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beccaelizabethBeen reading the 'Literature and Gender' book again.
It got on to the differences between women's writing and men's writing.
Now that is a topic that always annoys me, because I just won't believe that women and men are essentially different. No fate but what we make, sort of thing, I don't believe biology is a defining factor. And while theorist come up with 'women's writing' and the contrasting dominant men's form they also find examples of women writing 'like men' and explain it by some kind of repression thing, and also of men writing like women, though I haven't read an explanation for that yet. And it just seems daft.
However, I do have to admit, there seem to be a whole lot more women in some sorts of writing than in others.
So it's like I *want* to argue with it, but there's this inconvenient data.
But even the inconvenient has exceptions all over it, so it ends up really annoying.
ANYways
One of their points was that typical plays, men's writing, start small and build to a climax. Yes, they said it was about sex. Why everything is about sex I don't know. But apparently women's writing is different because women's sex is different.
... I was under the impression that sex is, basically, different. Sort of in general. Not that I have much actual data.
But they also reckon that men's lives are more likely to be linear and building up as they go. Like, men's careers, they start work, they keep working, they go up and up and up.
Women's lives are frequently interrupted, both in the long term and the short term, with careers taking breaks and new directions with children and moving and similar, or with days scheduled around other people's needs like food and children and then their own things, whatever they are, getting interrupted a lot. Not so linear, often circular repeating, do one day of work then get up and do it again.
But... Well, I don't think that is just women. Unless my male parent had a woman's career. Now granted some of his breaks were due to being very drunk, but even when sober he had a job and then a break and then another job somewhere else. Contract work. And I think quite a lot of people have jobs like that. And more and more now, if I understand right, people drop out of one career and retrain and start again on another. So the men-women divide they're saying I once again don't quite see as solid. BUT I agree that it is more common for women to be interrupted in the ways they're describing. Did sociology, have book of research.
So apply this to writing - there's this idea that The Great Novel (or play, or whatever) is written by some guy going off to his writing place and staying there until the thing gets writ. One long job of writing with a climax of finished book.
Only that isn't the only pattern for writing. I'm not sure it's even a realistic one. I mean, some people have writing rooms, but they also have a whole bunch of different things to write, deadlines that go whoosh, meetings they zoom off to and zoom back from, and all sorts of things like that as could be called interruptions if you want to narrow focus enough.
And there's the thing - in what sense is a woman's day interrupted by children? Only if you chop 'day' and 'children' into different boxes. It's like saying work is interrupted by phone calls. If phone is integral part of work you not so much think of it as interruption. So there's some kind of boxes being assumed before interruption is the word people come up with.
And then there's The Great Novel, and the way people publish the thing in one chunk at the end. That isn't the only model. We just studied Dickens, and he published bits every... week or something. Often, in magazines.
And then there's here on LJ. I suspect very few LJ writers have the classic writer room and the no other things to do. I'm under the impression that the LJ writer is more likely to have a whole lot of things to do, and include pounding out fic in the convenient spaces they wedge into the other stuff. I think I read one person who writes on the half hour on the bus. This is not your classic isolate author.
So... I have no conclusion. But I was just thinking about process, and these thoughts came out.
The other so - alternative structure for plays, like the one we're studying right now. Does not so much build up to a climax, unless I've read it sideways again. Just kind of wanders around with scenes connected by theme and ends up with a scene that makes the theme clear enough you realise it was actually connected. I think.
I don't think I've read fic like that.
Most stories are still the classic popular beginning middle end start small and build thing everywhere, far as I know.
But if it's like people's lives and structure of writing influence how they think and write, stories would surely ramble a whole lot more if the lives are more kind of wandering around a bit.
... Hang on. Work In Progress. The number of them I've read that have what you might call a repeating circular structure with small variations... Huh...
Anyways, is past 11 and I have college tomorrow. Only afternoon and evening though. No more getting up at 0645 at all this semester :)
I go away again.
It got on to the differences between women's writing and men's writing.
Now that is a topic that always annoys me, because I just won't believe that women and men are essentially different. No fate but what we make, sort of thing, I don't believe biology is a defining factor. And while theorist come up with 'women's writing' and the contrasting dominant men's form they also find examples of women writing 'like men' and explain it by some kind of repression thing, and also of men writing like women, though I haven't read an explanation for that yet. And it just seems daft.
However, I do have to admit, there seem to be a whole lot more women in some sorts of writing than in others.
So it's like I *want* to argue with it, but there's this inconvenient data.
But even the inconvenient has exceptions all over it, so it ends up really annoying.
ANYways
One of their points was that typical plays, men's writing, start small and build to a climax. Yes, they said it was about sex. Why everything is about sex I don't know. But apparently women's writing is different because women's sex is different.
... I was under the impression that sex is, basically, different. Sort of in general. Not that I have much actual data.
But they also reckon that men's lives are more likely to be linear and building up as they go. Like, men's careers, they start work, they keep working, they go up and up and up.
Women's lives are frequently interrupted, both in the long term and the short term, with careers taking breaks and new directions with children and moving and similar, or with days scheduled around other people's needs like food and children and then their own things, whatever they are, getting interrupted a lot. Not so linear, often circular repeating, do one day of work then get up and do it again.
But... Well, I don't think that is just women. Unless my male parent had a woman's career. Now granted some of his breaks were due to being very drunk, but even when sober he had a job and then a break and then another job somewhere else. Contract work. And I think quite a lot of people have jobs like that. And more and more now, if I understand right, people drop out of one career and retrain and start again on another. So the men-women divide they're saying I once again don't quite see as solid. BUT I agree that it is more common for women to be interrupted in the ways they're describing. Did sociology, have book of research.
So apply this to writing - there's this idea that The Great Novel (or play, or whatever) is written by some guy going off to his writing place and staying there until the thing gets writ. One long job of writing with a climax of finished book.
Only that isn't the only pattern for writing. I'm not sure it's even a realistic one. I mean, some people have writing rooms, but they also have a whole bunch of different things to write, deadlines that go whoosh, meetings they zoom off to and zoom back from, and all sorts of things like that as could be called interruptions if you want to narrow focus enough.
And there's the thing - in what sense is a woman's day interrupted by children? Only if you chop 'day' and 'children' into different boxes. It's like saying work is interrupted by phone calls. If phone is integral part of work you not so much think of it as interruption. So there's some kind of boxes being assumed before interruption is the word people come up with.
And then there's The Great Novel, and the way people publish the thing in one chunk at the end. That isn't the only model. We just studied Dickens, and he published bits every... week or something. Often, in magazines.
And then there's here on LJ. I suspect very few LJ writers have the classic writer room and the no other things to do. I'm under the impression that the LJ writer is more likely to have a whole lot of things to do, and include pounding out fic in the convenient spaces they wedge into the other stuff. I think I read one person who writes on the half hour on the bus. This is not your classic isolate author.
So... I have no conclusion. But I was just thinking about process, and these thoughts came out.
The other so - alternative structure for plays, like the one we're studying right now. Does not so much build up to a climax, unless I've read it sideways again. Just kind of wanders around with scenes connected by theme and ends up with a scene that makes the theme clear enough you realise it was actually connected. I think.
I don't think I've read fic like that.
Most stories are still the classic popular beginning middle end start small and build thing everywhere, far as I know.
But if it's like people's lives and structure of writing influence how they think and write, stories would surely ramble a whole lot more if the lives are more kind of wandering around a bit.
... Hang on. Work In Progress. The number of them I've read that have what you might call a repeating circular structure with small variations... Huh...
Anyways, is past 11 and I have college tomorrow. Only afternoon and evening though. No more getting up at 0645 at all this semester :)
I go away again.