What's In A Name? Guest Post by V.M. Escalada

 by Vicki Delany

One of my closest writer friends isn’t a mystery writer, but the fantasy author Violette Malan. Or is that really her name?  Read on to find out.

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So I'm in my brother's bookstore, and I'm looking for my latest book, and I'm not finding it. Just as I'm thinking "oh really?" it strikes me that I'm looking for the wrong name.

I'm not sure how much of a secret it is, but besides being Violette Malan, who writes sword and sorcery fantasy, I'm also V.M. Escalada, who writes epic fantasy. I have to admit that when my agent first suggested I use a penname, my immediate reaction was unfavourable. There are all kinds of reasons for such a suggestion, however, change of genre and change of gender being two of the most common. What people don't often talk about, however, is the practical experience of being two people.

To start with, I was a little flustered. I had plenty of questions, and no one – it seemed – to go to for answers. Don't get me wrong, my agent, and my editor, had plenty of helpful suggestions, just not for these actual, practical, concerns.

My first concern? What explanation do I give people who know me, personally? After all, people who have never met/heard of Violette Malan, aren't likely to ask. The short answer, by the way, is "it's a marketing thing." The long answer is, as they say, beyond the scope of this enquiry..

Which brings me to my second concern: Who am I in public? At a con, for example? The easy answer is: I'm whoever was invited. That's the name that will go first on the con badge. It's not at all unusual, at cons, to see people with two names on their badges, the one who was invited, and (sometimes in brackets or in smaller print) the other one. If you weren't invited as a special guest? If you're just registered as a regular panelist? That's when it gets tricky. Do you use the established, familiar name? or the new one?

I haven't had to answer that one yet, but I'm thinking those marketing people are going to want me to emphasize the name of the author whose book just came out. 

But how do I become a second person? What would I use for a photo? A bio? This is the point at which it struck me that this could be a lot of fun. After all, I make people up for a living, don't I? Not that I can become entirely someone else. Again, people who already know me would have to be able to recognize me. I'm not becoming a different person, I'm becoming a second person. I can't dress entirely differently because, first, I can't afford all those new clothes and, second, I've already bought the stuff I look good in.  I'm not going for frumpy, no matter what the marketing people say.

But I will need a new autograph, won't I? At least I know which name to sign, right? The signature has to match the name on the cover, right? That feels right to me, I could be in a situation where the person asking for the autograph only knows the author standing in front of her. It gets more complicated when the person knows both of you. How personal do you make a personalized signature? Do you sign both names? On the same page? Family's easy. Family doesn't care how you sign the book as long as you sign it, and they can leave it lying around to impress their friends with – something the Escalada part of my family can now do more easily than before.

I admit, I don't really have an answer for the autograph issue. Maybe you can help me out?      

    

Violette Malan is the author of the Dhulyn and Parno series of sword and sorcery adventures (now available in omnibus editions),  as well as the Mirror Lands series of primary world fantasies. As VM Escalada, she writes the Faraman Prophecy series. Book One, Halls of Law, is available now. Find her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter @VioletteMalan.

Violette Malan: This Will Be On The Test

Today's guest author is my good friend and fabulous fantasy author Violette Malan. Violette and I were talking recently about the Hobbit movies in particular and the Bechdel test in particular.  I wrote about the test (and my own Delany test) on Monday (link here), and now Violette chimes in.

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I don't know whether it's the controversy over the character Turiel in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, but there's been a big swell of interest lately in the Bechdel Test. You know what that is, right? Generally applied to movies and TV shows, it determines whether woman are represented equitably. In order to pass the test, there must be two female characters who have names; they must at some point speak to each other; they must speak about something other than men. Seems simple.

I remember my father once telling me that Treasure Island had no women in it. He seemed to think this was a good thing. He was wrong, of course, except that he was also right. What he didn't realize was that the film he was familiar with had no women, but that wasn't also true of the book. Jim Hawkins does have a mother.  We could argue, however, that the film guys got it right, since Mrs. Hawkins does little or nothing to forward the plot.

So Treasure Island, whether print or celluloid, fails the Bechdel Test.

Most films/shows don't pass the test, even the ones we fantasy and SF lovers love the most. Big Bang Theory doesn't pass, even though there are three named female characters (and not because Penny, as my friend Jim Hines has pointed out, has no last name). Stargate passes, at least SG1 – they were smart to make the doctor a woman, since that gives plenty of room for non-guy related conversation. It's been a while, but I believe that Star Trek: Voyager passes (between Captain Janeway, B'lanna Torres and Seven-of-Nine) and TNG as well – remember, the doctor's a woman.

LOTR fails, both versions. As does The Princess Bride, both versions. I'll admit it's been a while since I read the print versions of either of these, but I have read them multiple times, and I think I'm remembering correctly. I might also argue that if, after reading something multiple times, you can't remember whether two named females talk to each other about something other than men, it has to be considered a failure of some degree.

Let's see. Aliens passes. And at least the first two books of The Chronicles of Narnia. Agents of Shield seems to be doing a good job of passing the Test, and provides us with a clue as to how we can improve the numbers.

Okay, we could do this all day, so let me sum up: according to a survey done by Entertainment Weekly, eight out of ten recent movies actually fail the Test. (They give Gravity a pass because the character is so rich, but it fails the actual test) So, 80% fail. The percentages are a little better if we narrow the films down to the seven fantasy or SF movies on the list, which include the same two movies that passed in the first place. So, only 60% fail. Feeling better? Yeah, I hear you.

How do we make sure that we pass the Test ourselves?  I'm pretty sure I do, most of the time.  But I'm writing novels, not screenplays. It's easier for novels to pass the Bechdel Test, I think, which makes it all the more remarkable when they don't – at least when we're talking about modern novels. I don't expect people who were writing even 50 years ago to hold opinions that would have been unlikely for them to hold at the time, let alone to write about them.  One of the reasons that there's even a Bechdel Test in the first place is the increasing number of female writers, directors, and producers.

And those people are interested in writing, directing and producing stories about strong female leads, who, given another woman to speak to, have reasons to discuss the advancement of the plot – I mean the solving of the problem,  rather than the men in their lives.

Female doctors can speak to female characters about health issues. Females captains and leaders can speak to their female crew and followers about the events at hand. Female workers of any kind can speak to each other about the job at hand. It's that simple, isn't it? Women can talk to each other about their jobs; all we have to do is give them jobs.

One thing though. Almost all of the examples I've cited as passing the Bechdel Test have ensemble casts. I believe that's the "recent" artistic innovation that makes passing the test easier than it might have been even thirty years ago. Female protagonists can interact with each other if there's more than one of them, and that's much easier to do with a group of people working toward a common goal, than with just a single protagonist, or star.

That's a hint for us if we want to see more works passing the Bechdel Test: we're a group of people, let's work toward a common goal.

Violette Malan is the author of the Dhulyn and Parno series of sword and sorcery adventures, as well as the Mirror Lands series of primary world fantasies. As VM Escalada, she writes the soon-to-be released Halls of Law series. Visit her website www.violettemalan.com.