Writers out there - what about genders?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I'm not normally a fiction writer, so my only experience of character planning and writing is on the RPGs here. Way back in the old Rohan RPG, I jumped in to take over an abandoned male character, since there were already enough females involved in that story. I found it quite difficult to write for him, since both mentality and actions did not come easily to me.

I wrote two cameo characters that were both females and seamstresses - I find it easier to write characters that have both the gender and a profession familiar to me when I don't have much time to get into the character.

Now I'm writing two characters in an RPG, a mother and son - she middle-aged, he not quite out of his teens. I find the question of age less problematic than the personal characteristics - I can identify with the young man's openness and curiosity about life and foreign countries better than with the scheming and hard-hearted mother. I took on that challenge to expand my writing and thinking horizons, and I think it's a great idea to try different characters.

...and then there's my parody RPG, where interestingly, there are more male writers than females - wonder what that signifies??!!