Language, Unique, Foul And Joyous.

Language, unique, foul and joyous.

Language, unique, foul and joyous.

Writing outside your identity can be fraught with peril for an author. I write male characters. I like them but they re not me. I ve not been taught the code, the signals that males use and acquire through shared experiences that are unique to their gender. If you want to avoid falling back on the tropes of masculinity when you write you have to give it some study.

I like to think that teaching eleven to eighteen-year-old boys for nearly twenty years has given me some insight. The expectations of behaviour and action placed upon them are similar to the ones I experienced but the responses are very different. Most interesting is the transition from twelve to fourteen years old when real violence enters their existence for the first time (hopefully).

It`s even harder to write for male characters that live in an era that is utterly alien to ours, so I find a certain amount of relief when I write for my second century female character. I might be taking liberties with history, but I don t see why she can t be treated as an equal by the men around her. I was horrified to learn recently that Roman women didn t drink wine. Oops, ah well, I m sure no one will mind too much if I accredit them with more opportunities and influence and the men with a more tolerant and more minded attitude towards them than they might really have had in those times.

One of the reasons I wrote science fiction was to avoid this limitation so I could play in a culture that did not have those constructs. My characters did not have to burden themselves with the expectations of their gender and I could focus on other motivations for them.

What I tend to forget is that the Custodians are all ex-military. My father was an NCO in the RAF and as a child I could see he was different to other men. His vocabulary and directness set him apart and demonstrated a different value system and beliefs to those around him. Unfortunately, he died a long time ago, so trying to recreate that difference for the voices of my characters is one of the most enjoyable parts of world building that I do and I particularly enjoyed researching and trying to understand the military culture. Interesting note: my fathers friends, in the early 1950s, sent him to Coventry for a week for saying the f-word within hearing of my mother. How times have changed. Though I should add that my father rarely swore in my hearing and when he did it was mild, you silly sod being his favoured refrain.

I must admit something at this juncture. Seventeen years ago I swore rarely and never in public. It didn`t even cross my mind to use obscenity and blasphemy. Then I met a right sweary little shitgobbler and yes, dear reader, I married him. The stream of filth that would flow from him as part of general conversation was fascinating. He was a voracious reader (I wouldn`t have gone near him otherwise) so it was not due to a limited vocabulary, rather the environment of his childhood and work.

I found it startling and unsettling, but it at least showed me a different style of language that, if used properly, could be a part of my toolkit. At this point I should mention three of my favourite sources of inspiration in this field. The first is the opening twenty minutes of the Stanley Kubrick film Full Metal Jacket. The drill sergeant, ably played by R. Lee Ermey, unleashes a tide of filth that is both brutal and poetic on the recruits. This immediately establishes the otherness of the world they have entered and their status within it. Apparently, it was scri pted from the evening conversations he would have with Kubrick, which were recorded and cherry-picked for flavour. It is authentic and powerful.

The second I would recommend is Mark Thomas. A comedian-turned-activist (though that could well be the other way round) whose joyous exposition on the utility of the word "fuck", "the Swiss army pen knife of swear words", in his mid-nineties Channel 4 comedy special, Sex, Filth and Religion, is one of my husband s greatest pleasures.

Finally, and to pull this back to my writing in a roundabout way, we come to ARRSE. It`s a site for ex and serving members of the British Army. Safe to say a lot of the posters there have never actually experienced the joys of military life but there are enough to give insight into the culture. There are rich veins of humour and horror running through it in equal measure. It serves as a space where men can safely be men without the usual strictures of polite society. Some of it is (hugely) offensive but as a resource it is invaluable.

You see, I have a character who wants to say more. It`s got to the point where he`ll end up with his own book, possibly even a twitter account. At the moment I have to moderate him so he fits in with the general tone of the Custodians series.