Writers out there - what about genders?

[Sirithheruwen]

I try to stay away from having teenagers, or too many of them, in my stories. I look around, and there are very few teenagers at my high school who would be able to do the sort of things I want my characters to do.

I think, when you are writing for a teenaged audience, that you might want to make your characters (or at least your main ones) a little younger. Such as, early to late teen through about mid-twenties. I know when I read fantasy, I (personally) prefer characters that are near to my own age, but not always. *coughLordoftheRingscough* If you are writing to be published, always always always think of the reader.

...they are usually a tad bit wiser than most teenagers.

(Yes, I'm quoting everything Eowyn Skywalker (Ha. I didn't forget the "Skywalker" ) quoted. So sue me. ) The characters in my story aren't a "tad bit wiser that most teenagers" from their world, but they are considerably more "wise" than teenagers in our present time and day. In a nutshell, they're more mature than present-day teenagers, but in they're world they are still considered young and incompetant (sp?).

Well, I'm done.
Happy Writings!

[Kransha]

You know what? I do believe I've had an epiphany (hair-raising, I assure ye)!

This whole thread and its tree-reminiscent branches stems off the same, semi-essential question of 'variety,' dare I say it. The thread was originally a simple question of gender in literature, but it has been diverted towards queries concerning age and other variations of "normality." Now, I don't believe that the phrase "normality" exists, since no one is purely normal, but that doesn't mean than the concept of "abnormality" does not. Hear me out here...

We've been talking about the persona of female and male, young and old, and so forth and so on. The whole question is: how do you interpret something that is different, or perhaps similar, or a touchy subject, into literature. Let me pose another example here, based on an RPG I'll be playing in soon (Ha! I fit a shameless plug in this post!) What about, say, this?:

There was a brief discussion in this thread of dwarf and elf playing, female and male, young and old, as mentioned. What if you had to put more depth than just simple, stereotypical, static monster personality into...a dragon! Think on The Hobbit, if you will. It's a question of race, rather than gender, but that's where the discussion leads. It's not a tangent, but a more advanced form, slightly reversed, of the original question. How do you put yourself into the shoes (or scales) of a dragon? Tolkein did it expertly. But wait, there's more! What of other members of the non-humanoid sect. Dwarves, Elves, Gondorians, Numenoreans, Rohirrim, all have a different persona, which is often a bit stereotyped in itself, but what about a fox? A tree in Fangorn Forest? A giant spider at the pass of Cirith Ungol? A Wather in the Water? What about genders, eh? What about species? What about planes of being? It can get into, quite literally, playing god (read: Valar).

Now, stem off again! Does a female giant spider, Shelob or Ungoliant, think differently from a male (not that there are any male giant spiders, but what if?) Wait, I've got a better branch for that. How does an ancient, great grandmother of a spider: Ungoliant, differ in mind and thought pattern from an old, but comparitively much younger and weaker spider: Shelob. Are they both driven essentially by the same resolve, or was their something that was different in their grand designs. Surely they weren't exactly the same. Shelob was content to stay in the confines of Cirith Ungol and eat the food that came along. Ungoliant, on the other hand, refused to be satiated until Morgoth himself was being digested in her ample belly. I'd say there must be some difference, no matter how subtle. Ungoliant lusted for vengeance, obviously a more adapted sense of evil in her old age, but Shelob only sought food, unless that want was what drove them both. Maybe I'm trivializing the matter by using spiders as 'food for thought' (forgive me, I couldn't resist), but it has to count for something...

Do tell me if my tangent is utterly irrelevant, confusing, and senseless...

P.S. to Fordim: Great Caesar's Ghost! How could I have forgotten?

[elronds_daughter]

i'm a writer, (haven't writen much yet...) but i must admit that i have never differed from having a female as a main character. possibly because i originally design my main character to be based on me, but i always, without fail, change her to have a totally different personality than me. however, after reading all these lengthy posts, i've decided to try to vary from my steriotypical "females-in-every-leading-role" and try to put a guy in a leading role for a change... it'll be a pleasant challenge. i've never written any fantasy either, but i'm working on a fan fic... that's an equally pleasant challenge. i've never tried writing a guy before. yeah, as i look back at the few things i've written, i'm finding that all my guys either are the boyfreind of the main girl or are just people i threw in for minor roles and equally minor purposes. it'll be quite an experience to try to put myself in his shoes. if anyone has any suggestions about overcoming the steriotypical "guy-from-a-girl's-perspective" please pm me. i need all the help i can get.

cheers!

Elrond's (other) daughter

[Audreidi]

No, no, Kransha, your tangent is very interesting...(rubs chin thoughtfully)

I can say, truthfully, I don't have an inclination toward male OR female characters. I find a wonderful way to tackle the issue of the gender of my main character is to sort out traits I wish for them to have, what I think I need the story to include. For example, I'm spinning the beginnings of an original fantasy piece together at the moment. First I decided my protag's traits, like how they interacted with others, how they carried themselves, etc. Then I threw in what I thought to be a sufficient amount of wisdom and knowledge. Based on these things, I decided their age, and finally their gender. I made young Ilan to be a somewhat impetuous seventeen-year-old, but he could have just as easily been a middle-aged mother striving for the same thing (the point of my story, which I will not yet reveal).

Something that will help a writer IMMENSELY is playing the opposite gender in a dramatic production. I took on the role of a male hero in a play just a little while ago, and I learned much about the mind of a man, so to speak. Now I'm able to write a male character more confidently, and if I get stuck I usually base them on a man or boy I know in real life, to get me started. My dad has some traits that I often employ when creating a middle-aged male character, and that helps greatly to make the person more realistic.

[PaleStar]

It depends on the talent of the writer whether their characters turn out horrid or not.
I tend to make all my lead protaginists female. In fact, in the story I'm writing now, the female protaganist will end up being trained in sword-fighting and actually kill a few people effectively. This may seem more realistic for a male, but, I tend to not conform.
Hopefully, it won't turn out horrid, but my point is this; regardless of gender, race, or age, it's your talent that determines how real and plausible these characters are.
So throw out the 'heroines are blithering idiots' thing. I've seen plenty of male 'heros' that were as stupid. In fact..*picks up cruddy heros and heroines and tosses them into a fire* There...let's begin anew, shall we?

[Eowyn Skywalker]

But that's the point, you see, is the female is TRAINED, as you say, PaleStar. Females can do such things, I know I can, but in a book, if you write the perfect heroine... out comes *theme music* Mary-SUE! That was my mistake with my first book, is I now realize that the main character was a way out Mary-Sue, main CHARACTERS actually, not that there was any romance, and they needed new names. Because the names they had just added to the Mary-Sue effect.

But then, one also has to think of species, and so on. A female Wookiee COULD tear someone's arms off... however, a female HUMAN could NOT. As usual, I can come up with Star Wars examples, snrk.

And, there's also the issue of age. No three year old guy is going to be adept with a sword, even though it's a guy... not even a three year old Force-sensitive is going to be adept with a sword. There are just so many angles a person has to conceter (sp?) unless you really are actually looking to write a Mary-Sue!

-Eowyn Skywalker

[VanimaEdhel]

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.