Celebrating “The Gathering of The Lost” & Women in Genre Month: Writing Strong Women
As you know, with the mass market edition of The Gathering Of The Lost recently published in the UK, I’ve been re-posting a few of the features from last year’s Blog Tour.
This post was first published on American writer Mur Lafferty’s blog and subsequently translated into French as well—but since Mur has subsequently revitalized her blog it is now only available in English here.
Given it is also “Women in Genre” month, it seems particularly timely to re-post the article now.
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“Writing Strong Women in FSF & The Wall of Night Series
When The Heir of Night, the first book in The Wall of Night quartet, came out in the UK last year, its SFX reviewer remarked: “there’s no discussion or worthy treatise on why women are not just equals but head the Earl’s Honor Guard – they just are.”
Exactly! I thought—because if the society really is equal then its members won’t debate or question that norm, they will accept it as status quo. In the context of the story, the discussion or worthy treatise then becomes clear for what it is, an intrusion of the authorial voice. And it is probably one of my most strongly held beliefs that the purpose of fiction is to tell the story—if one wishes to moralize, argue, or instruct then that is the realm of the pamphlet and op-ed.
Conversely, one of the advantages of writing speculative fiction is that one can then actually speculate—for example, by writing a society where male and female are equal.
In terms of how women are often portrayed in FSF, I have felt for some time that the genre struggles to depict a diversity of female characters and particularly struggles with so-called “strong” female characters. Too often these are confined to the cardboard cut-out “butt-kicking chick” (aka the “kickass heroine”) or the “witch/adept/mage with superpowers”—and very often with a strong “romantic” or “sexual” element to the problems they encounter.
All too frequently—depressingly so—these supposedly strong women prove incapable of saving themselves or resolving difficulties that their skills/powers should enable them to overcome. The resultant rescue remains the preserve of the warrior or mage love interest, or even the “precocious kid,” and the “strong” women characters turn out to be no more than window dressing, a lip service that fails to deliver when the chips are down.
There are notable exceptions, of course, strong and compelling warriors and mages of the stamp of CJ Cherryh’s Morgaine, Robin McKinley’s Hari, and Steven Erikson’s Tattersail. But several of the really memorable and strongest female characters I have read do not fall into either the mage or warrior camp. I was particularly struck by Dianora, in Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana, who is neither warrior nor mage—yet I found her utterly compelling simply because of her personality and strength of character. I also love Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts’ Mara of the Acoma (in the Empire trilogy) who must both outsmart and outplan her enemies to survive. Barbara Hambly’s Sheera Galernas is another whose strength derives from her personality and ability to inspire, organise and lead others, rather than from superpowers.
I believe the key to writing women characters who are truly strong, regardless of whether they are warriors, mages, or accountants like Daniel Abraham’s Amat Kyaan, lies in the word “character.” As authors, if we want our stories to work we must focus on writing characters who are credible and live for the reader on the page. Female or male, we are primarily writing personalities (i.e. also recognizing that not all Fantasy characters are human) and to “work” these personalities must be believable emotionally and in terms of their motivations. Also, when it comes to writing personalities, whether strong or weak, venal or honorable, each character’s development will be shaped by a combination of factors, including disposition, events, and the mores and values of the societies within the world.
In the opening society of The Wall of Night series, the reader does find strong women characters who are warriors and others who have superpowers, because this society, the Derai Alliance, is highly militarized and also traditionally characterized by its use of magic. (Before reaching the world of Haarth, which they are currently garrisoning, they had never encountered any indigenous populations with magic ability.) So it stands to reason, in a gender equal society, that women and men are likely to be prevalent in the ranks of both warriors and magic users.
In addressing character development within this context therefore, the primary question was not: “What kind of woman is this?” Or, “what kind of man is that?” But rather, what kind of personality is this? How does a particular character function within the society and the events that are playing out? What role doe she or he play in the story and the world?
Malian, the Heir of Night, has been trained from birth to lead her House and the Derai Alliance. The story could have lain in Malian being a weak and venal character, unequal to the task—but it doesn’t. Rather she is a person who believes in the Derai cause, with a strong sense of responsibility and duty, and a willingness to shoulder the decisions that arise from that. She also discovers that she has considerable Derai magic to draw on—but I believe it is her personality that makes her a strong character, not her powers.
Similarly, Asantir the Honor Guard captain is generally seen as a very strong character. At first glance, she is also a “kickass chick in chainmail.” As with Malian though, I see her strength as being driven in part by her role, but more by her personality. She is from the warrior caste, has trained as a soldier from birth, and is an adept in the fighting arts. But in a warrior society there are many people who fit that bill. Asantir stands out because she is both a tactical and strategic thinker—using both adjectives in their military sense—but also an inspirational leader, in part because of her abilities, but mainly because of her character. Asantir has authority because of who she is not just because of the position she occupies.
As reviewers and interviewers have identified, there are also other female characters who have less personal power or ability than Malian and Asantir, but still take their place in the story with authority because of their personalities and motivations. One example is the steward, Nhairin: once a soldier (although she would say an indifferent one) but lamed in action and fortunate enough to have found a different role within her warrior society. I don’t think she picks up a sword once in the course of the book, and has no superpowers, yet several readers have suggested that she is still a compelling character.
In The Gathering of the Lost, the newly released second-in-series, the action of the story moves away from the Wall of Night and the Derai, into the wider Haarth world. In the dukedom of Emer, famous for its heavily armed knights and long history of warring states, the society is more differentiated along gender as well as class lines. (Unlike Derai society, which is largely “flat” aside from the ruling Blood.) Emerian women from the knightly and noble classes do learn weapons—the bow, the short sword and the “lady’s pike”—because they live in a warlike society, but it is unusual for them to become knights. Consequently, having a young woman as a knight-in-training does occasion discussion amongst other characters. Magic powers are also little known in Emer, so the society offered the opportunity to explore courage, strength of character and equality outside of the tropes of “butt kicking chick” and “powerful witch.”
To conclude, I believe that writing strong women is all about writing diverse and true-to-life characters. So long as an author is focused on that, and on observing the nuance of human behavior and avoiding cliché and stereotype, then I believe she or he will write great characters, some of whom may be strong and inspirational women and men. Others may be weak, fearful, dishonest, vindictive, petty or self-serving—because that, too, is part of the gamut of human experience.”