Just posted a new essay on how to use gender to tell really good stories. Haven’t you read those writers who somehow manage to write the opposite gender (I’m assuming you share my dualistic gendered culture) so well you’d never guess they weren’t writing from experience? Both Robert Jordan and L.E. Modesitt, Jr. come immediately to mind in fantasy. I know both of them are/were approached by women readers who ask how they write women so well. (I suspect empowering female characters has a little to do with it, but hey, what do I know?)

Writing gender is an interesting topic. (Certainly was for Ursula K. Le Guin in The Left Hand of Darkness–so much so she sometimes forgot she was writing a story and not an ethnography). It’s also tricky. I hope this essay, which at this point addresses only gender specific experiences of insecurity, is helpful to some of you writers out there. If you have other questions about writing gender, shoot them to me.

Oh, and just for the record, the fact that I wrote this essay and am willing to field future questions on the matter does NOT make me a specialist on women. Much study and an unhealthy interest has taught me that women are not to be understood by learning; you either view the world upside down and sideways (and profess that things somehow make more sense this way) or you don’t, and guys, if you try to see things that crazily you go mad. So enjoy the mystery, and accept that perpetual confusion is your lot. Trust me, it makes things easier.

*****

Daniel wrote: 

I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with me on several occasions during LTUE last month. You have been a great help and an inspiration to me and have given me several tools and ideas to further hone my skills. Your workshop on character development and conflict was by far one of the most valuable.

I was writing Chapter 7 the other day and I have a part where my character, Turum is following someone from the city council down a dark, narrow, circular stairway that descends deep under a building. In the middle, I thought to myself, “Gee, this is getting boring,” and thought to myself, what would Clint and the other authors I met at LTUE say? Conflict came to my mind and all of a sudden Turum and this counselor came upon a missing chunk of stairs in the darkness. I was able to provide some tension and strengthen some backstory in this scene and it turned out way better than the two of them just walking down this stairway for 10 minutes.

You’re very welcome, and thanks for talking with me rather than staring with your mouth open or asking, “Who are you, weirdo?”  Glad to hear Turum nearly fell to his death, Daniel.  Really, it gives me this warm, happy feeling, like I’m full of bubbles bursting free their gooey goodness.  If he’d continued walking down the stairs for ten minutes unaccosted I’d have pushed him, that’s for sure.  I look forward to seeing you at CONduit.  Check back here to see what I end up doing there (you’ll know when I know).