Beware of Ambiguous Antecedents in Your Writing

While they appear to be a term a lot of folks are railing against these days, any writer can tell you that pronouns are one of the best pieces of language ever invented. After all, even if it would be an accurate recounting of a scene, nothing that feels more stilted or unnatural than saying a character's name over and over again. However, pronouns come with their own set of risks, one of which always seems to catch writers off-guard...

The ambiguous antecedent.

He squeezed blood from the stone! Wait... which he again?

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Nouns, Pronouns, and Antecedents

As Writers points out, there are some basic grammatical rules we're all aware of, even if we may not know the official terms for them. Generally speaking, when you're writing a story, you will have a noun, and then once that noun has been stated, you'll use a pronoun for it later. The original noun is the antecedent, meaning that the pronoun is connected to it.

Jeff stared at the read out on the monitor, sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

The "his" in this case clearly refers to Jeff, making Jeff the antecedent. Pretty basic stuff, right?

The problem you'll run into when you're a writer is that you'll often have multiple characters with the same pronouns in a given scene. This means that, rather than having direct lines between the pronoun and its antecedent, you might have readers scratching their heads wondering which he, she, or they you're referring to, and that can quickly cause them to lose track of the narrative. Whether it's a rapid back-and-forth between a cop and a criminal in an interrogation room, or an action scene with a squad of black ops soldiers, too much confusion between the noun and the pronoun referring to it can end up with chaos on the page.

The Cimmerian slew them all.

A tip I would recommend is something that a lot of us do without even thinking about it, but I usually refer to it as the Conan solution to this issue of ambiguity. In short, whenever you run into a situation where there might be confusion as to who a pronoun is referring to, replace it with some defining description of the character in question so that the audience can follow a clear through line of what is happening in a scene. Whether it's referring to a specific aspect of a character like a notable physical feature, or even referring to them by their job, the idea is that whenever there could be confusion, you clear that up as quickly and efficiently as you can.

"Hey, come look at this," Jeff said to Crawford. The federal agent grunted, and walked over to the terminal. The computer tech pointed at the image on the screen, and grinned.

Here we have two characters interacting as part of the narrative. Rather than simply relying on readers to figure out a pronoun, though, we ensure that we use something descriptive to refer to each of the two men separately, making sure that the reader has a clear image of who is doing what in the situation.

It's a fairly simple thing, but it's an area I've seen my share of writers develop a confusion with. So I thought I'd do my part this week to offer a bit of my own technique, and hope that it helps!

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That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

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The Uncomfortable Sexism in Robert Jordan's Work

When most people think of Robert Jordan, they think of his Wheel of Time series. While I read the first ten books of that series (I drew the line at a character whinging for a third of an entire novel about how his wife had been kidnapped by a relatively small number of desert warriors, rather than sending a messenger to the demigod that was his childhood friend and summoning every wolf on the continent to go get her back), my first exposure to Robert Jordan as an author was actually his contribution to the Conan mythos.

This was the book, in case you were wondering.

I found The Conan Chronicles at my local library when I was in 7th or 8th grade, and when I was done chewing through that volume I grabbed the sequel, The Further Chronicles of Conan. Each of these tomes had several novels in them, all of them penned by Robert Jordan. From slaying bandits and outwitting sorcerers, to toppling thrones and splitting skulls, these books hit all the high points I was looking for as someone who was already a fan of the character, and who had read several of the classic pulp stories by other authors. I even remember thinking at the time that Jordan's stories managed to deal much more even-handedly on the very problematic depictions of race that was endemic to the era when Conan first raged onto the pulp fiction scene.

However, the me who had such a fondness for those books was a teenager who wasn't old enough to drive yet. I recently found a copy of The Further Chronicles of Conan at a convention, and out of nostalgia bought it. The more I re-read those old tales, the more I realized something... as a writer, Jordan's depictions of female characters is really problematic.

And, since I have you here, I figured I'd do an autopsy on it so we can see what we can learn.

Welcome to the Party (Better Late Than Never)

I'm aware that I'm far from the first person to have this revelation about Jordan's works. In fact, one could argue that a basic reading of the gendered magic system in the Wheel of Time setting should have been the first gigantic red flag. However, I'm willing to go a step further on this.

I often found Jordan's depictions of female characters more sexist than Robert E. Howard's were.

Damn bold thing of you to say.

Now, to be clear, Howard is still extremely problematic when it comes to many of his female characters, especially those who exist in stories alongside his most famous barbarian. His stories are replete with heaving bosoms, great sighs, and women being slaughtered for no reason other than to drive Conan into a killing frenzy. The body of work's got bugs. However, Howard's female characters often have drives, goals, motivations, and at the very least gave their consent before being ravished by the titular Cimmerian.

I can't say the same for Jordan's stories.

Jordan makes a big deal in practically every one of the six novels in those two collections that Conan will never take a woman against her will. That's spelled out to the audience repeatedly in the text in his own dialogue or inner thoughts... but immediately following that sentence we have our hulking protagonist crushing some woman to his obscenely muscled chest, and kissing her as she tries to push him away, or strike at his head.

This phrase, I do not think it means what you think it means.

That's bad enough, however, Jordan's works also take the "traditional" fantasy outfits worn by many female characters (that is to say fetishized fantasy gear for the male gaze that sold magazines back in the day), and cranked it up to 11. Howard's stories often had the serving women in diaphanous garments, or made it a point to mention the temple's maids wore revealing robes, but Jordan's stories repeatedly draw the reader's gaze back to it. Not only that, but it goes into greater, and at times almost obscene details about how tight a certain noblewoman's breeches are, or about how a certain robe clings to a character's body. Points for absurdity goes to the character of Karela the Red Hawk for dressing in what amounts to a literal chainmail bikini, while supposedly being one of the deadliest and most feared bandit leaders in this part of Turan.

Speaking of The Red Hawk...

While absurd and overly sexualized, Karela as a character (since she recurs in more than half the novels in these collections) is also ground zero for another of Jordan's bizarre habits when it comes to female characters. In short, they get instantly (and occasionally violently) wishy-washy as soon as they're in the presence of a man.

You're already thinking of character names, aren't you?

The most obvious example in his own series was the character of Nynaeve, and how whenever she was in the presence of the dark-haired warrior Lan she was immediately torn between being a strong independent woman who don't need no man, and wanting to simper and pout at him to get his attention. We also see it with the character of Min, who is a street-running, knife-throwing punk rock tomboy, but as soon as she's in a dress near a boy she likes starts arguing with herself about whether or not she should be more feminine to catch his eye.

And so on, and so forth.

It's also one of the defining features of the character of Karela, the Red Hawk. For those who haven't come across these books, The Red Hawk is the most feared bandit leader in all of Turan. There's a huge purse of gold on her head, and her men are brutal, savage, and they follow her like a pack of dogs. Also, since this is a Conan story, she is of course a beautiful red-headed woman in literal boob plate (held in place by fine chains constantly strained to their limits by the fullness of her chest, Jordan points out several times). That's par for the course in the Hyborean setting. However, as soon as Karela is manhandled by Conan (grabbed and kissed against her will as she tries to stab him, which then somehow turns into passionate sex in a gorge) she instantly becomes two different characters. One is the hard-edged, in-control, Powerful Woman... and the other is a moony-eyed wench who just wants to let go of who she is, and submit herself entirely to this Powerful Man.

This is not a momentary crisis of character; this is Karela's constant state over multiple books. The same state of attempting to be sexless and aggressive (while often still being beautiful to observers), versus being completely submissive to the will of a strong man that so many of Jordan's female characters struggle with.

Now, let's contrast Karela with another character from one of Howard's later short stories; the pirate captain Belit.

Appearing in the short story Queen of The Black Coast back in 1934, Belit is described as a beautiful woman dressed in rather revealing garments, but who is nonetheless a feared Black Coast pirate. Her crew attacks a ship Conan is a passenger on, and he kills many of the pirates rather than surrender. Conan is about to die when Belit demands her crew stop. She struts right up to him, looks him up and down, and the two of them instantly recognize the savage and barbaric instincts in the other. More importantly, Belit demands, in words, that Conan come to her, take her as his queen and lover, and the two of them will make the Black Coast tremble at their feet.

While that's a little melodramatic, and more than a little camp, at no point in time does Belit put up resistance that Conan (or any other strong male character) needs to overcome through force. She says what she wants, and becoming Conan's lover doesn't change her essential nature in any meaningful way. She is still fierce, proud, dangerous, and one night she grabs Conan by the back of his neck, looks him right in his blue, northern eyes, and tells him in no uncertain terms that if she were dead and he still fighting that hell itself would not keep her from his side.

If that sounds familiar to the speech given in the film Conan the Barbarian, that's because it was essentially lifted from this short story.

Belit is far from the only lover Conan has throughout Howard's works, and they've come in all shapes, sizes, and nationalities. From blushing maids who asked him to be their first, to jaded mercenaries, to witch women with uncertain motives, these characters were all unique in their own way. More importantly, none of them suddenly had a crisis of self when they admit they are attracted to Conan, or when they go further and are intimate with him. There were plenty of other problems in the text (especially when they came from non-Caucasian ethnicities), but this specific pitfall was one the older stories managed to avoid.

Hot Take: Make Your Characters Individuals With Agency

I've been turning this over in my head for months trying to figure out what lesson I would suggest other writers take away from this. In comparing and contrasting the two sources, my advice to anyone is to make your characters individuals, who have their own wants, goals, and agency. Because while their relationships with other characters should be important, even intimate relationships shouldn't completely define who an individual character is. And if a night of rough sex had after questionable consent turns someone into an obsessive, violent stalker, that shouldn't be written of as, "Women, am I right?"

Also, since this might still need to be said, if you want your audience to know your protagonist respects people's consent, have them use their words. If you don't, it's sort of sending the exact opposite message you're trying for.

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Remember, Fantasy Can Be Anything You Want

What do you think of when you hear the word fantasy? Is it hobbits and elves? Dwarves and magic rings? Knights in shining armor fighting dragons? Wizards with long beards and big staffs alongside orcs drooling black ichor as they roar and rush into battle?

Tell me this, though... do you think of grim monster hunters with muskets? Battle-ax wielding barbarians hammering at the steel skin of lost alien guardians? An abandoned noble raised by the jungle venturing into a forgotten land to overthrow its saurian overlords?

I ask, because all of that stuff is fantasy, too.

For those looking for required reading.

There's So Much More Out There

I've railed against this before, and I think it bears repeating. Tolkien's contributions to the genre, and setting the mold for what people tend to think of as high fantasy (the sort of thing with huge timelines, epic, sweeping backstories, ancient wizards, secret princes, and that sort of thing), is all well and good... but it is not all there is out there.

Tell you about a thing that happened to me a while back. I was at a convention, and found an old, plastic-bagged copy of previously unpublished Conan short stories by Robert E. Howard that was printed several decades ago. In the introduction for the collection there was a line talking how the writer hoped to see interesting work from a new up-and-comer to the genre... that up-and-comer was J.R.R. Tolkien.

Hey, everyone! Make room for the new kid!

I bring this up because for me, fantasy was more about the Weird Tales days. Where you'd have dashing swordsmen and frenzied barbarians side-by-side with lost alien civilizations, shape-shifting lizard men, Puritan witch hunters, and all sorts of other nonsense. They were all strange stories that at the time defied genre labels, as many of them mish-mashed elements of what we now think of as traditional fantasy, horror, science fiction, and others into a single story. But the thing is, no one was interested in putting a label on what was and wasn't fantasy. It was allowed to be as strange, as weird, and as unusual as the writers could conceive of, and to go in all sorts of different directions.

My thoughts, to you out there reading this... embrace that.

Want to puts guns into your fantasy setting? Do it, I would love to see more dragon hunters using high-caliber weapons. You want aliens? Cool, Lovecraft wasn't the first to do it, and he sure as hell won't be the last. You want civilizations that bear no resemblance to the traditional half-dozen square miles of pseudo-English countryside that get dug out of the Middle Ages? Go nuts! You want magic that merges with alchemy and technology? Make it happen!

And if someone tries to tell you that's "not really fantasy" then you should ask them what they would call it instead. Because gatekeepers are going to keep doing their thing, but it can be amusing to watch them sputter as they try to tell you that a story about a fictional reality with all the hallmarks is somehow not allowed to wear the same label as a story about elves and dwarves.

Don't feel you have to limit yourself thematically, contextually, or even aesthetically when it comes to the fantasies you choose to write.. because we could all use a breath of fresh air.

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing installment. Hopefully some folks found it interesting, and it sparked some new ideas. For some unique takes on fantasy, consider stopping by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio where I help out, or heading over to Vocal to look at some more of my work. If you'd like to stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Lastly, if you'd like to help support my work consider leaving me a little tip by Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular patron. In either case, there's free stuff and my thanks just waiting for you.

Ethnicity, Gender, and Language in Your Novel

I was up at Gamehole Con earlier this month helping out TPK Games at their booth. I found some time to wander the dealer room, and at a second-hand book booth I found an old copy of Conan The Avenger. This is one of the first books "discovered" by L. Sprague de Camp (the claim is that he found incomplete and unfinished Conan manuscripts left behind by the original author Robert E. Howard, and there are some who think de Camp just wrote his own stories and passed them off as found work), and it takes place during the infamous barbarian's middle age. He's king of Aquilonia, and a sorcerer steals his wife. So he must trek across Hyborea to save her.

Classic Conan stuff right there.

Enemies crushed, and driven before me. Cue the lamentations of the women.

The book reads more like a collection of short stories chronicling the journey than it did a novel, but that's par for the course during the pulp era. Unfortunately, what was also par for the course was that characters who weren't classically European in appearance tended to be given some seriously racist (and sexist, if we're honest) descriptions. In some stories this wasn't that big a deal, because Conan was constantly surrounded by fantasy Greeks, Britons, and generic townsfolk. In this book, though, Conan had to travel across the map to reach his enemy. That meant he was going through Turan (fantasy Middle East), Koth (generic fantasy African kingdom), Vendhya (fantasy India), and finally Khitai (generic Asian fantasy realm composed of Vietnamese, Chinese, and Japanese cultures and symbolism).

This, of course, meant that Conan was surrounded by characters who weren't of European descent for most of the book. It also meant there was a lot of truly awful, teeth-grinding descriptions. Khitai was the worst (with phrases like, "the slant-eyed beauty" being used in what I assume was intended to be complementary), but there were problems all throughout the book.

Which brings me to today's point. This isn't just a problem with books from the pre-Tolkien age, when the world was backwards and ignorant. We still have them today. They're just a little more subtle now.

The Difficulties of Description in Today's Fiction

We've moved on from the barbaric era of pulp, and our goals are to keep the good things those storytellers brought to the table, while scraping off the dried ichor of xenophobia and ethnic prejudice. And, by and large, we've managed to get rid of the actual descriptions (and a few of the tropes) that defined that era of fiction. We no longer use phrases like, "a visage redolent with the savagery of the dark continent," or, "the delicacy of the female will," to describe characters. Or, if we do, we get called out on it by everyone from our editors to our betas.

But all we've done is put down the obvious problems for harder to spot ones. To paraphrase another social issue, sexism didn't mystically vanish just because women are in the workplace, and a few of them have become CEOs.

Goddamn, it's like these tropes just won't die!

One trope that's gained traction over the past several years is using food to artistically describe someone's skin tone. Chocolate, mocha, caramel, etc. have all been used to make it clear that a character has darker skin. Is that functional? Sure. But the problem is that it seems to be the only way many writers have of explaining to the audience that a certain character isn't white. So, if you find yourself walking into the kitchen to check a dessert's color, it might be time to try another metaphor.

There are other things that bear examination, too. One of my personal pet peeves is writing a character's accent. This happens a lot when someone has a brogue, but it happens when someone is French, Southern, Russian, or just speaks a particular dialect of English that's unique to a single area. This makes the text hard to read, often requiring putting the brakes on the pace for the reader to figure out what a character is saying, but it also enforces the, "my way of speaking is correct, and everything else is a deviation from that." A literary version of the, "why don't you people learn to speak proper English?"

Those are just common ones I've come across as a reader, and during my brief stint as an editor. Other problems include overuse of the word "exotic" to describe someone, the use of the word "gypsy" when we aren't talking about the Dom or Roma people and their culture, and generally not examining the word choices we use, the ideas we're presenting, or asking why characters who look and act differently get to remain cardboard cut-outs while the more relatable (and usually white) cast get to be fully fleshed-out.

Every Character Deserves a Full Treatment

One of the most common questions authors like George R. R. Martin, and creators like Joss Wheadon, continually get asked is how they write such great female characters. And the response is always something along the lines of, "they're characters, and people, who happen to be female. Why is this such a hard concept for people to grasp?"

Why indeed, George. Why indeed...

That same, zen-like logic can be applied to many of the problems authors face with gender and ethnicity as spectra. By rolling up your sleeves, fleshing out concepts fully, and making sure that every character has a story of their own to tell (even if that story never shows up on-screen) you will have a better novel. Not only that, but it's habit forming. If you get used to doing the heavy lifting of research, and you train yourself not to use certain phrases (and certain words) thoughtlessly, the end product is going to be better, overall.

Now, as always, this comes with the implied disclaimer that it's your book, and you can write it however you want. I am just some guy with a blog, and I can't tell you what to do. However, what I can say is that as a writer, as a reader, and as an editor, I want to see work where the author doesn't rely on language, or tropes, that feel like they came out of the roaring 20s.

Conan is a great character, and his books are still fun and engaging. But we should attempt to capture the spirit of adventure, and the richness of the world-building, instead of porting in all the damsels in distress, and backwater tribesman just looking for a big, white guy to lead them to victory.

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing post. I hope it was helpful, and as always, that I manage to plant a seed. If you'd like to help support me and my work, why not go to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to toss some change in my jar? And, if you haven't done it yet, why not follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter to make sure you don't miss any of my updates?