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The Spiked Quill's avatar

If you want to write about a woman just go talk to them. What are the oddities and quirks of my mom and sister? They're part of the human race.

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S M Garratt's avatar

I found this essay fascinating because I had never considered the idea that writing from a female perspective would be a difficult thing. Firstly I have never read Cormac McCarthy - in fact prior to Substack I'd never come across him... so I have nothing to add about him but I do read a lot of female authors and, strangely ( or perhaps not so strangely), this never seems to be an issue for them to write male characters, male leads, male villains, because they write people. That is, they observe real people and use their knowledge to bring those characters to life. Ursula Le Guin, for one, no matter how fantastical her story, the characters are always grounded in a reality that makes sense for the narrative. I so rarely think about gender, it always amazes me when it crops up as something we need to discuss. Characters are made up of so many elements, needs, wants, upbringing, circumstance, age ( only as a framework for understanding/knowledge - never as a device), and maybe somewhere gender comes into it but it's a tiny part of bringing a character to life - there are so many more important things. Aren't there?

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