Springhole

[Feo Takahari]

Best known for its Mary Sue Litmus Test, Springhole also has a wide variety of guides to better character design and worldbuilding. The primary writer is very direct and easy to understand, and xir* advice seems geared more towards beginning writers, but xe tends to approach topics in new and unexpected ways. Xe can be a bit condescending or even self-righteous, but xe's insightful enough that it's worth digging through to find the points of merit. Things You Need to Do In Your Science Fiction or Fantasy Story is a good example of xir style.

* I have no idea whether the writer is male or female, but xe uses weird pronouns with x's in them, so I guess I'll follow xir example.

 

[CupofJoe]

I quite like the site and I enjoy the writing but the use of xir, xe [etc.] seems clumsy... surely if you don't know the gender of the writer "they", "their", "themselves" [etc. again] can be used. At least that was how I was taught...
I make notice of the difference between that and a writer not wanting to be associated with or allocated to a specific gender either personally or in their work where xir [et al] seems applicable...

 

[Feo Takahari]

I just go with what people want. It's been years since I last saw the writer for Springhole use a pronoun that didn't have an x in it, so xe gets to be "xe." If someone else wants to be "ze," they can do that. I even go along with "faun," which is mocked by almost everyone who doesn't use it faunself.

 

[CupofJoe]

I agree, go with what the Author want/uses - especially when citing them...
I haven't seen "faun"... Yeah... that might not catch on... but it looks nice.
All the alternatives I've seen look like they are are trying to solve a problem that I think there is already a solution for...
Most languages evolve organically and as needed [there is probably a comment in there about the Académie française in there somewhere].
No doubt a format for gender unspecific pronouns will become established and I won't think the current alternatives as clumsy and artificial.
A Rhetorical question...
Is there a difference between "non-gender" and "gender unspecific"? I'll have to think about that...