Last week Katie Ganshert blogged about heroes. Who are our heroes, and why? And, in turn, what makes our characters heroic?
So, for a little Monday morning inspiration, I present to you a writer hero of mine, the creator of many heroic characters, writer Joss Whedon. This is Joss's 2006 Equality Now speech: the video is 8 minutes long, and the first 2 minutes of which are Meryl Streep's introduction. In his speech, Joss answers the question, "why do you write strong women characters?" Watch the whole thing. You'll be glad you did.
Which writers are your heroes? What beloved characters did they create?
Reminder: I am on vacation this week, and this is an auto-post. I may not respond to your comments until the week of September 7th, at which point I will do a "feedback" day to catch up. But I will read everything! I promise!
That's great. I never thought about it, but he does write really strong female characters.
ReplyDeleteI love my hero's in all the WIp's I've worked on and my present WIP. Love the t-shirt.
ReplyDeleteJoss Whedon has long been one of my favorite television writers, and this speech proves that my love is well-founded. His characters are memorable simply because there is no reason they should be. From Buffy to Echo, Joss' women (and, indeed, his men) are strong and vivid, powerful and flawed and engaging.
ReplyDeleteMadeleine L'Engle was certainly a huge childhood writing hero of mine, as was Brian Jacques (who wrote the Redwall books). But my first writing hero was L.M. Montgomery. Anne of Green Gables was such a delightful, spunky, optimistic, and imaginative girl; she had the power to make the ordinary in life interesting and wonderful (the Story Girl had the same talent).
I love strong female characters. In real life these are the women I am drawn to and so it follows that in books I am drawn to the same kinds of women. They also need to have a vulnerable side to them that they embrace. I loved the characters in the book, "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. I also love African American characters in books. Especially if they are written well :)
ReplyDeleteI loved Anne of Green Gables growing up and have read the five (edited) journal volumes author Lucy Maud Montgomery kept from fourteen till her death. It was a pleasure to know this author as a person, as a teacher, as a mother, as a writer, as a pastor's wife (as I am/have been all these). Her live was difficult and fascinating. She could write about the most mundane detail, and I'd be enthralled. I learned so much about fashion, schooling, technology, and social customs from 1870s-1930s. After experiencing her hardships, I know her heroines differently then I did before. It was interesting to learn which characters she related to, which she tired of, which life experiences ended up in her heroine's lives, and how she dealt with the world when her literary style fell out of fashion. These journals will be books I refer to my whole life.
ReplyDeleteI saw the Whedon speech some time ago, but it's great to see again. He's a great writer. Buffy was way outside my demographic, but I'm a huge Firefly fan. It's a tragedy he never got to complete the series. The movie wrapped everything up too quickly!
ReplyDeleteI have far too many writing heroes to list them all. There are so many great writers out there, and I learned all my writing craft by doing nothing but read them. George MacDonald Fraser, Mary Renault, Aristophanes, Roger Zelazny, Ursula K. Le Guin, Patrick O'Brien, Robert Heinlein...