[ SECRET POST #2088 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2088 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.


__________________________________________________



09.


__________________________________________________



10.


__________________________________________________



11.


__________________________________________________



12.


__________________________________________________



13.


__________________________________________________



14.


__________________________________________________



15.


__________________________________________________



16.


__________________________________________________



17.


__________________________________________________



18.


__________________________________________________



19.


__________________________________________________



20.


__________________________________________________










Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 021 secrets from Secret Submission Post #298.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[saku]

some characters just don't work as certain genders, or body types, or personalities. these things will come to you, and eventually you'll find something that fits. for me, i find it generally immediately. they do change over time, even when i was once satisfied, so it's definitely not unheard of, but changing a character's gender - or any other part of their identity - because you've been made to feel you don't have "enough" of one kind of person, or that your story is lacking unless you fix this, isn't always a good course of action, because not every character can change like that so easily and still feel "right" to the creator. that's how i am. i would never change any of my girls into boys, or vice versa, or anything in between or outside of these identities unless it fit. that's what it boils down to: is the change good for the character, and is it something you want to do? if one or both of these answers is no, that is okay! there's nothing wrong with being satisfied with your characters, even if, in the long run, it turns out that you have a few more boys than girls. i have hundreds of characters so even with the majority being male, i still have tons of females, and i love them all.

again, it's not always easy for an author to change their characters, and they shouldn't feel obligated to do so at times that are not natural for them or their own "editing" schedule, as i refer to it, simply because some people think that every author should have at least 50% of their characters be females, all the time, no exceptions.

[elialshadowpine]

Yeah, I mean... with learning more about social issues, I have stopped more and asked myself "Does this character need to be [x]?" By doing that, I realized that one book really did not work all that well with the lead hero but when that character became a butch lesbian, the story changed immensely and for the better. There's a lot more nuance and complication and depth to the characters. It just never occurred to me when I started writing it in 2002 that I could write about a lesbian couple (because the writer's community I was in, headed by a published author who did a lot of workshops and the like, talked at length about how gay characters were not viable in SFF and how she had been made to turn a lesbian character straight in order to sell a novel).

But sometimes, the characters are what they are. I have another story, a BDSM fantasy story, that I've had trouble writing because male dom is somewhat triggery to me. I thought, well, what if I switched the character to a woman? But, nope, he's male. The storyline doesn't have the same impact, either, with the character as a woman, because one of the things that is heavily focused on as something the heroine has great difficulty with is how women are expected to be subservient to men in society. You do not deal with the same issues in a lesbian relationship.

Which is why I am boggling at some of the comments that say that you can change characters and not have it matter. Because if you're doing it right, no, it does matter. My above-mentioned lesbian heroine has gone through totally different things as a Latina lesbian than as a Latino male. And I'm not saying that the story has to be About Life As A Minority, because I fucking hate that. I fucking hate how such a large amount of queer fiction is coming out stories and how Life Is So Difficult As A Queer Person. There is some great stuff out there that treats it as "just another thing about the character" -- but it is still going to inform the character, their experiences, and outlook on life, even if it's not the focus of the story. It's possible to address those things in a subtle manner.

[saku]

yes, thank you! i think it does matter, and any changes are often important. i have no trouble changing things like character names (i do that more than anything else tbh) even when their previous name seemed fitting. it's a matter of finding something better. and by better, i don't mean something mary stu-ish. i mean something better for that character. if you give your character a flaw because it's better for them as a dynamic part of a story, then cool.

changes come naturally to me! they really really do. but they have to be changes i'm willing to make. i'm not going to make a character male or female unless they're supposed to be.