwed her way to the top, or we get a woman that basically is manly and just can't accept her position in life. And that's not how it really is.

 

Susan H. Roddey

My biggest hang-up is when more stock is put on the woman's physical appearance than her abilities. I don't like seeing women treated as hypersexualized eye-candy. She needs to have better motivation than some dude's ass-kicking warrior chick fantasy.

I completely understand that if a male character is seeing the woman for the first time then yeah, he'll likely take stock of her physical appearance and that's fine. Just don't overdo it. Let him appreciate what he sees and move on before it becomes comical and offensive. We don't need to know exactly how the fabric of her dress hangs off her hips or what the outline of her nipples looks like through her top.

Amanda Niehaus-Hard

All of the above and be aware too that women are angry and we live with that anger 24/7.

Women have certain societal expectations put on them to be the care-takers or "mothers." Women are expected to be the peace-makers. Women are expected to respond passively to the violence in the world and in their communities. This weighs on you and affects you from childhood into adulthood. And it's infuriating.

Be aware that your character has a back story of fury over these expectations, over being dismissed, ignored, mansplained, not believed, etc. Be aware that her back story also includes anxiety over being raised to believe she was "asking for" any violence done to her by wearing the wrong clothes or not being vigilant enough in a parking garage. Be aware that she has been sexualized since she was a child, and that her current "worth" in society is based on how closely she still resembles a teenager -- so her confidence in her own sexuality and her own self-worth is constantly under attack by her anxieties.

Be aware that we are intimately acquainted with microaggressions because we've been told since preschool that we need to shrug them off.

Be aware that sometimes our own religious faith fails us, neglecting to protect us or failing to give us support in times of crisis.

Be aware of our history in our culture. We know what year we were finally allowed to have bank accounts without a husband co-owning the account. Do you?

Be aware that we can't ask for help without being called weak, or having that request used against us, as a symptom of our "hysteria."

No matter what your position on birth control, sterilization, or abortion, be aware that we STILL don't have agency over our own health and our own contraception -- and what little control we have is constantly under threat.

My point is not that men don't live with anger or unrealistic societal expectations. Of course they do. But you're aware of yours. Be aware of ours.

Want to write a woman as a villain? She doesn't need to have been raped. She doesn't need to have had her child murdered. She doesn't need to have Stockholm Syndrome. She really just needs to be a woman.

Jen Mulvihill

Oh, my, where to begin, there are so many but let's just talk about the simplest one. Woman do not always sit around and gossip about each other or ogle good looking guys and make sexist remarks about them. We actually do have intelligent and in depth conversations about life, the universe, and everything. I would recommend that you sit and listen to women's conversations before assuming what we talk about and what we care about. Also, also, not all women/girls run screaming when they see something scary or are attacked. Personally my first instinct is to find a weapon, and always double tap, don't hit them once and think they are out cold or dead. A smart woman always makes sure. I find it inspiring to talk to people and ask questions about their gender or even their race or religion. Most people are not offended by this because they rather see a writer get it right then get upset about it being wrong. I think readers appreciate it when you take the time to do proper research especially when it comes to characters written by the opposite sex.

Questions from a Brave and Stupid Man to a Panel of Women Writers #2: Pseudonyms

Being a white man, I willingly acknowledge I have blind spots, things that while they don't register to me like they perhaps should are things well worth my time and thought and important for me to know and understand in order to a member of a community of diverse writers.

That said, I've assembled an all-female panel of writers to be my teachers.

In the previous discussion someone brought up the issue of using a pen name. I figured we could go deeper into that issue this time.

This is #2 in a series of articles. The first can be found here, and the third here. 

So, today's discussion is this:

Do you find using a pseudonym helpful or a waste of time? Does it matter if you choose one that can be vague as to the gender or can a male one still open doors better than a female name? Or is it a genre specific issue?

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: I wrote it. I want my name on it. But that's my decision. I know people who use a pen name because they don't want their families to know about their work or they have a professional reputation to safeguard. I'm lucky that I don't have anything like that to hide from. I wrote it. That's my name. Deal with it.

Alexandra Christian: I started using a pen name because I was writing steamy romance while teaching 2nd grade. Apparently women are still supposed to be sexless schoolmarms. I write across a few genres, but I haven’t felt the need to come up with new pen names just yet. Or maybe all my writing is inherently sexual.

Ellie Raine: I've heard a lot of women use male pen names to get more sales in certain genres (and men using female pen names for romance) and it sucks that it continually gets them results. I choose to use my female name despite the genre I write because I would rather help break society's expectations of which genders "writer better (you name it) books". I don't know if anything will change from it, but I'd rather not feed the poison and keep the cycle of these assumptions going. The only way minds will be changed is if they consistently SEE that any gender can write any genre well.

Alexandra Christian: I’ve never gotten an agent, but I queried one book a lot and was pretty much told that my book was too sexy for sci-fi and too sci-fi for romance. I often wonder if I’d queried as a nonspecific pen name if I’d have had more success.

Ellie Raine: I had one agent tell me mine was too paranormal and not epic fantasy enough, and another tell me it was too epic fantasy and not paranormal enough. Funny how no one can seem to place these things... I never considered it may be because of the female/male dynamic, but it would be interesting to know if that was a factor.

Lucy Blue: My first publication was a collaboration with another writer, so we came up with a pen name together -- Anne Hathaway-Nayne. (And yes, it was a joke, sort of - we were writing a tie-in for Forever Knight, and Shakespeare was a character.) Then for my first solo publication with Pocket Books, I used a version of my real name, Jayel Wylie (my actual birth name is Jessica Leslie Wylie, which got shortened to JL, which my mother spelled out as Jayel), and I did three book with them under that name. Then my editor asked me to go in a slightly steamier and more fang-y direction with my next book and told me going in I was looking at one of those oh-so-popular torso covers. Because I wanted to write that book but I didn't necessarily want to always write that kind of book forever, I started using Lucy Blue. And that has since become a brand for me as a romance writer. But I'm still not sure if I'll use Lucy Blue or my real name if I do a non-romance book - it's an issue that I'm hoping is going to come up sometime in the next year, and I'll be open to input from my publisher about it then. And yeah, the idea has crossed my mind of being "J.L. Glanville" instead of "Jessica Glanville" because it's gender-neutral. But my writing, romantic or not, is so very woman-centric, I don't think I'd be fooling anybody.

Stephanie Osborn: I wrote one pure romance novel under a pen name, years ago. It didn't sell to a traditional publisher (mostly because said publisher lost it), so I threw it up indie, and occasionally it sells a copy or two.

For my SF, mystery, and popular science, I use my own name. Sometimes I kinda wish I'd used initials or something, 'cause then the SF might sell better, I sometimes think. But hey, it is what it is. I might try initials one of these days with a new series or something, just to see what happens.

Anna Grace Carpenter: I originally started using my initials because folks in real life seemed to have so much trouble remembering my given name and I was genuinely worried that folks would not be able to find my books on the shelf because they would be looking for Mary Grace or Sarah Jane instead of Anna Grace. (Of course, a couple years after I'd started selling short stories, I asked someone to look at a story that kept getting to the final round on the editors desks and then rejected. I sent him the submission formatted copy which had my real name and contact info on the first page. In his return comments the first thing he said was "I think you shouldn't use your real name because it's really too sweet for someone writing zombie stories." So the bias is definitely real.) I do introduce myself by my actual name and not my author name because my intention is not to hide anything, but I'm not rebranding my work at this point unless it's in a drastically different genre.

Nancy Hansen: I've always written under my own name because I'm proud of what I do, and so is my very supportive family. I figure an entire legion of women labored in obscurity before me, having to hide their identity to get recognized for their outstanding work in speculative and genre fiction, and I owe it to them to celebrate the freedom to be myself.

Herika Raymer: To be truthful, I am most likely still considered new to the field. Mostly because, as yet, I have not encountered any preconceptions about my name -- possibly because of how it is spelled. No one wants to 'offend' me (LOL).But I have to agree, if I wrote it I would prefer my name on it. Then again, there are times when I have considered a pen name simply because of my mundane life. Sometimes what you write should not cross over with your mundane identity. (wink wink)

Elizabeth Donald: People were always surprised that I wrote fiction under my own name, which is the same name I use for my 21 years of journalism. They acted like it would negatively impact my reputation as a journalist, but I didn't write anything I would be ashamed of, and quite frankly, most of my day-job colleagues and sources were supportive or amused. I got a little light teasing for writing romance, but nothing like the negative reactions I saw in the horror/SF world for writing romance and ebooks.

Yes, ebooks. I'm old, so my first couple of books came out in the infancy of ebooks, even pre-Kindle. People said, "I'll wait for the real book," and I couldn't use the ebooks as credits. One con even rewrote my submitted bio to call me an aspiring author. And I've spoken before about the negative reaction to paranormal romance encroaching in horror and SF, being dismissed as "vamporn," difficulty getting on horror panels and being stuck on the midnight sex panel - and the eternal, "So why are vampires so sexy?" panel. (I've started requesting NOT to be on those panels, because it was so tedious to say the same things at the same panels every single time.)

Eventually I vowed that if I would ever write more romance, it would be under a pen name and it would not be open. I found it sadly ironic that while the expectation was "romance will hurt your journalism career," it was really "writing romance means no one will take you seriously as a horror writer." It was not what I expected. Cynical colleagues said it was purely a gender thing: romance is a "woman's genre," and thus it was acceptable as long as I didn't venture into the boys' club - that the negative response of horror/SF to romance was really a negative response to women authors. I like to think that they're wrong, but I haven't found solid evidence yet.

I liked writing romance. It made me a better writer in ways that I could detail if I wasn't already far afield of Sean's question. I didn't like some of the genre's "rules," and I didn't fit in very well to readers' expectations. But in the end, I needed to jettison it from my own name in order to rebuild my brand - and to this day, 11 years after writing my last romance under my name, people who are even good friends and longtime readers will introduce me as, "This is Elizabeth Donald, she writes vampire smut." Sigh...

Amanda Niehaus-Hard: I wrote under diferent names for accounting purposes and to separate out some sections of my life from others. When I started out, I was told that sometimes a romance or women's fic publishing house will want to keep your romance "name" separate from other fiction you might write, but I'm not sure that's accurate these days. Someone recently pointed out to me that tenure-track teaching positions usually require some kind of regular publishing credentials and using a different name might complicate things. Again, no idea if that's true but I'm rolling out all new work under one of two iterations of my legal name, which is associated with my university and hopefully any future teaching I might do.

Questions from a Brave and Stupid Man to a Panel of Women Writers #1: Because Asking Honest Questions Is the Best Starting Point, I Was Told

Being a white man, I willingly acknowledge I have blind spots, things that while they don't register to me like they perhaps should are things well worth my time and thought and important for me to know and understand in order to a member of a community of diverse writers.

That said, I've assembled an all-female panel of writers to be my teachers.

This is #1 in a series of articles. The second can be found here, and the third here. 

Today's discussion is this: 

Are there issues in the writing and publishing community common to women that aren't typically experienced by men? What are they, and are they merely irksome or downright systemic?

Alexandra Christian

Alexandra Christian: I think all us chick genre writers have experienced the “girls can’t write horror/sci-fi/fantasy/pulp.” Or “girl’s put too much kissy stuff” are “too emotional.”

Lisa Matthews Collins: I could go on ad nauseam about that topic. :/

Alexandra Christian: And I like kissy stuff (obviously) but good stories don’t have to be devoid of relationships (kissy stuff).

Elizabeth Donald: Oh my god yes this. Nowhere was it more obvious than when I switched from writing vampire thrillers - which were dismissed condescendingly as "vamporn" - to writing zombie action-horror. "That's kind of a guy thing," I was told, and while they were half-kidding, in almost every case I was the sole woman on the zombie panel if I could get on the panel at all. The stereotypes of What Women Write and What Men Write persist.

Lucy Blue: I will never understand why a dude, reader or writer, who is perfectly enthusiastic about a detailed description of the bare-handed evisceration of a toddler by a monster, alien, or zombie gets entirely skeeved out by an even remotely realistic love scene. I can see it now, a new trend in splatterpunk - 'this one is REALLY scary - they talk about their FEELINGS!!' ;)

Elizabeth Donald: I've been to cons. I know sffh fans like sex. :) And yet when I did my first Dragoncon, I was with my then-publisher Ellora's Cave handing out cover cards at my booth for my first novel, an erotic vampire thriller about a serial killer tearing out throats near a vampire-run sex club. A man looked at the description on the back of the cover card, looked at me and said, "The only difference between this stuff and Penthouse Forum is the words, 'I never thought this would happen to me.'" Then he walked about five feet away and threw my cover card on the ground, in my full view. I wanted to yell after him, "That shit cost me money, asshole." Or possibly do something antisocial to him. I did neither, because I was mellower then. :)

Stephanie Osborn: I've had that happen a few times. My response is generally, "I try to write realistic characters with realistic relationships. Are you in a long-term relationship?"

(if yes) "Then you get what I mean."
(if no) "Do you WANT to be in one? Then you get what I mean."

Lisa Matthews Collins

Lisa Matthews Collins: I have had this experience twice...told that I needed to go write another genre because as a girl I didn't know enough science and math to write hard science fiction. Both times by 50+ year-old white men.


Elizabeth Donald: Sara Harvey can talk about being on a panel with a male author who opined that women can't write science fiction. He said it outright; I've been on panels where they obfuscated it behind vocabulary: "The language of science fiction is different than the language of romance, they don't blend well."

Stephanie Osborn: I do occasionally encounter people who don't know my background who try to explain the science to me. Until they find out what I used to do. [Editor's note: Stephanie is actually a rocket scientist.] Then they tend to disappear pretty soon quick.

Anna Grace Carpenter: Male characters are seen as the default, so men writing male characters is part of the norm, but when women focus on female characters (or things perceived to be female "interests") it's shunted into niche categories. (I had a dude at a convention back in January try to convince me that I could not possibly have written my books for him because the narrator was a woman, therefore it must be a book for women, not men.) Because men are the default, when a male author writes "outside his lane" so to speak, whether it's writing female characters or in a "woman's genre" it's usually regarded and brave and insightful, while women writing in genres perceived as "men's genres" are chasing trends or playing the gender card or whatever the current phrase is to indicate that women don't really belong in that space. Also, men can write characters that are either completely perfect or so very ordinary they shouldn't succeed in saving the world, and they won't be labeled as "wish-fullfilment" or "self-insertion" but women writing characters that are competent and skilled are frequently damned by accusations of "Mary Sue" characters.

While it would be nice to think these things are really just annoyances, they directly impact access to reviewers (or rather, how many female authors are reviewed each year), general exposure for their work, and ultimately sales numbers. (Let's not forget that a survey of top-market book reviews a couple of years ago revealed that dead male authors still received more critical attention than living female authors.)

Elizabeth Donald

Elizabeth Donald: There's another aspect of that "male character is the default" that I think is going to take at least another generation to work out. The initial experience of the reader is one of identification, of compassion in the original sense, the ability to identify with the main character and empathize with his or her plight. For the vast majority of English-language literature, male characters were the default, as written by male writers. Women grew up reading those stories, and learned to identify with male protagonists and their sideline girlfriends as well. We learned how to relate to a character different from us, because we didn't have much of a choice. I didn't grow up with Buffy or Katniss; I had Nancy Drew, who kept needing to be saved.

Men didn't have the same identification experience, because most of what they read had Someone Like Them at the center of the story. They didn't have to stretch to identify with a female protagonist written by a woman, because that didn't exist all that much. Without that practice as a young person, without learning that empathy and identification with someone Other, their experiences in fiction were different than ours - and I leave it to others to say how much that affected them in real life as well.

Sadly, we're continuing this today. We still have children's movies aimed at girls or boys, separate toy sections where girls are expected to buy girl dolls and boys "action figures." We see children's entertainment retitled because we think boys won't see a movie with a girl as the main character, defying the entire history of Disney. :) There are parents beginning to read stories about girls to their boy children (vice versa has never been a problem), and I think that will make a big difference going forward.

Anna Grace Carpenter: I cried the first time I read "Dealing with Dragons" by Patricia Wrede because it was the first time I'd found a book that really seemed to feature a character I understood at a gut level. (And there are a lot of other "YA" books from my childhood that I love, but there was something deep in finding a character who reacted like I did, who had similar goals. Something I think a lot of men never have to contend with because so much of fiction is about male experiences.)

Lucy Blue

Lucy Blue: If you're a woman, the assumption is ALWAYS that you write "women's fiction," and "women's fiction" is always assumed to either be romance, True-Story/Lifetime-style trauma fiction (usually with a romantic element), or menopausal tales of triumph (usually with an erotic element). But you know who leaps to that conclusion fastest and makes the biggest stink-face about it? Other women writers in horror, science fiction, fantasy, and pulp--not all, of course, but some. I don't know whether they're so bruised and battered from running that gauntlet themselves that it's made them brutal or they feel like they had to go through it so damn it every other woman should have to go through it, too, or that they want to make sure that the other boys in their genre know they ain't no stupid girly-girl--I suspect it's a little bit of all of these, depending on the woman writer in question. And just like with writers of color, female writers are continually being asked by male writers in traditionally dude-centric genres how to write women better. Sometimes it's a genuinely respectful and heartfelt question posed so that the male writer in question can make the female characters in the stories he already writes better--this panel being a shining example. But sometimes it's a dude writer wanting to cash in on what he thinks is that sweet, sweet romance-infused market of chick readers by writing one more urban fantasy novel with a female heroine with her big boobs barely contained in her dirty tank top on the cover. He wants to be able to say when some other woman accuses him of writing a male fantasy of female empowerment, "that's not possible! I asked three different women what women are like!"

Elizabeth Donald: I have no studies to back it up, but when I began, nearly all my acceptances were from female editors and rejections from male editors. This began to change, however, when I got out ini the con circuit and made contacts among male editors and publishers. They got to know me, and my work, and then they came to me with opportunities or were open to my pitches. It's worth noting that "exposure" at cons is often at the whim of con organizers, so if a con is not particularly 'woke,' you'll find all women on the midnight sex panel and "why are vampires so hot?" and all men on "how to kill a zombie: gun or sword?" I know which panel I'd rather be on, but it's taken some doing.

For the record, those male editors have been almost all delights to work with, and I'd consider them all fairly open-minded, cosmopolitan folk. So I don't know how much of it is simply "we publish the people we know" (which is its own problem), and how much is, "A woman wrote zombies? Is it a romance?"

Ellie Raine: There have been a LOT of times when I tell someone I've written a book, they automatically assume it's romance. Even if I say it's fantasy, they think "fantasy romance". I've gotten into an argument with one man who insisted that women writers always use too much "emotions" compared to male writers, even though William Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, Nikolas Sparks, Brandon Sanderson, James Patterson, George RR Martin, Neal Gaiman, and just about EVERY popular/GOOD author focuses on the character's emotions (which is pretty damn crucial to good story telling) and includes either a romance line or (in Martin's case) more sex scenes than 50 shades of Grey.

Stephanie Osborn

Regarding more industry culture, I've stopped going to formal writing conferences as much because I was tired of showing up for workshops just to have random guys initiate conversations to give me unsolicited advice about how to finish my first novel (even though I had three finished, but they didn't bother asking me first), how to get a publisher to notice you (which I'd already done, but they didn't bother asking), and how to find a man who would stay with me for a long time and eventually marry (even though I was already married and was wearing a wedding ring) and--the kicker--how to navigate high school (even though I was well into my twenties, but they didn't bother asking). It was weird how MANY men(usually into their 40s and up, and--for some reason--all wrote Literary and kept telling you how much better It was compared to fantasy and that I should switch to that if I REALLY wanted to improve my writing) gave the exact same theme of advice, and all of them assumed they knew my age, my relationship status, and my writing level without asking a damn thing. Fan Conventions are WAY better than conferences with this, no one has ever assumed they knew anything about me there and even the people who wrote literary there are chill and engaging. Basically, my experience with formal conference culture is that a LOT of people are there to make themselves feel better about how they've been going to these things for decades yet still haven't gotten a book deal with a publisher (all the men in question informed me they weren't published yet or even self published when I asked them). I don't know, I expect people to have actually gone through the publishing experience either trad or self before they feel free to offer advice on it without anyone asking them in the first place.

Lisa Matthews Collins: I was told I needed to go back to writing female lead POVs in my stories because who would want to read a male protagonist written by a girl?!

Elizabeth Donald: Oh lord... my husband writes horror romance, I write action SF and dark horror. Everyone assumes it's the other way around. He writes romantic happy endings; my books end in funerals.

Lisa Matthews Collins: This is an old thing that is still an issue... being judged by your name...not on any merit of storytelling expertise. I took a gamble on writing science fiction and pulp under my name Lisa M. Collins and not going with the safer route of L.M. Collins. Sadly, it took me awhile to make the decision to go with my name because Lisa is a girl's name.

Lucy Blue: And it's a double-edged sword. If you use your real, apparently feminine name, you get pre-judged. If you use your initials or a more apparently gender-neutral pseudonym, then when people find out you're a woman, you cheated.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: It's the presumption that, because I have a vagina, I must write "girly horror." That I can't get deep and dirty with it. Once, at a writers' critique group, I submitted a piece and this guy kept saying, "You wrote this? YOU did. YOU?" Yeah, fucker. Me. I really never understand this idea that women can't GET horror. Sweetie, our lives are a horror show. We are a walking chemistry experiment that can explode at any moment. Body horror was MADE for us.

Anna Grace Carpenter

Anna Grace Carpenter: I had an editor tell me I really knew how to write action sequences to the point that he was "recommending them to folks I meet". (And, sure, he meant it as a compliment. But it's not the first time I've heard similar and there is *always* an undertone of "You do this really well for a girl.")

Elizabeth Donald:  I got that one once from an editor. "You write action a lot better than I expected." Thanks? 

I got a lot of criticism for my first zombie book, in which my protagonist is a former Marine paramilitary zombie fighter heading a group of ne'er-do-wells fighting paranormal threats. The criticism? "She swears too much." She's a goddamn fucking Marine zombie fighter, is she supposed to say "oh phooey, they're chewing his face off"? And each time I heard it - every single one from a man - I had to breathe deep and NOT say, "If she was played by Jason Statham and directed by Quentin Tarantino, you wouldn't blink at her use of the word 'fuck.'"

Lucy Blue: Oh yeah, I've heard the "she's not ladylike enough!" comment from everybody from my mom to editors to reviewers on Amazon.

Amanda Niehaus-Hard: My experience is different, but I write under different names, in different genres and categories, and for different age-range audiences, so I've seen prejudice of all sorts, but haven't specifically been a target.

I found it interesting to read Ellie's comments, because my personal experience has been pretty much 180 degrees the other way from hers, as I mostly go to book festivals and writers conferences now (as opposed to conventions) and I've felt MORE accepted at those festivals -- but that's of course only my own experience. I really want to respond to some of what she posted because I think there's a LOT of problems in the conference (and convention) culture that is part of why I think they’re failing financially.

Ellie wrote: “Basically, my experience with formal conference culture is that a LOT of people are there to make themselves feel better about how they've been going to these things for decades yet still haven't gotten a book deal with a publisher.”

Ellie Raine

I don’t get into discussions with people like that any more, but I’ve seen them, and I notice the same ones show up for the same conferences every year, and when they workshop, they workshop the SAME DAMN STORY they’ve been workshopping for a decade! This is an issue that conference organizers need to be aware of and need to do something about. The way workshops usually go is first to pay, first on the list, and they REALLY need to be juried or something, if only to keep the approximate “skill level” the same, so all participants are at the same level and are getting (and expect) the same level of critical attention. If you’re a multiple award-winning novelist, you shouldn’t be in a workshop group with short story writers who are just breaking into the paying quarterlies. If you just started writing last week, you shouldn’t be in a workshop with people who are already selling work and looking at crafting a story collection.

Most general conferences, with the exception of the popular fiction conferences like those done by Writers Digest, are focused around literary fiction, so that whole “literary is superior” canard is ever-present. I honestly think SOME of that bias is starting to fade, as so-called literary authors are experimenting with non-realistic fiction, or fantasy/SF situations. The bigger writing programs are turning out more authors who experiment with non-traditional situations, so when the Iowa grads from 2010 to now start getting the high profile university jobs, I suspect we’ll see a shift away from dismissing genre (or they’ll just claim they do it better.) But either way, I see the snark becoming more about the work itself and less about the shelf category.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks

Ellie wrote: “I don't know, I expect people to have actually gone through the publishing experience either traditional or self before they feel free to offer advice on it without anyone asking them in the first place.”

This is essentially why I stopped going to fan conventions except for a select few that I just attend for fun. I’ve been going to conventions since the mid 1980s, when the scene was COMPLETELY different, and cons were both fun AND a way to get into the business of publishing. The panels were either professionally oriented (how to get an agent with people who had actual agents, or science topics with actual scientists) or they were fan-run and fun, discussing stuff like the sociology of Star Trek.

What I’ve seen of conventions lately is a lot of non-experts talking over actual experts (as in people who actually work as scientists for NASA) or people with no experience in “traditional” publishing sitting on panels about agent queries just so they can advertise their books. (I'm certainly not against self-publishing, as I've self-pubbed some educational materials, but that doesn't make me an expert on the industry.)

It’s only in the self-publishing and micro-press arena that I’ve EVER taken any slack over being female and writing horror, SF, thrillers, romance, YA, lit fic, whatever. My experience with so-called “traditional” publishers (and writers who are published that way) has been nothing but stellar and professional. (Again this is just my experience, and I’m sure it doesn’t echo everyone’s experience.) I could have just gotten lucky and surrounded myself with amazing people, but I can say I’ve never been harassed, dismissed, not taken seriously, or had any real negative experience with anybody in the professional horror community, the SF community, the thriller writers, and the pulp writers community. Pulp writers have embraced me and supported me, and people like Phil Athans and Sean and Tommy and the gang over at Pro Se have been incredibly supportive and encouraging. I have no idea what’s said behind my back, but to my face everyone has been professional and respectful.

The small-press horror community is two-sided. One the one side I’ve had wonderful experiences with people and presses whose work I read and enjoy. I have been treated like gold by my small press publishers and those who publish my friends and whose work I read regularly. On the other side are, frankly, people who can’t write well, and throw together anthologies just to publish their own work. Some of those people have been dismissive of me, but I don’t read their work and I dismiss them as well, so it’s even. The only group I’ve seen overt hostility from is a Bizarro press that I will NEVER buy from again and won’t recommend or review any of their work, let alone submit to them.

Amanda Niehaus-Hard

I haven’t had the same issues as other women in genre – probably because I’ve listened to a lot of their stories and avoided the people and groups they’ve warned others about. Cons nowadays take harassment seriously, because women in genre have demanded they do, so I’ve benefited from that and haven’t experienced harassment as a guest or an attendee. I appreciate that it’s people like you, Sean, who have helped create a more supportive and inclusive environment for women in genre fiction and in fandom, by keeping the conversation going.

Ellie Raine: I'm 100 percent behind the jurying idea for workshops. We don't have freshman undergrads mixed in the same advanced classes as grad students (unless certain exceptions apply), so this solution makes way more sense.

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Editor's Note: The panel includes women of various races/sexuality. The authors above were the ones able to respond by the deadline for this discussion.