{"id":6180,"date":"2011-05-25T01:00:32","date_gmt":"2011-05-25T09:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aidanmoher.com\/blog\/?p=6180"},"modified":"2012-09-09T14:16:23","modified_gmt":"2012-09-09T22:16:23","slug":"guest-post-stina-leicht-on-writing-urban-fantasy-without-vampires-detectives-and-tramp-stamped-chicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanmoher.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/articles\/guest-post-stina-leicht-on-writing-urban-fantasy-without-vampires-detectives-and-tramp-stamped-chicks\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post | Stina Leicht on ‘Writing Urban Fantasy without Vampires, detectives and tramp-stamped chicks’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OF<\/a>As much as I adore Fantasy, being a female and writing Fantasy has it\u2019s drawbacks — particularly when you write Urban Fantasy. Conversations tend to go like this:<\/p>\n

Party guest: \u201cOh? You\u2019re a writer? What do you write?\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cI write fiction. SciFi and Fantasy. Fantasy mainly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Party guest: \u201cFor kids?\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cI write Fantasy for adults.\u201d<\/p>\n

Party guest: \u201cOh, you write erotica about tramp-stamped detective chicks and vampires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cUm. No. I\u2019m writing about Irish myth and the Troubles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Party guest: \u201cOh, you write erotica about tramp-stamped Irish chicks and fairies with butterfly wings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: [sigh]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve never witnessed a conversation like the one above when the author in question is male. Writing for children is never brought up, let alone erotica. During my last signing at Barnes and Noble, I spent more than half my time explaining to customers that no, there aren\u2019t any vampires in the book, the main character is male, and the only tattoos present on any character are prison tattoos. As much progress as has been made in SciFi and Fantasy circles* and in American society in general, we\u2019ve still got a long way to go. So, let me get something off my chest here and now. As much as I\u2019m okay with Romance\u2019s interest in all things Fantasy, it can be, let\u2019s just say, extremely frustrating for someone like me.<\/p>\n

Because I don\u2019t like Romance as a literary genre, and I never have.
\n
\nLet me be clear. There\u2019s nothing wrong with Romance. It\u2019s a perfectly legitimate and highly lucrative genre — more lucrative than SciFi\/Fantasy ever has been and probably more so than it ever will be. Admittedly, I do have a seriously gooey center. One of my favorite things is cuddling up on the sofa with my husband and watching romantic comedies.** Plus, I cut my teeth on swashbuckling pirate films with Errol Flynn giving it his all for the beautiful and haughty Maureen O\u2019Hara. But Romance (the literary genre) just isn\u2019t my thing. No big deal. I\u2019m repeating myself here, I know. Because for some reason, a female stating that she doesn\u2019t like Romance as a genre is often treated as gender betrayal. Hell, I\u2019ve seen men take abuse in public for not wanting Romance in their SciFi\/Fantasy. When did not liking a genre become so… politically charged?<\/p>\n

When I was a girl I was encouraged to like gender appropriate things, but like any geeky kid, I naturally gravitated toward SciFi\/Fantasy and Horror. My sister was different. She liked Romance. Interestingly enough, she never got the chat with my mother about her reading material. I did.*** Repeatedly. In fact, at one point my parents consulted the family priest, Father Mulvihill, about their weirdo daughter. Bless him, he laughed. Then he informed them that J.R.R. Tolkien was a nice Catholic and asked if I\u2019d read any C.S. Lewis? (Thus, Father Murray was destined to become a Jesuit.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a feminist. When I say that, I mean I believe that women are people. Just like men are people. Human beings are terribly beautiful and flawed creatures — all at the same time. That means I\u2019m flawed too. It also means I\u2019ve a right to my own likes and dislikes. However, just about everything about being female these days is sexualised. So, it\u2019s really hard to remember that — even for me. It\u2019s really complicated too.<\/p>\n

Like most writers, I\u2019ve wanted to be a writer since I was small. I\u2019ve also a lot of literary heroes — Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Charles de Lint, Holly Black, Madeleine L’Engle, Charlotte Bront\u00eb, and J.R.R. Tolkien to name a few — but I\u2019ve always found it difficult to find an equal number of universally respected female writers. It\u2019s still that way, unfortunately. I grew up in an era when the feminist war-cry was \u201cIn order to get half the respect for doing a good job a man does, a woman has to be twice as good.\u201d Instead of being depressed by that statement, I took that as a challenge. So, when I decided I wanted to be a writer I set my goal as high as possible. I decided to be the best writer I could be. I wanted to be like Ray Bradbury when I grew up. So, I set to work to learn how.**** When I first started writing Of Blood and Honey<\/strong> the main character was an American female. The character that eventually evolved into Liam was her love interest. I had it in my head that I\u2019d write something in the tradition of Emma Bull and Charles de Lint with some Fahrenheit 451<\/strong> thrown in for good measure — only it wouldn\u2019t be about censorship. It\u2019d be about terrorism, revenge, and war. And then Romance entered the Urban Fantasy scene. It seemed like everyone forgot what Urban Fantasy was. Definitions got changed. The rules were altered. And I knew right then and there that I couldn\u2019t write a female main character — with or without a tramp stamp — and get any degree of respect. It\u2019s sad, isn\u2019t it? But that\u2019s the truth. Besides, the more I wrote about Liam and his back story, the more interesting he became. Whereas Tess (formerly the main character) became less so. By the time my then soon-to-be agent (Joe Monti) asked me if I\u2019d rewrite Of Blood and Honey<\/strong> so that Liam\u2019s back story was the main story I already knew in my heart that I\u2019d have to ditch 66,000 words of my 112,000 word novel. So, I agreed without hesitation — which frightened the socks off of Joe, I have to say. But it was the right thing to do. <\/p>\n

Was it ever.<\/p>\n

To be honest, I don\u2019t like being afraid to write about sex or romance or violence or anything I set my mind to write because I\u2019m female. These things are all very real aspects of human life. But I am, and that\u2019s the truth. One day I hope to write a female main character who kicks ass. I want her to be older and powerful and wonderful and fully-formed like Helen Mirren\u2019s character in Red<\/strong>. But that time isn\u2019t now. I want to be a good SciFi\/Fantasy writer. I don\u2019t want to be a Romance writer. So, I can\u2019t. Not yet. Right now, I\u2019m too busy swimming against the Romance tide. Oh, sure. The tide is shifting. However, my worry is how it\u2019s shifting. I see an undertow forming. Resentment. I understand why, believe me, but I don\u2019t see that as a good thing because that could ever so easily become a witch hunt, and there are so many really good female writers out there who could get yanked under and drowned.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s the answer? Hell if I know. As Indiana Jones says, I\u2019m making this up as I go along.<\/p>\n

———————————<\/p>\n

* Five of the six novels nominated for the Nebulas this year are written by women.
\n** Of course, one of my favorite things about my husband is that this is one of his favorite things too.
\n*** My first official literary offence was The Stand by Stephen King.
\n**** For the record, I\u2019m perfectly aware I\u2019ll never be *that* good, but a girl can dream, you know?<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As much as I adore Fantasy, being a female and writing Fantasy has it\u2019s drawbacks — particularly when you write Urban Fantasy. Conversations tend to go like this: Party guest: \u201cOh? You\u2019re a writer? What do you write?\u201d Me: \u201cI write fiction. SciFi and Fantasy. Fantasy mainly.\u201d Party guest: \u201cFor kids?\u201d Me: \u201cI write Fantasy… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[102,86,121,85,35,4],"class_list":["post-6180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-guest-post","tag-night-shade-books","tag-of-blood-and-honey","tag-stina-leicht","tag-urban-fantasy","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n