Fiction: Sure, I know the way to Mount Bonnell

“Us? We’re travelling up to Mount Bonnell.  Any tips on the best path?”

“Sure, I know how to get there.” And then the dog barked, the elementary school bell rang, and she was again surrounded by greenbriar and cedar thickets. The camp was gone.

Next day, show up with the dog again, of course, and a printed out Google map from Bouldin Creek to Mount Bonnell.

“Hey, where’d you get this.”

“I printed it. You can keep it.”

“That’s a mighty fine printer. And these markings? And you said you’re a surveyor looking for work.” He carefully rolled the map and eyed me inquisitively. “That settles it. Polly suggested asking you to scout for us last night. Bring your tools with you tomorrow and you can travel with us. ”

He just offered me a job? Mount Bonnell is only a 20-minute ride north, right?

ArmadilloCon recap: Strong Female Characters

ArmadilloCon is in its 33rd year, an Austin tradition. Sci-fi and fantasy (and western and vampire and romance and steampunk) authors gather to share and discuss.

The session on Writing a Strong Female Protagonist featured — listed by first initial only, an odd tradition that cuts down on our powers of name recognition:

• A. Allston
• E. Bull (I knew that one, Emma Bull)
• A. Downum
• J. Kenner,
•  T. Mallory
• M. Wells

So I took a seat to learn about writing a tough-but -relatable heroine. What follows is my impression of notes I took. I don’t know who said what, due to the nameplates being low, room full, and some of my notes are things I said to myself while I was typing.

When you choose to make the protagonist a female, you have to find space between fighting like Xena and being a doormat.

Does a strong woman have masculine traits? But what is a masculine trait?

Tamara thinks to self: Women have different motivations. Fight for glory vs. fight to protect the hearth.

Can you categorize men and women? Is it hard for men to write female characters? For women to write male ones?

General discussion of female characters we do think are strong and enjoyable. Firefly, for example. Inara is beautiful, but everyone wants to marry Kaylee. Why? I think it’s her MacGyver attributes, myself, the way she puts things together. But she looks good in a dress. The room didn’t bring up Zoe, the tough married female pilot. A great and powerful member of the ground crew, and often reminding the team of its gray but definable moral boundaries. Zoe rocks the bandolier. And she’s so cute with her husband, who is just a little more tender than she is.

Things to avoid: defining women solely based on their sexual relationships. Aping male behavior.

Consider the Bechdel Test: Is there more than one woman? Do they talk to each other? About something more than a man? Even there, Firefly starts to fall short, the girls do spend a lotta time talking about guys.

Good thing to remember about characters in general: Is it what the character would do or what you would do?

Characters have flaws. But when writing about women, it’s important to consider how/if their flaws make them weak.  Here there was a great discussion about Gone with the Wind, anchored by the impetuous raging Scarlett and sweet resilient Melanie. Melanie is physically weak, but mentally a rock, solid and steadfast and, well, Strong. Scarlett? She’s a mess, but she’s not actually that strong.

Characters have to be likable. Likeable to get readers to read the book. Perfect and invulnerable characters aren’t likeable.

Females as action heroes: leading the adventure, villains.

Or, what about when the ordinary person has to buck up? This led into Emma Bull saying the most brilliant sentence of the session:

What do STRONG PEOPLE do?
They do what needs to be done
to the best of their abilities
even if it’s scary as hell.

Bull described how people still have to work within the rules of their society, and made me wonder what fiction she is writing set in 1881. Me, I’m utterly fascinated with the 1880s. Technology – trains and electricity – leaped with the same power of the computer and internet reshaping us now.

This led to a description of trapped females as a device, which led one person to describe an era of film I was unfamiliar with, the imprisoned female. I started daydreaming about the book Room, but didn’t speak out. Recently, I’ve seen Sucker Punch, and that was a great movie about trapped women. And resolve.

Strength is:

• Resolve, Resourceful
• Survivor
• Strong sense of self
• Loyal
• Problem solver
• Smart and cunning
• Brave

And again, can be described outside of their relationships to men.

Hmmh. I have trouble defining myself outside relationships to men. What can I do to be a brave resourceful character in my own story?

Fiction: The adventures of TK and Girlfriend, chapter iota

She stumbled through the woods, ducking past greenbriar, avoiding poison ivy. “Whaddya smell, Girlfriend?”

Standing up, she looked around. A flat area. Terraced up the hill. About five feet above the top of the dry creekbed. Rock-lined campsites, with stumps surrounding cleared cooking spots and little lean-tos of drying firewood.

Pausing, remembering the dog, bent down, and got out the water bottle. Girlfriend gratefully lapped up some water and while TK snapped the leash on. When she stood up, she was facing the overgrown brush. Turned around, brush and cedar woven through with greenbriar formed a canopy. Girlfriend started through the narrow cut through to the path, and TK followed with a close hand on the leash.

The elementary school bell rang, signaling 7:35AM throughout the neighborhood. The girl and her dog pushed up to the sidewalk and merged with the parents and strollers walking home from dropping off their kindergarteners and first graders.

Writing: progress report

I found a new way to inspire writing. Between now and 7PM, I’m going to write or clean the bathroom. Betcha I get a lot done.

storming the gates of hell in a silly punk fantasy

Clad in a loose white shirt, the tall tanned man whirled with a wooden staff. High cut left, down to the right, half step forward with a quarter turn and flash, cleaved the demon down through the skull to where his heart should have been.

I sure hope that guy has pants on, as the hot wind whipped the tunic during a high kick.

No more time to consider the not-so-scary, the truly horrific was all around as the flames of hell licked the stucco wall. The demon squirmed and I loaded another pickle in the cannon.

Because you gotta go through hell before you get to heaven.

Oh, was this a punk fantasy? Classic rock is more like it. And the pickles?

Demons are slugs, salt kills slugs, and nothing says 50 caliber salt bomb like a pickle launched full speed out of a cannon.

Between that swirling dervish of chop socky up ahead and lobbing these green cannonballs, we’re fighting back the demons. Almost got ’em all. Just a few more miles before we start traipsing through gray purgatory, then the bright lights of heaven.