Comments on: To Marry? And Which One?

By: womblin

womblin — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 12:19:12 +0000

I think you should too.

By: E. J. Ruek

E. J. Ruek — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 12:44:06 +0000

I think I should write a completely off the wall Big R and really throw everyone into a snit. *grin*

By: womblin

womblin — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 18:44:36 +0000

The right girl should ‘lose weight’ yet you are a beast for asking the question? Crikey, what double-standards!

Strange you know, and perhaps a tell-tale sign of our indulgent and rich society, that it wasn’t too many years ago that plumper women were extremely fanciable and the skinnies were spurned.

~Womblin~

By: E. J. Ruek

E. J. Ruek — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 15:54:11 +0000

Odd thing about the poll I did, both as a handout at the local library and in a writer’s group, is that most of the respondents were women. Only seven men responded of whom four agreed with the majority that the book would be better by choosing the pretty one, rather than the heavy one. Three of the men said they would prefer the “right match” to the pretty girl. Of the women, the split was about 70% for the pretty one. There were a lot of notes on there that, in real life, they would hope that weight wouldn’t matter, but in the book, it would be “shocking” for a handsome male character to pick a fat woman.

I got suggestions to have the “right girl” lose weight first.

I also got suggestions that I was a beast for even asking the question.

By: womblin

womblin — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 13:54:07 +0000

Great point about how married characters are more restricted than the unmarried. In some ways, and dependant upon the story, the married character would be much more interesting than the single because of that ring on their finger, through their nose, whatever. I think this is why Willy Russell’s play-then-film Shirley Valentine was so successful — a married woman (and an ageing one at that) running off to Greece to ‘find’ herself? How dare she? And only by asking that question, by being with Shirley as she travels away and flirts with a lifestyle diametric to the one she has put up with her whole life, can we understand and agree with her reasons. This character challenged all late-middle-aged housewives about their lifestyles, and she made many women think deeply about what was left for them in their Autumn years on this planet.

Alternatively, the single character can be just as interesting in the correct story. Why is that character single in the first place, and why have they been single for so long? Is it self-imposed, or is society rejecting them for some reason? Much though you dislike Chick-Lit, EJ, I have to bring up Helen Fielding’s character of Bridget Jones and her diary. Here’s a great look inside the mind of a thirty-something woman, a single in the city who begins each diary entry with her weight for that day, how many cigarettes smoked, alcohol consumed and a list of food eaten. No guesses for how society has brain-washed this particular woman. The story questions are immediately apparent: will Bridget lose weight and a) get the guy, or b) become happy with her spinsterhood?

The two characters constrast enormously, but both are searching for something lacking in their lives and both are fighting a society that tries its utmost to control them — much like your less than aesthetically pleasing candidate for marriage in your manuscript.

The truth of your poll is a shame, isn’t it? But it gives us authors a brilliant challenge too: to change society’s misguided preconception about that type of character and to make your readers cheer for them instead.

And of all the writers I know, I’m certain you’re the one to do it.

~Womblin~