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Month: September 2020

Using Our Own Lives to Write

Using Our Own Lives to Write

I sometimes see people asking if a story a writer tells is based on their own life. I’m not usually asked, though, probably because I write YA fantasy set in a secondary world. So it’s hard to see the connection. However, I’d say a writer always draws on their own life. What else would we draw on? Usually, though, that drawing from life works differently than the question implies. Drawing on Emotion We draw on emotion as much as or…

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What Makes a Strong Female Character?

What Makes a Strong Female Character?

In a recent article in Washington Monthly, Nancy LeTourneau wrote about how the web of ideas we have inherited from the patriarchy had distorted our idea of what it means to be a strong man. What’s disturbing to me is that, in young adult fantasy fiction, the distorted notion of strength also warps how we imagine a strong woman. We have moved along from writing the female character as a damsel in distress, but instead we often borrow the limited notion…

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