Catherynne Valente vs SJ Tucker

I think I prefer Ms. Tucker as the Fairyland narrator, even though Ms. Valente has such a rich voice. SJ Tucker gives September such a cute voice, and I love Saturday's accent and the depth of Ell's voice. Definitely glad I got all of these.

Me and Institutionalized Feminism

So, I was editing my book (I tend to obsessively polish a ms before a contest and there’s one coming up at the end of the month) and I realized how…not very girl-power it was. Which is weird, because when I came up with my girl Juliet, one of the reasons I set this ms where I did is because the Wild West was one of the few places in 1800s America where girls could be bad@$$ without it being as “shocking” because, like, farm girls and female ranch owners could ride horses, cook, shoot, do farm work, mend and often make their own clothes, knew some first-aid because doctors lived sometimes hours away…and if a girl was educated, for whatever reason, wanting to go to college, you basically had a recipe for Wild West Hermione - a nerd who could fight. And I wanted to make sure my girl didn’t disdain the “girly” stuff like makeup and dresses because hey, if Catwoman can look hot and kick @$$, any girl has the option.

But as I’m reading through my ms, I’m seeing all of these missed opportunities and inconsistencies. Juliet has a sister - they have one scene together. Granted, the plot of the book is the sister is kidnapped and Juliet has to save her, but as I’m editing, my brain is like, “Oh, we could have this cute sister-scene right there real quick!” and I’m thinking, “Why didn’t I do that before?” Especially because the sister is such a hugely motivating force for Juliet. Why didn’t I try to develop that more? I don’t know. It never occurred to me.

Juliet has a wicked stepmother and negligent dad, but she has female friends and more responsible and loving mother-figures…but only one of them (the group consists of like 6 girls) has a large role and I cut it short halfway through the book when characters have a parting of the ways. That second part isn’t so bad except that no other girl steps into the vacuum and instead the role is now filled by a boy - who had his own role already. Why didn’t I bring one of the other girls forward? I have no idea. It never even occurred to me to do it. No one even tries; there’s no “I’m not ready to have someone take So-and-So’s place yet” or anything. It’s a non-thing.

Even my mythos lacks some opportunities and world-building points. The whole plot spun out from two sisters who were queens who hated each other but I never even gave a reason why (I fixed this in my edits but still) and nobody ever asked and I never thought of one. Everyone in the story just assumes two sisters wanting to literally murder each other is normal, even though Juliet’s relationship with her sister is so strong (and a few other characters have good relationships with their siblings). But when a male character is shown to be a betrayer, Juliet asks why? She questions a lack of reliability from a male but not from a female.

This never even popped into my brain as being a thing, whether good or bad. I never noticed the lack of strong foundations for the relationships between girls. I never noticed the double-standard against female characters. I didn’t even realize it was there. And I was going out of my way to try to make this book girl-positive to begin with.

I don’t know…I’m not sure what I’m trying to say except to maybe wonder how terribly prevalent all of it might be in media I didn’t create myself and I (or other people) never even noticed…