Windows made of words
Nov. 19th, 2009 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12I wrote an absolutely epic post on Geata Póeg na Déanainn. It's a rather self-indulgent post about all the book characters who inspired and continue to inspire me.
The post was influenced by quite a few articles and blog posts I've been reading recently.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stefeny posted many of the links last night on Twitter, which inspired a bit of a Twitter conversation about childhood literary idols. There's an ABC interview with actress Kristen Stewart, where she asserts that Bella Swan 'sets a good example for girls'. A good example of how to be completely dependent on a guy for self-esteem, to the extent of going catatonic when he abandons you, perhaps. Another of our friends posted a link to a great article on the Age which said pretty much the opposite, but all Fairfax websites seem to be down, so I'll add the link in when they're working again.
Sarah Rees Brennan (sarahtales) and Justine Larbalestier blogged about the 'Blank Page Heroine', which prompted some commenters to link to old articles on Jezebel about the 'Manic Pixie Dream Girl' and on The Petite Sophisticate about 'Amazing Girls'. Altogether, these articles and posts say a lot about the difficulties of creating three-dimensional, human characters in works of fiction. It's a task at which few writers succeed. The ones who do give us such a fantastic gift: opaque words on opaque paper which, thanks to their writers' talent, become transparent, acting as windows through which we sometimes see ourselves, sometimes something alluringly alien, but through which we always see truth.
The post was influenced by quite a few articles and blog posts I've been reading recently.
stefeny posted many of the links last night on Twitter, which inspired a bit of a Twitter conversation about childhood literary idols. There's an ABC interview with actress Kristen Stewart, where she asserts that Bella Swan 'sets a good example for girls'. A good example of how to be completely dependent on a guy for self-esteem, to the extent of going catatonic when he abandons you, perhaps. Another of our friends posted a link to a great article on the Age which said pretty much the opposite, but all Fairfax websites seem to be down, so I'll add the link in when they're working again.Sarah Rees Brennan (
sarahtales) and Justine Larbalestier blogged about the 'Blank Page Heroine', which prompted some commenters to link to old articles on Jezebel about the 'Manic Pixie Dream Girl' and on The Petite Sophisticate about 'Amazing Girls'. Altogether, these articles and posts say a lot about the difficulties of creating three-dimensional, human characters in works of fiction. It's a task at which few writers succeed. The ones who do give us such a fantastic gift: opaque words on opaque paper which, thanks to their writers' talent, become transparent, acting as windows through which we sometimes see ourselves, sometimes something alluringly alien, but through which we always see truth.