I typically go for female characters when I write fantasy, as I am a female. However, they are usually not really warriors and the like. When I first started role-playing, especially, I frequently made the mistake of Mary-Sue'ing - as many of you will remember when I started Role-Playing here about two years ago. My characters usually have an element of me in them. It is actually typically one of my flaws, to be honest, but every now and again I sneak in a good trait from my own personality. In terms of looks, depending on what I'm writing - Middle-Earth fanfic, fantasy from the own worlds I've created, or some other type of fanfic - I usually go more towards bland normalcy of the race. For example, if I'm going for Tolkien Elf female, I typically want her to have dark hair and grey eyes, whereas if I'm doing something from my first world I created, the people typically have rather dark skin and lighter hair.
When I do write from the standpoint of a man, I have a hard time not making him really, well, feminine. The part of me that typically comes through in my characters is an overly feminine set of emotions. I try to tone it down, or at least change the focus of the emotions a bit. While obviously men are sensitive - some even more so than women - it doesn't quite seem right to have him stopping to go through a very feminine sequence of emotions. I try to think of the thought processes of some of the more sensitive guys I know, and try to keep that the extreme. But you know, as I am missing that Y chromosome, I think it's always going to be harder for me to write from the point of view of a man.
Although I have not done so yet, if I do at some point write a story about a woman that's a fighter, I will probably only have her either using a bow and arrow in "army" combat, or only fighting opponent women. Perhaps I'll even have her die at the hands of a man in the end. When I've written about
stronger women (they haven't been fighters), I usually subtly point out at some point that she's not as strong as a man. I mean as much as feminists say, "A woman can be just as good as a man", due to body configurations, while a woman may be swifter and gain the upper hand in that way, we're not really built to best a strong man in a show of brute strength. Unless of course you were to create a race in which the women did happen to have more strength than the men: if that were the case, then you would be fine.
On the aforementioned topic of age, my characters' ages usually translate to...oh about twenty-five to thirty years of age. Every now and again, if I'm doing a story that allows it, the character can be younger. If it's a story that doesn't really involve the physical training and maturity of the character, but they are more observers, then I could go as young as I want, really. For example, I'm sure someone could do a very interesting story from the point of view of, oh, say a young ten-year old spoiled (or not spoiled) princess kidnapped for ransom. Go through the kidnapping, and the time with the captors, then eventually describe the people that come to rescue her, and the journey home. At ten years of age, the child wouldn't really be
doing much, but would be able to at least mostly grasp what is happening. One could even do first person later looking back on the events. Third person would also work. Very rarely do you see stories about victims, but I think that if one wrote it, it could be very interesting.
Yes, I'm brainstorming as I write here.
Forgive me: I'm in eternal Brainstorm Land...also known as Up In The Clouds by most people.
That's another thing. For writing, if I just hear words that sound odd together, or someone uses some odd metaphor or reference, it gives me ideas for stories or even poetry. It usually transforms completely by the end into something unrecognizable, but just the spark gives form to everything else.