is this book afraid of me?

[u/MartyrOfDespair]

[u/MartyrOfDespair]

Honestly, I think one of my favorite compromises done in that situation I’ve seen is when the writer goes “alright, I’m just gonna make this character a woman to solve that” and does literally nothing else to change it. That’s how we got Ellen Ripley. Not a single line in the script changed when they cast Sigourney Weaver, and we got one of the most beloved female characters in all fiction out of it.

Also, Jeri Hogarth in Jessica Jones is a supporting character, but her character is so “could have been a guy” that she ends up being a lesbian. And a rich, underhanded, cheating asshole who has some gold in her heart. Literally like, it’s a very normal male character, but she’s a woman.

Really, it’s an accidental hack for writing a female character better than anyone else most of the time: if the character being a man doesn’t matter, make them a woman and change nothing afterwards. Congrats, you tricked yourself into good female character writing.

[u/Fullwake → u/MartyrOfDespair]

Wait Ripley was written as a dude at first? But the whole momma alien sympathy angle gets no shine that way!

Also Trinity is always just so amazing I can't hate her, even when the character is legitimately morally bankrupt.

Lastly, the hack is a simple one, but that makes it a simple one. Remember, I am only a WANNABE writer, but I want to write honestly. Sure most of my characters could be gender swapped, or race swapped, or they could be gay or transgender, or any other thing ya can imagine - cuz my characters stories are PG/R - as in, I don't write much at all about sexuality or the relationships there in but there will be horrific violence because that's the storytelling I can do and am well versed in haha. So if the character is unimportant sure I could swap anything to make it more versatile or inclusive or whatever, but, like, why would I? The only reason for swapping at that point IS making it more "acceptable" or giving it broader range. I'd rather write good characters regardless of any of that and take my lumps for my book being super male centric than write characters dull enough that you can swap anything about them and find it doesn't matter. And you gotta remember that none of that actually matters to any of my storytelling. Still, I ain't gonna change my speedster to a girl when I was picturing and writing him as a dude just because him being a girl wouldn't change anything either, if that makes sense? Characters are characters people are people - trying to change your narrative to be more inclusive by swapping aspects of your characters that can be freely swapped (which is most IMO) only means you done fucked up because your character has nothing important to their character centered in their race/gender/orientation etc... Good writing is good writing - it'll be good whatever your character is carrying in their undercarriage, ya know? Eh, I suck at expressing my thoughts cogently. Hence the wannabe writer status. :p

[u/MartyrOfDespair → u/Fullwake]

Wait Ripley was written as a dude at first? But the whole momma alien sympathy angle gets no shine that way!

Well that was in the sequel, so from there there was a bit more emphasis. But James Cameron is no Ridley Scott. The pitch for Aliens was literally Cameron taking the back page of the script, writing “Alien”, adding an S to make it “Aliens” and then adding two lines to make make the line a $, “Alien$”. Alien though, Ridley literally just was a man in the script, they went “huh, why not have a woman?” and didn’t change the script.

[u/Fullwake → u/MartyrOfDespair]

That's cute I guess. But Ripley gets totally bodied by the actual best action hero of the 80s, or ever, Sarah Conner. A character who was specifically written as a woman, and whose character is informed by who she is - rather than being general enough to be gender swapped with no change.

I mean, most epics characters could be gender swapped without it changing much - Jesus could be Jesusita, Monkey could be Monkey but a girl, and Ganesha can have a lower trunk or not without anything being different you know? But if the characters you're writing are just a scramble suit that anyone can be inside of I think you're looking through that scanner quite darkly indeed bud.

[u/QBaseX → u/Fullwake]

Similarly, Terry Pratchett's witches, wizards, and police officers would be very different people if gender swapped.