I've spent the past week working on timelines. If that sounds like a torturous homework assignment, that's because it's a lot like a torturous homework assignment.
The book I'm currently working on has been in evolution for 14 years. That doesn't mean I've been working on it for the full 14 years - I'm not #GeorgeRR (sadly). The original draft was finished in 14 days but as time's gone on, I've honed my craft, worked with mentors and matured - so that when I revisited the idea of publishing it, there was a lot of work to be done.
I don't recommend this as a strategy. Firstly, while they say you should put a book away and come back to it for a fresh perspective, I'm pretty sure they don't mean put it away for 14 years.
The evolution from 1st draft to final edit brought up something important - timelines. As the story was re-written into an era with different social expectations, technology and pop culture, the characters' back stories needed to change and of course, so did their timelines. Changing the age of a character by a couple of years to fit with a plot line can cause chaos where that age is relevant to a series of events or their arc intersects with another's.
So, in order to clarify events, character arcs and story arcs, I downloaded a trial of a programme called 'Aeon Timeline'. I'm ah, not one to do too much plotting before I start writing - I find it too restrictive. But retrospectively adding in timelines has made the final editing process infinitely easier.
All conflicts were easily ironed out, ages established and I started to get a different overall feel for the book once I placed it within a specific time frame.
I'm not sure that doing this retrospectively is efficient (okay, it's just not) - but if you write as I do, it's definitely helpful.
My suggestion, based on the last week or so of work is that even if you are a 'free' writer, if you start with a timeline and add events as you go, even if you don't pre-plan your arcs, you'll find that referring back to your place in time is extremely helpful and a massive time saver at the end of the process.
So far, I would definitely recommend Aeon (and no, they're not paying me to endorse them - although I wouldn't be against the idea :-P) - as easy to use and inexpensive. But no matter what you use, I definitely recommend blocking out your timelines - as painful as it may be.
- Kaia.
Wednesday 11 February 2015
Wednesday 4 February 2015
#likeagirl
The video linked below isn't new. It's done the rounds of the internet a few times now and each time I see it, I have the same reaction. I cringe.
I cringe because I remember being a 'little girl' and hating that so much that I wished I was a boy. Not because I was having an identity or gender crisis, but because they were the ones with the power. They were the ones who got to be heroes. They were the ones who everyone looked up to. They were the leaders.
Girls were weak. Girls were pathetic and emotional - they couldn't do anything cool, they liked dolls and dresses and ran away from fights. They needed to be rescued. They were always dependent on others.
Can you guess the kind of girl I became?
I was independent. I refused to follow or conform. I put myself in dangerous situations to prove I could get myself out of them. I walked alone late at night with a giant dog at my side, I explored creepy places like tunnels and dark forests. I refused to wear dresses and I hated sports because there was proof I was 'just a girl' - I sucked at sports. I went overboard because otherwise I would have drowned in the all-male soggy-biscuit game that was highschool.
In my twenties, in my chosen profession I found I didn't exist except as the female attachment to my partner. Even though I had technical skills and abilities, clients didn't trust me to do the work because I was female. They'd take an unskilled male over me any day. They always assumed I was a subordinate. They looked past me at meetings and assumed I was the office worker. If I gave them an ultimatum, they wouldn't accept it - it had to come from a man in order to be official. I ah, well, I was angry in my 20s.
I was always striving to gain even just the baseline respect that guys had for each other. Why? Because men had ALL the power. It was the 80s - women were still struggling to get past being considered good for nothing but secretarial duty in the corporate world. So to achieve, I had to get noticed by the guys with the power. And not in the way they USUALLY noticed women. I did that by eschewing 'female' behaviour and dress. How else could I be taken seriously? I lived in black jeans and t-shirts for years.
Guys will never know what it's like to be a girl. They don't seem to realise that women can have EXACTLY the same amount of courage and passion and fury and dedication that guys have - they also dream of being the hero. They don't dream of being the love interest. Who wants to be a bit player who makes the hero a sammich and sends him on his way to go achieve all the things she can't because she's too busy being pretty for him?
Don't get me wrong, it's changing and I'm so excited to see those changes, knowing the world will be such a different place for little girls of the future.
So to address "You're just a girl." Here's the thing. If you put that message on girls from birth - that they'll never be good at anything that involves drive and grit and stamina and courage - you run the risk of creating women who inhibit themselves and never try or women who drive themselves twice as hard to achieve respect and who then may lack respect for those who had the privilege of that respect from birth. i.e. the Angry Feminist stereotype. You may create women who hate women because they don't want to be associated with a gender that's considered weak and useless.
When what you represent is constantly being portrayed as less-than in the media, and your role in popular media is generally as support and nothing more, you're gonna lose your patience with it eventually and many of us have. We can't stop talking about it. We want it to stop and that's not making friends out there on the ole internet. Which is why we must not stop until it stops. Until men fully expect us to stand beside them, not behind them, and we as women have the same expectations of ourselves.
If you're a dad and you've ever told your kid (whatever its gender identity) to 'man up' or used 'like a girl' as an insult - please think about the message that sends.
To the girls it says: You're weak and useless from birth. Not worthy of respect. Don't even try.
To the boys it says: Women aren't worthy of your respect. They're weak - don't be like them!
As for those vile internet commenters who fill up the comments section of every female achievement or opinion published online, the cognitive dissonance between those phrases voiced in early childhood and the realities those kids must then see as they grow up - that women don't care what they think and simply go out there and do whatever they want to do and are now being supported and celebrated as much as the guys are - must cause such confusion.
What if those women are better than they are at traditional 'male' pursuits - no wonder they try to deride them. If they believe women are weaker than 'boys' are from birth and they themselves are weaker still - wow. That's a lot of unpleasantness going on. But I believe some of it could be stopped by parents who discouraged that kind of thinking from the get go.
No more using female nouns as insults. Let's get that shit gone. :-) I, for one, will then be a LOT nicer to watch TV with. :-P
I cringe because I remember being a 'little girl' and hating that so much that I wished I was a boy. Not because I was having an identity or gender crisis, but because they were the ones with the power. They were the ones who got to be heroes. They were the ones who everyone looked up to. They were the leaders.
Girls were weak. Girls were pathetic and emotional - they couldn't do anything cool, they liked dolls and dresses and ran away from fights. They needed to be rescued. They were always dependent on others.
Can you guess the kind of girl I became?
I was independent. I refused to follow or conform. I put myself in dangerous situations to prove I could get myself out of them. I walked alone late at night with a giant dog at my side, I explored creepy places like tunnels and dark forests. I refused to wear dresses and I hated sports because there was proof I was 'just a girl' - I sucked at sports. I went overboard because otherwise I would have drowned in the all-male soggy-biscuit game that was highschool.
In my twenties, in my chosen profession I found I didn't exist except as the female attachment to my partner. Even though I had technical skills and abilities, clients didn't trust me to do the work because I was female. They'd take an unskilled male over me any day. They always assumed I was a subordinate. They looked past me at meetings and assumed I was the office worker. If I gave them an ultimatum, they wouldn't accept it - it had to come from a man in order to be official. I ah, well, I was angry in my 20s.
I was always striving to gain even just the baseline respect that guys had for each other. Why? Because men had ALL the power. It was the 80s - women were still struggling to get past being considered good for nothing but secretarial duty in the corporate world. So to achieve, I had to get noticed by the guys with the power. And not in the way they USUALLY noticed women. I did that by eschewing 'female' behaviour and dress. How else could I be taken seriously? I lived in black jeans and t-shirts for years.
Guys will never know what it's like to be a girl. They don't seem to realise that women can have EXACTLY the same amount of courage and passion and fury and dedication that guys have - they also dream of being the hero. They don't dream of being the love interest. Who wants to be a bit player who makes the hero a sammich and sends him on his way to go achieve all the things she can't because she's too busy being pretty for him?
Don't get me wrong, it's changing and I'm so excited to see those changes, knowing the world will be such a different place for little girls of the future.
So to address "You're just a girl." Here's the thing. If you put that message on girls from birth - that they'll never be good at anything that involves drive and grit and stamina and courage - you run the risk of creating women who inhibit themselves and never try or women who drive themselves twice as hard to achieve respect and who then may lack respect for those who had the privilege of that respect from birth. i.e. the Angry Feminist stereotype. You may create women who hate women because they don't want to be associated with a gender that's considered weak and useless.
When what you represent is constantly being portrayed as less-than in the media, and your role in popular media is generally as support and nothing more, you're gonna lose your patience with it eventually and many of us have. We can't stop talking about it. We want it to stop and that's not making friends out there on the ole internet. Which is why we must not stop until it stops. Until men fully expect us to stand beside them, not behind them, and we as women have the same expectations of ourselves.
If you're a dad and you've ever told your kid (whatever its gender identity) to 'man up' or used 'like a girl' as an insult - please think about the message that sends.
To the girls it says: You're weak and useless from birth. Not worthy of respect. Don't even try.
To the boys it says: Women aren't worthy of your respect. They're weak - don't be like them!
As for those vile internet commenters who fill up the comments section of every female achievement or opinion published online, the cognitive dissonance between those phrases voiced in early childhood and the realities those kids must then see as they grow up - that women don't care what they think and simply go out there and do whatever they want to do and are now being supported and celebrated as much as the guys are - must cause such confusion.
What if those women are better than they are at traditional 'male' pursuits - no wonder they try to deride them. If they believe women are weaker than 'boys' are from birth and they themselves are weaker still - wow. That's a lot of unpleasantness going on. But I believe some of it could be stopped by parents who discouraged that kind of thinking from the get go.
No more using female nouns as insults. Let's get that shit gone. :-) I, for one, will then be a LOT nicer to watch TV with. :-P
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)