Writer's Toolkit: Unexceptional Exceptions · 3:09am Mar 25th, 2016
In my internet poking, I came across this:
Writing Woman Characters Into Epic Fantasy Without Quotas
Now, first of all, I thought it was super interesting. It’s a long series of examples of times and places in history where women had different roles, or more opportunities and power than we typically think when we think of “women’s roles in history.” And, for a list like this, it provides a lot of citation so that if you feel the need to you can see how BS the source is (always a danger in history writing, and I’ll talk about some reasons for that in a moment.)
Second of all, it got me thinking and I wanted to blog about those thoughts.
Let me start with an admission/example of what I’m going to talk about.
As far as I am concerned, the Middle Ages™ took place in England, and maybe also France and some of central Europe. I’m vaguely aware that as they were going on people in China and the Middle East were developing space travel and iPhones (okay, maybe not, but they were being way more technologically advanced.) But over in the Middle Ages™, lots of peasants who looked suspiciously like characters from Monty Python and the Holy Grail lived in houses with thatched roofs and and did various jobs that make boring last names (Baker, Farmer, Smith, etc.)
So… what did a fisherman living on a Greek island look like during the middle ages? Where did he live? What did his boat look like? Did he have a boat, or were they too expensive?
I have no clue. Without looking it up, any guess I make is more or less making up a fantasy character.
Now, I’m by no means poorly read on history. I know more than average (though I am by no means an expert) about the succession of the British royals, about Charlemagne, about approximately when the crusades were. I know off the top of my head that the Norman invasion was in 1066, I know what happened surrounding the signing of the Magna Carta. But I don’t know shit about what Greece was like.
I'm sure right now one of you is preparing to head to the comments to tell me what the middle ages were like in Greece, but that isn't actually the point.
The point is that for almost all of us, history is full of holes like this. We tend to know something, vaguely, about a specific set of people in a specific place and time, and to us that’s the Greeks™, or the Roman Empire™, or the Renaissance™.
Part of this is their fault, because they often kept lousy records. One reason so much of history as we know it is BS is because it’s pieced together based on bits and pieces of mentions in the writing we do have, combined with whatever archaeologists can dig up. And often that piecing together is influenced by what we think people should have been doing or how they should have been acting-- we can see this plain as day in the versions of history people in the past have tried to piece together, because they don't match how we interpret it now, but we're still probably blind to the ways people in the future will interpret things differently.
But a larger part is because we like to imagine things as more homogeneous than they were. Or are, even. Even in the modern United States, there’s probably some place or group where life is totally different than you imagine it. And I’m not even talking about extreme fringe groups like the Amish.
The area where I live is full of "normal small towns," many of which are similar in style, and some small cities that are pretty much like many other small cities I've been to. But we also have places like:
A little ways south of me, in the Chesapeake bay, are Smith Island, MD and Tangier, VA. They’re both tiny, isolated islands that can only be reached by ferry. The accents native to those places are considered “relic accents” that still reflect the speech of original colonial settlers of the area. Smith Island is also shrinking. It's a sand bar, and the sand has been wearing away for hundreds of years.
On the other side of the Delmarva peninsula is Ocean City, MD. It’s a city on a sand spit/peninsula between the Atlantic ocean and the Assawoman bay-- less than a mile wide, but about ten miles long-- and as a resort town it has about 8,000 residents in the winter, and about 300,000 on weekends in the summer.
South of that is Assateague state park, another island that’s home of a herd of wild ponies that were brought from Europe as domestic ponies and just kind of set up there.
And that’s just within a few hours drive from me. I'm sure there are places like that near you, wherever that is.
So, while I’m sure there were plenty of Typical Villages™ in England, where the Middle Ages™ were primarily taking place, there were also probably plenty of weird villages, where people were not participating in approved peasant activities but were… I dunno, raising bears or living in caves or trying to convince religious pilgrims to buy timeshares. They just weren’t the Typical Villages™, so we forget about them.
And this goes down to the individual level, as well. There have always been people who looked at what everyone else was doing and said, “Mmm… nah.” And on individual levels, a lot of times people just let them, because that was how they were.
Someday I will tell you all the epic story of why neither Cordelia nor Anne Virginia were eligible for the Civil War pension of my ancestor William Sweet, as dutifully recorded in the US archives because there was a legal case and lots of depositions. But the very, very short version is that William and Cordelia were married, and then decided they didn’t want to be. They both went and married other people without bothering to get a divorce by going a few towns over and not mentioning they were already married. Everyone in their small town knew this. They each ended up having children with their new spouse, but no one cared. As far as the town was concerned, they were married to their “second” spouses.
(Well, according to the depositions by Anne’s family Cordelia was a “fast woman,” but that was reportedly why William left her. The people of Oella seemed to think that the US pension board ought to know all the details.)
Anyway, another of my relatives, my great-grandmother (who was born in 1913 and lived until I was in my early twenties, so I knew her well) was a married woman with a child in the 40’s and 50’s, her husband had a good job… and so did she. She got her high school diploma in bookkeeping, back when that was a kind of big deal, and then she got a professional job and just worked. None of the other women in my family were that educated or worked, but Hazel liked getting dressed up and going to the office, she liked bookkeeping, and she liked having the extra money, so she worked. Once again, she was the exception, most women in her position wouldn’t have worked if their husbands could support them, but she did.
And the important thing about these situations from my family is that they’re exceptions, but they weren’t big deals in those times or places. It wasn’t how everyone lived, but if someone was going to insist on being weird, and they weren’t hurting anyone, no one really cared.
The world is and always has been full of unexceptional exceptions; people, places, and even parts of civilization who were off doing their own thing, not fitting into the boxes we like to put stuff in. Sometimes these things are footnotes in history, sometimes not even that.
Writers, especially writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy, often seem to have two categories: Our Super Special Main Characters/Location/Alien Civilization who are all well rounded or symbolic and guided by fate, and Typical Peasant/Village/Space Travelers/Aliens which are pretty much what you’d expect. The captain of the villain's forces is a soldier-y guy. The part of the alien planet where the protagonists land is representative of that culture (in some cases the only culture on that planet.) The fellow space travelers who give them directions to the maguffionium mines are researchers who were doing researcher-y things.
But the thing is that when people make a point to think of the exceptions, and let the background of their setting be the weird pallet of life, it’s really cool. Settings like Discworld, Harry Potter, the Hitchhiker’s universe, Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, Charles De Lint’s Newford… they’re almost nothing but exceptions. Even the normal people (or Vogons, or what have you) aren’t normal. It doesn't have to take over your story, it can just be a thing your characters pass along the way, but it makes the whole world something people want to know more about.
It can be hard to think outside of those boxes when the boxes are literally how you think about things. “Imagine this character or place as something other than what you would imagine.”
But I think it’s worth thinking about. And I think it’s kind of fun to think about, myself.
It's interesting how Equestria is basically as you describe in your blog. We see Ponyville (and Canterlot) for 5 seasons, and we tend to think that must be what all Equestria looks like: Rural Ponyville and Royal Canterlot. Fanfics often make this mistake. But when the camera pans away from Ponyville and Canterlot, we seem to see nothing but exceptions to this "rule".
3825503
Equestria is very good about this. It has a lot going for it that I think contributes: It's easy to characterize ponies at a glance, though color scheme, design, and cutie marks; the show is for kids so a lot of the time they don't expect them to be bothered by stuff like setting the "tech level" of Equestria; and I think this is one place that having a lot of different writers working in the same setting helps, because they all bring different ideas to the table.
But I think it's one of the things that contributes to it being such a rich setting for authors to write it, and is part of the reason we have such great writers in the fandom.
That is indeed fun to think about! If I was writing historical fiction I'd be very concerned about taking note of too many 'exceptional' situations since, even if I could reasonably prove historical accuracy, readers with a lesser historical knowledge might not buy into it without some very careful writing… but then again I don't write historical fiction. My wife is a different story; if you ever want to know all there is to know about the Regency period, I've got connections!
As for SFF and the like, this sounds like an oft-forgotten aspect of world building: making three-dimensional background characters. Good stuff!
Steven Universe, I think, does something similar to this. Spoilers below:
The Crystal Gems pretty much fall into the category of Super Special Main Characters, as does Steven, but the beauty of it is that in SU you don't know this until like halfway through Season 1. The show portrays atypical members of an alien society but gives you no context to place them in, making you assume they're normal...until things begin to fall into place and it becomes very evident that isn't the case. It's really a masterful plot arc, and one of my favorite parts of the show.
The problem for us modern-era dwellers is that historical people for the absolute most part were dirty, smelly, died early, lost teeth, hair, limbs, died in the plague, died in a thousand little bursts of disease, had rickets, tapeworms, lice, fleas, bad breath, et al... 95% of the citizens were farmers of some sort, who if they were extremely lucky and and worked sixteen hour days every day of their lives, might produce slightly more food than they had to eat to survive. Children worked from the time they could walk, died in childbirth, died during growing up, died, died, died, and if you were really lucky, you might have more living children than the two of you by the time you got too old to work. That was called retirement. Women were second-class citizens who could not vote, hold office, sign contracts, which was mostly fine because most men could not either. Slavery was real, and sometimes was the only alternative to starving to death. War was a regular thing that swept across the country regular as plagues and just as deadly. If you were male, you would get turned into a soldier, and if not, let's not even go there.
This was not just Europe. This was *everywhere* human beings lived. The civilization we live in today was built on contract law, criminal law, fertilizer, clean water, immunizations, roads, courts, corporations, banking, and a thousand things we take so for granted but that will vanish like dew against a blowtorch in any kind of Walking Dead scenario, or even if something rather unfortunate happens with a rather large space rock.
Which is why our Dungeons and Dragons style fantasy has female characters, who have all their teeth, and take baths. Reality sucked. Fantasy rocks.
Really, whenever we look back and see a group of people who are well-described by history, they're full of weirdos. Look at stories of the Manhattan project, or the Founding Fathers of the US, or stories about the Civil War generals, or... really, any other group of people who we have some familiarity with as people rather than historical figures. They're always full of weirdos.
3825694
Weeeell... that's kind of what I'm saying. Much of that is true, absolutely. But there were still people who lived to be 80. There were still women who signed contracts (which is part of what that article I linked was about.) There were still people who left farms to be other things, there were places and times when disease was less of a worry than other places.
What you're talking about is The View of History, and it's for the most part true. But there were exceptions. And it's remembering those exceptions that's interesting.
I'm not in any way bashing modern life, or saying that history was a D&D world, but I am saying that those people who lived through all that you said were still people, and I think we forget that today because it's easier to see them as some kind of ant hill of sorts. And as people, they did things that people do, including unexpected things.
Someone had to raise or catch bears for bear-baiting, which was a thing. So at some point, some young man probably said to his parents, "Know what I'm going to do? I'm going to get some bears for the dogs to attack! We'll be rich, I tell ya'!"
Sure, he had lice, and was probably going to die young (even before taking his new business venture into account) but... there are people like that everywhere, who will do things like that. Too many writers make their stories full of peasants peasanting in the background, and ignore that there always were and always will be people who decided to go get some bears.
Mhm. Stories are about people being lively. And if people all understand each other and the situation the same, that misses on live potential. History was written by weirdos and archivists. People more lettered than the average type, or reporting for some reason.
Militaries, politicians and other crazies had unfair screen time. But the same's true of today. Personally I see most fiction of any sort as fantasy. Data on the past tends to be incomplete. And being precise in accounting beyond business was never à la mode. (or almost?) It's not dicey.
Besides, while they aren't my favorites. Lots of flash fantasies (stories) about "medieval" times are actually about the super hero-ing. They often neglect that people tended to be much busier getting food or worrying about important stuff. You couldn't just walk in a market and buy all your needs because you were rich enough: the markets weren't nearly as rich. But... people who are entertained were always pretty much everyone, not the most caring of details only. So whatever! Fantasies.
I prefer things more slice of life though: sure you can write a moutain about someone who saves the world. But write a character who can't bend moutains and people to help him out, and just saving a village can be more spectacular a feat. Or saving a single person, sometimes? Life is silly. I like things that give texture to the fabric. And hell if imitation doesn't work: one day this piece of meat is wonderful, half a week later, from the same frozen loaf, cooked the same way, the other piece just doesn't matter so much, because I'm not hungry and in lack of protein.
Some stories just bang a lot on a single theme. Without attaching personal flavor that isn't power or 'world' related. They bore me as lifeless. Often.
What's nice with MLP is that you can read deep or shallow, it tends to slide, usually. I'd say it's more complicated to do in linear writing, but I adore when you get a nice glimpse at something incomplete. And anything not main character related is great for that. Like when your heroes run away in haste because they don't understand how they maddened the villagers, but don't want to fight them. And they never understand! I think that kind of appreciation of the incomplete makes it hard for precise, objective accounts to survive the test of time: because too many people like it.
I've seen some people being paid for presenting history contradict themselves. But hell, I don't know how to guess what today is like through only the internet. I'm not sure I could, as it doesn't give practical exposure. So people who would've read stuff about stuff that happened before they were born? Heheheh.
I like my stories more real than what most people say. And more lively is just the cream of the cake. Still, MLP is interesting a setting: one of those magic-y worlds were innate magic takes the place of much of the countering of disease and natural disasters. Which makes things very flexible. As what isn't covered by tech could be unreliably covered by magics that ponies control, or don't. For fanfiction writing, it's a gold mine in many aspects that can be played with. And the generic theme is also a generic goal in real life, too. Lovely enough to pardon craziness more often in my book.
Whatever, rants rants. Sorry. But when I was schooled, the most obvious offenders in innacuracy were history, biology, and maths. Teacher dependant though, but the best teachers and achievers are those who don't just repeat what was already done. No matter the subject. Perhaps people are better when not bored, if less disciplined. I believe that enough to not rush myself. But that's also why you don't believe random people to be accurate on random things...
A hobby of mine is when I'm lucky enough to see people attempt something easy and common of knowledge, when they don't know how. Often they could ask me, but they don't. And so I watch to see if they do something original. And honestly, people are much more interesting when they forget to act 'proper'. Well, those who aren't right or wrong way bigots: those tend to yell at others and be plain stupid, socially dependant fools. Eh, whatever. Cozied people are not so varied. (Not as openly, at least?)
First thing I thought of MLP around this blog is that in Equestria, housing is more standard around different places than culture. Apart the background theme, it seems villages are less on a same pattern than families. But so far all families have distinctive members. Even if the whole pie family eats rocks, they are very different. I like that. Can't say it's a bad focus. Brothers aren't identical, why would villagers be?
This is excellent! One of the reasons why I love history is because it's full of weirdos - we tend to look at even well-known historical figures in a certain two dimensional way (so-and-so was Prime Minister from this date to this date, this guy led religious movements, etc.) but when you dig in a bit all of the idiosyncrasies come out. History's basically a big ol' story that everyone can interpret slightly differently, and still not be completely right or wrong about (for the most part) - that's why it's so cool!
Ahem.
Anywho - figuring out that the world is actually full of weirdos isn't only good for writing and world-building practices - it's great for self-esteem, too. Once you realize that everyone is likely to be just as odd as you are, with all their own quirky little habits, (something I didn't figure out properly until university - random room-mate placement ftw!) the world becomes a much more open, less judgemental place, even if that's only due to your own mind-set about it.
Anyway - that was a ramble and a half. Thanks for sharing; this was a very thought-provoking read!
Good blog. The funny thing is that it got my mind remembering a fantasy series that it's been a while since I read: Barbara Hambly's Darwath trillogy (The Time of the Dark, The Walls of Air, The Armies of Daylight). One of the two main characters was a medieval historian, and there are some very nice pieces in there about how little we actually know of history and how much is guesswork.
It also had some very nice subversions of how you expect matters to be solved in it. A trained historian turns out to be exactly what they needed...
--arcum42
The key problem is right in the discipline's name: History. Humans are complex, messy, and not guaranteed to have a satisfying narrative arc. For most people, history offer a chance to streamline that into something simple, comprehensible, and translatable into TV specials. The Fall of Rome™, The Black Plague™, even World War II™ as we lose the generation who directly experienced it. It's an attempt to remember what happened, and that means processing those events through the narratively oriented human mind.
Heck, I'm just as guilty of it as anyone. In the latest bit of the Disney Read-Watch (thanks again for alerting me to that,) I had to reread a passage about Persia and China interacting. Their respective distances to Europe had isolated them in my mind up until that point.
In any case, thanks for another thought provoking blog and article.
I think a helpful way to do this is to the opposite of your knee-jerk reactions. Some character needs a mentor? Instead of a grumpy and old wise man, go with a snarky middle-aged woman full of sass. Even changing simple things like gender, age, or looks will affects the characters, and perhaps primarily how you perceive them, by quite a lot,
We're all prejudiced in some ways, and I think being aware of the assumptions we make goes a long way to help.
Nice blogpost!
This reminds me of the "Woman Who Rides Horses" trope, which I've seen at least twice, where a main character is a woman who... gasp... rides a horse! This blows everyone's mind throughout the entire course of the story. More generally, I've seen way too many stories where the main char is built around defying convention. That's all they are: somebody who defies convention.
Making your characters special just by having them violate some social convention doesn't make them very special.
3826201 "...Making your characters special just by having them violate some social convention doesn't make them very special..."
See the following: Joan of Arc, Martin Luther, Galileo, Socrates... Violating social norms can make a character *very* special. And also very dead if they're not careful. There can be perfectly good (or at least effective) reasons for ancient social norms. Keeping women protected in the household so they can raise (and produce) the children needed for the family to survive. Not taking baths so you don't get accused of being one of those Jewish individuals. Dressing up to your station in life so you are not accosted by criminals who don't know who you are. (Seriously, the Prince and the Pauper should have been a much shorter and bloody-er story)
3826201
Excellent point. A happy side effect of having a setting that isn't a series of copied and pasted people and places is that the Woman Who Rides Horses, or the Soldier Who Questions "The Cause" (another popular one I've noticed,) have to be more than that to be protagonist material, because it removes the stark contrast.
3826279
Note that all of those people you mentioned violated social norms... and challenged major political/institutional powers while doing it. There are plenty more people who ended up just as dead challenging major political powers while still keeping totally within the social norms, sometimes just by existing in the cases of potential heirs who missed their shots at the throne.
I think it's fair to say that violating social norms both makes a person more visible, so if there's trouble it's easy to pin the blame, and can be used by potential enemies on all levels (whether it's your neighbor who wants your cow or the usurper who wants your throne) as a point of attack. But I also think people everywhere were a lot more individual, practical, and colorful on a day-to-day basis than just looking at social norms seems to indicate.
Edit: As an example of what I'm talking about, take a look at the life of Mary Read. Yes, she died in prison, but only after turning pirate. Before that, when she revealed to the British military that she was a woman (and wanted to marry a fellow soldier) they let her sell her commission and her fellow soldiers gave the happy couple gifts. If she hadn't decided to pick it back up after her husband died, she would have been "that old innkeeper lady who used to be a soldier." Not common, by any means, but there are no reports that anyone was all that upset by it.
Ya' know, until the piracy thing.
I just think there were more people in history like that than we usually think, they just didn't usually end up being tried as pirates.
3826201
3826317 but....but.... That's "subversive!" I know that trope is subversive, because everyone has been doing it for decades, and the critics love it and praise it as "subversive!"
3825707 Weirdos make history.