I’m done with it!

Stop Writing Women Like They Only Exist to Be Left

From mobile games to witch novels, the same lazy origin story keeps showing up.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

I am getting fucking pissed off with the origin stories I keep seeing.

I play a few games on my phone, the kind that require ‘payment’ by means of watching adverts, primarily for other games. At least 80% of the adverts I see, regardless of what the type of game is, have a singular origin story. A woman comes home to find her husband cheating. He kicks her out, with the luscious new woman at his side. There is normally a child or baby, and now the woman is homeless, a single mom; there’s usually snow or rain and not enough food. But don’t worry! You can merge these objects or tend this farm and give her a new life.

My home is in South Africa, but I am on an extended visit to Vietnam. And guess what?! I will fucking tell you! The games here have the same origin story. They are all beautifully illustrated, farming flowers instead of wheat, but she walks in on her sexy husband with his sexy mistress and bam! The woman is homeless, with a little girl, and now she has to fix up a flower farm and tend it to get a new life.

I want to write a fiction story, so I downloaded a number of books on Kindle. They…