Fight like a girl, write like a man

When I took on the story of Ötzi the Iceman, I knew I couldn't assume I knew men. After 31 years of marriage, I cannot claim privileged access into the mysteries known as my husband's thinking. He still surprises me. Ötzi was nothing like me. He lived over 5000 years ago. He climbed mountains for a commute. He probably liked the cold. He was nothing like me. To be a believable character, I needed to fight to find a way past a woman's perspective.

At first, I tried writing how I imagined primitive people spoke - honestly it sounded like Yoda. That didn't work. I tried a Hemingway strategy of writing about things that are crass and common, but my friend reminded me that it's okay if he pees in a bush, but have a purpose for doing so. Stepping into the shoes of this ancient man needed more than grunts and bodily functions. I needed to find a way to listen.

What I knew I could not do was pretend Ötzi was me. I could not just try to write him as a Byronic hero. I could not treat him as an "other" fostered by the whole Men are from Mars ideology. In order to write his story the way I desired, I needed to offer him the gift of respect. I needed to see the human in him.

The author Khaled Hosseini gave me the perspective I needed. His novel A Thousand Splendid Suns is my favorite of all his works. The story of two Afghani women caught in decades of an abusive culture grabbed my heart. I cried when I was supposed to. I got angry at the injustice against them precisely as I would if I were hearing their story from a woman. I felt the strength of Mariam's sacrifice as powerful as any splendid sunrise. Yet this story was told by a man.

A Thousand Splendid Suns was part of my curriculum for years. I saw all kinds of students wrestle with the emotional journey Hosseini took the reader on. My teenage girls cried. My teenage guys secretly told me on the side that they had cried. The impact of this novel went to the heart. Writing that makes the reader feel on a deep level was captured in those pages. Each time I reread the two women's struggle, I found something new and I always returned to the question, "How did a man write this?"

During an interview, Hosseini revealed his secret. He had interviewed over 250 Afghani women. He heard their sorrows and their unbelievable tales of suffering. His heart broke for the beleaguered souls daring to share their experiences. While listening, he began to see a common strength and beauty. He began to notice the power of not just being a woman and overcoming, but of being alive and in community. He found the human saga that every writer looks to as their Milky Way. The solution was to treat his two main characters, Mariam and Laila, as people and not as women. By looking at the heart of emotions and hopes and disappointments and longing, he found his path to the core of who the women are that he represented.

When I wrote Ötzi's story, I thought of him as a human being with feelings and hopes that had to navigate the obstacles of plot points. I looked to what he might have experienced when feeling shame or guilt. I let the human character come and tell me how to write his story. When I needed to ensure an action that I described would be a guy thing to do, I asked my husband. He ultimately is my Gaspare. I valued his perspective when I said, "So I've got this situation and I don't know how to get out of it. What do you think?"

Now that Ötzi's story has been told, I'd really like to write something from a woman's point of view. What I now understand, however, is no matter who's point of view I use, I need to treat them with the respect and dignity of being a human being with a story that somehow transcends boundaries of time, culture, and gender. I need to let my characters tell me who they are. The hardest part will always be to try and write it all down and keep up.