Each of us holds deep beliefs about ourselves, other people, and the world around us. These deep beliefs are strong patterns of thinking that are so familiar, so much a part of us, that we often do not even recognize we hold them. They are often not readily accessible to our conscious thought processes, but they shape what we notice, remember about events, assign importance to, and recall, particularly under stress or when we are depleted. They can be triggered without our knowledge and, once active, drive emotions and reactions that confuse us because they do not fit with our surface thoughts, either in kind (sad when we should be angry) or in strength (raging anger when mild annoyance would better fit our conscious thoughts).
The psychologist Nathaniel Branden suggested that sentence completions could help an individual discover their deep beliefs. He suggested taking a sentence starter and writing a number of completions, rapidly and without judgment, first thing each morning for a week. Each time, one should put the sheet of completions away without review, and then, at the end of the week, pull them all out and look for patterns.
A sentence starter for modern authors might be "A strong woman…." Based on my reading, I can imagine completions such as "… can physically outperform men," "… doesn't need anyone," "… talks trash with nothing to back it up." I've seen female lead characters that seem based off each of these deep beliefs.
Even though the "… can physically outperform men" would seem to demand a fantasy setting, there are those who seem to believe that the difference in physical capacity between women and men is either the manifestation of a "social construct" or the result of patterns of belief and action imposed on women. I saw a thread in another forum recently where a writer suggested that the difference in physical performance between men and women was due to girls being encouraged not to eat. What? Is she unaware of childhood obesity rates in the western world? Or the fact that girls are often very competitive in sports with boys up to about the age of twelve? Then puberty hits and everything changes. But, lots of people seem to have trouble with this concept. See, for example, the furor over John McEnroe's suggestion that Venus Williams in her prime would have ranked no higher than 200 on the men's tour.
Recently, I've seen two different women suggest that "not making it all about her" is a characteristic of strong women. Sarah Hoyt came to this conclusion, using her mother as an example), in a long blog post where she wandered through a lot of other things, including ridiculing both the "physically as strong as men" and "feistiness is enough" memes. Then Peggy Noonan, an elitist of the first order, reached the same conclusion last weekend in a column about the Harry, Meghan, and the Queen of England.
I suggest that our deep beliefs, as authors and as readers, come out in what we write and how we respond to what we read.
How do you finish "A strong woman…?" What's the characterization of "a strong woman" on SOL do you like best?
What sentence starter would you suggest for men?
