Strong Characters

Having started writing The Blue Pimpernel 6 years ago, it's hard for me to remember exactly what my intention was going into the story. I remember a few parts of it; the largest part of which was so I could try to remember what it was like being a teenager, to keep that fresh in my mind so I would have something to work with as a teacher (I started my teacher prep program right around the same time I started writing the novel; I was 20/21 when I started working on it, so I was coming right off of my teen years). I also remember starting to write it because I was tried of certain stereotypes and I wanted to undermine them - some of which is still visible even in the final copy, six years later: for instance, Renee's parents are the typical white/Asian paring... except it's her mom who's white, and her dad who's Korean.

One thing I didn't think about then was the idea of creating "a strong female character." I spend a lot of time as a lurker around the feminist blogosphere and I read a lot of feminist critiques of media; whether it's comics, literature, movies, TV or vidya games. When I first started reading it, I found it interesting that there was nothing so more reviled than "the strong female character." At first, I couldn't help but wonder why that was. Weren't strong female characters good? Well, as it turns out, no, they're not. In fact, they're bad for not only women, but they're bad for men, too. (Warning: comic below the fold may be NSFW, but it's a funny comic nevertheless):

Update on the Blue Pimpernel

Update: the Blue Pimpernel is now available through the iBookstore. So if you have an iPad, iPod, or iPhone, you don't have to go to Lulu to buy the book - you can just search for it using your iBooks app.

The next step is for the Barnes & Noble Nook. Keep your eyes peeled on this space for further updates!

A Rant On Literature

There's been a few things the last few days that have pushed this to the forefront of my mind, but the final straw was today when I received a package in the mail. At first, I had no idea what it was. Then I opened up and saw the "Alligator Juniper" label on the front cover and I remembered.

A while back (last October) I entered a short story contest. I got the notification in February that the story hadn't been selected for publication. Following a brief firestorm I ignited due to my ... hostile relationship with what gets called "literary fiction," this was basically a slap in the face.

I'm a person of many dislikes. I make them all known. Chief among them is stupid people. A few rungs below that, is what gets considered "literary fiction." Now, this is not some kind of artificial distinction that I myself make. Over the course of my education, this is something that was beat into my skull; there is literature with a "Capital L", which is special. Lit fic, it gets called. Then there's lower case literature, which is another way to say "genre fiction." I'm a genre fiction writer. I enjoy writing genre fiction, but it hasn't always been that way.

Oh Goodie! A Dialogue!

h/t Dispatches


Why the hell don't I get these emails? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the "Meet hot girls now" and "date hot Asian ladies" spam in my mailbox (not really; spamfilters GO!), but why can't once in a while get something like this? Maybe I don't know enough creationists, or I'm not on enough mailing lists. Whatever the case, while browsing Dispatched from the Culture Wars today, I came across this excellent little dialogue that Ed had posted.

As my readers know, I love a good chance to snark at something. So there's no way I'm going to pass up this opportunity. Picture the scene: The back drop is set. The lecture hall is full, and the professor is getting ready to give a lecture. It could be a professor of anything; cosmology to astrophysics to nanochemistry to unicorn biology - Fundies who write and enjoy this stuff can't tell the difference. The point is, he's getting ready to give his lecture. In steps the brave and noble (always White, always Male) student. He clears his throat and interjects, interrupting the classroom. The mandatory black guy in the corner is going "Aaawww hell naw" and the room is a deep hush. The stage is set for an intellectual Battle of the Titans - but because that would outstrip our budget constraints, we give you these two strawmen, instead:

The Ridiculousness of Superheroine Costumes

As I wrote my novel, The Blue Pimpernel, I was well aware of how ridiculous superhero costumes often are. The spandex tends to be very unflattering, and capes are a stupid idea. So as I was writing the novel, I made a conscious effort to stay away from unflattering costumes. The girls are, as one of the villains in the second novel describes them, "Goodwill cases"; a description that sums up their costumes quite well. Renee sums it up even better when she refers to them as "rejects from the 1970s".

I was even more aware of it because I'm dealing with female superheroes. And there seems to be a rule of thumb anymore - female costumes are supposed to reveal as much as possible just shy of being outright pornographic, while male costumes on the other hand...

So yeah, this is another look at sexism in comics. It's me taking a look, in particular, at the nature of costumes.

The Blue Pimpernel is Avaliable as an eBook!

A new announcement - my novel, The Blue Pimpernel, is finally available in eBook format. You can find the link for that here: The Blue Pimpernel. It should, in theory, become available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, too. I'll let you know when that happens.

A Grammar Question

So this came up at work today, and I figured I'd ask around.

The subject we were discussing was turning nouns to verbs. We talked about how many nouns were also verbs, and how fluid English was in this regard. Well, on noun inevitably came up: Google. Google as a noun is a proper noun, because it refers to a noun representing a unique entity (in this case, the company Google). Like any noun, Google is has also become a verb. So the question raised was this: does one capitalize Google when using it as a verb? That is, "I had G/googled the answer?" It's a transitive verb, which means it's passing the action of the object onto the subject of the sentence: "I [sub.] had G/googled [verb. trans.] the answer [dir. obj.]." So it's regarded as a normal class of verb, serving a functional part of the sentence.

Normally, we wouldn't capitalize a verb. However, this verb is derived from a proper noun. In capitalizing it, we would turn it into one of English's handful of "proper verbs" - verbs that must always be capitalized. The further confuse matters, we capitalize adjectives derived from proper nouns; cf. Japanese, Australian, French, Korean, American, and we also capitalize adverbs derived from proper nouns, however rare they are; cf "We have regularly received enquiries regarding the availability of Islamic finance products, in particular Islamically compatible finance to purchase both residential and commercial properties".

Why wouldn't you capitalize a verb derived from an proper noun? Further more, wouldn't that make it a "proper verb", seeing as how the above are called "proper adjectives/adverbs/nouns"?

There's a few cases against it: boycott is derived from a proper noun. So is xerox. Neither of them are capitalized when used as a verb. However, "Canadianize", or "Americanize", are verbs that are capitalized. So would you extend the capitalization then to "Photoshop", "YouTube", and "Google" as well?

I'm of the belief that you should. And I think an entirely new class of verb needs to be created and called "proper verb" to reflect the changing and evolving nature of the language. Sound off in the comments below with your thoughts. I'm curious.