Guest Post: Nancy Jane Moore on Fighting and Gender

At a recent meeting of my writers’ group, we discussed fight scenes while critiquing an early draft of my novel in progress. The discussion went something like this:

“Women fight differently from men,” one of the guys said in pointing out that the sword fight scenes didn’t vary much.

I didn’t think he was referring to the inaccurate stereotype that women can’t fight, but I also didn’t think his point applied, so I said – speaking as a long-time martial artist and instructor as well as a writer – “In my experience, that’s not always the case, especially with weapons.”

And he replied, “Yeah, but you’re big.”

I let it go at that, because he was right that the fight scenes needed work, but it bothered me. After some reflection, I realized what the problem was: If my experience isn’t key to discussions about how women fight simply because I’m a woman about the size of the average U.S. man, then the issue isn’t biological sex or gender; it’s body size and build. The average man may be bigger than the average woman, but there are plenty of small men – and big women – in the world. Also, there are some people who don’t fit into standard gendered categories, and they, too, come in a variety of body types. As writers, if we make assumptions about fighting styles based on sex or gender, we’re not going to create scenes that reflect the complexity of real fights.

There is only one situation in which writers should give some consideration to the gender of their fighters, and that’s if they are creating a world in which the culture puts distinct rules on gender behavior. Most current societies give girls and boys very different signals from an early age, with the girls getting the message – incorporating it into their bodies – that they aren’t capable of handling themselves physically in dealing with men, and the boys, regardless of size or skill, learning that they have power over women. In a world in which calling men and boys “girls” (or much less acceptable words for female) is a major insult, women who fight will have to deal with the cultural dynamics.

Exercise and the Older Writer

Today's blog post is an excerpt from my post on Book View Cafe. We're doing a series on "Citius, Altius, Sapientius," ("Stronger, Faster, Wiser," according to our resident Latin scholars). I've been struck many times over the years with how many writers are also martial artists, dancers, runners, horse people, mountain climbers...and, as we age, students of yoga or tai chi chu'an. Is there more to this than the simple need to get up and stretch once in a while? And what can we learn from one another about staying strong, flexible, and energetic throughout our creative careers?

It seems that the older I get, the more integral exercise is to my writing practice. The way they are interwoven has changed with the passing decades, as has the type of physical activity that appeals to me. I no longer exercise to change my appearance (not that this ever was a huge motivation, but I think all young people have at least some small measure of physical vanity). I think more about staying healthy and maintaining the strength and flexibility that allow me to do other things I enjoy — like sitting comfortably while I write, exploring new places…having adventures. First and foremost, however, I like things that are fun. So I’m not going to give you a litany of all the reasons you should exercise to prevent heart disease or stave off Alzheimer’s. I’m going to talk about the ways being active have made me a better writer, in ways that I couldn’t appreciate when I was a newbie.

Once upon a time, I was an active kid. I didn’t think about exercise per se, I thought about playing. I ran through sprinklers, I rode my bike and attempted to roller-skate, I played outdoor games with my friends — tag, Red Rover, hopscotch, Simon Says, jumprope and ball-bouncing games, running around with dogs…but best of all, I acted out the stories I made up, either with my friends or by myself. I think this was my first and foundational experience of how glorious, how unexpected and consuming and enriching story-telling might be. As kids, we threw ourselves into one adventure after another. Granted, much of it was derivative, a sort of live-action fanfic. What we could do physically — climb trees, build snow forts, crawl under bushes, sneak around buildings — we did, and the rest we mimed as best we could. Stories were experienced not just with words, but with our whole bodies.

As readers, haven’t we had the experience of feeling our heart rate accelerate and our muscles tense during a particularly gripping or suspenseful scene? Our visceral reactions intensify the action, helping to link us to the characters and their plight. So many times, I’ve read a passage that skillfully depicts some action and thought, I know what that feels like. I’m in that character’s shoes, or riding boots, or skin-diving flippers, or crampons, or toe shoes.

Read the rest of it on the Book View Cafe blog.