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My name is Hallan Turrek. This is my blog.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Wherein I Criticize Other Bloggers #1


So, you've got a hell of a female charactor. She's smart, quick, strong, and no slouch in a fight. Only, your main charactor is male. What to do. What to do. Oh I know, lets have her get captured.

This is a common trope in fiction.
You'll see it time and time again.

It's overused and annoying really. It allows non-interesting charactor development of the male charactor at the expense of a female one. I also plays into the "females can't be equal" concept that prevails on the psyche of so many male writers.

That isn't to say that a female charactor losing a fight or not being as good as a male charactor is inherently bad writing, it's not. But if you take an otherwise competent female charactor and make her be suddenly captured so your male charactor can rescue her, you've fallen into the trap. Bonus points if you don't even describe exactly what happened. Double points if your charactor is the only one who can rescue her.

It's very tempting, but try not to.

Oh, and given that Roc's a pretty good writer, I'm going to sit back and see how he develops his story before I go making any final judgments.

Good day.

4 comments:

  1. Aw, come on... lemme see. Roc rescues Sam, Sam rescues himself, Shae rescues Jorge, Roc rescues himself, Mynxee rescues Roc. Everyone rescues everyone else. But.

    Can't a girl get a decent rescue anymore?

    (Although I think the one actually in trouble this time is Roc.)

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  2. bad blogger no biscuit for you.

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  3. It's just EVE, not a fairytale. Kill'em all!

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  4. Ironically, I'm guessing the story never went the way you anticipated.

    Mynxee rescues herself, kills someone in the process, Roc gets blamed and screwed...

    This is Eve afterall, like you said.

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