# Male vs. Female Protagonist



## David Gordon Burke (Dec 4, 2015)

I stumbled across this on an author's blog.  The situation is that the author went to a writer's conference where he was able to present his manuscript in person to a few literary agents.  This was their response.  

"- my novel is going to be a tough sell to agents and publishers because it features a male protagonist, meaning the audience will be predominantly male, and guys don't buy many novels. (by some estimates, women buy 75 percent of all novels. But I've had women read my manuscript -- some liked it.)" 

You can read the whole post here if you want to put the above into context.

http://www.theloneliestplanet.com/

I wonder what the general opinion is of the above statement.  I have read and feel that there may be some truth to the idea that people read books largely based on characters they can relate to ... pretty hard to sell a YA novel if the characters aren't of a certain age.  

Once again I have found a place where you marketing invades the story.  I tend to write ensemble pieces with a bunch of characters. Deteremining who is the main character could be a hassle.  Those tend to be the books that I prefer.

Just think of "The Stand" Who was the main character?  Stu Redman?  Larry Underwood?  Frannie Goldsmith?  

By coincidence, when I do have a main character, it tends to be a young woman or girl.  I think I'll stick with that.  Super-hero guys with military training and black belts in Jui-Jitsu just don't rock my boat.  It's too easy.  

Just a note - clearly this is the opinion of the two agents in question.  I'm really not interested in getting drawn into a veiled arguement about the validity of the above opinions nor my belief.  What would be of benefit is learning how much or little other writers think about this issue and others that might affect the appeal of the book.  The blogger also goes on to mention that one agent found his writing catchy and funny while the other was offended by scenes of sex with a prostitute.  I have also run into situations where a reader was turned off by the events and attitudes (racist) of the FICTIONAL characters.  

Like they say, you can't please all the people all the time.

Thoughts?

David Gordon Burke

PS.  I am also aware that the idea that Women buy more novels than Men could be disputed.  Of course one would have to assume then that a large percentage of Men are reading the most popular genre ... Romance.  Here are a few other links that give credit to the idea that Women read more.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/17/b...nd-publishers-take-notice.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14175229


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## Jeko (Dec 4, 2015)

> my novel is going to be a tough sell to agents and publishers because it features a male protagonist, meaning the audience will be predominantly male



As if the demographic of a story rides on one character alone. 

If you really think you're writing genders into your work that will make people mostly of the same gender to them relate to them, then do that for both your male and female characters. Do that for all of them, as much as you can. Some will always stand out - hopefully the more integral part of your cast - but even the ones that don't should still resonate with the reader in relatable ways. Else they're not human -  even literatures greatest monstrosities connect to people and inspire thought and emotion because of the human qualities that reside within their characterization.

Also, this -



> By coincidence, when I do have a main character, it tends to be a young woman or girl. I think I'll stick with that. Super-hero guys with military training and black belts in Jui-Jitsu just don't rock my boat. It's too easy.



 - is a silly way of putting what you're saying. If anything's 'too easy' to write, it's going to be awful to read. So make it better. Do something with those black belts that reinvents or revitalises the trope.


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## Bishop (Dec 4, 2015)

I personally don't even give this a thought. My characters just come to me, there's no real process for thinking "This one will appeal to so and so..."

Maybe I'm just not marketing-minded, nor am I interested in getting published. But for grins, I'll say that my current protagonist set is led by a woman, in her thirties, ex-special forces, lesbian, gambling addict, and overall a tortured soul. All that has its relations to certain demographics, I have no doubt, but what readers will be actually interested in her for is that her story is damn interesting. So interesting, I doubt I'm doing it justice as I write it, but hey, she's stuck with me.

I will also agree with Candence... saying writing a particular something is "too easy" belittles some of the stellar efforts out there that have been written. I write a lot of soldiers, and each of them is deeply flawed to offset their training. And--perhaps I just don't have the skill--but it wasn't easy to write them. It took work, research, and hours of frustration trying to figure out exactly how they would act in a certain situation. I feel like it finally landed where I wanted it to, but it was certainly not easy. That said, I try to write a wide range of characters; I've written children, adults, elderly, holy, royal, peasant, criminal, amoral, non-corporeal, nightmarish, angelic, male, female, androgynous, human, alien, sentient computer, etc etc etc... And each time it's challenging, partly because I challenge myself as much as I can with each. But demographic never really becomes any concern to me. I do try to connect with readers on some level; even the most outlandish and alien of aliens has some identifiable quality that the reader can relate to, even if it's basic needs like sustenance or reproduction.

But in the end, all I hope for from the few people that read my work is that they enjoy it. Never cared what an agent thought, never cared if this character appeals to housewives over forty, or if making this character a rapist will offend anyone. Because if I change my story to suit someone else, it becomes someone else's story. And that's just not fair to the characters who are stuck with me.


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## dale (Dec 4, 2015)

i don't buy into what the guy said too much. i think women enjoy being antagonists. so i don't see why they'd
have a problem reading books like that.


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## Bishop (Dec 4, 2015)

dale said:


> i don't buy into what the guy said too much. i think women enjoy being antagonists. so i don't see why they'd
> have a problem reading books like that.


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## JustRob (Dec 4, 2015)

That author isn't impressing me anyway when he uses the word "audience" instead of "readership" to describe his readers. It's so easy to drop our standards when we get in a huff about something though.

If we're looking at measures of performance then we first have to determine whether we are using primary or secondary measures. The primary measure is how well the book sells regardless of who buys it. The fact that more women than men buy books says nothing about who reads those books and why they get bought, so any connection between the contents of the stories and the sales derived from such information is likely to be just conjecture. 

I shouldn't be commenting anyway. I don't understand the concept of a protagonist or the importance that a reader may place on it, if any. If a story is written primarily from a female POV but is all about a man then who is the protagonist? Equally the converse of course. Enough TV series seem to get by without a protagonist. When people talk about them the question "Who is your favourite character?" often arises but how often does someone say that they don't watch a series at all because it has the wrong protagonist? Of course in TV series protagonists are likely to ask for wage increases, so understandably the concept isn't popular there. 

The final word from my angel on this is that she doesn't care whether the main character is male or female. What matters to her is whether that character is interesting enough for her to want to read about them. She finds those remarks from agents in the OP "really weird". My angel reads a lot of books, far more than I do, so we are representative of the statistics but in our case they give no clues as to the preferred contents of the books, just as I predicted. As an example, she complained about the film version of _Ice Station Zebra _because the makers had included a token woman in it despite the fact that Alistair MacLean's original story only mentioned men. How would that chap's agents have assessed that reaction? If most books are bought by women then a lot of women must have bought Alistair MacLean's books, mustn't they?


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## midnightpoet (Dec 4, 2015)

In my first three novels, my protagonist was male, a private eye.  There have been several successful female pi's, Sue Grafton being one.  I've read her books, liked them.  I've always wondered if changing the gender would have helped, but in hindsight it was the basic writing that doomed them, not the gender of the protagonist.   Now, on one of my short stories that I was having trouble selling I did change the gender of the protagonist from male to female, and it was published. Was it the gender, or the writing?  I'd say it was the writing.  Work on writing the story.


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## Aquilo (Dec 4, 2015)

I write M/M (gay) fiction. That means a woman writing from a male's pov. Most of the m/m readership is female, which sort of goes against everything that's said up there. In all honesty, it's the writer's job to make a reader connect with the pov, the reader doesn't have to be anything other than be able to empathize. I also edit m/m, which means I get over 40 scripts a year from both male and female authors, with one theme involved: they all have male MCs that target mostly a female readership.

Every genre I've read outside of gay literature has had male leads too, and it's something I prefer. What might be harder to sell to me is a female protagonist. Mostly because I'm sick to death of the female stereotypes, and it takes something special to turn my head in a female mc's direction.


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## Riptide (Dec 4, 2015)

Well, yeah, I agree. Most of the books I read have female protagonist. Most of what I write have two MC's, a female and a male. Usually, though, the female gets the bigger story in my opinion because I focus on her more often than the guy. But that's just with my last two series. The other one I wrote was a guy MC who played the lead well.

Then again, my little sister and Manga, basically a comic book, she reads mainly male led stories. Sure, there are females AROUND, but they aren't the focal point of the series, just a side story.


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Dec 4, 2015)

My pet peeve is the 'generic male character we know nothing about gets his world turned upside down and somehow a girl/girls are/is involved.' 

That describes most manga as well. 

I just find most male characters very generic, very simple. 

As I mentioned above, most stories go with the 'MC is dragged along basically against his will/because he has no choice' And simultaneously 'Discovers he has some power previously unknown to him.' 

It gets old seeing the same set of reactions from seemingly copy-pasted muscular dudes. 

So, I enjoy a female character written by a real female, only because it's at least a little bit different than 'guy who blows stuff up.'


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## dale (Dec 4, 2015)

Riptide said:


> Well, yeah, I agree. Most of the books I read have female protagonist. Most of what I write have two MC's, a female and a male. Usually, though, the female gets the bigger story in my opinion because I focus on her more often than the guy. But that's just with my last two series. The other one I wrote was a guy MC who played the lead well.
> 
> Then again, my little sister and Manga, basically a comic book, she reads mainly male led stories. Sure, there are females AROUND, but they aren't the focal point of the series, just a side story.



i'm trying to think really hard if i've ever wrote a story with a female protagonist.......hmmmm....nope. not a single damn one. lol.
maybe it's all those old film noir flicks i watch sticking in my mind. ha ha


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## InstituteMan (Dec 4, 2015)

I think agents are free to reject work based upon any criteria they desire, and I am free to write whatever I please. If I want to get an agent, though, I should pay attention to what agents say--at least the agents I am interested in. I'm not in the market for an agent, and I have no idea if these agents are the kind I would listen to if I was.

In the larger scheme of things, I think there is some sad truth to the notion that women and girls read far more than do men and boys in our society. It's often only natural for a person to want to read about a protagonist she (or he) can relate to, and gender is one big issue that makes relating to a character easier or harder. 

That said, I think that more sophisticated and/or mature readers are better at relating across the gender divide. That brings us to another pity, which is that so often we stop reading, especially fiction, as we reach adulthood.


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## dale (Dec 4, 2015)

InstituteMan said:


> I think agents are free to reject work based upon any criteria they desire, and I am free to write whatever I please. If I want to get an agent, though, I should pay attention to what agents say--at least the agents I am interested in. I'm not in the market for an agent, and I have no idea if these agents are the kind I would listen to if I was.
> 
> In the larger scheme of things, I think there is some sad truth to the notion that women and girls read far more than do men and boys in our society. It's often only natural for a person to want to read about a protagonist she (or he) can relate to, and gender is one big issue that makes relating to a character easier or harder.
> 
> That said, I think that more sophisticated and/or mature readers are better at relating across the gender divide. That brings us to another pity, which is that so often we stop reading, especially fiction, as we reach adulthood.



it probably does depend a lot on genre, though. i don't think horror, sci-fi, and fantasy writers really have much to worry about on this subject.


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## InstituteMan (Dec 4, 2015)

dale said:


> it probably does depend a lot on genre, though. i don't think horror, sci-fi, and fantasy writers really have much to worry about on this subject.



Genre does matter quite a bit. My wife likes sic-fi, but she often prefers to read about male protagonists. I don't know if she is typical of women who read sic-fi, but if she is that means that there could definitely skew things in favor of male sic-fi protagonists. 



Crowley K. Jarvis said:


> My pet peeve is the 'generic male character we know nothing about gets his world turned upside down and somehow a girl/girls are/is involved.'
> 
> That describes most manga as well.
> 
> ...



I'm not generic, but like most straight men, I've had my world rocked by by girls more than once. Not always in a bad way, but not always in a good way, either. 

I've certainly been drug into all sorts of things by women, not necessarily against my will but certainly against my better judgment and in contradiction to my personal preferences. Every musical I have ever attended with my wife falls into that category.

The above is a bit tongue in cheek, but it's also _true_​, which is why some of those plot lines hold appeal.


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## MissChurro (Dec 4, 2015)

To me, it doesn't really matter as long as it's a well-written character. I enjoy reading well-written male and female characters equally, and I find poorly written male and female characters equally annoying.


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## shadowwalker (Dec 4, 2015)

Unfortunately, I've read very few female characters that are written well - Cornwell and Grafton do it very well, but so many times I run into the "guy with boobs" type, which is a real turnoff. But then the rest of the writing typically sucks as well, so I guess it shouldn't be surprising. Any character that's written to a "type" instead of the person is bound to be shallow and off-putting, IMHO.


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## David Gordon Burke (Dec 4, 2015)

Cadence said:


> - is a silly way of putting what you're saying. If anything's 'too easy' to write, it's going to be awful to read. So make it better. Do something with those black belts that reinvents or revitalises the trope.



What I meant by too easy was that a character that is so equipped to deal with danger, fighting, possible death etc. becomes a cartoon cut-out ... how much do we really fear that this Ex-Military Black Belt Ninja from the ghettos where he had to fight to get his family out of the clutches of the mafia before he was toilet trained is going to have trouble with whatever danger you put him in this time?  None.  And therefore Easy and Boring.  The writing or the reading of it wasn´t my point.

David Gordon Burke


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Dec 4, 2015)

InstituteMan said:


> I'm not generic, but like most straight men, I've had my world rocked by by girls more than once. Not always in a bad way, but not always in a good way, either.
> 
> I've certainly been drug into all sorts of things by women, not necessarily against my will but certainly against my better judgment and in contradiction to my personal preferences. Every musical I have ever attended with my wife falls into that category.
> 
> The above is a bit tongue in cheek, but it's also _true_​, which is why some of those plot lines hold appeal.



I still read them regardless, but finding a more unique male MC is rare. Another thing I find, Green Shield actually pointed out somewhere else as well...The side characters normally tend to be more interesting than the MC. I agree with that, in most movies, video games, books, etc... 'Cuz I still think most main characters have less flavor. Either that, or it seems they're amped up to a caroonish, unrealistic extent. 

I still write every MC as male, but struggle to make them interesting and yet realistic, without coming across as overblown or stereotypical 'Uhg me caveman.'


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## JustRob (Dec 4, 2015)

Crowley K. Jarvis said:


> My pet peeve is the 'generic male character we know nothing about gets his world turned upside down and somehow a girl/girls are/is involved.'



How much do we need to know about him before something interesting happens in his life? It's the turning upside down of it that attracts our attention to him, isn't it? As for the girls, if he's a man there are likely to be girls in his life regardless of whether they are instrumental in events. How can one avoid such situations, by describing a character who is not yet of any interest to us but avoiding mentioning the girls in his life?



> I just find most male characters very generic, very simple.



Most of us probably are, at least in the eyes of women. We are only likely to become exceptional if drawn into a situation that demands or demonstrates it. 



> As I mentioned above, most stories go with the 'MC is dragged along basically against his will/because he has no choice' And simultaneously 'Discovers he has some power previously unknown to him.'



That's how most men's lives are, aren't they, starting out dragged into situations that one can't cope with and then discovering how to cope with them? The converse, being aware of one's powers from the outset and using them to avoid getting dragged into situations, doesn't lead to interesting plots, does it? 



> It gets old seeing the same set of reactions from seemingly copy-pasted muscular dudes.



Exactly, the ones who are aware of their powers and just use them as usual. Boring.



> So, I enjoy a female character written by a real female, only because it's at least a little bit different than 'guy who blows stuff up.'



Ah yes, as in Anne McCaffrey's stories of the dragonriders of Pern, which frequently revolve around female main characters who are dragged into situations against their will and then discover powers that they didn't know they had. 

I don't see how the gender of the protagonist matters in the context of your peeves. I suspect that exactly the same remarks could be applied to plots involving either gender.

I question your remarks here because I don't understand what the issue is. I read somewhere that plots fundamentally revolve around conflicts and their resolution. Isn't that exactly what you describe, situations into which people are dragged and out of which they escape by discovering things about themselves of which they were previously unaware? I would agree that the whole conflict-resolution merry-go-round is hackneyed and personally I have very little conflict in my writing, so it can appear boring to some for that very reason. In my stories things don't get blown up, the death count doesn't keep rising to heighten the tension, as though any reader bothers to keep count of discarded fictional characters anyway, and no helicopters crash spectacularly just because they are very expensive and also very vulnerable, so provide an easy way of raising the total cost of all the destruction and killing off a few more unwanted characters at the same time. 

Stereotypes exist just as much in both genders. While on the subject of pet peeves mine is the rebellious teenage girl who is so involved in her own petty life that she does mindless things that create the situations that more mature people have to sort out. That is inappropriate type-casting. Gender has nothing to do with any of these things, just as it doesn't matter at all what gender the protagonist is, to return to the OP.


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## dale (Dec 4, 2015)

shadowwalker said:


> Unfortunately, I've read very few female characters that are written well - Cornwell and Grafton do it very well, but so many times I run into the "guy with boobs" type, which is a real turnoff. But then the rest of the writing typically sucks as well, so I guess it shouldn't be surprising. Any character that's written to a "type" instead of the person is bound to be shallow and off-putting, IMHO.



i think i create great female characters. they are very intelligent. very conniving and devious. 
and always effeminate. they are definitely not "guys with boobs". i love them all. and i'm not
into trannies.


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## EmmaSohan (Dec 4, 2015)

The Harry Potter series did okay with a male protagonist. But after reading the first book, I decided that Harry didn't succeed because he was strong, or smart -- mostly he succeeded because he inspired the loyalty of his friends. So, interesting male character.

I want to write emotions, and it's almost as if females show emotions easier than males. The males have their emotional moments, and I love those parts of my book. But they just don't happen as often.

I tried to put a little horror into my last short. Then I realized -- only a woman would get it. Well, that's perhaps a fault in my writing -- I knew I was probably writing for male judges, and I have learned a little about how they respond. But the one female judge said, "As a woman that ending is just chilling."


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Dec 4, 2015)

JustRob said:


> I question your remarks here because I don't understand what the issue is. I read somewhere that plots fundamentally revolve around conflicts and their resolution. Isn't that exactly what you describe, situations into which people are dragged and out of which they escape by discovering things about themselves of which they were previously unaware? I would agree that the whole conflict-resolution merry-go-round is hackneyed and personally I have very little conflict in my writing, so it can appear boring to some for that very reason.



Oh really? I never would've guessed that's the point of writing, as I have never specifically focused on conflict either. 

 That's the reason I was talking about specific books/manga I have read with similarly generic MC's who get stuck with some woman. Man has heart attack, woman appears, saves him, things happen and no explanation is offered, MC is confused, blah blah, romance, blah blah. Rinse and repeat, in different ways, but still similar. Specific situations that get boring to read over and over. I wasn't talking about writing as a whole. But thank you for broadening and generalizing my statements. 

Gender matters in this context because those specific stories I mentioned have the male MC's. 

When I read books with female MC's, it still may or may not have conflict or the elements of a good story, but it's a different perspective. One I appreciate reading.


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## InstituteMan (Dec 4, 2015)

EmmaSohan said:


> I tried to put a little horror into my last short. Then I realized -- only a woman would get it. Well, that's perhaps a fault in my writing -- I knew I was probably writing for male judges, and I have learned a little about how they respond. But the one female judge said, "As a woman that ending is just chilling."



I think this is true of some types of humor, too--at least from my marital reading experiences. 

Of course, the different ways men and women experience certain situation sometimes dictates the gender of your protagonist. If you need terror in a situation that would uniquely frighten a woman, then having a guy in the leading role may not be a good idea.


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## Kyle R (Dec 4, 2015)

I enjoy writing from both female and male perspectives. To me, they each have their own charms. Kind of like dabbling in different genres—the variety can be fun.

Though I find most readers will connect with your protagonist, regardless of their gender (or ethnicity, or, heck, even _species_), as long as you write them (and the story around them) compellingly enough.

Sure, you might encounter some readers who are very gender-specific in their reading preferences. Not everyone's ambidextrous. Some like it one way or another. And that's fine, too.

But if it's truly a concern, there's an easy fix: write some stories with male protagonists, and other stories with female protagonists. Then you've got both bases covered. And everyone wins.

Smiles and dollar signs and confetti all around. :encouragement:


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## shadowwalker (Dec 5, 2015)

JustRob said:


> I would agree that the whole conflict-resolution merry-go-round is hackneyed and personally I have very little conflict in my writing, so it can appear boring to some for that very reason. In my stories things don't get blown up, the death count doesn't keep rising to heighten the tension, as though any reader bothers to keep count of discarded fictional characters anyway, and no helicopters crash spectacularly just because they are very expensive and also very vulnerable, so provide an easy way of raising the total cost of all the destruction and killing off a few more unwanted characters at the same time.



I'm not sure I understand this. Conflict does not have to involve violence. Conflict is merely one character needing/wanting to do something (or not needing/wanting), and someone/something making it difficult to do so (or difficult to not do so). It doesn't even have to be a physical need/want, but instead a mental or spiritual one. If there is _no _conflict, what is the story about?


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## Bishop (Dec 5, 2015)

shadowwalker said:


> Unfortunately, I've read very few female characters that are written well - Cornwell and Grafton do it very well, but so many times I run into the "guy with boobs" type, which is a real turnoff. But then the rest of the writing typically sucks as well, so I guess it shouldn't be surprising. Any character that's written to a "type" instead of the person is bound to be shallow and off-putting, IMHO.



I sometimes worry that my female characters are like this, but I've been told I don't fall into this trap. Then again, I also have nearly 0 confidence in my own work, so no matter how nice people are about it, I'm going to have that fear. That being said, I work hard to try and exceed that failure, and make characters--male AND female--with more depth than that. What's really challenging is doing this with alien cultures, where gender roles--if there are any--can be totally... well, alien. One of the major races in my universe is entirely matriarchal, and embraces itself in that respect. There's more to it than that, but it does seep into the mannerisms, ideals, and actions of the characters within that culture.

And some people say world building isn't fun...


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## Schrody (Dec 5, 2015)

I have more male than female protagonists, and I won't apologize because of that. My female characters are strong, or they find their inner strength thorough the adventures they've been through, and my male characters have a softer side - they're not sissies - emotions rule both sexes and it's pretty useless to continue with the stereotypes males are strong and emotionless, females are emotion driven, and helpless. If my character needs to be strong it will be, no matter their gender. That being said, statement above is a piece of ****, I'm a female, I read lots of novels, and can relate with both males and females. Sex of your main character doesn't affect your sales. Maybe the story is just not good enough, or something else is holding you back.


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## JustRob (Dec 5, 2015)

shadowwalker said:


> I'm not sure I understand this. Conflict does not have to involve violence. Conflict is merely one character needing/wanting to do something (or not needing/wanting), and someone/something making it difficult to do so (or difficult to not do so). It doesn't even have to be a physical need/want, but instead a mental or spiritual one. If there is _no _conflict, what is the story about?



I specifically mentioned violent physical conflict in response to Crowley's remark about men blowing things up. Of course conflict can take other forms. However, it is primarily a mental condition, that a character feels conflict. My writing tends to be about discovery. How far can one stretch the word "conflict"? Is curiosity conflict for example? If someone is perfectly happy with their life and then discovers something new to experience, where is the conflict? If something happens over which a person has no control, is there conflict if they do not object to it happening? If conflict must first manifest in the mind then in whose, the character's or the reader's? Maybe sometimes a reader just assumes that there is conflict when there is none. Maybe they stretch the meaning of the word too far. Sometimes I do point out conflicts within a character's mind, such as in the first chapter of my novel, where a girl wonders whether she has somehow been abducted or is just dreaming. She feels conflicted over whether she should feel conflict and she cannot decide whether she has control over the situation because she isn't sure what her intentions really are. 

Conflict is an attitude which may or may not accompany experiences without materially affecting them, so a story need not primarily be about the conflict. That is what I meant. Some readers may focus on the potential conflict within the human condition or the fashion in clothes or the scenery in a story, but those may not be what the writer was actually writing about. Maybe I write about the discovery of new experiences and how adaptable humans can be in accepting them without feeling conflict. Maybe I question how essential all those negative traits like mistrust, doubt, dislike and conflict are to being human. If people avoid having them do other human characteristics such as morality also eventually vanish because the human condition is so much a package deal? Maybe that's the question that my writing asks. What are we without conflict and so on in our lives?

Returning as always to the OP, when it comes to violent physical conflict in stories, or indeed any other form of conflict, it still seems odd for anyone to think that women readers don't gravitate to reading about men strutting their stuff. Given how well women seem to understand men, or at least claim to, they must be avid men-watchers or else we men truly are the simple shallow easily understood characters that Crowley prefers not to read about. 

Those agents in the OP seem to be throwbacks to an earlier time when car salesmen and indeed husbands assumed that women ought to have cheap meek underpowered cars while men needed expensive powerful brutes. Once women discovered that those powerful brutes were actually easier to drive and were given more respect by male drivers on the road the whole fallacy was broken. Surely the time has equally come when agents and publishers are not the ones who create the markets for books and they need to do their research more carefully to survive at all in the long run.


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## Minu (Dec 5, 2015)

David Gordon Burke said:


> I stumbled across this on an author's blog.  The situation is that the author went to a writer's conference where he was able to present his manuscript in person to a few literary agents.  This was their response.
> 
> "- my novel is going to be a tough sell to agents and publishers because it features a male protagonist, meaning the audience will be predominantly male, and guys don't buy many novels. (by some estimates, women buy 75 percent of all novels. But I've had women read my manuscript -- some liked it.)"
> 
> ...



I might take him more seriously if he was actually an author of any merit. I've read his work - from what I remember the agents are probably more appalled by his clipped-slap-together writing style than the actual male protagonist. Either that or his male protagonist was an all-round brawny muscle-headed "jock" with all the personality of a slug. 

Because if male protagonists didn't sell Patterson, Brown, Rowling, etc. wouldn't be making money. They'd be on the bottom scale of the reading list. Why. Guess. A large number of their books feature - OMG, you won't believe it - a *male protagonist* :roll:.


It doesn't matter if your protagonist is a purple skinned orange haired hermaphrodite - it's your writing and the story that sells. These are the main things to selling: character / character development and personality, writing style,  background and storyline, and if the character is believable or some Mary/Joey Sue that can juggle the Empire State Building while saving the President all in a single day.


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## Sam (Dec 5, 2015)

Schrody said:


> I have more male than female protagonists, and I won't apologize because of that. My female characters are strong, or they find their inner strength thorough the adventures they've been through, and my male characters have a softer side - they're not sissies - emotions rule both sexes and it's pretty useless to continue with the stereotypes males are strong and emotionless, females are emotion driven, and helpless. If my character needs to be strong it will be, no matter their gender. That being said, statement above is a piece of ****, I'm a female, I read lots of novels, and can relate with both males and females. Sex of your main character doesn't affect your sales. Maybe the story is just not good enough, or something else is holding you back.



Not to rock the boat, Schrody, but I've been around men my whole life and I've seen a display of emotion once in that time. 

It's not stereotypical, because we're literally taught from a young age to not show any kind of emotion. We're taught to keep it inside, to be stoic, to solider on regardless. I've worked on construction sites, been in bars, gone on stag nights to foreign countries. Never saw anything that could be described as a softer side. That's not to say it isn't there, because men don't show emotion around other men; it's seen as a weakness. They may show it around their girlfriends/wives. 

But it's not a stereotype. It's one of the reasons why the suicide rate is 70% male.


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## Minu (Dec 5, 2015)

Sam said:


> Not to rock the boat, Schrody, but I've been around men my whole life and I've seen a display of emotion once in that time.
> 
> It's not stereotypical, because we're literally taught from a young age to not show any kind of emotion. We're taught to keep it inside, to be stoic, to solider on regardless. I've worked on construction sites, been in bars, gone on stag nights to foreign countries. Never saw anything that could be described as a softer side. That's not to say it isn't there, because men don't show emotion around other men; it's seen as a weakness. They may show it around their girlfriends/wives.
> 
> But it's not a stereotype. It's one of the reasons why the suicide rate is 70% male.



 Interesting. I'm a woman. I rarely show emotion. Not because my parents taught me to but because, being former military, any expressive emotional outbursts were generally frowned upon. The Warrant Officers loved tearing into any goofball stupid enough to even giggle while in formation. 

 I make people very, very uncomfortable because of this - I merely have to stare at most strangers and/or even colleagues for them start squirming. It's quite amusing to see how quickly someone will advert their eyes when I am looking at them because unlike them, I give away very little of what I am thinking. 


 I know this. So when I write my characters - male or female - I ensure to give them emotions. The males maybe more "behind the scenes" emotional but it is there. If I wanted a non-emotional character, I'd write a robot. 


 As for men not showing emotions - tell that to my brother.


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## Sam (Dec 5, 2015)

Not parents, per se, but usually fathers.


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## Kevin (Dec 5, 2015)

Men show plenty of emotion. It's usually anger. I'm of the opinion that there's two display types, your Jelly, which is basically your simpering Fem-bot, ultimate dreamboat of the feminist manifesto except for that unfortunate appendage down there, and your Big-baby, which ends up on the news after killing her, her mom, sisters, cousins, bystanders, the dog from down the street because *sniff * "She doesn't love me anymore!!". Oh, and then there's the sub-category, Mr. Learned-to-control-himself, which requires loads of empathy toward the less fortunate, less able to drive properly, less able to comprehend normal driving situations...


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## JustRob (Dec 5, 2015)

Kevin said:


> Men show plenty of emotion.



I'm of an age when our social occasions are often funerals. I've seen enough sons break down while delivering a eulogy about a parent to know that it's there inside however they behave normally. My angel and I share everything in our lives, so of course she's seen me cry. Sometimes one person in a couple needs to be the stoic one but not always. Emotions need an outlet eventually. 

Maybe one of the problems with writing is deciding just how close a reader should be allowed to get to a character. I have reached the point with the evolution of my characters that I feel that I know things about them that I ought not to pass on to the reader. That knowledge helps me depict them and maybe a reader can guess at it without being told, so it does serve a purpose even if it doesn't explicitly appear in the story. If a reader suspects that there is more to a character than meets the eye then they may be more likely to stay hooked. It was only when I read Ian Fleming's original James Bond stories that I saw the "real" man behind the myth in the films. The more modern actors to play him seem to be trying to portray that man more accurately now.


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## Schrody (Dec 5, 2015)

Sam said:


> Not to rock the boat, Schrody, but I've been around men my whole life and I've seen a display of emotion once in that time.
> 
> It's not stereotypical, because we're literally taught from a young age to not show any kind of emotion. We're taught to keep it inside, to be stoic, to solider on regardless. I've worked on construction sites, been in bars, gone on stag nights to foreign countries. Never saw anything that could be described as a softer side. That's not to say it isn't there, because men don't show emotion around other men; it's seen as a weakness. They may show it around their girlfriends/wives.
> 
> But it's not a stereotype. It's one of the reasons why the suicide rate is 70% male.



That's the beauty of it; I know a lot of "strong" men and they rarely show their emotions. Then again, I know men who can easily portray their feelings. My male protagonists are always "tough" and emotionless, but when s*it happens, you're damn sure they will point at their emotions. Maybe not right now, but sooner or later. And that's life. When something bad happens, no one can stay neutral. Anger is also an emotion.


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## Minu (Dec 5, 2015)

Sam said:


> Not parents, per se, but usually fathers.



So according to you then men who have no father - single mothers, father killed in war / accident, etc. - are going to grow up being nothing more than blubbering messes that cry at the drop of a hat :thumbl:.


See this "he-man", "cave man", "me macho" mentality is why such male protagonists are unlikeable. They are stereotypical, boring and bland. And oftentimes portrayed as arrogant arses that in real life someone who love to just punch in the jaw. If you want to punch such a person in the jaw why are you even going to bother reading a book about such meatheads? 

I've had my share of run ins with "tough guy" men in real life and I always get a good chuckle when such clowns back down when they realize that the little 5'2" female isn't going to move out of their way because they got their chest puffed out like a rooster. This includes criminals with records the length of your arms a few times over. The "me man - hear me grunt" sort of personality, I've found, oftentimes disguises something of an inferiority complex. 


As for males typically showing emotion - anger. Again stereotypical & oftentimes a trait, sorry to say, of the lower working class. It's a response to the "unfairness" of life. A simplistic if I can't get even then I get mad attitude. Very basic bland characters. 



See you guys continually mention the stereotypical boring male. And in this sense yeah the guy linked in the original post is right. No one wants to read about such boring characters. Why. You see them 24/7 in real life. 


However, some of the best characters throughout history in books have been male. Why? Because the author doesn't make them into bland boring "he-man" meatheads. They have depth which includes emotions - that's a good male character. If you're just going to make some emotionless male who breaks down and cries when the going gets tough ... stick with making robot characters. Because a "tough man" who cries when the going gets tough or when something really bad happens isn't appealing to the reader - they're weaker / wimpier than a guy that is self-confident enough to be emotional regardless of the situation.


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## Sam (Dec 5, 2015)

Minu said:


> So according to you then men who have no father - single mothers, father killed in war / accident, etc. - are going to grow up being nothing more than blubbering messes that cry at the drop of a hat :thumbl:.
> 
> See this "he-man", "cave man", "me macho" mentality is why such male protagonists are unlikeable. They are stereotypical, boring and bland. And oftentimes portrayed as arrogant arses that in real life someone who love to just punch in the jaw. If you want to punch such a person in the jaw why are you even going to bother reading a book about such meatheads?
> 
> ...



Anger is not the kind of emotion that I referred to when I spoke to Schrody. She talked about her male characters having a softer side. Anger is not a softer side. Ergo, she's referring to the kind of emotion that I have rarely seen men display in thirty-plus years of walking this earth. 

It's not macho. Nowhere did I mention machismo. It's stoicism I'm talking about. Men I've known, including myself, don't talk about their feelings. They don't discuss their problems. They keep everything to themselves. Where did they learn that from? Probably their fathers, because that's the old school way of being a man. 

It's got nothing to do with puffing out chests and acting like a hard man. Any gobshite can do that.


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## Schrody (Dec 5, 2015)

Oh, dear. I see I caused a mayhem here. When I said softer side I meant in the specific situations (their loved one is dying, or they finally surrendered to their conscience, tough life or inner suffering), not because they are soft, but the burden became too heavy. All my male characters are "tough", and they're not expressing their feelings until some s*it happens, like most guys in real life.


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## dale (Dec 5, 2015)

Schrody said:


> Oh, dear. I see I caused a mayhem here.



don't worry. you're female. we expect that type of thing. ha ha. (i'm joking)


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## Jeko (Dec 5, 2015)

> The writing or the reading of it wasn't my point.



I'd like you to name another way we approach characters in literature.



> What I meant by too easy was that a character that is so equipped to deal with danger, fighting, possible death etc. becomes a cartoon cut-out ... how much do we really fear that this Ex-Military Black Belt Ninja from the ghettos where he had to fight to get his family out of the clutches of the mafia before he was toilet trained is going to have trouble with whatever danger you put him in this time? None. And therefore Easy and Boring.



In that case, One Punch Man shouldn't be the most popular anime of this passing season - an anime with a synopsis that details how the main character can kill every foe in just one punch.

I get the impression that _you _can only write those kinds of characters in a boring way, because you think that by writing them you're automatically doing something 'easy'. You're not up for considering how to affect the whole story around an idea like being overpowered. You're viewing characters in their own individual context and not appreciating how elements of a story are always interplaying with each other. In short, you're not adventurous enough to write a character that adventurous.


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## aj47 (Dec 5, 2015)

dale said:


> don't worry. you're female. we expect that type of thing. ha ha. (i'm joking)



LOL -- this is the Internet .... Schrody could be a basement-dwelling mama's boy.  Ya never know.


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## dale (Dec 5, 2015)

astroannie said:


> LOL -- this is the Internet .... Schrody could be a basement-dwelling mama's boy.  Ya never know.



true. but schrody has this thing for wearing bananas on her head. no man in this world would take
selfies with a banana on his head.


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## aj47 (Dec 5, 2015)

How is that different from wearing a banana suit?  Chiquita had a guy in commercials wearing a banana suit. Besides, you have only Shrody's word those are selfies and not friendies.


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## Kevin (Dec 5, 2015)

Schrodster, American man can show you many emotion.


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## dale (Dec 5, 2015)

astroannie said:


> How is that different from wearing a banana suit?  Chiquita had a guy in commercials wearing a banana suit. Besides, you have only Shrody's word those are selfies and not friendies.



YOU might be a man. you kind of clowning like one.


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## dale (Dec 5, 2015)

Kevin said:


> Schrodster, American man can show you many emotion.



oh yeah. especially amongst "millennials". they are absolutely famous for whining like girls.


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## David Gordon Burke (Dec 5, 2015)

Minu said:


> Because if male protagonists didn't sell Patterson, Brown, Rowling, etc. wouldn't be making money. They'd be on the bottom scale of the reading list. Why. Guess. A large number of their books feature - OMG, you won't believe it - a *male protagonist* :roll:.



I'm quite amazed how out of context that statement is ... and how far off point the majority of replies to the thread are.  
What is good for already established authors is quite irrelevant to what will catch the eye of an agent.  And I would assume that agents (if one were to agree with the overall premise of my query) would reflect the general tone of the powers that be who sign writers to contracts.  
Also, and just an overall note ... when people ask a question regarding the overall state of affairs of the literary world, it's probably no added value to start an opinion with 'For me.'  sheesh.  
I don't know what has happened lately on the forum but it seems the snide has been turned up while usefull has been turned way down.  Stay on point.
Next to no one has commented on.
The veracity of the claims made in the provided links.
Whether they or how much they cater their work to these concerns.
How much they feel the protagonist must appeal to the demographic they are dealing with (an implied question in my original post)
(I might mention that I worded my original post incorrectly ..... I'd gladly argue the validity of male vs. female reader percentages) 

Finally, ANECDOTAL ... I once got reemed here for giving an anecdotal response.  It might be that some others need the same reeming.  Almost every thread these days is filled with these useless comments.  
Nuff said.  

David Gordon Burke


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## dale (Dec 5, 2015)

god. i know. i hate it when an internet thread goes off it's intended OP intentions. why can't people just learn to be robots or something?


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## Jeko (Dec 5, 2015)

> What is good for already established authors is quite irrelevant to what will catch the eye of an agent.



We're talking about what was good for them when they were first trying to get published. Please don't ask a forum to 'stay on point' if you don't get the point they're staying on yourself.


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