Words, words, words. That's what we're made of. Herewith some of my thoughts on what we're doing with them.

When I'm not writing, I'm often reading. When I'm not reading great literature (yeah, right, see last week), I'm kibitzing on h2g2 discussions. Yep, I pay attention, as much as I can. Right now, as I'm writing, there's a fun, and funny, discussion going on over at the Alternative Writing Workshop. I really enjoy these. Our writers are dedicated folk, and open to suggestions from one another. Right now, some female writers are discussing a male writer's female character. They're not sure she should chain-smoke, as that's not ladylike.

Now, I'm just hovering, because I want to steal that story for the Post as soon as the author's ready. (It's a great story.) I'm not expressing too much opinion on the chain-smoking lady's femininity. What do I know? A lot of my older female relatives dipped snuff, and I didn't think less of them. Mind you, my grandmother was once horrified that my grandfather had put his twist of Red Ox chewing tobacco in her handbag before they went to the airport. Why, that young man at the security might think I chewed, she worried. (She didn't care about the two cans of snuff that were in there.) So I guess correct gender behaviour is relative. The discussion got me thinking: how do we craft characters with gender qualities we do not ourselves possess? More particularly, how do we accomplish this task without making the reader say, 'Oh, put a sock in it.'?

Let's start with an awful example. (We love these, don't we?) If you are, say, a female writer, and you want to have it all your way in the gender wars, you could do worse than imitate that mistress of the Regency, the Baroness Orczy¹:

Sir Percy Blakeney had travelled a great deal abroad, before he brought home his beautiful, young, French wife. The fashionable circles of the time were ready to receive them both with open arms; Sir Percy was rich, his wife was accomplished, the Prince of Wales took a very great liking to them both. Within six months they were the acknowledged leaders of fashion and of style. Sir Percy's coats were the talk of the town, his inanities were quoted, his foolish laugh copied by the gilded youth at Almack's or the Mall. Everyone knew that he was hopelessly stupid, but then that was scarcely to be wondered at, seeing that all the Blakeneys for generations had been notoriously dull, and that his mother died an imbecile.   – Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Okay, this is massively stacking the deck. Of course Percy has to spent the rest of the novel being the world's most impossible hero, just to make up for his overdone fashion sense and that 'imbecile' mother. Sheesh. I admit to becoming a bit impatient with his wife Marguerite after awhile. Who died and left her in charge?

I think this is a case of a lady knowing what ladies want to read about. (Boys just like the adventure part.) But if somebody comes up with incontrovertible proof that the Baroness was a Central European fella in drag, I'll eat my (tinfoil) hat.

Okay, turn about, fair play. Let's find a snorting male chauvinist and make fun of him. Embarrasse des richesses here, as the Baroness would say. Who to choose? Here, I've got one, chosen practically at random:

'Murder!' screeched the woman, and fell into a chair. Evidently she had received a shock and was on the verge of hysterics, for she began to babble and weep copiously. Accustomed to deal with this sort of emotion, Lackland [a Detective Inspector] seized a jug of water standing near his desk, and dashed the contents into her face. The remedy was efficacious, for with a gasp and a shiver the woman recovered her self-control and tongue, also her inherent feminine vanity. 'You brute!' she screamed, jumping up wrathfully. 'My best bonnet's spoilt.'   – Fergus Hume, The Lady from Nowhere: A Detective Story, 1900.

That subtitle, 'A Detective Story', is otiose. What else could it be? You don't have to be hard-boiled to be rude. Notice that this story manages to be rude about this woman's gender AND her class at one and the same time. You've probably guessed that she's the landlady who found the body. You can also guess that she's not rich, glamorous, or sexy. Therefore, the writer has no interest or sympathy to spare, and can safely insult her, her class, and probably her next of kin. I note with pleasure that if a detective in the municipal employ were to throw water in a witness' face these days, he'd probably be sued to within an inch of his miserable life. At least in the US.

Of course, one way to deal with the gender wars is to upset expectations. Take this case: you've got a dashing hero, cut from the same cloth as the Scarlet Pimpernel. (It probably costs about 25 euros a yard, these heroes wear Armani.) Anyhow, he's all full of hidden coolth. So how to make his courtship of the heroine interesting? Try Zorro's approach. For some reason, Don Diego is acting thicker than usual, by pretending a marriage proposal is sort of like choosing your internet service provider. He's been discussing this 'business deal' with the lady's father, and it seems she overheard. (She wasn't impressed.)

'The man who weds me must woo me and win my love,' the girl went on. 'He must touch my heart. Think you that I am some bronze native wench² to give myself to the first man who asks? The man who becomes my husband must be a man with life enough in him to want me. Send your servant to play a guitar beneath my window? Oh, I heard, Senor! Send him, Senor, and I'll throw boiling water upon him and bleach his red skin! Buenos dias, senor!'. . .
Don Diego Vega looked after the disappearing senorita and scratched at his head thoughtfully and glanced toward his horse.
'I believe she is displeased with me,' he said in his timid voice³.   – Johnston McCulley, Mark of Zorro, 1919.

I suppose it is possible – just barely – to make a genuine attempt to understand each other. It might be within the realm of imagination to envision a character invented by a writer of the 'opposite' gender that is believable, and real, and interesting.

There's lots of space at the bottom of this page. Put up your nominations here. And then we can discuss them.

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Dmitri Gheorgheni

23.04.12 Front Page

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