Writers out there - what about genders?

[Eowyn Skywalker]

Perhaps I'm an oddball, but....most of the stories I write, if not all, have at least two protagonists-- 1 male and 1 female.

Not odd in the least, as, though my main characters in both of my main stories are female, there are at least one or more male characters to contrast them, and hold a main part. Like Tiana and Destiny... they both have their male contracting characters, to off-set the fact that they are female. Alenece has three other males with her, to contrast, though I intend on throwing in a few other girls later.

But it's not odd in the least to have more then one protagonists... I have done that all the time.

No, it's always a good idea to off-set girls with guys, and it doesn't have to be a romance either... so far I have... well... two characters in love, but not the main plot... the main plot is very action-drama type.

Girls are fun to write, but I always have a few guys in there well I'm at it... makes for a better plot line, I think.

-Eowyn Skywalker

[Orual]

Myself, my main project has a young man named Jules as the hero. However, though he's the narrator, one of my favorite characters is a young woman who meets him along the way.

With me, it's entirely dependant on the story. Some of my stories have female main characters, some have males. In Jules' case, I felt that he should be a young man. He has a sister who is a pivotal part of the story, and I felt that, were he a girl, he would understand his sister entirely too well.

Writing women is actually fairly difficult for me, if only because I have to struggle against the "tough warrior chick" prototype. One of the best heroines I've ever seen is--and don't laugh--Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I try to model my heroines after her. She's a girl who kicks, but her being a girl isn't the most important part of her character. She's genuine and heartfelt, and cares about things that real girls care about even as she fights evil.

The important thing is the character. I don't think about gender much--generally, when I'm starting a story that'll go somewhere, the main character comes to me in a blinding flash of light. Okay, I'm lying, but wouldn't that be cool? I chose Jules because I felt I could make him a rounded, realistic character by bringing my own feminine traits to his character, instead of making him a stereotypical "macho" man. I think that everyone is a combination of masculine and feminine aspects, and that people are neither true simpering damsels-in-distress nor unflappable macho warriors with testosterone poisoning. Everyone is somewhere in between. I know a lot of young women who are aggressive, and a lot of young men who are sensitive. This is true of everybody. As long as you don't go overboard with reverse-stereotypes (i.e. all the women are warriors and all the men need saving), it's okay to mix-and-match with characters.

[Saraphim]

When I start writing for a character, I sort of let it choose its own gender. My little "world" that I'm staring to invent, is set in the future, which is a convienient time to set a story in because one can make things up without having to be historically accurate.

Anyway, in all of my little "storylets" (plots that are unfinished and vastly unwritten), men and women are equal.

I'll break it down further than that. Individuals are equal, no matter what gender, in everything that goes on. And it's not just on a lawful scale or anything, it's on a global, ingrained-into-the-conciousness scale. If you understand what I'm saying.

So, as an example, you've got Bob, Tim, Judy, and Nora. Nora is a weak person, weaker than everyone except Tim, who is lazy and couldn't fight a drunken fly. The strongest person in the group is Bob, not because he's a man, but because he's Bob.

Looking back over my post, not much of it makes sense, so apologies all around. It's the best I can do.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Nurumaiel,

Nice post! I think that we are actually saying the same thing only using different terminology. As I said before, whether or not a character (male or female) carries a sword is far less important than other things.

Strangely enough though, the image of a warrior or battler, even if we define it as someone who focuses on struggles other than the physical, appeals to me less than certain other images. I have always thought in terms of a traveller, someone who sets a foot out their door and starts down a Road. That was one reason I was so struck by The Hobbit when I first read it so long ago. Both Hobbit and LotR use this as a central image: being swept away by the Road of Life and having to face and deal with everyone and everything that life brings. I think that this pertains equally to both Men and Women, although the specifics of the encounter may vary. I try to incorporate that sense in each of my characters to the best that I can.

While we're talking about choices of "gender", I'd also like to raise the related question of "age". Have you ever used an "older" character in your writings, male or female? Just how old, and was that easy or difficult to do?

[Imladris]

I have only had one old personage in my writings and that was at the White Horse. I think he was about...eighty, I think? He was a grizzled old man who had lost an eye, had a bit of memory loss, and had a bad habit of talking in rhymes. But I had a terrible time with him because I don't know how an older person thinks. Virtually all my characters are teenagers... because...I guess I know them better. I'm more comfortable with them...I can feel them better.

I have always thought in terms of a traveller, someone who sets a foot out their door and starts down a Road.

In my mind, a traveller is stronger than one who is not, regardless of gender. Speaking of gender, I do not believe that spiritual strength (or strength of character, nobleness, honesty, etc) have anything to do with gender as gender is a physical attribute while those strengths are not. Thus, men and women are equal in that area.

[Sirithheruwen]

Heh. One of my posts on this thread got a negative reputation. (Post #15 or 16 I believe.) Wow, this reputation thing really gets one's curiosity levels high!

But it's not odd in the least to have more then one protagonists... I have done that all the time.

Aye, me too. On the story I'm working on right now, I have four (female) protags. I just hope I'm going to have enough male supporting characters to counter-balance them so it doesn't sound so femenistic (sp?). *wishes*

Both Hobbit and LotR use this as a central image: being swept away by the Road of Life and having to face and deal with everyone and everything that life brings. I think that this pertains equally to both Men and Women, although the specifics of the encounter may vary. I try to incorporate that sense in each of my characters to the best that I can.

My story is kind of like that, but kind of different. (Wait, don't skip this paragraph, I'll clarify, promise!) She (Nen(na)) decides to leave on her adventure of sorts. She also doesn't think of herself as a "hero" of sorts, but someone who is going behind the scenes to gather all of the "heros" together to save Ola. She just happens to be one of the "heros". (Looking back on this paragraph, I probably didn't clarify much, did I? Ah well...)

While we're talking about choices of "gender", I'd also like to raise the related question of "age". Have you ever used an "older" character in your writings, male or female? Just how old, and was that easy or difficult to do?

Well, being very young myself (just turned 13) I mostly do write older characters, but not by much. I like to think that my work would be geared toward the young adult section, but I wouldn't mind if it crossed over a little bit into adult. My characters are usually around the 14-16 age range. It's not that hard to do, because, after all, it *is* a fantasy realm, and whatever I say goees!

Well, I think that's a long enough post for one day!
Happy Writings!

[Bêthberry]

Interesting idea, Child!

While we're talking about choices of "gender", I'd also like to raise the related question of "age". Have you ever used an "older" character in your writings, male or female? Just how old, and was that easy or difficult to do?

I have two "older"characters, one a man in late middle age whose youthful exhuberance caused him to be injured, thus forcing him to seek a very different line of work, as a map-maker in Minas Tirith; he had to learn how to give up his youthful wanderlust and impatience and learn how to accept a more sedate style of life. Then he was called upon to help a band of young warriors! Talk about getting into the saddle again! The other elder character I write is the rag lady Ruthven in Edoras, for The White Horse, in her sixties. I don't think I have found it difficult to play either character as I had a very strong sense of who each was before I ever wrote them. For both of them, the age was not a particular issue.

The oldest character I have ever written, however, was an ent, for the old Rohan game here. I loved that character because I could extend the entish style of speaking which Tolkien created.

One thing I suggested for gamers, when we started the White Horse Inn Act III, was to consider "aging" their characters the fifteen years or so between Act II and Act III. I am in the process of having "Bethberry" face a difficult time watching people who have no idea of what the War of the Ring involved. Her personal experience of the tragedies and struggles has left her with little of her lightheartedness and so I am trying to see how she handles this change. I'm not sure people are quite ready to understand how she has changed, as I am introducing this rather subtly.

Other characters I have written for have been anywhere between their twenties to their fifties. I guess the only characters I have not written for in an RP are children.

I do have an idea for a new game, though. I will get to play a "middle aged shield maiden". Well, the maiden part is not quite right, but I want to try for something like what Mathilde faced in her struggle to be declared rightful monarch, over Stephen, in England around 1140. I have found that there are many female characters in the Middle Ages who provide an interesting subject on which to 'build' a character, such as Lady Margaret Beaufort or Hildegard of Bingen.

And that reminds me of how how Chaucer 'created' his Wife of Bath. As a character, she has traits from several well-known character types in medieval literature, the most original of which was the cuckolded husband, transferred to a female character, whose fifth husband cheats on her. Not very Tolkienish admittedly, but still it suggests another way a writer has gone about creating a uniquely new character. She was somewhat deaf too.

Well, time to go find my 'rocking chair' and let some of the youngsters describe their elders. Alaklodewen has a mute teenage boy in Resettling the Lost Kingdom and now an elderly man who is blind. It was interesting to watch her desribe his movements and behaviours, to glean from those actions his infirmity was before she mentioned it outright. Fordim, you've written a grandfather. What was that like?

[The Saucepan Man]

The enchanting thing with fantasy is that you are the creator of a world, and you are also the one who sets the rules for that world. (Child)

As the creator of a world, you may make your society what you wish it to be, which is something I very much enjoy doing. Not necessarily giving men a subservient role, but making the two genders equal--TRULY equal--and describing what comes of it. (Bethelarien)

Might this depend somewhat on the skill of the writer, though? Although not a writer myself, I was wondering whether it might be more difficult, and require greater skill on the part of the writer, credibly to portray a world where people's qualities and relationships are significantly different from those which we experience in real life. Then again, in many ways, I would think that it is easier to write a credible story set in a fantasy world than one set in the real world, since one does not have to worry about getting all those 'little details' right, as long as it is internally consistent.

Fordim's post raises a similar issue. He said:

So far I’ve changed race (one Hobbit, two Men, an Elf and a Dwarf) and the characters have all been fairly different from one another, but I’ve not yet crossed genders … in this forum I feel the need to inhabit the male mind.

I suspect that it’s perhaps the interactive nature of the Downs. In my own (thankfully abandoned) novels, I had total control of the reality, and thus there were no surprises. But here there are lots of surprises, and I find it more like acting than writing – I have to ask myself frequently, “How would I react to this incident” and then work through from that to “How will my character react to that?” It’s probably a lot easier for me to get from A to B without having to contend with the gender line.

It's interesting that you feel more able to react in your mind to situations as an Elf or Dwarf than as a woman. I would have thought that you and I would have much more in common, in terms of our approach to life and likely reactions to situations, with female humans than with Elves or Dwarves of either gender. Is this perhaps because an alternative psyche which does not actually exist in our world is easier to inhabit than one which does? Then again, every person is different and, unless your character is a facsimile of yourself, you will surely frequently find yourself having to think how someone with different characteristics than yourself would react to a situation. Child's question about people writing characters older than themselves is an example.

Or perhaps it is easier to write Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits in a Middle-earth situation because Tolkien has given us much of the information that we need in his writings, whereas the mind of the opposite sex often remains a complete mystery to us, even to someone like me who has been happily married for a number of years.

[Nurumaiel]

The question of age... I write of no particular age. In my current work I have as main characters....

a boy of ten, left behind when his friends go off to the mainland
two boys of eleven, the aforesaid friends of the above
a young man of sixteen, who just barely gets permission to go off to war
a young girl of sixteen, who assists one of the other characters in building a school
a young man of eighteen, who also goes to war
a young lady of eighteen, who is the character who builds the school
two men in their thirties, older brothers of one of the characters, both of whom go to war
a man in his forties, who is a general in the army
and several other soldiers who are from their twenties to thirties

Quite a range of ages! No one older than fifty yet as a main character, considering the circumstances of the story.

Do I have an easy time writing them? Well, obviously I can't be all of them at once, so it is quite fortunate I know quite a range of people of all different ages. I note how they react to things and use that as a starting point... the things I take from real life I only ever use as a starting point.

What you said, Kransha, about stereotypes is very interesting. That is why I say that my female characters usually have stereotype roles. Their personalites are an entirely different matter! I like to write characters that have traditional roles but unique personalities. Someday I'd like to write a story with a boy character in it like Percy Wynn. More meek, humble, gentle, and kind than he is strong... contrasting deeply with the tendency of boys to try to appear 'tough' when they're at a certain age. Yet Percy is a boy... he plays baseball, football; he goes fishing and boating, and everything else! It's merely his personality.

Really must run now. I'm pressing myself for time here.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Wow – what an interesting thread! Substantive ideas about the creative process, and I get to find out all kinds of interesting tidbits about my fellow Downers!

It didn’t even really occur to me until I started reading through these posts that I only ever – in the Downs – have written male characters. So far I’ve changed race (one Hobbit, two Men, an Elf and a Dwarf) and the characters have all been fairly different from one another, but I’ve not yet crossed genders (unless Balrogs have gender, in which case I might have been a female for the birthday party. . .) I’m honestly not sure why I have done this, since the only things I’ve attempted to write in the ‘real world’ (having begun and then abandoned two novels, and finished only one short novel) have had women as the protagonists. I did not really feel any difficulty in ‘writing’ women in those works, but in this forum I feel the need to inhabit the male mind.

I suspect that it’s perhaps the interactive nature of the Downs. In my own (thankfully abandoned) novels, I had total control of the reality, and thus there were no surprises. But here there are lots of surprises, and I find it more like acting than writing – I have to ask myself frequently, “How would I react to this incident” and then work through from that to “How will my character react to that?” It’s probably a lot easier for me to get from A to B without having to contend with the gender line.

But his raises a disturbing notion I’d not considered either (am I really this naïve? Yes, I’m afraid so) – the characters I’ve created in the Downs have without exception been rather flawed people; people whom, quite frankly, I like reading and writing about but would never want to spend time with. If these are characters that I can easily project myself into (or project out of me). . .yipes!!

Hmmmmm. . .anybody got a comfortable couch I could lie on as I write in this place. . .