# Writing the opposite sex



## SociallyAwkward (Feb 5, 2015)

I have a question in concerns to writing the opposite sex, I mean how do you approach it?

Is there a fundamental difference between male and female? I have grown up with two sisters, and they could not be more alien to me. I have grown up with a mother who could not be more of a goddess if she tried. I have never had a friend who is female, so when it comes to writing; trying to make a female appear authentic is a struggle, they just seem so foreign. Are males and females naturally different or by virtue? What differentiate's a male and a female? Is it just a name or is it an attitude, maybe the way they view and approach a situation or maybe even expectation? Perhaps it is even in the eye of the beholder? I am in need of serious enlightenment of this topic.


----------



## Deafmute (Feb 5, 2015)

Well the answer to this question is a resounding yes, and simultaneously a sharp no. Are men and women fundamentally different, yes we are raised with a variety of distinct cultural expectations, we experience the world different by the struggles we have to deal with, and we mature at different times and in different ways. All that said this is no cookie cutter design that should designate a character as female or male. People who try to write that way will have their characters fall flat no matter what gender they are. 

What it comes down to is, a well rounded character, a character that stands on its own and the actual sex doesn't matter. A good way to help yourself would be to write the character in a variety of nonromantic scenes without ever specifying its gender, then choose one. 

My only other advice would be to spend some time reading other authors. See how other people write female characters, or better yet just how they write characters in general. Personally I think the best way to write characters is to give them a history. List out things that may or may not ever come up in your story. What was this persons favorite food growing up, were their parents divorced? did they have a dog or a cat? random stuff but as much as you can bear to think up. Then once you have a good picture of this person's whole life you can speak for them and they will sound real. 

hope that helps.


----------



## InstituteMan (Feb 5, 2015)

I think DM hit the nail on the head when he suggested reading more female characters. I would add that you should read female characters written by women. No less an expert than William Gibson (the inventor of the cyberpunk genre of science fiction, among other things) has said that every man should read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. 

I concur with Gibson's suggestion there, but I would add others. Everyone should read To Kill a Mockingbird. If you are struggling with writing female characters, you definitely should. You also might want to pick up great literature about women (my wife and daughters might kill me for saying that I find Pride and Prejudice merely okay, but it's worth a read, especially as a study in writing characters that resonate). Read 'chick lit' like Bridget Jones's Diary. Heck, read romance novels (but don't be tricked into thinking that women are only about romance). Read and read and read.

There's no shortage of women who are literary giants. Read them, and read the less giant writers as well. I suspect that the exercise will help you get to know some women in real life as well, and I mean know them as humans instead of caricatures. That'll be even better than improving your writing.


----------



## SociallyAwkward (Feb 5, 2015)

Hey guys, thank you for the replies.

When creating characters, the approach I usually take is to create their history. I guess the real problem I face is that in today's world, men and women have very different concerns when they are growing up. For example I know how to plausibly approach set back from the perspective of a male. My female characters borderline on the contrived and the femme fatale, I really struggle in making them 3D; I never have the same vested interest in them as male characters, nor do I have see them having the same progression. Maybe I am thinking about it far too much.

I have read Pride and Prejudice before, for many years I was in love for young Liza Bennett, I often found her playful nature very appealing, but I often put the simplicity of both her nature and that of the period she comes from as her strengths. I also read Bridget Jones's Diary, yet I found the character quite unappealing. I often need dramatic examples to shake me out of apathy, so if there are any really strong female characters who are resolutely feminine in their attitudes and approach I would appreciate the recommendations.


----------



## Deafmute (Feb 5, 2015)

It might help if you head over to the writing workshop and post a little blurb of your story that you are specifically concerned with how the character comes across, that way we can give more specific help.


----------



## InstituteMan (Feb 5, 2015)

SociallyAwkward said:


> Hey guys, thank you for the replies.
> 
> When creating characters, the approach I usually take is to create their history. *I guess the real problem I face is that in today's world, men and women have very different concerns when they are growing up.* For example I know how to plausibly approach set back from the perspective of a male. My female characters borderline on the contrived and the femme fatale, I really struggle in making them 3D; I never have the same vested interest in them as male characters, nor do I have see them having the same progression. Maybe I am thinking about it far too much.
> 
> I have read Pride and Prejudice before, for many years I was in love for young Liza Bennett, I often found her playful nature very appealing, but I often put the simplicity of both her nature and that of the period she comes from as her strengths. I also read Bridget Jones's Diary, yet I found the character quite unappealing. I often need dramatic examples to shake me out of apathy, so if there are any *really strong female characters who are resolutely feminine in their attitudes and approach* I would appreciate the recommendations.



You're welcome! I bolded the bits of your comments that struck me as maybe misconstruing the issue of writing female characters as a male writer. 

As a father of daughters, I don't think it's necessarily true that girls face substantially different concerns than boys. They (and us grown men and women) are more alike than different. 

I have no no idea what it means to be "resolutely feminine" in "attitudes and approach." I think I know what you are going for, but I don't think it's an actual thing. I certainly think that's too squishy a concept to be a helpful principle for writing a character. You will do better if you worry more about essential humanity and less about the essence of femininity (I bet you don't think about the essence of masculinity).

FWIW, it took me a long time to learn a darn thing about writing characters who were women. Once I gave up trying to write _women_ and just wrote people I got a lot better at this writing thing.


----------



## shadowwalker (Feb 6, 2015)

Don't worry about writing females or males. Write people. I can pick 10 female friends and not one of them will act like a 'female'. Ditto - pick 10 male friends and none of them will act like 'males'. The reason: they're _individuals_. They grew up differently. They have different life experiences. They have different goals. They have different personalities. They have different tastes.

What do females act like? No idea, and I've been one for 60 years.


----------



## Sam (Feb 6, 2015)

Writers often make this more complicated than it needs to be, and part of that comes down to overthinking it. 

When creating any character, there are a number of factors that are necessary to create three dimensions, chief among which are goals, dreams, and aspirations. Every character irrespective of gender, race, or age is going to have at least two, if not all three, of these factors in their genetic makeup, so to speak, so the first port of call is determining what they are and why they are so. 

After that, we delve into the psychology. Personality, traits, pastimes, beliefs, individual nuances, and moral codes. To understand any character, you have to understand their motivation for doing what they do. It's not enough to say that she's a goddess or a bitch: you have to demonstrate what happened to make her either of those. People don't wake up at age nine and decide they're going to be anything. Their personality is shaped by events in their lives that left irreparable marks on their psyche. There's always a story behind the story. Your job is to uncover it, to peel back the layers and find out what made this character become the person they are today. Doing that will give you a rounded, three dimensional character. You need to do that before you can even think about making the 'voice' sound authentic. 

One of the biggest mistakes writers make when it comes to characters of the opposite sex is that they think if they can nail down how a woman talks and acts, they will be on the front foot. It's a fallacious belief, because no two women are identical, in much the same way no two men are either. If they were, we'd have run out of characters by now. Some women are tomboys and like a lot of things men do, and some men like doing things you would associate with women, so there is no "how do I get her to act like a woman?" The question you need to ask is: "How do I get her to sound like the person I characterised her as?" 

Female, male, alien -- they're nothing arguments. Once you have determined who the character is, what their goals are, and what their traits are, figuring out the voice comes down to all of the above. If the women is a nice person, you might portray her words as kind and thoughtful, while never wishing to hurt anyone's feelings. If she's a bitch, her words might be cold and callous, without giving a damn about anyone's feelings. If she's a goddess, you might portray her as a coquette and her words might occasionally (or always) contain sexual innuendo. 

The character (and everything that makes her a character) creates the voice -- not the gender, race, or anything else.


----------



## Jeko (Feb 6, 2015)

The best way to answer this is to write women the way you want to, show it to women, and men, and see what they say. There is no perfect perspective on the female gender that will improve your writing; you have to work  with the relationship between your work and the people you're working towards.


----------



## JustRob (Feb 6, 2015)

I also have two sisters and no brothers, but mine are much older than myself, so I grew up with them for only a few years. Nevertheless I was for a while immersed in their world of dressmaking, boyfriends and even maybe other aspects of becoming a woman that I didn't comprehend. That was many years ago and now there's much more equality and such gender distinctions are frowned upon. Therefore I would agree that people are just people inside and it's only some little differences in the makeup of their bodies and their clothes that define their gender. It is said that every time a woman dresses she makes a statement about herself, but that's only because women have a wider selection of clothes to choose from. Any man who puts on a slinky dress and high heels is also making a statement about himself, even more so than a woman, so where's the difference? Maybe that's the point, that walking down the street like that he'd feel as vulnerable as she does normally, but it's only the clothes and the different body chemistry that cause the distinction. 

Are social prejudices an issue in your story? If so then perhaps you do have to consider the distinctions, but if not then what does it matter? In my stories men and women lie in bed together caring about each other and discussing matters that go far beyond the bedroom. Yet on another occasion two women do the same thing. They are executives who work together in the same organisation and their conversation covers their concerns about one another, the business issues that they need to tackle, the shortcomings of the men that they know and their hopes that one day they'll find men who live up to their expectations. So what is the nature of their sexuality? I haven't a clue and it probably doesn't matter, not to my story, any more than why the man is walking along the street in a dress. 

A woman once did an experiment and dressed and lived as a man for a significant period and maybe she found the essence of the difference. She discovered that men are incredibly isolated compared to women. Think about it and you'll see how true that often is. Men are obliged by society to stand alone but women have no qualms about asking for and giving support to others. I have a male friend who is a great communicator, a characteristic often attributed to women, and he has no shortage of female company as well as male. You claim to be socially awkward, possibly too isolated. That is what it means to be a man. Now consider the opposite, being extremely gregarious, and maybe you'll get a flavour of what may be the fundamental difference between the sexes, but even that is easily balanced out.


----------



## SociallyAwkward (Feb 6, 2015)

Thanks a lot everyone, these responses have been really helpful. I guess I was just concerned that it would not feel very authentic, I often hear women say that male authors sometimes do not get "it" right when writing from the view of a woman, whatever that may be. I will just focus on what you have all suggested. Thanks again, it has been a big help. I will upload something soon when I am able!


----------



## Bishop (Feb 6, 2015)

shadowwalker said:


> Don't worry about writing females or males. Write people. I can pick 10 female friends and not one of them will act like a 'female'. Ditto - pick 10 male friends and none of them will act like 'males'. The reason: they're _individuals_. They grew up differently. They have different life experiences. They have different goals. They have different personalities. They have different tastes.
> 
> What do females act like? No idea, and I've been one for 60 years.





Sam said:


> Writers often make this more complicated than it needs to be, and part of that comes down to overthinking it.
> 
> ...
> 
> Female, male, alien -- they're nothing arguments. Once you have determined who the character is, what their goals are, and what their traits are, figuring out the voice comes down to all of the above.




What these two said. 

You can do well to interact with people as well. Not just women, but men, and talk to them, get to know them, see what they're like and take real-life suggestion from the people you meet. Everyone is vastly different, regardless of sex.


----------



## shadowwalker (Feb 6, 2015)

I would also caution against this idea of having women read for "authentication". Not sure if I mentioned this on this forum or another, so my apologies if it's a repeat, but I once described a female character's reaction to a car accident, based on my own real-life reaction to said accident. A female reader denounced that reaction as something "no female would ever do!". So much for that ...


----------



## Folcro (Feb 6, 2015)

Trust me: create an interesting character and pic whichever pronoun you like--- NOBODY will question it.

If she happens to have female characteristics, she's realistic.

If she happens to have male characteristics, she's ahead of her time.


----------



## EmmaSohan (Feb 6, 2015)

It is hard to jump into this blizzard of good advice. SociallyAwkward, you might try books and websites that try to just tell you the differences between men and women. _Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus_ is a classic (which I admit I have read just the overview).


----------



## Morkonan (Feb 7, 2015)

I have recently had cause to ponder this question. I considered posting a thread on this subject. However, my interest in it is more focused on trying to find a true, basic, instinctual, hard-wired sort of defining attribute. It's not that I believe this is necessary at all for male or female characters. In point of fact, as others have noticed, if you pay attention to the basic attributes of all good characters, it doesn't matter if you're writing males or females - They will still be good characters, no matter what sort of attributes you give them!

However, as a Man, with a self-proclaimed capital "M" , I feel that I have certain non-physical attributes that aren't shared with the fairer sex. Is this misogynistic? I don't look at it that way. I just feel "it is." It's so basic that, to me, it's inarguable as being worthy of equal comparison. It's no different in significance, just in its experiential qualities.

Some of this sort of thing is evident when men gather and there is a woman present. It's as if this attribute is most often noticeably manifested by contrast and not easily observable by all participants in synchronicity. At least, not as easily remarked upon. It's as if it is an unconsciously acknowledged and accepted in certain situations. And, of course, I'll try to give an illustrated example: 

Let's say there comes into existence a situation in which it is generally acknowledged by males that this sort of male-property is activated. A woman may have been accosted by undesirable advances or threat or there may be the manifestation of a threat, combat or a situation which requires a response, like an emergency. In a situation where a group is immediately present and action is called for, something appears to pass, like lightning, throughout most of the gathered males. In my understanding of it, from my perspective, other males recognize this, almost instinctively. The ones who do not, for some reason, are immediately noticeable. They are noticed and quickly remarked upon, somewhat unconsciously, by other males as being almost "non-factors" in this primal decision-making process. As a male in such a situation, a chance meeting of eyes tells this tale, fully, and reveals it in action. Even those who can not share a glance reveal their understanding of this thing with their body-language and immediate actions. In a situation like this, where threat, combat, a "call to action", if you will, manifests, it only takes a glance, even across a crowded room or gathering, to "comprehend" those males who are in-tune with the matter and share a similar understanding and reaction to it, as "maleness" dictates. One doesn't need to know these other males nor have ever encountered them before this moment in order to gain this sort of comprehension. For those so intimately in tune, prediction of their actions and the reliance upon them for immediate decision-making for one's own actions is almost assured. In that one charged moment, one can predict the actions, or the intent, of another male and can reliably act upon it.

I do not know if this exists species-wide or is just a male property, since it is impossible for me to experience this from any other perspective. Is it a cultural attribute? Some sort of social conformity? Perhaps it is only my own attribute or some fanciful imagining forced from my own strange consciousness. But, it exists, because I have experienced it, whether it is illusory or not. What is it? Is this shared and do women feel this as innately "feminine" as I experience it as a "masculine", instinctual, event? Do situations arise when women feel some sort of innate "femaleness" rise to the foreground and note this within their own cohort, as well?

Yes, I have been trying to nail this down for... reasons. Obviously, writerly ones.  I've managed to do so, for my own immediate needs, but the effort has evoked my curiosity, which seems to demand that I apply some term, some collective and momentary zeitgeist that only males experience. Perhaps women experience this as well and, if so, what is it like?


----------



## shadowwalker (Feb 7, 2015)

If you're speaking of a sort of "communal" recognition of a threat and preparation for dealing with it, then yes, women also have this. But, as you noted, it is not universal. Some women have it, some don't. And it is exactly because it is not universal among men or women, and yet is found in both, that one cannot say it is a male phenomenon, any more than one could say it is a female one. Some people are just more perceptive than others, and some people are more willing to react accordingly. And whether one realizes it or not, it is subtle body language that triggers this "recognition" of kindred spirits, not some mystical gender telepathy. More than likely, people will look to others of the same gender at these moments, which is why they don't notice the same "hints" among members of the opposite gender.


----------



## ppsage (Feb 7, 2015)

In even a sexually dimorphic species, shared traits still vastly outnumber unshared ones, and the unshared ones don't necessarily fall along any particular division. The graph of a dimorphic population by sex will show two normal distributions with slightly separated means with many, or quite possibly a majority, of individuals under both curves. Human is human and characterization in fiction is shallow, really just a suggestion. Write that.


----------



## Kyle R (Feb 7, 2015)

Morkonan said:
			
		

> In a situation where a group is immediately present and action is called for, something appears to pass, like lightning, throughout most of the gathered males. In my understanding of it, from my perspective, other males recognize this, almost instinctively. . . In a situation like this, where threat, combat, a "call to action", if you will, manifests, it only takes a glance, even across a crowded room or gathering, to "comprehend" those males who are in-tune with the matter and share a similar understanding and reaction to it, as "maleness" dictates.
> 
> . . .
> 
> I do not know if this exists species-wide or is just a male property, since it is impossible for me to experience this from any other perspective.



A female raised in a world of violence would immdediately recognize an unspoken threat, while a male raised in a world of peace would remain oblivious to any body language cues of distress. 

And vice versa. 

Nurture trumps nature. :encouragement:


----------



## Sam (Feb 7, 2015)

Morkonan said:


> I have recently had cause to ponder this question. I considered posting a thread on this subject. However, my interest in it is more focused on trying to find a true, basic, instinctual, hard-wired sort of defining attribute. It's not that I believe this is necessary at all for male or female characters. In point of fact, as others have noticed, if you pay attention to the basic attributes of all good characters, it doesn't matter if you're writing males or females - They will still be good characters, no matter what sort of attributes you give them!
> 
> However, as a Man, with a self-proclaimed capital "M" , I feel that I have certain non-physical attributes that aren't shared with the fairer sex. Is this misogynistic? I don't look at it that way. I just feel "it is." It's so basic that, to me, it's inarguable as being worthy of equal comparison. It's no different in significance, just in its experiential qualities.
> 
> ...



I've been in many situations where women were accosted, insulted, and even threatened. You know what I saw in the eyes of most males present? The unmistakeable hue of "this is none of my business". Some of them wanted to get into it not because they saw some "call to action", but because they wanted a fight. In fact, in most situations where a threat manifested (either to another person or in general), most people -- not just males -- became utterly unpredictable. Those who didn't were the ones who had experienced it before, came prepared for the potential of danger, or were trained in some form or other to deal with crisis in a detached manner: firefighters, paramedics, or police/soldiers. 

People who aren't used to danger, or haven't experienced it in some way, react with panic or not at all. Many stand completely paralysed with fear. They don't look at each other, exchange telepathic messages, and do what has to be done: not unless they have been trained to do it. 

And even those who are trained to do it can panic and freeze.


----------



## Morkonan (Feb 7, 2015)

Sam said:


> I've been in many situations where women were accosted, insulted, and even threatened. You know what I saw in the eyes of most males present? The unmistakeable hue of "this is none of my business". Some of them wanted to get into it not because they saw some "call to action", but because they wanted a fight. In fact, in most situations where a threat manifested (either to another person or in general), most people -- not just males -- became utterly unpredictable. Those who didn't were the ones who had experienced it before, came prepared for the potential of danger, or were trained in some form or other to deal with crisis in a detached manner: firefighters, paramedics, or police/soldiers.
> 
> People who aren't used to danger, or haven't experienced it in some way, react with panic or not at all. Many stand completely paralysed with fear. They don't look at each other, exchange telepathic messages, and do what has to be done: not unless they have been trained to do it.
> 
> And even those who are trained to do it can panic and freeze.



But, that you can recognize these attributes in other males, almost intimately, instinctively, at this moment... Is that "something?" Is it something different than just being another "person" witnessing these events, without your maleness, some innate male-understanding of the situation that's involved? I'm not attempting any metaphysical hijinks, I'm just examining this idea by seeing if its possible to drill-down to a "male" attribute, something not quite shared with females, but who may have their own femaleness side that reacts similarly in certain situations, many of which I may not be aware of since I don't experience them.

Edit-Add: This sort of thing is sometimes loosely illustrated in movies or scenes where characters experience something immediate and turn to glance at each other, sharing some unspoken comprehension of the event that needs no other communication. What I'm trying to describe, above, is similar to this, but focused in being more primal, intrinsically "male" in its manifestation.


----------



## shadowwalker (Feb 7, 2015)

Frankly, I think those glances typically are shared among acquaintances or friends, people they are there with, who already share a common bond. They react 'in sync' because they are already aware of how their companion would react. 

ie, I think you're seeing parts of a stool and thinking it's a rocker.


----------



## Sam (Feb 7, 2015)

Morkonan said:


> But, that you can recognize these attributes in other males, almost intimately, instinctively, at this moment... Is that "something?" Is it something different than just being another "person" witnessing these events, without your maleness, some innate male-understanding of the situation that's involved? I'm not attempting any metaphysical hijinks, I'm just examining this idea by seeing if its possible to drill-down to a "male" attribute, something not quite shared with females, but who may have their own femaleness side that reacts similarly in certain situations, many of which I may not be aware of since I don't experience them.
> 
> Edit-Add: This sort of thing is sometimes loosely illustrated in movies or scenes where characters experience something immediate and turn to glance at each other, sharing some unspoken comprehension of the event that needs no other communication. What I'm trying to describe, above, is similar to this, but focused in being more primal, intrinsically "male" in its manifestation.



Everyone witnesses the event, but males don't look at each other and think: "All right, lads, we have a situation needs dealing with". 

It just doesn't happen that way, at least not in my experience, because the only vibe I've ever gotten when the faeces hit the fan was "every man for himself". The only person I ever trusted in a fight was myself. I've seen brothers turn on each other, husbands and wives strangling each other, and even sisters punching each other in the nose. 

Once that first threat is made, once that first punch is swung, there isn't time to look at each other or band together. 

There's only time to react.


----------



## Sam (Feb 7, 2015)

Morkonan said:


> But, that you can recognize these attributes in other males, almost intimately, instinctively, at this moment... Is that "something?" Is it something different than just being another "person" witnessing these events, without your maleness, some innate male-understanding of the situation that's involved? I'm not attempting any metaphysical hijinks, I'm just examining this idea by seeing if its possible to drill-down to a "male" attribute, something not quite shared with females, but who may have their own femaleness side that reacts similarly in certain situations, many of which I may not be aware of since I don't experience them.
> 
> Edit-Add: This sort of thing is sometimes loosely illustrated in movies or scenes where characters experience something immediate and turn to glance at each other, sharing some unspoken comprehension of the event that needs no other communication. What I'm trying to describe, above, is similar to this, but focused in being more primal, intrinsically "male" in its manifestation.



All that having been said, I have a feeling where you're coming from here. 

If I was with my girlfriend and a fight broke out, my first instinctive reaction would be to find out where she was. Once she was by my side, or if she was already there, my next reaction would be to ask the question: "How can I get her out of here?". 

That isn't me being misogynistic. It's a learned response from an experience I had ten years ago. My then-girlfriend told me that if a fight ever broke out, she could take care of herself. So when one inevitably did break out, I went to help my best friend, while she ended up with a broken nose. She was fine with it. Never once did she criticise me for leaving her alone. But some characters outside my immediate family, who I like to call my 'pseudo-family', continue to harangue me to this day about that incident and why I didn't "stand up for my woman". Because of that, I refuse to get involved in a fight when a girlfriend (or wife, when that day comes) is in the vicinity. Of course, I get the occasional criticism about that as well. 

You're damned . . .


----------



## Newman (Feb 7, 2015)

SociallyAwkward said:


> I have a question in concerns to writing the opposite sex, I mean how do you approach it?
> 
> Is there a fundamental difference between male and female? I have grown up with two sisters, and they could not be more alien to me. I have grown up with a mother who could not be more of a goddess if she tried. I have never had a friend who is female, so when it comes to writing; trying to make a female appear authentic is a struggle, they just seem so foreign. Are males and females naturally different or by virtue? What differentiate's a male and a female? Is it just a name or is it an attitude, maybe the way they view and approach a situation or maybe even expectation? Perhaps it is even in the eye of the beholder? I am in need of serious enlightenment of this topic.



Depends what you're writing.

Not such an issue if you're writing Princess Leia and the other characters are a varied bunch.

Becomes more of an issue if you're writing a Romcom and you certainly want to be careful trying to write Bridesmaids.


----------



## PenCat (Feb 14, 2015)

Lots of very good comments and suggestions here, some of them might appear to contradict each other. When I began reading this thread, I thought to myself, "Oh, I know the answer to this one!"

I'm not so sure I do..not _*the*_ answer.

So here is _*an*_ answer..._*my*_ answer.

all of the women in my family, and all the women I've been intimately involved with have been highly intelligent, sophisticated people, so that's my starting point..my template. When I imagine how women react to this or that, or how they phrase things..their perspective, I've got a lot of raw material to consult..memories..you know how you can "hear" past conversations in your head..the tone of voice, who said what and how..

In my life, I've tended to have more women friends than men. I am not the stereotypical "guy" (whatever that is) but I simply find women more interesting, by orders of magnitude. The guy friends I do have are not typical guys either..

So, my answer would be, get more women friends, or be around more women and absorb and observe and make your female characters _*your*_ female characters, organically, by your life experience. Maybe it's a cool idea to see how other writers articulate their female characters, but I'd be concerned that I might subconsciously ape their style in my attempt to get grist for my writing mill.. just a thought.

I hope this helps you out.


pencat


----------



## Crowley K. Jarvis (Feb 14, 2015)

Body language and eye contact signals usually are better understood by the same sex. 

I can get into a situation, violent awkward or otherwise, and take a look at my brother, father or best friend, and almost already know what they're thinking. Doesn't work with ladies. And of course our thinking and mindset, hormones and whatnot are different biologically. 

So literally men and women often form different thought processes. Thus why I'm confused utterly at my family's explanations sometimes. Well I did this because (blank) and didn't want (blank) and so I decided to (blank.) And I have no idea how they even thought of that conclusion...


----------



## JustRob (Feb 14, 2015)

PenCat said:


> So, my answer would be, get more women friends, or be around more women and absorb and observe and make your female characters _*your*_ female characters, organically, by your life experience. Maybe it's a cool idea to see how other writers articulate their female characters, but I'd be concerned that I might subconsciously ape their style in my attempt to get grist for my writing mill.. just a thought.



I agree all the way and you, having already admitted to being SociallyAwkward, can use that to advantage as you have nothing to lose. I know because in the long run it has worked for me. Your expectations regarding your social encounters are low and they may well be justified in practice, but you can use that gaucheness to learn much about the opposite sex. They can easily conceal their characters from you if you behave in a smooth predictable manner but if you deviate from their expectations you may learn more about them, even if it is only how hard they can slap or exactly how they walk as they disappear into the distance. Just get involved and let the knowledge soak into your mind. Many writers get their insight just by sitting quietly in some social setting and observing the activities of others around them. Your aura of awkwardness, if it really exists, will give you the opportunity to be virtually invisible when you choose to be, which can actually be an advantage.

Figure this. I was socially awkward once, maybe still am, and my future wife was a shop assistant who could assess a man's character even before he got to the counter and opened his mouth. It was a game that the female assistants in the shop regularly played to hone their skills regarding the opposite sex, guessing how each man would behave before he did. Maybe despite all her experience and intelligence she married me because I was the ultimate challenge, the classic bashful loner who somehow didn't quite fit the stereotype and turned out to be many other things as well when she got to know me. So if you feel that you'd be erratic in your social encounters treat it as an opportunity, not a disadvantage, and discover characters of the opposite sex that maybe nobody else has written about before, like the angel that I married.

One last thought regarding being around women. A female work colleague of mine had a qualification in electrical engineering even though it had never been of any use to her whatsoever. When I asked her why she told me that she'd taken the course because she'd be the only woman on it. Maybe there's a subject that you don't need to learn about but could. During an office training course on holding meetings we were told that we should always make it clear to other participants what our objectives were in attending a meeting, but one of my canny colleagues said "If I did that how could I succeed in my objective?"


----------



## Sam (Feb 14, 2015)

This is what I meant by over-thinking it. 

The one thing that most people are missing from this conversation is that characters aren't supposed to act identical to real people. Have you ever sat with a group of people on a summer's day and thought, "Jesus, this is insufferably boring"? If you were made to sit through that scene in a novel, it would be shelved before you made it to the door of the book store. There's a fine line between authentic and boring. Characters are larger than life. They have to be, otherwise we wouldn't care about them, so observing how ordinary Jane Soap goes about her day is not going to help you create a riveting MC. 

Stop thinking of it in terms of male and female, and start thinking of it in terms of _character. _I don't need to know how a woman thinks to know that she has goals, fears, doubts, insecurities, flaws, and everything else that makes her real -- because every single person in a planet of seven billion has all of those. I don't need to know how a woman would respond to a situation, because every woman would respond differently depending on her background and culture. 

I have a female friend who plays guitars and rides motorcycles, but has the image of a "girl next door". You would think she was into shopping and hanging with her girlfriends, but she spends more time with guys and wouldn't be caught dead in a mall. 

Everyone is different. 

Write the character, not the gender.


----------



## JustRob (Feb 14, 2015)

Sam said:


> The one thing that most people are missing from this conversation is that characters aren't supposed to act identical to real people. ...Write the character, not the gender.



Agreed absolutely, but one must have knowledge of real people to use as the basis for one's characters, otherwise they don't appear "rounded", the word that I've seen used a lot in this context, although I prefer "plausible". One works just as a sculptor would, starting with a lay figure and then building the distinctive features based around it. I have been criticised about my characters and this may well be because they are predominantly bundles of idiosyncracies without those adequate foundations. The basic knowledge of real people is necessary not to define the characters but to flesh them out. In fleshing them out we feel obliged to provide what may be to us irrelevant characteristics like gender, ethnicity and age. One of the characters in my novel has Caribbean ancestry but I don't mention the fact until two novels further down the series because ethnicity is, or should be, ignored by their fellow office workers even though it is staring them in the face every day. One day outside the office environment in a social context the fact comes to light just in passing. Will the reader get annoyed that they've had entirely the wrong mental perception of this person for two novels? Probably. That's why a writer normally does all the fleshing out. Someone suggested that I should "give" a character an accent, but again what does an accent have to do with the price of fish? So much of what we struggle to write is actually just wallpaper. A friend reading my novel told me that he didn't like the way that it was written much but he'd carry on reading it because he wanted to know what happened. Fine, mission accomplished. It is just a story after all, a collection of events related in a reasonably interesting way.

My own novel is actually about bored people doing boring jobs in an office. It is a mystery, the mystery being how or why anyone would bother to read it. In fact my own asessment of it is that anyone intelligent enough to understand it and enjoy reading it wouldn't bother. Yes, writing about reality as it really is is a challenge. In my story the reader has to decide whether to struggle on, accompanying the characters through their boredom, in the faith that the story has a purpose, read the ending and be none the wiser, or give up and never know. I don't recommend my subject or approach to anyone seriously hoping to become a successful writer. However, when I pick up a book to decide whether to read it I don't always look at the beginning or the end but open it randomly in the middle and read an extract there, so my novel is aimed at people like me. The one character that you construct who must be reasonably true to life is your target reader. What gender is that person or doesn't that matter either?


----------



## EmmaSohan (Feb 14, 2015)

Sam said:


> Everyone is different.
> 
> Write the character, not the gender.



Would you also say, _Write the character, not the age_?

Everything you say is true, but on top of that, I usually try to have my old people be old, my young people be young, and my 4-year-olds be like 4-year-olds. A best-friends scene is completely different between 17-year-olds versus 40-somethings. (Or I have failed in my goals as a writer.)

I try to make my principals all different, but still principals.

And I'll try to make every male and female different, but I mostly try to make my females be female and my males be male. It's hard for me to even think about how that actually happens, because I agree completely about character being important, and not wanting stereotypes, and the story is important. I am not afraid of being stereotypical. But my chatty, emotionally-open male who easily sought guidance still showed off and took charge of the interaction with the female MC. My female with no social skills was overly-passive and avoided conflict.


----------



## bazz cargo (Feb 14, 2015)

I write the character that fits the story. Gender specific detail is immaterial.


----------



## Jeko (Feb 14, 2015)

> I usually try to have my old people be old, my young people be young, and my 4-year-olds be like 4-year-olds.



From what I've seen, successful storytellers rarely work like that. While some characters 'act their age', how many people have you met in life who don't? Some adults act like children, and some children mature very, very quickly.

So yes, you should think about the character first. Age is a part of that character. The character is not a part of that age.


----------



## EmmaSohan (Feb 15, 2015)

Cadence said:


> From what I've seen, successful storytellers rarely work like that. While some characters 'act their age', how many people have you met in life who don't? Some adults act like children, and some children mature very, very quickly.
> 
> So yes, you should think about the character first. Age is a part of that character. The character is not a part of that age.



My characters develop as my story unfolds. But before I write a word I have decided on a few things, and those always include gender and age. So, a character starts out as the MC's father. That's all I know. But that gives me gender and a range of age. Then I imagine the character, and that gives me age. (To continue this story, I decide he is a socially-distant theoretical physicist. And that's a flat character, and it's all I know. But he develops as I write.)

What does the author do with that information about gender and age (and occupation and educational level)? Interesting question.


----------



## dale (Feb 15, 2015)

i really enjoy writing my female characters. they're the only women i know who will pretty much do exactly what i tell them to.
 i don't worry much about what other people might read into it. i love the female characters in the old film noir movies, even though
those films today could be considered overtly sexist. my characters, whether male or female, play their roles according to the story.
i don't try to sanitize them or make them more diabolical than what the story itself calls for. they're real to me, and if i'm worth a
 damn as a writer, that hopefully will translate into them being real to the reader.


----------



## Kyle R (Feb 15, 2015)

Bestselling author Melvin Udall shares the secret to writing the opposite sex :tongue2::

[video=youtube;pBz0BTb83H8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBz0BTb83H8&amp;spfreload=10[/video]


----------



## Lyra Laurant (Feb 15, 2015)

Yes, males and females are naturally different. This is obvious. But we are not different enough to make any attribute needed in your female character to make her look like a female character. As others said, we are not "women", we are individuals.

Morkorkan was talking about glances, so I felt like sharing an experience I had when I was in high school. I was at a mall with a friend (a female friend), chatting about whatever subject. She said in a very casual way "Do you want to go somewhere else?", and I answered "Sure", and we continued chatting while walking. Now, the true, implicit dialogue was "There are two men, much older and stronger than us, who have passed here two times now, and they sat a few tables behind you". "I know, I noticed. They are looking at us, aren't they?" "Yes, they are. We'd rather go to a place with more people around" "Sure. Let's go."

The fact we could communicate "telepathically" is because we are best friends and we know each other very well. But sometimes "men" may mean "danger" in a different way to us, because we are women. It depends a lot on the environment we've been raised, but we develop a sense of danger which is different for us. Men don't usually know what it is to wait for the next train because you want to avoid being the only woman in a train car at night. Or avoiding going to certain parties without a male friend, or choosing clothes that hide your curves depending on the hour/route you plan to go somewhere. For some men, it's hard to understand (or even notice) this kind of precautions, while the reason is more obvious for other women.


----------



## Kamek (Feb 18, 2015)

Writing women. If I were to draw from my own experience, I would give this example: Say you're writing a fantasy novel and you have this princess you need to write for. Well princesses are usually very feminine; they wear dresses, makeup, and are often soft-spoken, or innocent, kindly, just all the qualities associated with femininity. That's okay, but it's overdone in my opinion, and most people can predict what she will say and do, and maybe figure there'll be a romantic plot surrounding her and someone else in the book. It's not necessarily bad, it's just a little bit predictable, and I get bored with that sort of thing. So in my story, I made the princess the CEO of her own multi-conglomerate empire, and despite being a small pink cat she fits the description of a tyrant even moreso than the dragon ruler of the neighboring kingdom. It's just more fun that way. So I think that if you give your female glaringly unfeminine traits, the contrast will spark the attention of the reader. Maybe that advice helps, or maybe it doesn't. But I like contrast.


----------

