Monday, February 15, 2010  Me and my inner "manic pixie dream
girl"  Like the Magical Negro, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl
archetype is largely defined by secondary status and lack of an
inner life. She's on hand to lift a gloomy male protagonist out
of the doldrums, not to pursue her own happiness. [...] But what
does [the MPDG] ultimately want? As is usual with Manic Pixie
Dream Girls, the filmmakers don't seem to have given the matter
much thought.  -- from Wild Things  This is one of the biggest
challenges when writing fiction: you need to include characters
who are unlike yourself. The simplest thing is to write what
others look like to you -- without giving a second thought to
what they look like to themselves. It's not just a problem for
men writing female characters (though they're frequent
offenders), but for all sorts of writers writing all sorts of
"other" characters: white people writing black characters, gay
people writing straight characters, religious people writing
atheist characters (and vice-ve