Comments on: Musings on Sex

By: JarBrooreNax

JarBrooreNax — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:34:57 +0000

He had reassembled out all the commands, but knowingly all the dings hadn’t enwrapped themselves yet. Whilst Mike waited for his stright to restiffen, he suggested gettin Sarah.

By: Chang

Chang — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:53:21 +0000

Ha! Makes me wonder about my novel-in-progress where the male characters are pretty un-described but the single female is. I even asked my readers about this and they reinforced my fears/beliefs. So I gots to describe the mens, too.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:34:27 +0000

Ha! I figured it was either Jaidee or the terrific office assistant guy who’s name I can’t remember, but who knows everything. I thought the contrast with the dysfunctional sex-obsessed boss would add extra layers of tension. If it’s neither one of those, I’m not sure who it is.

I doubt it’s deck chairs on the Titantic. The boat was ready to sail–it just needed to pull up the anchor.

By: Writing advice round-up: rookie mistakes, slushpile survival and all about endings | Velcro City Tourist Board

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:52:02 +0000

[...] someone made some trenchant observations about his characterisations of women, Paolo Bacigalupi decided to word-replace a character from a novel-in-progress from being a guy to be…: "As I read the part of the story where my newly minted female character first appears on [...]

By: Paolo

Paolo — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 02:41:25 +0000

“The male gaze.” Sounds about right. Nice to know there’s a term for the marionette strings that apparently control my writing.

The funny thing about it was that it was so absurd. The sequence where she is introduced is laced with all sorts of conflict and action, so it was a bit like having a character in a martial arts movie pause – mid flying kick – to pop open her compact and evaluate her cute button nose. I suppose it could work if you were doing the next Charlie’s Angels movie (a male gaze movie if I ever saw one) and playing for camp, but it really really didn’t work in the context of the scene I was doing. And yet I still kept trying to find ways to add it in.

Charlie, a lot of stuff is different now in the book. Not sure if it’s really better or if I’m just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. But it is different. And Jaidee isn’t the one who got the sex change, if that’s what you’re thinking.

By: Ted

Ted — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 22:55:01 +0000

I believe this is what is known as “the male gaze”; in film, the camera often mimics the behavior of a (heterosexual) male, appraising the appearance of women.

By: Rae

Rae — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 21:49:21 +0000

Great post, Paulo. Thanks!

By: Charlie

Charlie — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 19:12:12 +0000

Doode. I’m very excited to read the new draft of this book.