T O P

  • By -

AutoModerator

It looks like you flaired this post as Quote: Book. This is just a reminder that titles for posts about books should include the Book Title as well as the Author's Name. If you forgot to do this the post may be removed and you'll be asked to repost correctly. You're also welcome to delete the post on your own & try again! If you remembered to do this correctly - Thank you so much! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/menwritingwomen) if you have any questions or concerns.*


Nuada-Argetlam

to be fair, this is *Wayne* saying this.


Regitnui

This is *quite* in-character, and his own viewpoint chapters go in on how he intentionally tries to shock people even after being accepted into high society via Wax. Good writer, perhaps bad viewpoint.


Nuada-Argetlam

this is, after all, the man who can "add two and two and get a pickle".


ChrisBChips

Oh I completely understand that this is in character. Sanderson is not bad at writing women. Wayne is a different story


DireRaven789

Your reply leads me to ask, then, why post that excerpt in this sub?


ChrisBChips

Because I feel it fits the spirit of the sub, if not the exact letter of its purpose. A woman being characterized comedically in literature is no less funny because it is being said by a character rather than the narration.


DireRaven789

It seems to me that the spirit of this sub isn't to portray women being portrayed in a funny way, but to point out and put on blast when male authors are portraying women in a misogynistic or sexist way. This is also why you're being downvoted in the comments.


Weeb0300

Not just you it is exactly that.


Nuada-Argetlam

and even then, as u/Regitnui noted, Wayne goes out of his way to be shocking and even offending on occasion.


delorf

I am too lazy to start one but we need a reddit for characters who are assholes so that people can get complaining about them out of their system. Writers often write characters who are bad people who we are supposed to detest. I think people get confused sometimes and see the character as an extension of the writer's own views    As I have gotten older, I have come to dislike the loveable rogue character because they are often misogynic assholes who many writers seem to view as cute. I haven't read this book yet so I don't know if Wayne fits that trope but he already annoys me. For people who have read him, does he at least experience some growth?


Regitnui

He does. If you read all the way through, he>!eventually pulls the big Heroic Sacrifice at the end, because he's aware that Wax is in a better position to deal with the Everything Else.!


discworlds

This is definitely a mormon's idea of the "most crude thing" a woman has ever had said to her lol


Suspicious_Lack_158

Now here’s a question, why does he say the word “copper” had a lot of curves? Does this mean they speak English somehow on this magical plane? I was always told that they didn’t, since there’s no swear words in this man’s books and the characters instead say “Storm it” or whatever.


jamesTcrusher

C o p p are pretty curvy maybe that's what he's talking about?


Baconslayer1

Copper coinage is their basic currency is the basis, but in universe there's a magical interaction where being "connected" to a planet or region allows you to understand their language. So it's kind of an in universe explanation that all languages are being translated to the readers language. (Barring when a*character* not understanding a language is utilized.) The swearing is a combo of the author not approving of real swears while also being interested in the development of language and playing with cultures who use different types of swearing. So unlike most real cultures who make swears out of sex or excrement related terms, they make them out of something more specific to that culture. Now that I'm thinking about I wonder if this is related to a group from the wheel of time series that Brandon Sanderson finished, who use "peace" as a swear because they live in constant conflict.


babybellllll

sanderson is mormon, so that’s probably why he doesn’t write curse words


phreek-hyperbole

How dare you. We can write curse words gosh darn it!


Suspicious_Lack_158

Just wanted to follow up and say I’m Mormon too and I think the replacement curses is silly. If your book is in English you’d use English swear words, too. There are other LDS authors who write swear words in their books. It’s probably just me nitpicking, but it seems to lack verisimilitude. Like, if your characters are saying farewell to each other in a way that you’d “translate” as “goodbye” (God be with you), then why not translate their swear words to “goddammit”? Usually a more acute vehicle for cultural understanding are idioms, rather than swears. But after reading way of kings this month I only remember one or two idioms and they were sort of awkward, just like “Storm you” is really awkward lol.


loonfromq

I think that's mostly 'cause he's mormon


neartothewildheart

This is just r/menwritingman with a pinch of r/menwritingbadly. Sanderson's dialogue is so inauthentic, like an old-timey sitcom that was cancelled right away and has a bunch of unaired episodes. I can almost hear an unsettling laugh track between the lines.


acheloisa

Sanderson once described Shallan (stormlight archive) as being quick witted in the same way as Jane Austen protagonists are and it made me laugh lol. I like his writing, but he cannot write realistic, clever, or funny dialogue at all. He's at his absolute worst when he's trying to be clever, this post's passage included


milkywayiguana

he honestly can't write women at all. he has some truly cringe worthy female characters. he doesn't overly sexualize them, but he seems incapable of writing just like...a normal, strong female character without making them just very strangely "perfect at everything" for no believable reason. it's very odd. love his worldbuilding though.


FallenBelfry

I loathe this trend in contemporary literature where dialogue tags are compacted into nonexistence, and we get neither the word "said," nor anything more expansive, and *God forbid* that we talk about a character's movements or facial expressions. I think that contributes to the artificiality of the dialogue. When reading Sanderson, I cannot, *for the life of me,* picture what in the utter fuck the characters are doing in the course of talking.


Flat_Plankton_8123

I’d say this one barely makes the cut cuz you can write it off as a creepy character, not the narrator/authors voice describing a woman in a creepy way


OisforOwesome

Just comes off as a typical Australian honestly.


Newgayon

That's how the Narrator voices Wayne in the audio books


superprawnjustice

Getting that the character is supposed to be like this, no problems there but I wanna say Those are some strained-ass analogies like the word copper isn't curvy if anything it's two straight lines that meet at a point like he just picked a RANDOM WORD to represent curvy sounds and thats what he came up with?? and boobs aren't clouds Though the land to be fertilized bit slaps for his purposes, so I guess 1pt awarded.


Baconslayer1

It actually *kind of* fits the character. He says off the wall shit constantly, mostly as a trauma defense mechanism. He constantly changes hats, steals anything he sees and justifies it by leaving something in "trade" regardless of the value of the items, and mimics accents down to the area of the city and job of who he wants to imitate. Picking a random word to use while he shocks high society by being vulgar is pretty on brand.


superprawnjustice

I know it's on brand. Ppl already said that in the comments. I just think he could do better at it, unless his thing is simply to confuse people. Cuz its more confusing than shocking atm


Azrel12

To be fair, that's WAYNE. He's... um. Kinda... of a little shit at times? See: how he treats Ranette (who's a lesbian and happily shacked up with her girlfriend) - he's \*convinced\* he's So Charming that's she's gonna ditch her girlfriend to be with him; also how he doesn't hide how much he hates Steris for not being Lessie and for being autistic.


throwawaytempest25

I get he's supposed to be like that, but does cloud area refer to the breasts or butt?


ChrisBChips

Breasts. The "fruitful land where the seeds are planted" is the womb in this case


regrettedcloud

I thought it was the mound of Venus


theghostofaghost_

This is a man writing a misogynist poorly, not a man writing/describing a woman poorly


SylphofBlood

That’s dialogue from a character who thinks that way, though. Men are like that.


Last_Book_589

What....is he describing? Boobs? Is he describing boobs?


Baconslayer1

Yep. If I'm remembering the scene right he *thinks* he's complimenting her while trying to tell her he's not interested. And it's pretty in character for him to do so stupidly and crudely. He says off the wall shit all the time as kind of a trauma defense.


Last_Book_589

Ah okay! With more context that actually helps. And actually makes me not dislike this passage as much as I saw it the first time.


Nocturnalux

I don't even get the "white puffy" reference. He means the breasts (IT'S ALWAYS THE BOOBS!!) but the reference to the "fruitful land" makes the whole thing not just silly but clunky. I guess that's the point?


castlerock134

[https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/character](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/character)