![]() ![]() Or Pamela and her sister discussing Pamela's upcoming Ph.D. So would a discussion of Lois's heart problems, with Lois's female doctor. So would Lois and Pamela talking about the price of coffee. Lois Lane talking to Pamela Parker about Pamela's problems with getting her female boss to give her better assignments would pass. Lois Lane talking to Pamela Parker about Pamela's problems with getting her male boss to give her better assignments doesn't pass. Lois Lane talking to Pamela Parker about Superman's vulnerability to Kryptonite doesn't pass. So, Lois Lane talking to Peter Parker about the price of coffee doesn't pass. Plus, it's not that the conversation should not be about romance or sex-it should not be about a man, period. I'm not clear from the OP whether those women are discussing those non-man-focused things with other women. Failing the tests doesn't necessarily indicate that a particular work is flawed, it just means that that work doesn't happen to be in the class of works that that agency wants to represent.Įdited to add: I wasn't clear, from your post, why your work fails the Bechdel test? You mention that each female character has a corresponding male character (I think?) but does that mean that it also fails the reverse Bechdel test-that there are never two male characters who have a conversation that isn't about a woman?Ĭlick to expand.Well, it may not pass the specific test. If you write a book that fails those tests, just move on to try another agency. There's absolutely nothing wrong with an agency choosing their requirements. ![]() Anyway, I'm sure most of you will say "fuck them" write what you want, but I'm wondering if I'm hurting my chances of getting published.Ĭlick to expand.Well, there's absolutely no reason why a story with a damsel in distress couldn't pass both of those tests, so that question doesn't quite work for me.īut addressing the main issue, I assume that that agency specifically wants to represent books that have women as a significant and important part of the fictional world, and that for them, that requirement outweighs many other requirements. Are we no longer allowed to write a story with a damsel in distress? I try to be PC in my writing but I hate to think publishers are going too far the other way. I wouldn't describe any of them as "weak" or "needing a man" and they do discuss plenty of things that have nothing to do with sex/romance/etc. While my WIP contains several women, they all have male counterparts for their story arc, and they are blatantly not the focus of the story. The requirement that the two women must be named is sometimes added.Ĭ) that is not about supporting a man’s story. Official Wiki definition: The Bechdel test ( /ˈbɛkdəl/ bek-dəl) asks whether a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. In my neverending quest for knowledge, I googled the terms & found a Wikipedia page about the subject. I was poking around a few agent websites the other day looking for people to send my Query out to when I ran across an agency which specifically mentioned in their submissions guidelines that they were not interested in any piece that didn't pass the Bechdel test and/or Mako Mori test. ![]()
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