Walking by that House on Mango Street

Pro2 Day 8: Walking by that House on Mango Street

In searching for a main character, I have more or less settled on a female Latina-like character. Why? My response for that question would be: why not? I think it’s cool to have representation for less prominent communities, and having a women and a minority is a nice double-intersection. My only problem becomes this: I am a male, and I’m afraid that writing a good female character without investing time into research will only lead to a less-than-satisfactory result.

In my quest for where to begin, I ask my sister, who just so happens to be a female Latina! Her replies were seemingly obvious but completely flew past my head until she uttered them herself: “Have you thought about getting your female friends to proofread your work? Have you also tried reading books by female authors, preferably Latina ones?” Slowly, an old buried memory began to unearth itself; a time in high school English class where we had the choice to pick our next book. Of COURSE I would have picked Ender’s Game, a book about space war and futuristic tendencies. Why would I ever pick a book about someone’s regular life written by a girl? That sounds like a total snoozefest.

I picked up the book today thanks to my e-reader’s Overdrive Online Library (side note: don’t buy kindles, they aren’t that great, Kobo4lyfe), and within the first 10 pages I realized I was completely correct in my assumptions… if I was still in high school. I’ve changed a lot since I was a kid (maybe tomorrow’s daily will elaborate on my discoveries), and instead of walking into a completely foreign world, the author and I could not stop sharing similarities!

We both stand at the intersection between our Hispanic and American worlds.

We both decided we needed to leave home to focus on our personal crafts despite protests from our parents (my mom actually cried when she realized I was serious about leaving… I can hazard a guess as to why, but it’s not like I’m leaving for good!).

We both want to write authentic stories that crosses genres and boundaries to unite people like never before, and we both realize we can never write characters as tragic as some of the people we’ve met in our lives.

We both want to help said tragic characters leave the pains of their past behind, and become filled with disappointment and despair when nothing we do pans out.

I now eagerly dive back into my new novel, hungering for answers that may have no current resolution.

@homeroom11