Neal Stephenson’s The Rise and fall of D.O.D.O fails in one critical aspect. Pertaining to post 6.981, he didn’t write believable women yet chose to narrate the story from primarily female perspectives. It doesn’t work if the women don’t seem to function as women, but instead as men perceive women would function. This is the underlying argument of the writing out of race conversation I was hinting at when I broached the subject of writing women. If you haven’t lived the experience of a particular race/class/etc, it is hard to approximate that experience. I cannot pretend I know what it feels like to have a relationship with the law that isn’t, on the onset, confrontational. I work hard at making it not so. I’m amazingly cordial to officers. However, that does not change the facts of my life. Fact: I’ve been pulled over a lot while obeying the traffic laws. The reasons range from fitting the description, to ‘following too close’ to unusual driving patterns (i.e. going speed limit or slightly below when I see a cop) to plate registration needs to be renewed this month (I seriously got pulled over for that one time when the registration was still good. They ran my plates and looked for a reason to see what was in my Xb). These experiences color the emotional entanglement. You cannot fake that.
At one point in the DODO story, an academic offers herself as a sexual favor. In fact, she does this multiple times with multiple men in spite of every other aspect of her character suggesting she would not be someone inclined to do so. That leap felt false, and that made the story feel false. I can stretch my mind around all manner of fantasy and science fiction, but if the people do not act within the reason established by themselves and there is no accounting for that, it is not good writing. Yet this always happens when men write women.
That being said, I’m going to write a female character as my next co-lead… Sigh.