This was great. Reading your summary in the beginning, I was thinking, "this sounds like something Philip Roth would write," then you mentioned "everyman," which is the title of my favorite book of his. Funny.
This passage definitely felt to me like Women Writing Men, not because the narrator is "unusually thoughtful and sensitive" (Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov and Fitzgerald's Anthony Patch both show great sensitivity to women's plight) but because he seems at times like a strawman of male horribleness-without-good-reason, in that he thinks that his wife is always right (the marinara sauce bit) and understands him really well, while also wanting to leave her out of boredom. Also, I don't think men use terms like "made-up and conventionally feminine" to describe women unless they're gay or work in fashion or a similar industry; the average man is simply not thinking about the amount of work/artifice/convention involved in the "feminine, hot girl" look. Compare to the POV of the deadbeat husband in The Lost Child by Carryl Phillips: he has a similar background (unpopular minority who got "lucky" marrying a white woman, but now wants out), and he isn't particularly angry at women or misogynistic or sexually predatory, but he believes his own bs about how his wife just isn't that interesting and therefore deserves to be left. (Her POV shows her as too afraid of his anger to reveal her thoughts, and frustrated with how little he cares for their kids.) He thinks he's right, basically. It's always a little suspect when you get someone's POV and they don't seem to think they're right about things. Like they're taking on the view of the other before their own. Ie can you picture Patrick Bateman thinking that capitalism is The Worst, in the manner of a socialist-leaning barista, while also working on Wall Street and obsessing over his business cards? No, you cannot.
To me this still feels less like an interior monologue and more like a description of the externally hypothesized motivations for an inner monologue….but maybe younger internet incel types do consciously think this way IDK
Your male character profiles & examinations are consistently fantastic. Any guidance for men seeking to improve their understanding and writing of female characters?
I always get in my own head about "don't be THAT guy writing women badly" and I think that nervousness just manifests in different but equally poor prose.
You know this is an unpopular opinion, but at this point I feel like it's easy to write women well! We've all read so many female characters and seen and heard from so many women that a woman's interiority is kind of well-known--at least if we're talking affluent, college-educated women (which is indeed usually what I'm talking about). If you read New York or the New Yorker or the New York Times or Slate, you'll get a pretty good sense of a lot of the concerns of college-educated women in America.
Now if you want to know how to not get called out for writing women badly, that's a different question. I do not know the answer to that one. I get called out all the time for so many things =]
I suppose I *do* feel that I understand that interiority acceptably well, but that it's a saturated/well-traversed topic (as you note) that I can't contribute much additional value.
Maybe my dilemma is moreso struggling to write markedly original characters who still feel authentic, and creating a compelling causal link between whatever aspects of their character are (meant to be) completely idiosyncratic and their (more widely shared) lived experience. I get so swept up in making sure I haven't botched the authenticity part—particularly in the context of writing female characters—that it affects my confidence to handle the idiosyncratic part... maybe?
Thank you for the food for thought. I'll keep on reading your work for more! :)
(Also, the blessing of few subscribers and zero interest in marketing my writing fortunately makes "being called out" not much of a worry for me; this is entirely ruminative.)
I mean what I realized at some point is that if you cut against type, you'll likely both be telling the truth AND you'll offend people. Like if you write a mom who loves motherhood and finds it unequivocally satisfying then you'll both be writing the true experience of many women AND you will be called out for writing a male fantasy.
Love this. As someone who writes about unexceptional characters…. I’m not sure he has to make an action. Is DO something. It could just be a realization. In some ways the narrative is quite Chekhovian. If he can wrap these kind of stories up I think it’s then possible to.. just may take you a while to figure out
Though I was thinking ‘oh no, I am the one with the marinara on my pants.’ I would get the sub, my husband would tell me about my meeting, I would not get mad but I would say ‘no, really, it’s going to be FINE,’ and he would look at me skeptically but say nothing. Then I would get the marinara on my pants. Our interaction would be more friendly though because this sort of thing happens a lot, and I sheepishly say ‘oh, you were right about the marinara,’ and he pats me understandingly.
I do think the ratio of self-deluded women marinara spillers to man marinara spillers is much higher (there are way more men) but it’s extremely helpful to be a woman marinara spiller probably in terms of choosing a spouse because you are probably more likely to attract a man who wants to save you from your own marinara.
But because of the ratio being like it is—the situation probably is like this where the men can have someone great but are more likely to think ‘oh, I’ll just look around and see if I can find an even better one.’ Because there are a LOT of women who are both sexy and have their shit together but at a certain point, you can be hard-pressed to find a man like that. Or this is what I gather from my sisters, especially the one that dates. It’s astounding.
I forgot to add—I’m so impressed you wake up at 5:30 AM to read the Mahabarata!
I honestly would prefer to have the spouse who DOESN'T want to save me from my own marinara lol. Would rather be supported even when I'm wrong than get un-asked-for critiques on the small ways I'm wrong about things.
In my case, I think it would be too hard to never say ANYTHING because I tend to do some of the same things over and over so at some point any observer might say 'you are always doing this?' I sort of like having patterns pointed out like that because I don't notice them. I do not even notice the marinara until way later --sometimes after I can't do anything about it--so I tend to appreciate the heads up.
My spouse says VERY little about many of my flaws, which he kindly insists are foibles, not flaws. But some things I guess he's just like 'no, your SLEEVE!'
Great piece, I'm glad you shouted out Darryl which I thought was wonderful, partially because the thoughts of the protagonist are weird and interesting and connected to his specific reality and also allowed to be outside the spectrum of 'acceptable' discourse in a way that's honest and leads to a productive tension with the glimpses you get of what's actually going on in his life and why he might be wrong about about it in some ways. And as you said those tensions lead to choices he really has to make (choices with real and unpredictable consequences).
I’m enjoying your updates on the Mahabharata. I found a full set of the new Penguin translation on ebay for around $80, so now it’s living in my home along with other epic works I may or may not have time to read during what’s left of my life.
It’s actually infinitely superior to Ramayana. I have some close friends who are sanskritists and have lately begun to read Sanskrit literature which was so sexually explicit one wonders when we became such a conservative society. I blame it on the Brits. Did you know apparently the dis garbing of Draupadi had something to do with the fact that she was menstruating that day…. I can’t remember the full reference but my father is an expert on M. I’ll try getting you more inside stories. He has riveting ones to tell of M and Ramayana
Oh yeah she's definitely menstruating, it's a huge part of that chapter. Yeah there's so much sex in the Mahabharata! People are constantly ejaculating! Like there's this character (I want to say Kripa?) who literally exists because his dad was this rishi who got aroused and ejaculated into a clump of bushes. And that turned into a kid
This was great. Reading your summary in the beginning, I was thinking, "this sounds like something Philip Roth would write," then you mentioned "everyman," which is the title of my favorite book of his. Funny.
This passage definitely felt to me like Women Writing Men, not because the narrator is "unusually thoughtful and sensitive" (Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov and Fitzgerald's Anthony Patch both show great sensitivity to women's plight) but because he seems at times like a strawman of male horribleness-without-good-reason, in that he thinks that his wife is always right (the marinara sauce bit) and understands him really well, while also wanting to leave her out of boredom. Also, I don't think men use terms like "made-up and conventionally feminine" to describe women unless they're gay or work in fashion or a similar industry; the average man is simply not thinking about the amount of work/artifice/convention involved in the "feminine, hot girl" look. Compare to the POV of the deadbeat husband in The Lost Child by Carryl Phillips: he has a similar background (unpopular minority who got "lucky" marrying a white woman, but now wants out), and he isn't particularly angry at women or misogynistic or sexually predatory, but he believes his own bs about how his wife just isn't that interesting and therefore deserves to be left. (Her POV shows her as too afraid of his anger to reveal her thoughts, and frustrated with how little he cares for their kids.) He thinks he's right, basically. It's always a little suspect when you get someone's POV and they don't seem to think they're right about things. Like they're taking on the view of the other before their own. Ie can you picture Patrick Bateman thinking that capitalism is The Worst, in the manner of a socialist-leaning barista, while also working on Wall Street and obsessing over his business cards? No, you cannot.
To me this still feels less like an interior monologue and more like a description of the externally hypothesized motivations for an inner monologue….but maybe younger internet incel types do consciously think this way IDK
Your male character profiles & examinations are consistently fantastic. Any guidance for men seeking to improve their understanding and writing of female characters?
I always get in my own head about "don't be THAT guy writing women badly" and I think that nervousness just manifests in different but equally poor prose.
You know this is an unpopular opinion, but at this point I feel like it's easy to write women well! We've all read so many female characters and seen and heard from so many women that a woman's interiority is kind of well-known--at least if we're talking affluent, college-educated women (which is indeed usually what I'm talking about). If you read New York or the New Yorker or the New York Times or Slate, you'll get a pretty good sense of a lot of the concerns of college-educated women in America.
Now if you want to know how to not get called out for writing women badly, that's a different question. I do not know the answer to that one. I get called out all the time for so many things =]
Great response!
I suppose I *do* feel that I understand that interiority acceptably well, but that it's a saturated/well-traversed topic (as you note) that I can't contribute much additional value.
Maybe my dilemma is moreso struggling to write markedly original characters who still feel authentic, and creating a compelling causal link between whatever aspects of their character are (meant to be) completely idiosyncratic and their (more widely shared) lived experience. I get so swept up in making sure I haven't botched the authenticity part—particularly in the context of writing female characters—that it affects my confidence to handle the idiosyncratic part... maybe?
Thank you for the food for thought. I'll keep on reading your work for more! :)
(Also, the blessing of few subscribers and zero interest in marketing my writing fortunately makes "being called out" not much of a worry for me; this is entirely ruminative.)
I mean what I realized at some point is that if you cut against type, you'll likely both be telling the truth AND you'll offend people. Like if you write a mom who loves motherhood and finds it unequivocally satisfying then you'll both be writing the true experience of many women AND you will be called out for writing a male fantasy.
Love this. As someone who writes about unexceptional characters…. I’m not sure he has to make an action. Is DO something. It could just be a realization. In some ways the narrative is quite Chekhovian. If he can wrap these kind of stories up I think it’s then possible to.. just may take you a while to figure out
I.e. DO something
Love this!
Though I was thinking ‘oh no, I am the one with the marinara on my pants.’ I would get the sub, my husband would tell me about my meeting, I would not get mad but I would say ‘no, really, it’s going to be FINE,’ and he would look at me skeptically but say nothing. Then I would get the marinara on my pants. Our interaction would be more friendly though because this sort of thing happens a lot, and I sheepishly say ‘oh, you were right about the marinara,’ and he pats me understandingly.
I do think the ratio of self-deluded women marinara spillers to man marinara spillers is much higher (there are way more men) but it’s extremely helpful to be a woman marinara spiller probably in terms of choosing a spouse because you are probably more likely to attract a man who wants to save you from your own marinara.
But because of the ratio being like it is—the situation probably is like this where the men can have someone great but are more likely to think ‘oh, I’ll just look around and see if I can find an even better one.’ Because there are a LOT of women who are both sexy and have their shit together but at a certain point, you can be hard-pressed to find a man like that. Or this is what I gather from my sisters, especially the one that dates. It’s astounding.
I forgot to add—I’m so impressed you wake up at 5:30 AM to read the Mahabarata!
I honestly would prefer to have the spouse who DOESN'T want to save me from my own marinara lol. Would rather be supported even when I'm wrong than get un-asked-for critiques on the small ways I'm wrong about things.
That's good!
In my case, I think it would be too hard to never say ANYTHING because I tend to do some of the same things over and over so at some point any observer might say 'you are always doing this?' I sort of like having patterns pointed out like that because I don't notice them. I do not even notice the marinara until way later --sometimes after I can't do anything about it--so I tend to appreciate the heads up.
My spouse says VERY little about many of my flaws, which he kindly insists are foibles, not flaws. But some things I guess he's just like 'no, your SLEEVE!'
Great piece, I'm glad you shouted out Darryl which I thought was wonderful, partially because the thoughts of the protagonist are weird and interesting and connected to his specific reality and also allowed to be outside the spectrum of 'acceptable' discourse in a way that's honest and leads to a productive tension with the glimpses you get of what's actually going on in his life and why he might be wrong about about it in some ways. And as you said those tensions lead to choices he really has to make (choices with real and unpredictable consequences).
I’m enjoying your updates on the Mahabharata. I found a full set of the new Penguin translation on ebay for around $80, so now it’s living in my home along with other epic works I may or may not have time to read during what’s left of my life.
Ps very impressed you’re reading Mahabharata. I know so few non Indians who do.
Lol, I am Indian though! My parents live in New Delhi =]
O!
It’s actually infinitely superior to Ramayana. I have some close friends who are sanskritists and have lately begun to read Sanskrit literature which was so sexually explicit one wonders when we became such a conservative society. I blame it on the Brits. Did you know apparently the dis garbing of Draupadi had something to do with the fact that she was menstruating that day…. I can’t remember the full reference but my father is an expert on M. I’ll try getting you more inside stories. He has riveting ones to tell of M and Ramayana
Oh yeah she's definitely menstruating, it's a huge part of that chapter. Yeah there's so much sex in the Mahabharata! People are constantly ejaculating! Like there's this character (I want to say Kripa?) who literally exists because his dad was this rishi who got aroused and ejaculated into a clump of bushes. And that turned into a kid