Monday, December 14, 2009

Non-fiction...

I've been writing a lot of non-fiction lately, whether for school or for myself, and I've found that I like it in a lot of ways. It's different from my usual fare of fiction with the odd smatterings of poetry.

Sometimes it feels rather limiting though. I tend to write stream-of-conscious, so I have to go back and make sure my points all add up in the beginning the same way they do in the end. Also, it feels as though I am stuck with only a sliver of real-life, rather than a whole expanse of fiction-life.

I don't know how exactly to explain it, but there is a difference and it is both liberating and limiting.

It's nice to be writing, in any case.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Badassitudette...

Frustrated the other day, I asked one of the great questions faced by fiction writers everywhere: How do you make a girl an action hero without a) turning her into a Faux Action Girl or b) wussing up the guys. Basically I want a girl who can stand on her own two feet and be awesome in her own right, but do so in a way that doesn't make the guys look weak when she opens up her can of whup-ass. Both of these things must be avoided, while all the while keeping her femininity without turning her into a sex object.

Trinity from the Matrix films was a fairly good example of solving this problem, though even she pandered to the fanservice-rabid demographic a bit. Koukou Debut had a wonderful example. The main character was innocent, yet very determined and loyal. She could hold her own when she wanted to (she was stronger than some of the guys - sometimes leading to wussing up the guys... can there be no perfect example? gah...), yet she really liked being a girl. Sure, it was a romance rather than an action piece, but the elements were there. Now to figure out how to emulate that in a more extreme setting.