My notes from the 11am Saturday panel 4/16/2022
Dames, Damsels, & Dynamite
The young ladies of young adult literature are seldom well-behaved. What empowers these budding women? What are the secrets to their success? It’s more than just dynamite or lacing up combat boots. This panel will help tell us what makes these women explode out of the pages and into our hearts.
Heather S. Ransom (M), Jay Boyce, Marta Murvosh
Some book recommendations that came up in the panel:
- Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
- Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao — Described as “Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid’s Tale”
- Town Under by Tao Wong and K T Hanna — A single mother and her two kids in Australia after an apocalypse
- Breaking Sky by Cory McCarthy — A young female fighter pilot in an alternate history
What’s important in creating a Strong Female Protagonist in YA fiction?
- Believability – should be competent, but believable (this goes for the men in the story, too.)
- Choices have consequences, and the characters have to deal with them.
- This was one of my “rules” while writing Yellow Tape and Coffee. Things didn’t just happen and were done, and when a character fucked up, bad things happened. I didn’t allow any magic reset button or the stakes to suddenly not be as dire as we thought.
- A good ending – Which is not the same as a happy ending. Even if there’s more in the series, the book should have an ending.
- AGENCY! A character should have agency, and the plot should happen because of them, not just to them or around them.
- This was one of my big complaints about the first Wheel of Time book: nothing the main characters did had any effect on anything that happened. They were just along for the ride. I have heard that that changes as the series goes on, but I never made it past the first book because of it. In all of my own stories, I’ve made sure that’s not the case.
What to avoid?
- Don’t forget the sidekick. MJ, for example. She doesn’t play any role in the Finale of Spider-Man: No Way Home. After a lot of build up, she ends up forgotten by the writers.
- “It’s a woman doing this.” No, it’s a person. It’s a book, not a girl book and not a boy book.
- All the rules have exceptions, and you can do anything, as long as you don’t do it badly.
- Don’t dumb it down.
- Teens aren’t stupid. They want those “Aha!” moments when they figure things out that they aren’t explicitly told.
- Don’t glorify the bad things. Crime isn’t fun. Don’t make an abuser sexy.
- In Thoughtless, crime is definitely fun. Thoughtless is also definitely not YA.
Other notes:
Nancy Drew came up as an example, but:
- Nancy Drew has a long history, a large number of writers, and different incarnations, some significantly better than others.
- Also, Nancy Drew is Middle-Grade, not Young Adult
- There is a good graphic novel about her that is for teens
- The recent TV show may also be for teens, not MG.
Also, check out Sara Gellie’s essays on Harry Potter.
- I probably spelled that name wrong, and I can’t find her when I googled the name under a few different spellings.
- If anyone knows who this is, or even better can share a link, please do so!
Annabeth from Percy Jackson is a good example.
She’s similar to Hermione, but done better.
Don’t neglect secondary female characters.
Don’t let them be just a “bag of holding” for the boys, where they’re there, and have the right item needed, but aren’t the one to use it, and know the right bit of knowledge, but not how to apply it.