Gender neutrality and pronouns

I'm doing my first round of revisions on a story with an alien character whose race happens to be hermaphroditic.  This alien comes to Earth and is uncovered by humans, who don't know anything about the creature's species.  Initially they'll refer to the individual as a male, because that's what I've noticed our society defaulting to when discussing humans or intelligent beings of unknown sex.  (Pets and other animals, in my experience, tend to be referred to a little more frequently as females, unless they're especially tough or dangerous.  Whoo for projection of gender roles.)

This leaves me in a quandary as the novel progresses.  Once the hermaphroditism is known, which pronoun should I use in the narrative to refer to the alien?  I see pros and cons to every option.

He/him/his:  Undoubtedly, many of the characters would default to this because maleness is seen as the baseline by most of western culture.  Some would probably continue to use these terms out of habit even after learning the alien is a hermaphrodite.  Many people do consider it to be gender-neutral (similar to the use of "man" to describe humankind), and several court cases have hinged on that point.

She/her/hers:  I doubt many people would default to these terms unless there was something to suggest the alien was female, i.e. not the baseline.  There's nothing in particular about this species that would map onto our notions of "female", though, so it seems unlikely these pronouns would be used.

It/it/its:  Gender-neutral, but problematic in its implications of inferiority.  Also, it would be awkward in many sentences, especially if I wanted to refer to both the character and an object in the same line.  (i.e. "There was a ball on the table. It picked it up...")

They/them/their(s):  The use of the third-person plural as a substitute for gendered third-person singulars isn't uncommon, but it's a habit I've tried to break. It might work OK for casual speech (and possibly some of the dialogue), but would look odd in narrative prose.

S/he or (s)he, "him/her", "his/hers", etc.:  Because this wouldn't be annoying to write, let alone read.

Ze/zir/zirs or another invented pronoun:  Various linguists, writers, and other groups have invented pronouns to refer to intersex or gender-neutral pronouns, but their usage isn't that common outside of interested groups.  I'd be afraid of this meaning being too opaque to many readers, or being confused for one of the alien words sprinkled throughout the text.  Some of the characters definitely wouldn't be politically correct enough to use it anyway, so the lack of consistency might also be confusing.



This may not even end up being an issue, though.  I'm consider making the aliens sequential hermaphrodites, i.e. they are born female and turn male at a certain point of their lives.  In that case, I'd refer to the alien by whatever gender he or she possesses at that point in life.  There are certain story elements that might be better served by this twist, and sequential hermaphroditism seems less prevalent than simultaneous when I think back to novels I've read.  In any case, it's good to consider hypothetical pronouns, both for future story ideas and for real life.

Thoughts?

Back from Comic-Con!

I have returned!  And I am exhausted!  But it was awesome!

This year's Comic-Con was a lot of fun for me.  It seems that every other year is a panel-heavy year for me, where I try to soak up as many sessions as I can.  Last year was one of those years.  This year was more of a hang-around-with-your-friends-and-act-like-a-crazy-person-and-catch-the-panels-on-YouTube-later year.

Nevertheless, I did make it to a few writing-related panels.  Most notable was Maxwell Alexander Drake's panel on creating more realistic fictitious worlds.  World-building is one of those things you can never learn too much about, even if it seems like you've heard the same tips a hundred times before.  (And based on my beta's feedback about the first-draft-before-this-last-one, something I need to study even more, because she finds the world interesting and wants more more MORE!)  Drake is an engaging and humorous speaker, so overall it was an enjoyable session that opened a lot of eyes to how expansive a created world needs to be, even if most of the information won't make it into the actual story.  Having the little details figured out lends realism to your fake setting!

And Drake's slides from the presentation are here.  And he's got slides from all his other sessions here!


The other writing-related (kinda) panel that I attended was that of Kate Beaton, who is known for her webcomic Hark! A Vagrant. A good portion of this panel was spent looking at illuminated manuscripts and creating funny commentary based on the crazy things they depict.  Lesson learned?  Take your inspiration from crazy places.  It will connect with people.  For serious.


Sorry I don't have much more to relate.  I didn't go on Thursday, which traditionally has a lot of writing- or book-related panels.  Most of the rest of my time was spent running around with friends this year, and I still feel like I saw only a third of everything there was to see!

Did anyone else go to SDCC?  What was the most awesome or useful thing you saw?

Lectures and Comic-Con!

I've been more absent than usual from the Internet this week, and will continue to be for the rest of the week, because of a couple of exciting things!

First of all, tomorrow I'm going back to UCLA to give my lecture on science fiction and fantasy to a new group of education and library science students!  I expanded it quite a bit based on feedback from last year's run, and it will be quite interesting to make it all fit.  Already I'm thinking of more things I could add.  Maybe if I'm ever crazy enough to go back to grad school again, I'll just write a dissertation on the topic.  Or figure out a way to write relevant papers within the library science field...

And I totally added "MLIS" after my name on the title slide like I'm something fancy.

Speaking of which, my diploma already arrived!  It is now framed in my office and displayed next to my little Yoda reading poster.

OK, the second cool thing:  Comic-Con is this week!  So after lecturing at UCLA, I'll be driving down to San Diego with some friends for preview night, then back home so I can go to work on Thursday, then back down to SD for the rest of the weekend!  I have yet to plan out my schedule besides a couple of "maybe" panels on Friday and pre-set things with friends.  I seem to switch off every year; one year I'll attend a lot of panels, and then the next I'll just hang out.  Last year was "all the panels, all the time".  This year will probably be more "hang out and be ridiculous with friends", but I'll probably try to squeeze in a few panels, especially interesting writing or author ones.  (I don't even try for the big TV or movie panels anymore.  They end up on YouTube pretty quickly, and that wins out over waiting in line for hours to end up so far back in the room that you have to watch on one of the overhead screens anyway.  The wait usually isn't as bad for writing or author panels, unless the author is super-huge.)  If I make it in to any, I'll report back here!

It's all fun and exciting! 



P.S. I talked to my beta again, and she pointed out some of the things I did well in the first draft, so yaaaaay I don't suck entirely.  Victory is mine!

Happy Fourth, and another one down.

Happy Independence Day to those of you in the USA!

And happy 4th/5th to those of you who live elsewhere!


The good news:  I finished the first draft of another novel!  I think it's much better than my previous one, I think I've got a good grasp of everything that needs to be revised/added in/taken out, and it's only 11,000 words over my target range's maximum.  Huzzah!

The bad news:  I talked to the beta who's reading the first draft of the previous novel, and ooh boy, do I have a lot to work on.  Even though I wrote that book when my brain was addled with school and I was stressed beyond belief and I knew it was a hot mess of jumbled continuity, leaps of logic and coincidence, and general messiness, it was quite a blow to the ego.  And I don't even really have much of an ego when it comes to writing. 

Hence the hoping that this most recent first draft is better than the last one I wrote, and that I'm not completely deluded/talentless/unskilled, etc.

At least my reaction is "I want to go FIX ALL THE THINGS!", rather than defeat.  That's probably good.