Thursday, May 31, 2012

Write On Edge: Victor/Victoria Challenge

The goal of this week's 300 word Red Writing Hood was to get us to write from the perspective of a different gender. If we're used to writing through female characters, we're to try through a male character, or vice-verse.

Looking through my blog posts, I realized I write through both gender perspectives often. I've a crusader story first told from a ship captain's perspective then through a young tanner, both male. The BLT fiasco affected a girl and her twin sister headed home from college for summer break. Thaddeus dumped tea in Boston Harbor and Deliverance cursed an unfaithful lover. Jack Sutter is a US Marshal and Ivy Tanner is a reporter.

Last week I tried a story starring a puppy, crossing the species barrier.

Writing cross genders doesn't make me nervous. Perhaps it was growing up as "just one of the guys" with my brother, doing the hunting, fishing, hiking, manly things men do. I had a cousin tell me once that I was the only tomboy he ever met that couldn't throw a football. I still did the pajama party things with the Girl Scouts and Job's Daughters, gossiping over the telephone for hours on end and shopping in the mall for the perfect outfit until the place closed up at night.

What I seem to do extremely little of is write creatively from a first-person point of view. I've done it, but I tend to shy away from that because it's too easy for me to get lost in emotion and forget to move a plot along, as this diatribe can attest to. It's more difficult for me to "block a scene" using me, myself, and I.

So I've challenged myself to make a gender neutral story told from a first-person POV. I'll let you, the reader, decide the gender.

I offer the following in response: Victor or Victoria
 


I woke before the sun, dressing in the dark just as the grey of the approaching dawn seeped into the eastern horizon. Coffee, a purchased necessity, brewed at the programmed command of the coffee-maker and soon filled the chilly house with an amazing aroma. There was nothing more magical than the scent of brewed coffee, except perhaps that of griddled bacon. Bacon was always the first cut of pork to be exhausted after a hog went for slaughter. We were making do with sausage now. Although delicious in its own right, sausage was hardly an adequate substitute for a room freshener.

Of course, biscuits weren’t biscuits without gravy, and that required sausage.

Breakfast was still a ways off. The cows needed milking and the eggs needed collecting before thoughts could be wholly devoted to the day’s most important meal. I filled my travel mug with coffee, chose an apple from the fruit bowl to tide me over, and shuffled into the mudroom for my jacket. The door screamed on aging hinges and slammed shut behind me, as if to say forget about me one more time and I swear I’ll never let you back in this house. I promised to check the shed for some lubricant on the way back, the same promise I’d made a thousand times over the past year.

The fowl were noisy, demanding the golden rain of corn to pelt their coups. I obliged them, scooping feed from the bin twice for the chickens and ducks, once for the squab. I clucked, quacked, and cooed a good morning at each before I started the trek down to the barn.

Where the path curved, I paused, drinking some coffee, and watched the sun peek over the distant mountains. Nature donned her morning splendor. The cows could wait.


28 comments:

  1. Interesting take on the prompt this week. I've actually never written in first person before. You did great with this!

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    1. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts! Thanks for letting me know this worked!

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  2. Beautiful. I was right there ~ I could smell the coffee, feel the air and was peeking for the sunrise! Nice job!

    I grew up with brothers and spent a lot of time working in male dominated environments. I think the key to writing from a male POV is what guys don't say not what they do.

    Thanks for this.

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    1. Thanks!

      I'm such a night owl that I rarely watch sunrises, so for me a sunrise is a treat. A torturous treat, but still a treat.

      I agree with you observation. It's what I've seen growing up and working with a bunch of guys.

      Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  3. Yes. Biscuits must always come with gravy. It's required.

    I like that you challenge yourself to stretch your writing. I think that you did a great job of 1st person, and you left the details ambiguous enough to allow the reader to decide gender. I read the passage twice, and I could see your character as both male and female.

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    1. Thanks!

      I'm not a huge gravy fan, I'm weird that way. But I come from good, self-respecting mid-westerners so I understand that gravy is a must. One of my favorite memories was explaining to a co-worker what that wonderful white sauce was made of. I thought she was joking that she had never even seen a biscuit and gravy.

      Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  4. I would say, based on the way the thought process jumps around, this is a female protag. But I love the male overtones that cast that conclusion into some doubt. Either way, your first person POV worked well as this is a beautiful piece. I hear what you mean about writing first person, I tend to do little of it as well.

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    1. Thanks!

      When my husband is manic, he thinks like this. I can tell because one moment he'll say he loves me, and then he'll follow up with a random "I need a new biscuit pan"

      We laugh a lot.

      Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  5. I could smell the coffee and now I'm hungry from all the bacon and biscuit imagery. Great first person, which for me is sometimes difficult.

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    1. Thanks!

      I thought of all the times my kin were up before dawn cracked on their farmsteads, and I just know I could never accomplish that in my world regularly without coffee. It seemed a natural progression.

      Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  6. Great take on the prompt - I read your piece and have to agree is gender neutral, as loving coffee or bacon, or greasing doors are neither male nor female inherently.

    Cool take on the prompt.

    -barbara @ de rebus
    www(dot)barbaragildea(dot)com

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    1. I'm glad the scene worked. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I hope you enjoyed your stay!

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  7. I'm currently writing a short story. It's my first real foray into the first person, and it's been an interesting adventure.

    I think you did a great job here. For some reason I feel like it's a women. Something about the term "my travel mug". (And why that would possibly make a difference? I don't know.)

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    1. Yea! Adventure! Have you noticed how your voice changes when switching to a different perspective? Like it's you, but not? For me, it's like wearing different skin.

      Of course I never said I was normal.

      My husband uses "travel mug" all the time. Probably just to distinguish from the myriad of other coffee dispensers that migrate to his truck. I lose a mug a week...

      Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  8. I think you hit gender-neutral right on the nose. Once I thought, hmm, woman? Another time I thought hmm, man? I especially liked the personification of the door. Perfect.

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    1. Thanks! I'm thrilled you stopped by and shared your thoughts!

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  9. I'm going to guess your narrator is female. Some of the comments just don't seem appropriate for a man, but all of them could come from a woman :)

    A lovely piece. I always enjoy your submissions

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    1. Thanks! I'm thrilled you enjoyed your stay. You're always welcome here. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

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  10. I always enjoy reading your pieces. You just have great talent and can wear many writing hats. And it is true, "there is nothing more magical than the scent of brewed coffee, except perhaps that of griddled bacon"! I can smell it now!

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    1. Blushing. Thanks for stopping by! I'm thrilled you enjoyed your stay and you're always welcome to return. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

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  11. Great idea! I agree with Wisper that I was getting a female vibe from the thought flow. I absolutely
    Loved the imagery. I was so there in the scene!

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    1. Thanks for the love! I'm thrilled the scene worked. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  12. This was a fantastic initiative. I love that you stretched yourself beyond the prompt, talk about the spirit of the exercise!

    I think the piece itself is lovely, the details and internal monologue transcend gender and give a very clear picture of who the narrator is, how they live, and what their priorities are. Favorite detail: greeting the fowl in their "native tongue."

    What a pleasure to read.

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    1. Thanks! If I don't stretch, I can't grow right?

      It's a quirk I have, speaking to the animals in their native tongue. I mew at cats and moo at cows. I haven't come up with a good way of speaking with turtles yet. Anyway it seemed like the perfect quirk for the character and I'm tickled it worked!

      Thanks as always for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  13. I loved this. Truly. It was such a unique take on the prompt and filled with details that were gender neutral yet descriptive of the person. And maybe that's what we should strive for...getting inside the character's head, whether male or female or puppy.

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    1. Thanks for the love!

      Getting inside a character's mind certainly makes the writing easier and the end result more satisfying.

      Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  14. Hmmm...how did I miss this one? I am still trying to figure out if it was a guy or girl.

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    1. I was being sneaky :)

      Guy or Gal, I'm leaving that up to you. You can read Victor or Victoria as you see fit.

      Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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