#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@youseeatortoise

Why first person? What's the draw?

CW: I rambled.

I think 1st person the natural way people tell stories about what happened to them. Personal stories with all the warts are the best, I think. If you look at all my responses to all the prompts, you'll see I'm telling my story, and to get meta about it, I'm telling you my story now. This is actually my writing style.

To me, 1st person POV feels very personal and I feel it is relatable by all readers. Most people don't go around telling stories that happened to other people (3rd person in a nutshell), nor when they do so, do they feel comfortable asserting what those people felt about those events, especially if those events are impolitic or sexual. Maybe taking on the role of the narrator, they may say how they feel about the people who act they way they do in their story—but that's another level of complexity and can off as hypocritical. Furthermore, I feel betrayed when a 3rd person narrator doesn't tell the absolute truth. I expect truth from 3rd person, whether it's from the POV character's perspective, or a limited or an omniscient one.

It's very hard to master all the requirements of good 3rd person narration. It proved so for me. That said, my #RSMarsNeededWomen is the first 3rd person story I've written in many years. I chose that because 1st person isn't exactly a compact or concise POV, and fitting a novel into 31 long toots is hard.

In first person, as in life, the POV tells their story their way, making observations and commenting on what they feel about that. Imagine some embarrassing or revealing situation. How are you going to tell that story starting with the word I? Right, you will spin it. 1st person is all about perspective. Ours. We all censor. 1st person by definition is unreliable narrator, but as listeners we've learned how to read between the lines, to detect the white lies and black, and interpret the spin. Conversely, people may also be confessional. Maybe the POV wants to be seen in all their evil glory, or is simply rude and impolitic, but isn't so foolish as to let it leak out in word or deed. The dichotomy between private thoughts and public action can be breathtaking. Who doesn't like some unfiltered wise cracking and unvarnished cynicism, especially when paired with external integrity?

I hope that answered your question.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writer #author #photographer #chef #cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion

#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@crcollins

What is your favorite thing you've written & why?

You b evil!

My main characters tend to get sorely abused and pummeled by reality. Twice as much work for half the credit, right? All so the moment of victory can be bittersweet and worth it. There's this one scene; I'll endeavor to minimize spoilers.

The setup: She had finally found friendship and love. Previously injured, she still ends up saving her lover (okay, one of her two lovers), and saving the life of her assassin, too, and died. Thought she had, only to wake, barely healed, to find the other antagonist had had them arrested and undone the good she'd done to prevent a foreseeable war.

The denouement: Though wit and persuasion, and the loyalty of the people she's protected, she proves everything she's said is right, literally causing the antagonist to throw her helmet on the ground in frustrated resignation. Clang! It does mean she reveals she's pregnant, because that's one of the keys, and has to agree to bare the child…

It's the intensity of the emotions and the integrity this cynical character displays that grips me. I can hardly believe I wrote it.

That goes equally for a more recent work. One of the MCs is male, and I usually can't relate enough to men to make them work as male in the story. He's different, as is the world he lives in. How he ends up noticing the woman antagonist's hidden anguish and solves the problem, in an albeit naïve but heartfelt uniquely male manner, has left me beside myself. It's one of the few times a male character might be carrying the story instead of his female co-MC.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writer #author #photographer #chef #cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion

#ScribesAndMakers ##TTMD @sfwtr

@HeliaXyana

[I] fear sending my female MC into the kitchen as it might be considered anti feminist. Are there any key aspects I could keep in mind to avoid this?

It is all about the point you are trying to make.

All cultures cook.

Sure, she could be trapped by her gender role; it can be the only creativity she's allowed; you can emphasize subservience and frustration that leads to a break. That's one story. Or the kitchen could be a solace she escapes into, a place where she can stop fighting and eat by herself where nobody will judge her cooking her mother's recipes as weakness.

For me, feminist writing is about self-determination and agency contrasted against either the gender roles in the story or in those in the reader's head. As a writer, you must entertain. That doesn't mean you can't enlighten.

My current story breaks the rules. She's a fighter, but learns it works better when she works with the system instead of against it. She marries because she has to, but does get the pick of the litter. Gorgeous. She has five children, all girls. She even cooks for her husband, whom she adores, but we get that scene is a special occasion. What's important is she's also escaped being a housewife to become an engineer (her dream) on colonial Mars, and her specific efforts shapes that world's female future (and maybe ours). Along with her woman friends and her girls, the reader watches gender roles melt to insignificance..

To answer your question: Assert what's true for the character in her quest to become more than she's allotted. The fear you feel is you imagining other people's judgement. Feminist writers always make somebody angry.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writer #author #photographer #chef #cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion