Opposite Gender Characters
In the novel I am working on, I have been told that the male characters are pretty solid. However, the lead woman in the story has not received a warm reception. “Unrealistic”, “unsympathetic”, and “I hate her!”
Alright. So I don’t understand chicks…I get it.
I have read some bad sample chapters from some romance books we publish…and on the flip side, I don’t know where these readers think these men have come from…they don’t exist.
So how do you get the opposite sex right in your writing?
I mostly do, but it may be because I have female friends. Of course, it’s likely I base the women characters off them, but still. If you’re have trouble writing about a lead, woman character, try sitting down with one and having her help. Who would know a woman better than a woman. If you have an idea of the character’s personality, try talking to an actual woman with a similar personality. It may help you, and it may not. It’s worth a shot.
no doubt. thanks for stopping by. good advice.
I’m stuck on needing a character that is a quiet, passive, silent sufferer type. Portraying this so she is not nauseating is proving hard.
Ha ha, we did write similar posts today, didn’t we?
You know, I expected to get some flak about my male characterization from the men in my critique group, but haven’t had much. They have given me some on my female characters though. I wonder, is it just universal that women understand men better than men understand women?
I wonder, is it just universal that women understand men better than men understand women?
Isn’t that a loaded question!! I think what it is is that men are driven by fewer motives and emotions at any one time…which makes them/us easier to characterize. Women have a bee’s nest of activity going on inside their minds…or at least the one’s I know
Let the hate mail ensue!!!
I’m stuck on needing a character that is a quiet, passive, silent sufferer type. –
Maybe it’s the character, not the gender. Not that quiet is necessarily a negative trait, but the way you wrote that line makes her sound somewhat one-dimensional.
When I was getting feedback such as “your character is the turd in the punchbowl” – said within the context of a completely supportive atmosphere of course, my readers finally helped me see that they hated her because I wasn’t showing enough nuance.
that’s exactly the problem I believe CG. Not enough nuance. To dull and one dimensional. The character is married to an over ambitious, selfish SOB…I think I need to develop her character, as to the reasons she is staying in such a situation, in such a way that she is still strong yet passive rather than taking the co-out of labeling her spineless. When in the story she does become very strong and decisive, then the reader won’t be so shocked.
It is not a gender issue per se. But as a guy, I guess I don’t get why some women stay with a-holes even though it seems to be a common phenomenon.
Reasons women stay: children, security, fear of the unknown are a few. “The devil you know vs the devil you don’t.”
If you make her strong and decisive in another area of her life, it should work when she becomes decisive in other areas.
I can’t answer this. I have wondered about it myself, and I did a post not too long ago called Gender. I have not yet had a complaint, and I write a lot from a male perspective, but I cannot help but question myself. Somehow, I just go into that headsapce – I do not think about gender, I only think about that character and somehow it seems to work. I think. I hope.
good comment jenni. I think the concern is authenticity. I had a conversation with an author of one of the books we published who had the same issue, but along the issue of race. His characters of other races than himself, he felt, were hard to fully develop without appearing stereotypical.
funny – I just had this conversation today with a writer friend. We were talking about how it is best to only write about other cultures if you have been submersed in that culture otherwise it feels really surface.
Hi Nathan, I find gender very interesting. For a long time I found it hard to find a convincing male voice in my writing. Women are much easier because their emotions are more accessible. But I’m struggling with a woman in something I’m writing now because she’s very different from me. She thinks differently and talks differently. She denies her emotions. So I am doing lots of exercises describing her daily experiences from her point of view, re-living her memories and generally getting inside her head. I find that helps.
Re. a character that is a quiet, passive, silent sufferer type, I have a friend who is like this. You will be surprised how strong someone like that can be. My friend was living with her partner for 20 years. Her partner was selfish, arrogant, disloyal, controlling. It’s not easy to put up with someone like that for that long. It takes courage and nerve. You have to have a core of steel. Then her partner became mentally ill. My friend still didn’t walk out. She convinced her partner to see a doctor. She stuck it out through years of medication and psychotherapy. When her partner was strong enough, then she left. When I see my friend we can talk for two hours and she won’t tell me anything about herself. I have to prise it out of her just as we are parting. “Oh, yes, I didn’t tell you…” and then she’ll tell me something sensational like she’s lost her job or her dad died or she’s adopting a baby. Everything goes on inside. She is very controlled but that doesn’t mean she is calm. She refused to go to school as a child. She withstood a lot of pressure over that. Still she got a first class degree from a top university. She educated herself in a place for disturbed children. Yes, she is very strong. Don’t you know someone like that you can base your character on?
By the way, sometimes gender is a distraction. When I wrote that comment above I didn’t want to say that my friend’s partner was another woman. Does it make a difference? Well it does actually because she was very reluctant to let anyone know that she was in a relationship with another woman.