Oddbean

@6e9427cf Thank you for the feedback, which is exactly why I put it out there. I like getting feedback as long as it is constructive like yours.👍 For the genre the point is that I am still not decided, so things might change (how the MC loses the fingers, the drinks...). It is interesting to see how much you can stay vague and how much you can't. The MC is intentionally not gendered. I am interested to see how much I can play with people not knowing the gender and if... 1/2

@6e9427cf ...I can still make an MC compelling without the reader being able to tell if they are man, woman or non-binary. If I can't pull it off, i think I will settle for a clearly non-binary MC since I have never written one and, as a genderagnostic myself, I think it is about time. 2/2

@b2ab0244 @6e9427cf I haven't read anything recently which featured an ungendered character. But if I remember correctly, Bone Dance by Emma Bull had a non-gendered MC. It's been a while since that book was published, before the commonality of NB pronouns, and it was written in first person. I remember it did sometimes get verbally awkward as the author skirted around the lack of apparent gender (which I think was a plot point, it's been a few years) but it might be a useful comp for you.

@ebd90c48 @6e9427cf Oooh, that's a good lead, thank you for the hint! 👍 I wonder how far I can take it without getting awkward of the reader being pulled out of the story. But it is kind of a challenge that would be interesting. The first person certainly helps with hiding the gender, although it is usually not my preferred writing voice. But then again: another interesting challenge.

@b2ab0244 @ebd90c48 "[I am not sure] I can still make an MC compelling without the reader being able to tell if they are man, woman or non-binary." I think it can be done, but it might mean that your gut reaction about where the plot needs to go will have to be carefully examined. Writers have reflexes, too! Go for it. I think the key is to never put the MC in a position where they must admit this information unless it's climactic or necessary for the denouement, in which case foreshadowing is necessary. Remember, the best part of 1st person is the POV is under no obligation to report anything they don't want to report (unlike 3rd). They are telling /their/ story. We all self-censor. Of course, as the author you can report things the self-censoring I-POV might not think important as foreshadowing. Sneaky author, right? I write I-POV and I very much enjoy the flamboyant dance of the unreliable narrator. Thinking about this, I did modify my /Mask/ Writever story to give the reader a choice of whether they think it has M/F or M/M "romance" element. It did this by changing, "You're tall, plain, gawky, lacking any curves, almost flat." to "You're tall, plain, gawky, not even wild looking." Like that, absolutely no mention of the I-POV's gender whatsoever. It absolutely works M/M. Hints exist for either choice. If readers at the end suddenly wonder, I'll have made them think and I will be very pleased. I like this change, so thank you for letting me think it through. Here's a link to the story: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/111184220824147915 I'm adding hashtags as I think a wider audience might find this interesting. #fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #firstPerson #POV #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #RSstory #RSdiscussion

@6e9427cf @b2ab0244 @ebd90c48 “it might mean that your gut reaction about where the plot needs to go will have to be carefully examined. Writers have reflexes, too!” I’d most like to write a book as usual, then click a button and have every pronoun switch, and see how that affects the story.

@e8c684dc @b2ab0244 @ebd90c48 "I’d most like to write a book as usual, then click a button and have every pronoun switch, and see how that affects the story." Character tags (little bits of description or telling action attributed to the character) are subtle bits of subtext that we use to make a story flow transparently. In my /Mask/ story, for example, the character "wipes unexpected hot tears" after being shot down. Feminine, right? Wrong. Men will react privately, or unconsciously, or if they haven't bought into guy-culture, easily. But without pronouns and gender subtext-ing, the statement becomes fodder for the reader deciding not on "what" but "does it actually matter?" My removal of the few gendering words didn't change the character, except in the reader's mind. Yep. Caveat, very short story. My bet is switching "she" to "he" globally will be less jarring than vice-versa (make-up and dresses notwithstanding, maybe.) These days masculine behavior in women is much more accepted still than the other way around. In the end, your result depends on how you write your characters. I-POV makes a big difference, of course.

@6e9427cf @b2ab0244 @ebd90c48 true, that’s why it’d be such an interesting experiment. I feel like I write relatively gender-neutral characters but we’re all so seeped in our respective cultures’ gender markers that it’d be sure to trip me over my own subconscious biases and that would be valuable.

@e8c684dc @6e9427cf @ebd90c48 That's indeed an interesting experiment. I know that I am lacking a certain kind of femininity in my characters because it puts me off IRL (trauma induced, not subject to discussion) and working towards fixing that, but otherwise I think most of my stories would still work, except perhaps one or two sex scenes. Usually, I don't get explicit, so most should work. But agreed, I would like to have that switch in my software, just for checking I managed okay.

@6e9427cf @b2ab0244 @ebd90c48 One of the very first short stories I wrote features an MC who does not reveal their gender. Name is Max, and I avoided pronouns in the entire story. Most people don't even notice. ("Sequoia" - a short story, published in 2013) Writing that wasn't easy, but Max consistently refused to tell me their gender. Might be my first genderfluid character. Max is also very likable, even if I say so.

@2433bcdf @6e9427cf @ebd90c48 I know, there are those who just don't want to tell! And some you find out that the concept doesn't even exist. Like for my Blunkarians. Which leads to me misgendering them every once in a while because my nurse Oounda seems so typically female... only that they aren't! I am a bad author!😂

@b2ab0244 I am all for gender vagueness. I've done the best I can to obscure mine in everything I've written on mastodon, not that I am hiding it. If you took any of my hints in our previous conversations, you probably know it. Gender does add subtext— I always want the reader to think about certain things, and since I write gender fiction, this is it, definitely! If you look at my recent (hashtag) writever titled Mask, I am very vague about almost everything about how the two characters look. This is intentional so that the reader can imagine them being more like them. The MC is implied to be Japanese, but is she? I almost made the main character, gender-vague also, but I had mentioned "curves". I spent more time writing it than I planned, so I didn't write that part out. In retrospect, I probably should have. It would've made it more interesting if it wasn't understood it was.M/F or M/M. Oh well!

@6e9427cf Yeah, exactly this. I like playing with stereotypes in general, gender or otherwise, so my male characters always have at least a few traits considered classical feminine and vice-versa. I like the idea of making an MC more relatable by leaving it vague. Indeed, that is what would be my ultimate goal with Blue, but I might realize I will not be able to do that while writing. Let's see, it is all unwritten until it is.

@b2ab0244 "it is all unwritten until it is." This was the hardest thing for me to get, but I will state it: /It is all unwritten until it is published./ I got myself into an unfortunate pattern of writing things and then considering them canon. You can revise anything until it is sold or in front of your readers. Um... I've actually taken it a little further. Since I write I-POV, I sometimes have the MC admit to little lies and face-saving things in subsequent stories. No whoppers, yet, though I have let a retcon slip through without pointing it out. [grins innocently] I took this dance to the max when I wrote a sequence of prequels... but made it work. The DJ novellas I mentioned in my yesterday's (hashtag)Music2WriteBy post.