Jen Air – First Draft Done

So as I mentioned in my previous, due to a combination of determination and having too much time on my hands the last month, I managed to finish the first draft of this story.  It weighs in at about 61,000 words.  I have a list changes and edits I want to do, but I can’t see it going up a great deal from that.

I suppose it also pleases me somewhat that this story passes the Bechdel test.  It’s really only meant to apply to films/TV and comics.  There are in fact lots of books with a stong female cast, but I went ahead and checked my story anyway.

1.  Has to have at least two women in it – yup, in fact most of the characters are female.  Mostly I was drawing on a pool of characters I already had, particularly from my fan fiction days, although over the course of writing I’ve developed them in their own ways.  Most of whom were female.  I don’t know why, I just tend to like female characters more.

2. Who talk to each other – They pretty much have no choice.  To be honest, for the type of story this is I think the sex or gender of the characters is for the most part pretty incidental.  The problems they mostly have to deal with aren’t real problems that are specific to men or women.  Although in mainstream media I suppose you do tend to see a lot more mostly male teams and ‘buddy’ stories.

3. About something besides a man – Most of what they talk about isn’t about men at all.  Most the story takes place over a few days and the characters are a little more concerned with the things that are trying to kill them than with boys.  If I do a sequel, maybe it will come up, but I doubt it will be the main focus.

And yes, it passed the Mako Mori test as well.

None of this of course really had any influence on my writing.  I just happened to have just watched a youtube video about the test.