Writers out there - what about genders?

[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?

[Kransha]

Ah, genders in writing, a 'problem' or rather, and 'obstacle' which all writers must deal with.

To begin, I must admit that I share the one strange exhibition with Fordim. In the real world, in my volumes and writings, I have written more female protagonists and antagonists, as many as I have male, but here, in the RPG forums at least, I find that I get into character more with male characters. This is because I see through the eyes of a male, not through those of a female. RPing as a male allows me too get a little more loose with my character, rather than worrying about the indulgence of a stereotype. Someday, I will surely attempt to RP the fairer sex, but until that date, whene'er it may be, I am doomed to remain locked in this prison of unbridled masculinity (my, that...doesn't exactly sound right).

There is a lot to be had in dual-gender roles for play and game and story. The POV of each is the crucial, focal point, the thing that causes all writers subtle hardships (not all, but probably many). I admit again (more pangs of guilt pour moi) that I have been...how shall I put it, reluctant, to write some female characters. I was afraid of reprecussions, feminist revolts, mobs of random people with triangular bricks and whatnot, but I still write them. I have to carefully pick out their personalities from some illusionary hat, based on the stroy's needs. I hesitate to pursue anything that might be considered 'my picture' of females, and use people I know as examples to base them on. The female mind is no longer a mystery to me, as it once was (ah, those were the days), but I still have plenty to fathom. I could never reduce a gender or ethnicity to a single rubric of emotion, it would destroy my whole continuum with its bland conformity! So, in response, I let the pen go wild, so to speak, and see where my characters are headed. There are always roads to follow, each leading to countless forks and bends, but after the first few turns, the rest are being predetermined until the greatest one comes up, determining whether the character will reverse the course of every other road taken (too reminiscent of Robert Frost's [b]The Road Not Taken[/i], thar)

On the question of age, something I love to experiment with! I rarely right character is book or game that are of 'average' age unless it is required. I like mine to be eaither wet-behind-the-ears, or old and withered. Now, I make my old characters more vivacious than they ought to be and my young ones more mentally matured, so my experimentation goes far beyond stated guidelines. There is always another border as far as stereotype defiance. Sometimes old men can be grizzled, serious folk, merry, content old men, or stark-raving mad, senile dottards who have no idea where they are or what they're doing. Young men, boys, or those at the bottom of the proverbial hill, could be immature and vain, overconfident, haughty, arrogant, meek, shy, humble. The ages of drastic youth and drastic age most pronounce the emotional features of a character, either traits just developing and strengthening, or traits developed to their peak.

P.S. Shakespeare, and other great writers of his day and ours, who apparently understood somewhat what I try to grasp, gave me some inspirational examples. As plated in trait as they air, Juliet (young love, decisive [Romeo & Juliet]), Beatrice (feisty, arrogant, argumentative [Much Ado About Nothing]), Ophelia (tragic, unkempt, uncontrollable [Hamlet]), Lady Macbeth (corruptable, antagonistic [Macbeth]), Miranda (unexposed, naive [The Tempest]) all gave me some insight into the fairer psyche, though bearers of that pysche may disagree...

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Hmmm. . .the question of age is a good one. . .

Yes, I have written a grandfather (for those who do not hang on my every post with bated breath and abandon, I wrote an extremely elderly hobbit in the recently completed, greatly missed, "A Land to Call Their Own" -- *Fordim stands and gives Alaklondewen and Cami a round of applause*) and I must admit that I found Fordogrim Chubb not at all hard to 'get into'. I think that this was due to the fact that I merely observed that some older people tend to forego the niceties of 'watching what they say' and allowing themselves to say whatever they are thinking. Combine that with the fact that in my professional life (and here in the Downs) I am frequently confronted with situations in which I am the oldest person in the 'room', and I found it very easy to immerse myself in Fordogrim's world view.

It seems quite a failing on my part, however, that I could so easily take up the voice of an elder (how successfully I did so, I leave to others to judge) but I cannot face the challenge of writing a female character in this interactive forum (as I said above, I have written women in more static narratives).

Another interesting point -- it seems to me that the bulk of the writers in the RPGs would appear to be women: particularly as one moves into Rohan and Gondor. Is there something essentially 'feminine' about the RPG's (whatever that might mean?). I also note that the women in this discussion apparently have -- or feel they have -- less trouble moving into a man's perspective than the other way around. I wonder why this would be?

Just one more indication of Woman's inherent superiority over us???

Postscript to Kransha -- shame on you, man! How could you forget Cleopatra (Antony and Cleopatra), Kate (Taming of the Shrew), and Portia (The Merchant of Venice)?????

[Saraphim]

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.

So usually, my characters are in thier mid-twenties or early thirties. I know that's not exactly old in any sense of the imagination, but, on a general scale, they are usually a tad bit wiser than most teenagers.

A tidbit about your friendly Saraph: I don't like teenagers as a group. Individually, they're fine, but not in large numbers. So, this reflects into the age of my characters and the way they interact with others. i have problems not making them seem too old, actually.