WOW: The Bechdel Test

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 26 Oct 2009

The other day, just wandering around the web before I went to get my driver's license renewed, and happened upon Marie Brennan's posting about the Bechdel Test. http://www.sfnovelists.com/2009/09/16/the-value-of-the-bechdel-test/

I have to admit, I hadn't heard of it before. It's pretty simple. Does a story have:

1. At least two female characters, who
2. Have a conversation with each other,
3. About something other than a man?

I wonder if there's an inverse Bechdel test? Does your story have two men who talk to each other about something other than women? Or perhaps the cross test -- does your story have a man and a woman who talk to each other about something besides gender and sex?

I think the virtue of these kinds of tests is reminding us to look at our characters. Are we using the richness that's available to us, or have we fallen into the lazy habit of using a few stereotypical characters? Especially in modern life, almost everywhere we go there are people of all types and ages. Use that richness to make your story deeper. Not because of political correctness or quotas or notions like that, but just because it's more real. Even walking in almost any town in Japan, there are homeless people, there are foreigners, and of course, there are two sexes. So think about making your novel or story more realistic by bringing in some of those variations on the human experience.