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[MUSIC PLAYING]

So the question that--

that people in books should be really nice people all the time

and that women in particular ought to be very well-behaved,

first of all it's not real life as we know.

first of all it's not real life as we know.

And second, women come in all shapes and sizes, ages

and stages, heights and colors in different parts

of the world.

And to expect or demand that they be angelic and perfect

is very Victorian.

There is limited space on a pedestal.

You don't get to move around a lot.

So my view is that women are people,

and that people are not perfect.

and that people are not perfect.

And that there are many, many different kinds of them.

And why should that not be reflected in fiction?

When you're writing, you're going to be looking at how

people in the world you're writing about,

if it's the present age or if it's the 50's--

those are two very different periods--

how they are performing gender--

which is always to a certain extent

a way of presenting yourself in society--

to other people.

to other people.

What am I conveying to other people about myself

by this performance of gender?

So gender is partly dependent on how it is performed

in a historical period.

So what does it mean, for instance, in the Tudor era

to be a male person?

What does it mean to be a female person?

What do those things mean when they're

at different social levels?

at different social levels?

Because that, too, varies from age to age.

Women actually lost a lot of rights in the 19th century

that they had had earlier.

And some of the things that they've

tried to regain in the 20th and 21st

were things they had had before the 19th.

One of the big offenders was Napoleon Bonaparte, by the way.

And let us mention that in the French Revolution,

they're very vague on the Declaration

of the Rights of Man.

of the Rights of Man.

But when a woman came along with the Declaration

of the Rights of Women, they denounced her as a traitor

and chopped off her head.

So what does gender mean has been going on

for a very long time.

And in our age, we no longer think

that there are only two packages, pink and blue.

And science has backed that up.

It's a bell curve, it's a continuum.

It's a bell curve, it's a continuum.

And your character can be situated anywhere

on that continuum.

"The Robber Bride," the name comes

from a gender switch on a Grimm's fairy tale

called "The Robber Bridegroom."

It's a female thief rather than a male thief,

and it's structured like the opera, "Tales of Hoffman."

and it's structured like the opera, "Tales of Hoffman."

That is, it has a prologue, then it has three stories embedded

within it, one for each of the three other characters.

And then it has an epilogue, just like "Tales of Hoffman,"

the opera.

So there is Zenia, who is the eminance grise

of the piece, who appears in all of the stories.

And then there are the three friends,

And then there are the three friends,

to whom these stories happen.

And each one of them involves Zenia stealing their man

but in very different ways.

And she is the kind of character who

can restructure her story and even her identity

to conform with what might appeal

to that particular woman.

How does she get in the door?

How does she gain their confidence and then betray it?

How does she gain their confidence and then betray it?

So it's that kind of character.

And I wrote it in part because somebody said to me,

there are no female con-men.

And I said, oh yes there are.

So Zenia became quite popular, oddly enough.

I was in England, and I was talking about her.

And I said, which of the characters

in "The Robber Bride" do you identify with the most?

And they said, Zenia.

And I said why do you do that?

And I said why do you do that?

She's not a very nice person.

They said, because women are tired

of being good all the time.

And it is indeed quite wearing to be expected

to be good all the time.

So I think in a way, she was an outlet.

You enjoy seeing how they manage to deceive people and get away

with what they get away with.

Not that you would do it yourself, of course not.

What makes a compelling villain?

Yes, who was it?

William Blake said, the devil has got all the good lines.

It depends on what kind of novel you're writing, again.

If you're writing Dr. Faustus, we

watch Mephistopheles in action.

So I think really it's a question of if you don't quite

know what a character is going to do next--

know what a character is going to do next--

think of some of the noteworthy villains.

Hannibal Lecter, you don't know what he's going to do next,

and that's what makes him interesting.

You have to engage with him.

You have to keep your eyes on him,

because you may change his line of defense.

He may change his tactic with without warning.

Unpredictability.

So surprise me.

And if you're surprising me, you're engaging me.

And if you're surprising me, you're engaging me.

If your surprise is convincing.

Likability is a factor when you're choosing a roommate.

But it's not necessarily a factor

when you're creating a living character.

You will find people saying the central character isn't

likeable.

And you'll find other people saying

that's not the only criterion.

So Captain Ahab is not in any way likable.

So Captain Ahab is not in any way likable.

But he is compelling.

Let's put it that way.

There's a book by John Gardner called "Grendel."

and it's from the point of view of the monster

Grendel in the Beowulf story.

It's absolutely riveting.

He's a completely unpleasant character.

So a character can be very vibrant and alive

although not likable.

although not likable.

So think of the people in your life.

Think of the people that you're interested in hearing about.

What have they done now?

What have they got up to now?

What sort of a mess are they in now?

On the other hand, there is Mabel,

who is always well-behaved.

Are you interested in hearing more about Mabel?

No, not particularly.

But if I tell you that Richard III has just

murdered all his relatives, you're

probably going to perk up.

And I think that comes from our deep evolutionary background.

When things are stable, we don't have to pay that much attention

to them.

It's when the wolf comes out of the woods

that we get very alert.

So dangerous and unstable characters--

characters we can't necessarily predict,

characters that we don't know whether they're telling us

characters that we don't know whether they're telling us

the truth or not--

they hold our attention in a way that Mabel doesn't.

I got Mabel out of "The Pirates of Penzance," yeah.

She's always very good.