One of my favorite places for schadenfreude is r/menwritingwomen on Reddit. The sub is a non-spot scroll of cringe-y descriptions of women characters who have the misfortune of being centered in the male gaze.
No author is sparred. Recent posts have featured genre greats like Ian Fleming (natch), as well as literature giants like D.H. Lawrence (a two page naked mirror gaze from Connie in Lady Chatterley’s Lover) and John Steinbeck who describes a young woman’s development thusly: “Her breasts were rising with the leaven of her years.”
Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect
As a male writer, I’m not particularly confident about our main character being a woman. I am, however, acutely aware of how careful and thoughtful I need to be.
I can hear you: It’s not that hard dude! Just make them human and don’t sexualize their bodies for no good reason!
And, like, I get that. But I’ve also tread in this territory only to look back in horror at some pretty awful writing about women. One of my earliest National Novel Writing Month projects was particularly cringe-worthy. The main character was a young woman who wakes up to find herself completely invisible. That’s problematic in itself, but it also led me to make the choice that she had to be naked all of the time so she wouldn’t be discovered due to disembodied clothes floating around. Logical? Sure. Awful? Oh yeah. I even went the Lawrence route with a passage that will haunt me forever: My protagonist is surprised to catch sight of herself in a sliding glass window because her body is covered in dew refracting the sunlight. It’s as bad as you think it is. Thank god it will never ever see the light of day. Ever.
The Imperative to Get it Right
When I started the project with Kitty, Mickey was created between us through a kind of collaborative magic. I didn’t consider the fact that I’d have to build her life and thoughts and actions through words — that I’d have to describe her physicality and maybe even intimate moments.
Then, in the course of drafting, we found Mickey getting into a bathtub. Uh oh. It’s the first time I’d had Mickey doing anything intimate. And on top of that it was the first time that the reader would see her in such a vulnerable place. It was imprtant to have her nude and in the tub, because that vulnerability was key to what was going to happen next.
I stopped writing and looked to my co-author, who happens to be a woman and a wonderful spouse.
“So, uh, I want to get this right.”
We talked about it. We discussed the everydayness of the moment. We talked about how there was no need to linger, but that there were also moments in a womans intimate life that should be marked in their details to make it authentic. And so I wrote:
Mickey let the water run into the tub and changed out of her clothes, which dropped in a pile around her feet. She unclasped her bra and sighed slipping it off her shoulders. She regarded herself in the mirror impassively and picked at a blemish on her chin before turning back to the bath.
Mickey pulled a lightly-scented epsom-salt bath bomb from a basket and plopped it into the steaming tub. As it dissolved, the water turned a pale blue. Mickey stirred it around a moment, watching the water swirl around her hand, before stepping into the basin. She lowered herself down into the warm water until her body was submerged, except for the islands of her knees and the freckled crests of her shoulders.
It’s not ground breaking stuff, obviously. It’s a simple moment. And there’s nothing particularly creepy and male-gazey about it, aside from the fact that a reader is a natural voyuer.
But the key, I think, as a male writer, is to always seek some guidance in these moments. And it’s in these moments that I’m thrilled to be writing with an incredible woman.
Prudent Versus Prudish
I don’t think Katherine and I want to keep sex from our novel. We don’t have romantic plans for Mickey. But things change. There is a man in her life who could become something more. But it’s not her focus.
That’s certainly a character choice for us. But it does not mean that Mickey will never lean into a kiss and an embrace. Could she get sexy? Maybe. We’re open to it.
But we’re more in the cozy-thriller vein here. We’re thinking Mrs. Marple with a bit more blood and terror. And let’s be honest: Chrsitie never had ol’ Marps snogging a Duke or whatever.
Yes, I’m a man writing a woman. And as such I want to be respectful. Luckily, I just happen to be a man writing about a woman with a woman. What could be better?
