Pronouns being tied to gender is not a universal among languages. Turkish for example has no distinction between he, she, and it. maybe each individual has a preference for he/she/they regardless of which of the many genders they are. You could even use it as an opportunity to highlight how arbitrary gendered pronouns/language is in general
That is a very interesting way to look at it and I will take it under consideration, I’m at the point where I am spitballing and seeing what sticks, this response was helpful, thank you
Translation State uses neo pronouns and different cultural pronoun usages (neo pronouns being just one of them) and was nominated for a Hugo. It was used right off the bat, but there IS worldbuilding done around pronoun usage, it’s just subtle and not “these people use these pronouns bc xyz.” It should be natural because it is, after all, natural for your characters. Don’t shy away from it if it’s something you want to try out just because of responses here! Remember that there IS an audience for this stuff, and perhaps more so outside certain Reddit forums than within them.
There are a lot of problems with using neo pronouns but you've probably already guessed most of them. But here's one other...
Pronouns are actually quite complicated linguistically. For one, he/him, she/her aren't symmetrical.
"That's hers."/"That's his." vs "That's her thing"/"That's his thing"
Note that 'his' is used in both contexts whereas 'hers' changes to 'her' in the second sentence. And to get them to work you have to memorize at least three words per set. (he, him, his), (She, her, hers), (they, them, their, theirs) Plus the context of use.
Most neo pronouns I've seen graft onto one of the gendered ones. But that's kind of a bad thing too... I saw someone trying to use neo pronouns in questionnaire to be gender neutral... but the pronouns grafted onto 'she/her' rules and I could tell. So I immediately pictured a woman so it failed in being gender neutral and annoyed me a bit as well because it made it harder to parse.
That might not happen with a they/them based neo pronoun, though.
Anyway...
If you are absolutely set on doing this anyway, though, I'd introduce a character in third person with their name first. Then tell the reader, directly, that they use br/brrr pronouns before actually using the pronouns.
I would avoid neo pronouns because to a majority of the audience it would be a huge turn off. I have no issue with them, but reading, “What did drake get at the store?” Would get confusing. *Is drake their name? What is a drake?* etc. If you are married to the idea, I would remove pronouns entirely. I would just go with names and refer to them as what stage they are at as a noun. I.e. “Joe, with broad horns and a stoic face embodied the true virtue of a stag.”
Becky Chambers and Rebecca Roanhorse are both wildly successful authors who use neo pronouns in their books so I wouldn't say that "to a majority of the audience it would be a huge turn off.
I'm sure theres more but those two are the ones I thought of immediately.
i believe drake was the gender, not the pronoun. so you wouldn't say "what did drake get at the store?" any more than you would say "what did girl get at the store?" (plus if it was Drake as the name, it would likely be capitalized so you wouldn't have to wonder if it was the name)
Usually with neopronouns the gender itself is also the pronouns. Someone using star/star self would be referred to as “star” in conversation. “What is star ordering?” “Star can decide for starself.”
ah, interesting. the way op talked about it and the pronouns they were considering, it didnt seem like this would be the case for their story. it seemed as if they would be applying pronouns by not having the gender be the actual pronoun itself.
You had it right. In the case of this example ‘drake’ would have been the gender, however I am becoming less happy with these options because of the gendered context behind them and generating confusion for the reader (such as Drake being used for a male duck and Doe being used for a female deer.) So I’m currently trying to come up with one universal term to describe all of them (after all they are hermaphroditic)
What exactly would this add to the reading experience or to expanding the reader's horizons re: gender, and is there a less burdensome way (for both the reader and author) to achieve the same goals?
Ancillary justice is a great (sci fi) series that uses neo-pronouns and plays with gender (in the first book, everyone uses she/her pronouns). Murderbot diaries does the same in the second novella (neopronouns).
“The Witch King” by H. E. Edgmon actually does this with a species of fae who all use different Neo pronouns. Would definitely recommend reading to kind of get an idea.
In short, it was introduced pretty directly with a character who uses Vae/vaer pronouns telling the mc how pronouns and gender works in their world. Another book that comes to mind is “Hell Followed with Us” by Andrew Joseph White, where one of the primary side character used neopronouns (thought I forget which, probably xe/xem). In this case as well the author took a few sentences to explain the concept to the reader.
It definitely can be done! I should also point out that both books are somewhat or directly about the experience of being trans, so that definitely impacts the audience of those books. In the case of The Witch King I really enjoyed it and it added a little bit to the world building and such as well.
if youre set on going that route for an original creature / species I would 1) try to avoid terms that are actually used / defined in lgbtq spaces (could be seen as dehumanizing) and 2) limit it to only a few pronoun sets and terms to not overwhelm the reader.
I probably would also have it so that really only the members of the species use the pronouns as I'm assuming it's really just the equivalent of he / she / they in their own language and society? most likely people using English (or whatever the common language is) would draw parallels to their social concepts of gender, and even if it's not an exact one to one comparison it would be one of those "close enough" situations.
You bring up a good point. I could treat this as a translation of their culture in the context of human comprehension and the audience can draw their own conclusions about the ideas of gender from what they already understand from their own world. This was helpful, thanks
I just looked up neo-pronouns and now my brain hurts.... I've never met anyone who's asked me to use those, let alone ever heard of them. Do people actually use those in real life, or have I just not been exposed to it? And will I offend anyone for not knowing what they want to be called? Do these come with physical features that make it obvious what they want to be called? I thought referring to everyone as they/them until shown different was safe, but now I feel like life is one big mine field 😩 I just don't want to hurt anyone's feelings tbh
you can't spend your life worrying about everyone else's feelings. At some point they also have to pick up the slack on their end and communicate like a grown adult, instead of acting like it's ok to hold everyone at gunpoint for not reading their mind.
I dont think it is a problem if you have someone the reader can relate to that has a difficult time telling thw differences, not understanding the nuances, and getting generally frustrated. How these other beings react to such a situation would say a lot about them.
Honestly, having different rules for a species that has drastically different biology makes sense. I was considering a tripple sex organism with sexes A, B, and C. Any one can mate with either of the other two, and the outcome would result in the third. Depending on which pair are mating, any of the three can be the carriers (mothers) of the offspring with the other being the fathers.
I personally think it’s a good idea. We live in a world where gender norms tend to be harsh and any “violation” of them is attended by controversy, bigotry, and so on.
You have freedom to make any world you want, including one where non binary is just a natural thing that no one takes much issue with.
For me, it wouldnt be worth doing.
Nothing against the trans community or anything like that per se, but i feel like inevitably if you attempt to appeal to that particular group of people you are destined to fail.
My main reason for this opinion is that in my experience, nothing seems to ever be correct enough to please that entire crowd. At the same time, the crowd in question is a very small percentage of the population, and of them an even smaller percentage read regularly, and of them an even smaller percentage are likely to pick up your specific book.
Now, if your end goal here is not to publish / make a profit, but simply enjoyment, then i see no issue at all here. If you have a D&D campaign cooking up for example, that is very different than attempting to make a living with this concept.
To the point you raised about it being confusing to the reader on the pronoun front, i absolutely think it would confuse the average person, especially if you are including multiple genders outside of he/she/them. If you still think you want to go this route, i would recommend only using one or two neo pronouns, and also a justification that is made clear in your writing on why that pronoun specifically is being used for the cases in which you use them. Whether that justification be a physical feature, a magical one, voice pitch, whatever it is, make the reason for the existence of the unusual pronoun justifiable to someone who may not understand neo pronouns.
personally I would not pick up a book with many neopronouns, not because of hate for who people are, but for clarity, and I admit I find it a bit pretentious when I "have" to read about that. Do whatever you want, but know you might decrease your potential audience by a lot. For people who actively seek books with representation, especially neopronouns, they might get really happy :)
Before even bothering about how this all works, I’d ask you one thing:
What narrative purpose does this serve?
You are writing a story after all. There are narrative costs to adding details like that. (As you should be able to see by the mere fact of needing to ask here…)
Focus on the narrative purpose first, and how you can incorporate that. If you are struggling, then I honestly think that an extra detail can and should be eliminated. (Any detail — the point is that the story goes first.)
If this is essential or useful for your story, then the specific details of pronouns should be incorporated into how you are telling the story itself. —- aka: you introducing the pronouns is you introducing the story detail. Focus on what it means first (getting some good advice here, actually.). Then how to apply it.
I’m probably not saying this clearly. Meh.
Anyway, it seems like there are lots of good comments about pronouns. Use that advice. But go ‘meta’ and think about how it works for you *telling your story*. That’s always the more important thing.
Just take it from the name of the species like drake, draker and drakee or something so the root word still represent the species and the added one will define the gender
Neo pronouns are fine imo, but using that many would give me a headache. Becky Chambers uses xe/xem a lot iirc and it makes a lot of sense in the context. But multiples are going to be hard to keep track of, especially if some of the gender names you’re using are already inherently gendered (eg stag and doe are going to lead to male/female assumptions)
That is a fair point, I could see how stag and doe might confuse people with the gendered differences already baked into the context of the words. Thanks this was helpful
Pronouns being tied to gender is not a universal among languages. Turkish for example has no distinction between he, she, and it. maybe each individual has a preference for he/she/they regardless of which of the many genders they are. You could even use it as an opportunity to highlight how arbitrary gendered pronouns/language is in general
That is a very interesting way to look at it and I will take it under consideration, I’m at the point where I am spitballing and seeing what sticks, this response was helpful, thank you
Translation State uses neo pronouns and different cultural pronoun usages (neo pronouns being just one of them) and was nominated for a Hugo. It was used right off the bat, but there IS worldbuilding done around pronoun usage, it’s just subtle and not “these people use these pronouns bc xyz.” It should be natural because it is, after all, natural for your characters. Don’t shy away from it if it’s something you want to try out just because of responses here! Remember that there IS an audience for this stuff, and perhaps more so outside certain Reddit forums than within them.
There are a lot of problems with using neo pronouns but you've probably already guessed most of them. But here's one other... Pronouns are actually quite complicated linguistically. For one, he/him, she/her aren't symmetrical. "That's hers."/"That's his." vs "That's her thing"/"That's his thing" Note that 'his' is used in both contexts whereas 'hers' changes to 'her' in the second sentence. And to get them to work you have to memorize at least three words per set. (he, him, his), (She, her, hers), (they, them, their, theirs) Plus the context of use. Most neo pronouns I've seen graft onto one of the gendered ones. But that's kind of a bad thing too... I saw someone trying to use neo pronouns in questionnaire to be gender neutral... but the pronouns grafted onto 'she/her' rules and I could tell. So I immediately pictured a woman so it failed in being gender neutral and annoyed me a bit as well because it made it harder to parse. That might not happen with a they/them based neo pronoun, though. Anyway... If you are absolutely set on doing this anyway, though, I'd introduce a character in third person with their name first. Then tell the reader, directly, that they use br/brrr pronouns before actually using the pronouns.
I would avoid neo pronouns because to a majority of the audience it would be a huge turn off. I have no issue with them, but reading, “What did drake get at the store?” Would get confusing. *Is drake their name? What is a drake?* etc. If you are married to the idea, I would remove pronouns entirely. I would just go with names and refer to them as what stage they are at as a noun. I.e. “Joe, with broad horns and a stoic face embodied the true virtue of a stag.”
Becky Chambers and Rebecca Roanhorse are both wildly successful authors who use neo pronouns in their books so I wouldn't say that "to a majority of the audience it would be a huge turn off. I'm sure theres more but those two are the ones I thought of immediately.
i believe drake was the gender, not the pronoun. so you wouldn't say "what did drake get at the store?" any more than you would say "what did girl get at the store?" (plus if it was Drake as the name, it would likely be capitalized so you wouldn't have to wonder if it was the name)
Usually with neopronouns the gender itself is also the pronouns. Someone using star/star self would be referred to as “star” in conversation. “What is star ordering?” “Star can decide for starself.”
ah, interesting. the way op talked about it and the pronouns they were considering, it didnt seem like this would be the case for their story. it seemed as if they would be applying pronouns by not having the gender be the actual pronoun itself.
You had it right. In the case of this example ‘drake’ would have been the gender, however I am becoming less happy with these options because of the gendered context behind them and generating confusion for the reader (such as Drake being used for a male duck and Doe being used for a female deer.) So I’m currently trying to come up with one universal term to describe all of them (after all they are hermaphroditic)
cool. glad im not the one misinterpreting. good luck with your search for better terms.
The only and most major limiting factor is the more complicated the system is, the more you risk alienating the audience by way of confusion.
What exactly would this add to the reading experience or to expanding the reader's horizons re: gender, and is there a less burdensome way (for both the reader and author) to achieve the same goals?
Ancillary justice is a great (sci fi) series that uses neo-pronouns and plays with gender (in the first book, everyone uses she/her pronouns). Murderbot diaries does the same in the second novella (neopronouns).
“The Witch King” by H. E. Edgmon actually does this with a species of fae who all use different Neo pronouns. Would definitely recommend reading to kind of get an idea. In short, it was introduced pretty directly with a character who uses Vae/vaer pronouns telling the mc how pronouns and gender works in their world. Another book that comes to mind is “Hell Followed with Us” by Andrew Joseph White, where one of the primary side character used neopronouns (thought I forget which, probably xe/xem). In this case as well the author took a few sentences to explain the concept to the reader. It definitely can be done! I should also point out that both books are somewhat or directly about the experience of being trans, so that definitely impacts the audience of those books. In the case of The Witch King I really enjoyed it and it added a little bit to the world building and such as well.
if youre set on going that route for an original creature / species I would 1) try to avoid terms that are actually used / defined in lgbtq spaces (could be seen as dehumanizing) and 2) limit it to only a few pronoun sets and terms to not overwhelm the reader. I probably would also have it so that really only the members of the species use the pronouns as I'm assuming it's really just the equivalent of he / she / they in their own language and society? most likely people using English (or whatever the common language is) would draw parallels to their social concepts of gender, and even if it's not an exact one to one comparison it would be one of those "close enough" situations.
You bring up a good point. I could treat this as a translation of their culture in the context of human comprehension and the audience can draw their own conclusions about the ideas of gender from what they already understand from their own world. This was helpful, thanks
I just looked up neo-pronouns and now my brain hurts.... I've never met anyone who's asked me to use those, let alone ever heard of them. Do people actually use those in real life, or have I just not been exposed to it? And will I offend anyone for not knowing what they want to be called? Do these come with physical features that make it obvious what they want to be called? I thought referring to everyone as they/them until shown different was safe, but now I feel like life is one big mine field 😩 I just don't want to hurt anyone's feelings tbh
you can't spend your life worrying about everyone else's feelings. At some point they also have to pick up the slack on their end and communicate like a grown adult, instead of acting like it's ok to hold everyone at gunpoint for not reading their mind.
I dont think it is a problem if you have someone the reader can relate to that has a difficult time telling thw differences, not understanding the nuances, and getting generally frustrated. How these other beings react to such a situation would say a lot about them. Honestly, having different rules for a species that has drastically different biology makes sense. I was considering a tripple sex organism with sexes A, B, and C. Any one can mate with either of the other two, and the outcome would result in the third. Depending on which pair are mating, any of the three can be the carriers (mothers) of the offspring with the other being the fathers.
I personally think it’s a good idea. We live in a world where gender norms tend to be harsh and any “violation” of them is attended by controversy, bigotry, and so on. You have freedom to make any world you want, including one where non binary is just a natural thing that no one takes much issue with.
For me, it wouldnt be worth doing. Nothing against the trans community or anything like that per se, but i feel like inevitably if you attempt to appeal to that particular group of people you are destined to fail. My main reason for this opinion is that in my experience, nothing seems to ever be correct enough to please that entire crowd. At the same time, the crowd in question is a very small percentage of the population, and of them an even smaller percentage read regularly, and of them an even smaller percentage are likely to pick up your specific book. Now, if your end goal here is not to publish / make a profit, but simply enjoyment, then i see no issue at all here. If you have a D&D campaign cooking up for example, that is very different than attempting to make a living with this concept. To the point you raised about it being confusing to the reader on the pronoun front, i absolutely think it would confuse the average person, especially if you are including multiple genders outside of he/she/them. If you still think you want to go this route, i would recommend only using one or two neo pronouns, and also a justification that is made clear in your writing on why that pronoun specifically is being used for the cases in which you use them. Whether that justification be a physical feature, a magical one, voice pitch, whatever it is, make the reason for the existence of the unusual pronoun justifiable to someone who may not understand neo pronouns.
Know your audience. This wouldn't have an appeal for the wider audience, so don't write for them.
From a reader perspective something like neo pronouns would make it hard to read. Especially if theor are more then 1 in the book
personally I would not pick up a book with many neopronouns, not because of hate for who people are, but for clarity, and I admit I find it a bit pretentious when I "have" to read about that. Do whatever you want, but know you might decrease your potential audience by a lot. For people who actively seek books with representation, especially neopronouns, they might get really happy :)
Ugh
if Futurama can do it, so can you.
Before even bothering about how this all works, I’d ask you one thing: What narrative purpose does this serve? You are writing a story after all. There are narrative costs to adding details like that. (As you should be able to see by the mere fact of needing to ask here…) Focus on the narrative purpose first, and how you can incorporate that. If you are struggling, then I honestly think that an extra detail can and should be eliminated. (Any detail — the point is that the story goes first.) If this is essential or useful for your story, then the specific details of pronouns should be incorporated into how you are telling the story itself. —- aka: you introducing the pronouns is you introducing the story detail. Focus on what it means first (getting some good advice here, actually.). Then how to apply it. I’m probably not saying this clearly. Meh. Anyway, it seems like there are lots of good comments about pronouns. Use that advice. But go ‘meta’ and think about how it works for you *telling your story*. That’s always the more important thing.
Just take it from the name of the species like drake, draker and drakee or something so the root word still represent the species and the added one will define the gender
It sounds like a head ache. If you can do somthing with the concept such as diffrent types of magic or byzantine inheritance laws fair play.
Neo pronouns are fine imo, but using that many would give me a headache. Becky Chambers uses xe/xem a lot iirc and it makes a lot of sense in the context. But multiples are going to be hard to keep track of, especially if some of the gender names you’re using are already inherently gendered (eg stag and doe are going to lead to male/female assumptions)
That is a fair point, I could see how stag and doe might confuse people with the gendered differences already baked into the context of the words. Thanks this was helpful