It occured to me the other night that strong female characters are common on TV. So why are they so hard to manage in prose?

Most shows I watch have believable, interesting women characters acting in believable ways, which often includes dishing it out to the bad guys.

They don't need to act like men. They act like ordinary women. They interact with other women. They do strange femalish things like dress up for dinner or worry about their kids, without thinking it might make them inferior.

So why they can't they in books?

Update Update

I need to update this more often, so I am aiming for once a week!

%^#&!!

My main character, to quote another character in the book, can't open his mouth without a string of obscenities coming out. His friends aren't much better. They're crude, bitter, uneducated and, yes, they do have a limited vocabulary.

Obviously this in one area where written speech differs from the spoken word. Putting f*ck in front of every word doesn't work, even if that's how someone actually speaks, because swear words have mor
My main character, to quote another character in the book, can't open his mouth without a string of obscenities coming out. His friends aren't much better. They're crude, bitter, uneducated and, yes, they do have a limited vocabularly.

Obviously this in one area where written speech differs from the spoken word. Putting f*ck in front of every word doesn't work, even if that's how someone actually speaks, because swear words have more impact in print. Limiting it too once per sentence looks silly. It's too artificial. Not using any at all, in the case of these characters, just reads wrong.

I googled a bit to find out other people's thoughts. Not very useful. When it comes to swear words, it seems there are two types of discussions online.

The first uses the idea that if swear words are used very lightly they have better shock value. I understand this. If a character who doesn't usually swear, or who uses mild curse words, suddenly comes out fuck or their culture's equivalent, then it has an impact. They're angry! They're upset! Whatever. Running alongside this idea is the common thought that overuse of curse words reduces their impact, dilutes them. Of course it does, and if you want the shock! effect, it's something to bear in mind. I'm not sure it's so appropriate to this situation.

The second type of discussion goes along the lines of "I don't use swear words in my writing and you don't have to either. Here's how!". Um, yes, there are many characters types who don't feel a need to swear. We know this. Now fuck off.

I guess I shall have to pick up some books with crude, bitter, uneducated characters of limited vocabularly and see how they're handled. Suggestions?e impact in print. Limiting it too once per sentence looks silly. It's too artificial. Not using any at all, in the case of these characters, just reads wrong.

I googled a bit to find out other people's thoughts. Not very useful. When it comes to swear words, it seems there are three approaches.

The first uses the idea that if swear words are used very lightly they have better shock value. I understand this. If a character who doesn't usually swear, or who uses mild curse words, suddenly comes out fuck or their culture's equivalent, then it has an impact. They're angry! They're upset! Whatever. Running alongside this idea is the common thought that overuse of curse words reduces their impact, dilutes them. Of course it does, and if you want the shock! effect, it's something to bear in mind. I'm not sure it's so appropriate to this situation.

The second type of discussion goes along the lines of "I don't use swear words in my writing and you don't have to either. Here's how!". Um, yes, there are many characters types who don't feel a need to swear. We know this. Now fuck off.

The third is don't actually use it. "Jill ran together a string of words that made all those around her blush." We can see how this would be a little difficult for a main character, yes?

I guess I shall have to pick up some books with crude, bitter, uneducated characters of limited vocabulary and see how they're handled. Suggestions?

Untitled!

My current Work In Progress has no working title. It lives in a folder called "New Folder".

My previous Work In Progress had the same working title as an earlier WIP.

I can see a pattern here, except where do I go from no title? Negative?

Indicators of Veracity

Below are some extracts from an article in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin October 2004, about establishing truth in crime reports. I was struck by how these things also apply to fiction.

Are You Telling Me the Truth?
Indicators of Veracity in Written Statements

A second relationship that the authors found between veracity and features of the examined statements involved the inclusion of unique sensory details. Such information recounted by a suspect or victim includes detailed depictions of the five sensory perceptions—sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. In an assault case, for example, a truthful victim might describe the alcoholic smell of an assailant’s breath or the rough feel of his callused hands. Unique, rather than generic, descriptions add to the specificity of the sensory details.

Studies contrasting truthful, experienced memories with false, or constructed, ones have shown that the experienced memories contain more sensory information. Similarly, in studies of oral statements, researchers have found that truthful accounts include more details than deceptive ones.

The final part of the research involved examining the relation ship between veracity and the inclusion of emotions in the 60 written statements.

Memory studies have revealed that the recall of experienced events includes more affective information, such as emotional reactions, than the recall of created events. In oral statements, researchers have found emotional experiences present in truthful witness accounts but not generally in constructed ones.

More

So if you want something to sound real, include specifc sensory details and emotional experiences.

Characters, the reality and otherwise of

I was following a blog thread on characters that started here with discussion on how to develop characters' voice then moved over here with a side discussion on interviewing/pretending to be your characters, or not and then to here with dicussion on what degree of real characters have to their authors.

The thought of pretending to be my characters is squicky. I can't interview them either -- it's just wrong. I did manage to come up with 20 questions that they will answer, but as you can see they're not very talkative and it's certainly not a character building tool. I think this is because they don't exist out of the context of their story/world, so they how can I interview them? Maybe if the interviewee was someone from their reality, it might work, but I don't see it as much use, for me, as a character developing tool.

What does work for me, is having them tell me their story beyond the borders of whatever I'm actually writing. That is, making up stories about the characters' past and futures. Past events get added to a timeline in case I decide to refer to them, future events are just for me (ha). It seems a more natural way of working out what makes them tick, what matters to them etc, that the artificial nature of an interview.

One thing I do that pulls the characters out of their reality though, is "take them shopping" or to a museum or some other place that might interest them. The point of this is to explore how that character see things, to be able to filter the world through their view of it. Which is, in my opinion, what character building is all about -- developing a character so they do have their unique perspective and then being able to get this across to the reader. (Visiting such places/exhibitions also helps to expand my knowledge of subjects that are relevant to the story/characters.)

Does it require breaking down, or at least thinning, the fourth wall to actually interview a character? Or is it just a different way of approaching the problem?

At the other end, I can't treat characters just as pieces to push around the board. I don't see how you can do that and still get believable characters. Maybe it works in idea/driven stories? If I try it, I end up with dry as dust scenes, when I can get them written in the first place. I'm happy enough to kill them/torture them/otherwise make life tough for them, but again, I can't do that if I just see them as playing pieces, because then I don't care, so what's the point?

First Person, Oh Dear

Now I remember another reason why I don't like first person for writing: The narrator always wants to say things their way, and if I don't let them, they sulk. This would be fine if they didn't get so carried away.

I end up with lines like:

As he approached his apartment up on Level 4, Chev heard voices. With the instincts of any animal that has been hunted all its life, he froze.

Oh dear. It's going to be a long rewrite :|