Weekly Writers: Representation
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Here’s the Weekly Writers Monday post. Thanks to my paid subscribers, today’s post is open to everyone.
I interrupt my own schedule of posts about the art of book design, for a short post about another aspect of writing. Because I make myself available to fans, I never know what will appear in my inbox, but recently I received this email. I have included the full text with permission (apart from the sender’s details, and a plot point redacted in case it is a spoiler!).
Hey Karl,
Hopefully this message finds you well.
I just finished ripping my way through the Solace books and I wanted to reach out to say that it was one of the most enjoyable series I've read in a while. I say "ripping" because not only am I a really fast and voracious reader but I also wanted to know so badly how Opal and Athene ended up. I'm now almost done with the Lost Tales books, and am currently reading UESI, with just one more book to go. I have to say that I really want to read more about Nuafri and their culture, tech, and how they live in harmony with their environment.
I'm a massive fan of sci-fi and fantasy, and your books tickled all the right parts of my brain in terms of setting, scale, characters, pacing, and the really interesting and cool shit you came up with for the Lost Ships, the Null, the Topias, and all who reside therein.
Also, and I hope you don't take this the wrong way, it's really rare for a man to write such complex, interesting, and well rounded female, or female presenting characters. Additionally, I often avoid reading books by men who claim to have a "strong female lead" because they're usually not even fully fleshed out characters and are often a caricature of what a really strong female lead should be.
Add to this the fact that a lot of male writers can't even imagine life beyond the binary, in terms of either gender or sexuality, so to see this included and considered in your books was a real breath of fresh air.
I recently hate-read my way through a book series that should have been great but the only female "lead" was a lesbian and that was her whole personality, and every single alien race and world they went to had all male leaders, and absolutely no one who wasn't male or female. It was so frustrating because the universe and story were okay but the characters were awful. Even the male leads were awful. I just can't imagine making up such a vast and complex universe, where you can't fathom that gender binary is a concept that is really specific to Western (white) humans, and on other worlds is likely not the case at all.
I'm a non binary person who was assigned female at birth and seeing myself in books is really rare but always welcome, and even though you didn't have any main characters in that vein it was definitely well acknowledged within your universe that gender isn't binary. Maybe if you do explore more of Nuafri you could have more characters outside the binary. I feel that if any place were to have people like me it would be a planet like that. If you ever wanted some help writing people like me I'd be happy to help out, even if just a sounding board (whilst I am white, I've done a lot of research into other cultures and their non binary people, e.g.. Two-Spirit and Fa'afafine).
I'm in the middle of writing my own fantasy/sci-fi series and you've given me a lot to think about in terms of aliens and other dimensions, and while my books are more terrestrial in nature the protagonists will encounter aliens in the third book so I'll be definitely thinking about some of your concepts when thinking about the aliens in my book (but of course won't be carbon copies of your wonderful worlds).
I've also recommended your books to a few groups I'm in for fans of similar books, namely The Murderbot series, Wayfarers, and The Locked Tomb fan groups. I'm sure you've come across these authors/series but if you haven't you should get into them. (Authors Martha Wells, Becky Chambers, and Tamsyn Muir respectively).
They're some of my favourite series of all time, and I wanted to tell you that I shared them with other fans of those series not for any other reason than I think your books are up there in quality and content, and definitely in volume (so many books! I love it). Many of those fandoms feel the same way I do about how strong female leads should be written and are all of the same opinion about the lack of non binary thinking.
I'm holding out hope that there will be another book about Opal and Clarissa and their adventures on the new planet, and how they go about living side by side with aliens in their respective biomes.
I know this is a long message but your books got me so fired up (in a good way) and I don't often read the authors' chapter at the end, but I read all of yours and figured you would appreciate some feedback.
Anyway, I don't expect a reply unless you'd like to chat to a fledgling author about book stuff or to nerd out over other sci fi series :)
Have a wonderful rest of your week.
Thanks again for writing your stories.
The email made my day. Sometimes writing is dispiriting when we don’t reach the audience that we know is out there, but this kind of personal message is always an impetus to keep going. Especially during periods of low sales, or a Kickstarter slumping, or just really struggling to finish a project without endlessly polishing for years.
I loved the part about me writing women well, as reviewers and fans have often said they appreciate my female characters. I think it is partly my empathy, partly because things like sex, age, skin colour and so on are almost irrelevant when you start from the point of a person. Then build out from there, that individual perspective, and how everything else has shaped it. In my short stories particularly (such as It Will Be Quick) I’ve been able to explore even more perspectives, and it’s what makes writing have value for me: showing our common humanity. Whereas, yes, many writers assume “strong female lead” can only mean a woman who is really written as a male author with pronouns changed, and that somehow captures context. All they end up with is a cardboard caricature.
Of course, research is also important. Where possible, I use primary sources. I like to ask people for their perspectives when creating characters. It’s how I wrote stories about pregnancy and motherhood, about disenfranchisement and exclusion, being “othered”, and many other topics.
“For me, the best of the short story collection was an unexpected one - Web tells a tale of a Somali woman who has been subjected to genital mutilation, and the mental illness she appears to be suffering from. It's a tough tale emotionally to read, but brilliantly done. The harsh honesty of the tale almost feels out of place alongside the fantasy horrors of the other stories - but it's perhaps the most horrific of all for that.”
— Altered Instinct, reviewing a story in my They Move Below collection.
It’s better to get it right at the start. It’s why many publishers are keen on sensitivity readers for topics like ethnicity. It’s important to listen. I remember a reader pointing out that a line in one of my books could be misconstrued, when Clarissa made a reference to Opal’s hair. Although the book was set in the future, contemporary context meant it was possible to read it in an way that could be insensitive. The reader was right. I rewrote that sentence and the book was updated that same week. Nothing was lost, but understanding was gained.
I would like to write more characters who aren’t defined by sex. And perhaps for the story to not even comment on it, because it is so normal and accepted in the culture. For people to be judged not on incidents of birth or preference (age, skin colour, where they are born, who they love etc) but only on the one truly important thing: how they treat others. It’s my underlying philosophy. The AIs in my sci-fi often ponder how the universe isn’t really binary, and pretty much everything is on a spectrum rather than being binary.
I appreciate it hugely when readers review my books, tell people about them, or offer to mention my works in other groups. I don’t advertise, I only rely on fans spreading the word or writing reviews, so that makes me happy indeed.
As to the future for Opal and Clarissa: I would love to write two more in the main Lost Tales series, to fully round out Opal’s story (7 books, 7 AI depth levels). I know what would happen in book 6 and have a plot, just haven’t written it yet. It may be my goal this year. There is so much to explore, whilst also not being predictable. I’ve even been modelling 3D renders of Opal, who would be on a cover without space armour for the first ever time. I’d also like to write some other Lost Tales in the universe, like the Chasing Solace assassin Xandrie Devorgilla’s background. And yes, returning to Nuafri, and somewhere equally interesting (where Opal ended up).
If you write, have you had any thoughts or questions about issues of representation in fiction? Feel free to post a comment!