This is the time for strong female leads! From Rey to Lisbeth to Precious to Jade Daniels - what makes a Katniss jump from a strong-willed 16-year-old to a cultural phenomena? This group will celebrate characters who identify as women who are well-crafted and multi-dimensional. Let's find the unique and diverse female characters on Inkshares and help them become reality!
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/192163-some-new-options-again-this-month-so-here-s-the-poll
Poll is up for November-- please head over to cast your votes!
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/179328-which-of-these-should-we-choose-for-the-wonderfully-spooky-month-of-octo
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/177946-which-story-should-we-choose-for-september
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/174136-which-of-these-should-we-choose-for-june
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/168448-what-should-we-choose-for-february
Need more Handmaid’s Tale to get through the year? Meghan Godwin’s Eudaimonia brings exactly what you need, with a hint of 1984 and definitely some Girl Interrupted. Bette Donovan is everything because she’s not...not fertile that is. In a world where women are reduced to their ability to procreate, Bette has to find her way through the secrets that surround to a purpose that is more. Also-- run ins with cannibalistic madmen on the fringe? Yes please!
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/162594-what-should-be-our-october-pick-happy-halloween
"The Technicolor Prohibition has it all! Brilliant writing, a complex and intelligent female lead and world building in spades. Throw in a fascinating take on sexuality’s role in society and the grim future that could very well lay ahead if we don’t take heed and you have a technicolor nightmare. Jessica S. Carter has created a character who will not only face her inner fears and desires, but the very society that aims to demean and threaten her freedom to love."
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/159909-all-the-way-into-august-which-story-should-we-choose
I’d like to nominate 1000 Faces for our June pick. I think it’s one of the worthier choices among the competitive entries in the Nerdist contest. It has a fascinating premise full of potential, and @J. Graham-Jones has already proven herself as an excellent writer of strong female characters with Witherfist. I expect Kara Finch will kick no less butt than Arren Kalendra.
Which I’m okay with. It’s a quite deserving book :)
I’d also really like to see more general discussion happen around here. It’s pretty much dead around here in-between selection weeks, and the conversation is always pretty brief and to-the-point. I’ve always thought it’d be nice to use this space for more discussion about writing and reading from a feminist perspective. There’s a lot of like-minded people here who care about common causes, and I think we have a lot to offer each other
Jane-Holly Meissner’s Fae Child has magic, mystery and a precocious 8 year old heroine we can’t wait to follow through her Narnia-like adventure. Add elves, faeries, the mysterious Cat and the darkness of a changeling and we’re hooked. Here’s an Alice for the next generation.
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/146364-tis-the-season-for-syndicate-picks-what-story-should-we-choose-for
Personally, I would recommend waiting until after the holidays to launch your campaign for a couple of reasons. For one, campaigning takes a LOT of time and effort, so you’ll want to make sure when you start you have enough free time to give your campaign as much attention as possible. The holidays being as crazy as they are, you’re likely not going to be able to do that.
In addition to that, everybody’s broke around Christmas. If you think you can convince people that pre-ordering a book that won’t come out for a very long time is a good gift idea, I guess you could try that, but you’ll probably have more luck if you wait for people to come out of that post-holiday poverty before you start asking them to order your book.
But! You can set everything up for your book while keeping it in the draft stage and tell everyone about it. That way you’ll build up an early support base, and when you do finally put it into campaign mode you’ll already have people ready to get on board. It’s never a bad idea to start getting people interested in your book before you launch your campaign. It can only make your launch stronger
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/144964-this-month-more-than-ever-we-need-strong-female-leads---which-project
Terrifying though it is (and trust me, it scares me to death too), it’s a jump well worth taking. If you’ve written a story that’s important to you, that you’ve worked hard on and have filled with your creativity, it does deserve to be seen. You owe it to yourself and to your book to put the necessary work into it to help it reach the success it deserves.
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/143073-october-is-here--what-story-will-we-back-in-this-beautiful-month
Also: Hi everyone! I’m new.
As for the pick-- wow! There really ARE so many amazing female characters in the community, and without this syndicate I wouldn’t have found most of them.
The Living God is currently holding fifth place in the Geek and Sundry Fantasy contest, which ends next month, and it’s also sitting at 66 orders away from Quill. I think picking it for this month could stand to really help her out a lot.
Also, I think Kaytalin herself is a person well worth supporting. She’s been a huge help to the community, and has been giving free cover design services to a bunch of people (which is normally her actual paying job). I honestly don’t think there’s anyone I’d want to give the recommendation to more this month. I am super enthusiastic about this recommendation.
Is it too early to bring up nominations for next month? I thought maybe if we started the discussion early then people would have more of a chance to read through the material before voting.
For example: Can we look at Blue Water again for next month’s nomination? And Witherfist? I think either would be a fine addition to our repertoire, but I’d love to hear what others think about either (or both). Blue Water is closer to Quill and has less days left to reach goal, but Witherfist is in the current contest, and our backing would bring it really close to the top 10 list. Should we consider things like this when making nominations? Opinions?
Also-- I totally promise that this time my suggestions fit the syndicate. Sorry about last time. :S
Edit: It does, and even in the chapters that are posted. Corin and her psychiatrist talk about lots of things. So there we go.
I’m about to do something that may or may not make some of you angry-- and if you think that it’s "cheating" the inkshares system please DM me because I want to make this book happen legitimately rather than underhandedly. But I saw that The Last Faoii is up for syndicate pick again, and I’m going to please please please ask you guys not to vote for it this month. I know that I’ve come in 2nd or 3rd place the last few times and I am SOO grateful for your continued support-- and am hoping you’ll still support me in the future-- but I think that a vote right now would be a waste of the money that some of you gave up Netflix for. I couldn’t be okay with that.
Here’s the thing-- on August 1st they put up the new G&S contest-- fantasy. At the time I knew I could get to 250 pre-orders with Faoii’s remaining time (and get select publishing) but someone convinced me instead to ask people to stop ordering, let the campaign "fail" and then enter it into the contest on the 20th when I’m allowed to start back up again. So I’m going to do that.
Again, I would be so honored to be your syndicate pick-- more honored than I think I could possibly say because this syndicate has introduced me to SO many amazing books, peoples, and ideologies-- but since I’m letting the project "fail" I can’t rightfully ask you to support The Last Faoii at this time.
I hope that all makes sense. Take care.
Link to the goodreads page:
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/181421-break-the-bechdel-with-strong-female-characters-syndicate
I honestly can’t even effectively put into words how big of an honor it is to have been given the support and approval by this syndicate. It was more than a simple boost in pre-orders for me: I honestly coveted the Bechdel selection almost as much as I did the publishing deal.
My primary purpose when I first started writing Tantalus Depths, before I knew any details of the plot or even that it was going to end up a full-length novel, was to tell a compelling sci-fi story with a truthful-seeming, independent, kick-butt female protagonist. I wanted to do my part to break down barriers and be a part of the solution modern media needs for better gender representation.
The whole time, though, I did worry. I worried about being seen as under-qualified, as a man, to write such a story. I worried at every step of developing Mary’s character that the character flaws she overcomes throughout her arc might be seen as some form of misogyny on my part, or that her character might not feel believable as a real woman.
But getting the support of this syndicate encouraged me so much. It made me feel like I had, at least on a small scale, succeeded in my goal. I want nothing more than to embody the ideals held by this group in my story, and now that I’ve earned our seal of approval, I feel like I’ve managed to live up to those lofty standards.
Thank you all, for believing in me. I hope I make this syndicate proud.
Maleficent was actually one of the characters I was thinking of when I wrote that. In the original Sleeping Beauty, she definitely was a really strong, intimidating villain. She was powerful, menacing, and answered to no one but herself. The Angelina Jolie version was noticeably different, though: they moved to make her more sympathetic and three-dimensional (not a bad idea, but I always thought she was a stronger villain when we knew less about her) but in the process they made her arc essentially centered on her relationship with the king. She was jilted by him in her youth, and spends most of the rest of the movie trying to get back at him. This character who had previously been only known as a dark sorceress with unknown ambitions was converted into a misunderstood antiheroine with a vendetta against her ex.
As for the others, yeah, they do exist. Cruella Deville scared me more as a kid than most other villains I’d ever come across. I would say that the Evil Queen in Snow White is a poor example, since the entire motivation of her character is the fact that she wants to be the prettiest, and she’ll kill anyone prettier than her, since being pretty is the most important thing.
It’s also probably significant that most of those characters are witches, but I can’t entirely put my finger on what the significance of that may be
Obviously we want to see more strong female heroes in fiction, but what about more strong female villains? I’ve always felt that having a complex and well-developed antagonist is as important to a story as having a well developed protagonist. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with good examples of strong female villains, and I legitimately can’t think of any.
In the extremely rare case that the central villain is female, she almost always has some previous personal relationship with the male lead, and in the even rarer cases where the female villain has a female hero as her nemesis, they always seem to have had some kind of rivalry with the male romantic interest.
Obviously villains are, by nature, not persons who we want to uphold as good examples of well-adjusted people, so I’m sure as a syndicate we still want to prioritize supporting books that show primarily positive qualities where the media tends not to. But I figured it’s an observation worth making that female villains seem to be as subject to the male gaze as the heroes are, if not more so.
Opinions? Which issue do you think the test is supposed to address (or which do you think is more important)? Is it focused on the trope of a man’s "superior" strength and dominance (in story, conversation, etc) or on female characters that have nothing to offer the world/story other than being someone’s future wife?
Hopefully this question makes sense. I would really love to hear some opinions.
AMAZING!
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/181421-break-the-bechdel-with-strong-female-characters-syndicate?type=group
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/137082-reminder-only-votes-from-paying-members-of-the-syndicate-on-inkshares
I’m afraid I don’t recognize your name, but you know more about the book than I’ve posted on here. Were you one of my beta’s? Or one of the people that told me about inkshares? If you can, will you contact me on facebook or e-mail me so I can chat with you? I don’t want to take up space here.
Thanks.
I’ve looked over the books that you all have nominated so far. They’re really good. Even though I’m brand new can I nominate someone, too? I really like The Last Faoii by Tahini Nelson. A whole cast of strong female characters and Kaiya at the head of their army. Perfect for slicing the Bechdel Test in half with a sword.
But actually the one that has recently caught my attention is The Test, by Tabi Card. It reminds me of Maze Runner and Divergent, only without the parts of those stories I hated. She has a strong premise, good writing in the parts we’ve seen so far, and a really kick-butt trailer.
Also, I’m honored to have been considered for nomination last round, I hadn’t been expecting that at all.
I’m also true to my word, I’ll be hard at work on a thank-you-short-story just for the Syndicate, this coming week!
If by some amazing chance, Seeking the Elephant wins this, (vote!) I will sit my happy self down and write a short-story in the same universe as Seeking, as a thank you gift for everyone in the Syndicate. All good things deserve a good thing in return!
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/133435-damn-guys-we-re-at-a-3-way-tie-i-am-including-two-votes-i-received-via
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/133381-which-of-these-wonderful-stories-should-be-our-april-nomination-once-ag
If you haven’t already discovered Seeking the Elephant, take a look now before you vote!
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/133381-which-of-these-wonderful-stories-should-be-our-april-nomination-once-ag
Here’s the link for nominations:
Hey everyone! After adding all of the votes on the poll (only counting ones from members of this group) we came to a three-way tie. Please head over to the new poll to decide who will be the winner by midnight tonight...just in time for any that are competing in The Nerdist Competition. Also, as usual, if you do not have a goodreads account you can post your vote here or email me jliggan (at) gmail.com
@Matt Kaye @Jeremy Thomas @Jason Pomerance @Thaddeus Woodman @Rebekka Leber @Carol D Marsh @Brian Guthrie @J. Danielle Dorn @Tabi Card @Cleveland Gary @C. L. Craven @L.D. Rosen @Zack Jordan @Teri Donahugh @Kelsey Rae Barthel @A.C. Weston @Alex Bittner @Alexander Barnes @Sarah Bryant @Zack Budryk @Stefan Woick
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/181421-break-the-bechdel-with-strong-female-characters-syndicate?type=group
@Alexander Barnes @Alex Bittner @A.C. Weston @Kelsey Rae Barthel @Teri Donahugh @Zack Jordan @L.D. Rosen @C. L. Craven @Cleveland Gary @Tabi Card @J. Danielle Dorn @Brian Guthrie @Carol D Marsh @Rebekka Leber @Thaddeus Woodman @Jeremy Thomas @Jason Pomerance @Matt Kaye
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"Imagine if everyone knew they could change the world" - Katrina Tarja
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"There is no such thing as face squids..." Lithia Boson
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"You can leave the word if out of your vocabulary while you’re on my bridge" - Sarah Rin
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"We gotta see what you don’t suck at before we trust you with anything serious." Nyreen Marso
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/130259-february-15th-our-first-book-choice-please-choose-the-project-you-would
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/181421-break-the-bechdel-with-strong-female-characters-syndicate
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/181421-break-the-bechdel-with-strong-female-characters-syndicate