Today we get a doubly rare treat: another survivor, and this one has a female lead.
What I gleaned about the story: After the fall, military observation posts have devolved into isolated communities of survivors, still fighting a war, long after its politics have faded into obscurity. In that stagnant backwater, teenage Caroline, scouting for the People’s Republic of Virginia, has developed a thing for Finn, who scouts for their hated enemy, the Democratic Alliance of Virginia. Too bad their respective sides have just resumed hostilities.
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Note: Wow. A promising start with good writing, strong imagery, and nothing banal. It’s frustrating how rarely I get to say that.
Analysis: It isn’t until Chapter 2 of this first-person story that I discover that the protagonist is a girl. That doesn’t matter at all to whether or not I’ll enjoy the story, but it does make a difference to the world I’m building as I read. Males and females think differently, they are treated differently by the people around them, and that in turn brings different lights to bear on what they think, fear, and strive for. So if I read a book thinking I’m in the head of a guy, I’m going to make one set of baseline assumptions about what the events of the story mean, and if I think I’m in the head of a girl, I’m going to make different assumptions. As a result, when I finally realized that I had assigned the wrong sex to the protagonist, I had to go back and reconsider what I’d read earlier, to see if any new nuances appear.
I’m sure some people are going to complain that this is sexism, that it shouldn’t matter whether the protagonist is male of female, but it does. Not because it changes my ability to enjoy the story, but because it changes my understanding of their journey.
Analysis: Two scouts, investigating a noise on the periphery of their community’s territory encounter four scouts from an invading army that is almost on top of their village. They know full well that word must get back to the villagers or all is lost, they even talk about, but even so, they still decide to hunt down the enemy scouts to buy more time. This is a complete violation of everything reconnaissance is about. They’re betting double or nothing with the lives of everyone they hold dear, and there is no way I can respect that decision. It makes them glory-hounds, rather than the sensitive, responsible people they’ve otherwise been made out to be.
I understand that the author needed them to fight, in order to instigate some further developments that ensue, but a much more sympathetic choice would have been to have them cut off by the enemy scouts and force them to kill in order to escape. Having them choose to go further into harm’s way and risk everything was a real head-shake for me. And guess what? Things do not go well.
Note: But those two stumbles aside, this is very solid writing with a promising conflict shaping up between our gentle-seeming villagers and the overwhelming force that is descending upon them with two allegiance-crossed lovers caught in the middle.
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Hard to see how being female can be considered a reveal unless it’s been actively hidden. You just made the wrong assumption based on… well I don’t know. Based on the fact that you are a man? I would’ve thought that the cover might’ve tipped you off. Seems like a harsh thing to charge a WTF for to me.
As an aside, men and women think differently, on average, in our culture, but that doesn’t mean any given man or woman will think in a certain way, and for that matter it doesn’t mean that men and women have to think differently in fictitious worlds either.
Funnily enough, I read a first person short story yesterday, by Gillian Flynn – so by a best selling, traditionally published author, where the gender of the narrator wasn’t mentioned explicitly until the quite some way in. There was a suggestion of gender, the narrator provided specific sexual services for money, but I was half wondering if there might actually be a ‘aha your expectations were wrong!’ type moment later on.
I believe that pikeamus’ comment is very well put. I just want to add a few things.
The problem with this post is that it makes it seem like you are assuming the character’s gender makes a difference no matter what.
Bringing up the character’s gender when it has no impact on the story is comparable to bringing up their race when it has no impact on the story. You can certainly do it, and in some cases it may add to the story, but it should by no means always be necessary.
The Fantasy/SciFi/Whatever world you are reading about may be as sexist and prejudice as our own, but it doesn’t have to be.
Last point:
If you find yourself making assumptions based on gender, or need gender to put a person in your own predefined box, that’s sexism. It’s not overly offensive, egregious sexism, but it is still sexism. It still contributes negatively in a small way to gender equality.
The fact that you’re making an effort and are excited to see women in lead roles means you are better than most. Thanks for this awesome service!
I’m always really happy to see when a book reaches the 40 min mark. I want to know why books make it, not just why they fail. Thanks!
I do think that we make assumptions about the narrator of a book that should be either confirmed or denied right away. I can recall one urban fantasy novel that I read in which I assumed that the narrator was female based on both the gender of the author (whom I knew) and the name Dana. I didn’t get corrected in that assumption until the third of fourth chapter, and by that time I had a real problem correcting my mental image. I brought this up to the author who said that she had assumed that the fact that Dana mentioned the attractiveness of female supporting characters would be enough to tip off the reader that the narrator was male. Not necessarily.
In a theoretical sense one can blame the reader for her or his unconscious biases, but from a marketing standpoint blaming the customer is never a good idea.
I suppose if one were trying to make an object lesson out of the book, shaking a finger at the reader for their unconscious biases, then leaving things like gender unspecified can be justifiably blamed on the reader. But in fiction, vast mounds of information are left for the reader to fill in, and we writers rely heavily on that. So when a reader makes jumps to the wrong conclusion about an important fact, I don’t see it as his fault. I see it as a failure of the author to properly establish the crucial details upon which the story is predicated.
The author’s primary job, I think, in respect to world and character building, is to point out where the facts of the story differ from the most likely default assumptions. Especially facts that impinge on our ability to understand the character’s behaviors.
That’s why it’s important to specify a POV character’s sex, but not necessarily their eye color or handedness. One attribute is hugely important in our ability to predict and relate to their behaviors and choices, the other attributes are not.
So when these details are given to us later, after we’ve made our assumptions and begun building a bond with that character, unexpected information undermines the very fabric of our understanding of who we’ve been emoting with. And consequently, it feels like a fundamental betrayal by a trusted friend.
this sounds to me, like you’re still being stuck in the box of what is culturally familiar to you. personally, though this might be of no great pertinence, i prefer worlds which are NOT bound by cultural familiarity. those which are, seldom make it past my own 40 minuet immersion, if even past the first ten. that’s the whole reason i read science fiction and fantasy in the first place. or for that matter, fiction of any kind.