Did I Write Feminist Literature?

I've always heard that you should write what you know. I'm not entirely certain how that translated to writing a fantasy novel, but it was something that I kept in mind when writing character's reactions in certain scenes. One big thing that I noticed about half-way through NaNoWriMo was that my story was populated with lots of women. Lots of them...especially when you contrast with other books within the fantasy genre that tend to be very male dominated.

I have female protagonists and antagonists. There are female warriors, healers, mages, rulers, mentors...you name it, my universe has it. And they're not fighting for their rights as women, either. I didn't purposely go about creating a world where men and women respected each other in this way, it just happened. I suppose I created an idealistic world.

Including all of these females characters was a way of playing to my strengths. I am a woman. I know women. It only makes sense that I populate my story with them. I have men in the story. Rough estimate is about half of my characters are men. Isn't that more realistic? Half the people in the world are women, after all, and I don't think that's a recent occurrence.

It makes me wonder if I accidentally wrote feminist literature. If that means there's an audience for my writing, that's fine. I didn't set about to write for any particular audience. (As a side note, I might should warn you that the next story is a bit more "classic" in that it involves a male antagonist and protagonist.) I write what I know, and what pops into my head.

One challenge with my NaNoWriMo novel was the fact that I had a female warrior and a male healer. I wanted to avoid the cliche of the male character becoming a damsel in distress. I preferred to have them working together, and occasionally saving each other. Isn't that closer to real life, anyways? I've seen enough couples where the woman can be strong without emasculating the man, and the man doesn't have to put the woman "in her place" to be manly.

Did I write feminist literature? I'm not sure. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic!


Want to read more about my 2014 NaNoWriMo project?
NaNoWriMo Editing Plans
What I Did To Silence My Inner Editor
NaNo Is Over. Now What?

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Ideal Cynicism

I have a personality type that has been described as being both idealistic and cynical. When I first read this, I was in a bit of shock at having someone actually understand part of how my brain works. In the past I had considered these two traits to be mutually exclusive, and had been anticipating my brain imploding due to its inner conflict.

For a long time, part of my Facebook profile read: The optimist sees the glass as half full. The pessimist sees the glass as half empty. The realist measures the amount of water. The idealist measures the capacity of the glass. The cynic looks at it and says it's probably poisoned.

Using this as an example, you can see that I do not view pessimism and cynicism as the same thing. Nor are idealism and cynicism actually mutually exclusive. In fact, according to this example, you could have an optimistic cynic that sees the glass as half-full of delightful poison.

Another way I have explained the differences is as follows:

The optimist says, "Things are wonderful!"

The pessimist says, "No, things are awful."

The idealist says, "Things could be wonderful."

The realist says, "But (set criteria) would have to happen first."

The cynic says, "And you wouldn't like it even if it did."

Yes, there's our wonderful little cynic, ruining everything. Perhaps not all cynics have my sarcastic sense of humor, but I think that is more likely that they do. My cynical side says delightful little things like, "Life is hard, and then you die."

Then I laugh, because I only half mean that statement, because life isn't as awful as my cynical side would have you to believe. Occasionally, life is really wonderful, and my idealistic side gloats while the cynic mutters in a dark corner.

I want to change the world for the better, and at the same time I believe it is impossible to do so. For some reason, though, the cynical side never gains too much control. Otherwise I would simply become a hermit and let the world do what it wants so long as it leaves me alone. I can't make myself do that.

At the end of the day, I will smile at a stranger, try to encourage a friend, do some small thing that makes the world around me a better place. I have an intense desire that the world be better off because I was born, and the cynical side of me can't squash it. I'm not even sure it wants to. Truthfully, my idealism and cynicism balance each other out, the one keeps me trying while the other keeps me from being too disappointed when things don't turn out the way I dreamed.

I wouldn't recommend cynicism by itself to anyone. That would send even the best of us spiraling into a vortex of dark thoughts and depression. But paired with a healthy dose of idealism, it's not so bad.