Ah, genders...;)...always tricky for peopleto know if a woman/man woulds actually act as they've written it I guess. :) It's nice to hear all your progtags are women: I ugess it's ok that most of mine are men (there are women in abundence in non-main roles, or "everyperson/background roles", just not so manym as main characters) it's simply that I'm a man, and I tend to think of my characters are being somewhat like me, so a lotendup male. :)
Well, what do you mean by failed? Could you give an example of you writing a male charatcer (if you can write female characters I'm sure you can write male ones)? I mean all human beings are varied, so it'd be foolish for anyone to think of them in terms of anything but biology as being easilly sorted into 2 groups (and even then...), so there's a lot of freedom in your characterisation. Make sure you don't go for any stereotypes, unless the charatcer's intended to be one. Well, I can't really think of any tips to give unless you could post or PM an example of your writing of a male character; who knows, maybe they're fine after all?
As for me, to answer the thread-starter, yep, I write serious fantasy. I've been influenced first by "Fanstasy" in general, which I found before Tolkien. It's been in my life for ages, like the air I breathe...I can't place it exactly with titles or dates, but it's always been there. Some clear examples would be some childnres books with dragons and wizards (non-Tolkien inspired It would seem), Enid Blyton, and then post-Tolkien stuff like Fighting Fantasy RPG novels, other Unplacable Fantasy &...Warhammer. But there were mnay earlier ones...
Hell, even Rupert had a wizard (and talking bears!) It's basically like asking Homer whether he was inspired by Greeks myths!
All quite Tolkien & D&D inspired. Then I found Tolkien at 11 years old. But I do think Tolkien has had an even stronger influence over time...his take on magic, for instance. Now my plots are my own, except I do have a dragon-slaying, because I love them :) , and I do have "Dark Lord"-syndrome. HOWEVER: I don't think that's from Tolkien. You see, in books (and RPGs and other plot-driven games) I've never been much moved by a protagonist's desire for gold or fame etc. What I want is to do some good. Whether it be an adventurer in an RPG aving some forsaken prisoners on a hellish island, or the huge (yet small) scale of the War of the Ring and Frodo's sacrifices to save the world, I want the plot to
mean something, to not just be some guy out to get glory. And so if it happens on a large scale, you've gotot be up against some great deadly force. And mortal overlords just aren't the same, imho, for the most part. They're not threatning enough, for they are in the end subject to the same weaknesses as everyone else. But a Power that would be a terror to go up against is one way of achieving the kind of...meaningful...chararcters I like. Just one way.
Now I'm trying to introduce some new ideas in without upsetting the world of my stories. I'm aware that a lot of what I have has been influenced to varying degrees - hell, the whole fantasy package with its deities, magic, Elves,medieval-like era, etc, is basically a "template", and once used as a starting point, is nearly impossible to remove from your works it features in! I'm aware that had Tolkien come along today, I wouldnot have used ideas so, but only did so becuase even before I was aware of him those things were so widespread as to seem common-thread ideas, like space-ships and aliens in sci-fi (yeah, I know loads of sci-fi has neither, you know what I mean).
But I'm also aware that in the end it's plot, not setting, that matters. And with that, I'm satisfied. :) Now I just need to twiddle the 'metaphysics'...urgh, headaches. (I'm like the inquisitve reader to myself - always checking if there are situations where so-and-so should or could have done this, or why didn't they simply do this-and-that, etc. :) )
Phew, it's been really nice to get this out. :)
I'm just about to sleep, but I'll try to read your short story. :)