Post by Emerald on Mar 22, 2011 13:43:39 GMT -5
I was always of the mind that authors and creators of characters feel more comfortable writing in their gender. This can plainly be seen in existing fiction of almost any genre (not that there aren't exceptions, of course), as books by female authors tend to have female protagonists and books by male authors have male.
Some exceptions include authors such as J.K Rowling, whose gender is not determinable just from looking at her pen name alone, Anne Rice who is known for her male vampire characters like Lestat, but is also known for her erotica fiction such as Sleeping Beauty in which her protagonist is of course, Sleeping Beauty.
I of course want to get everyone's opinion on the matter, because for me, it doesn't exactly ring true. I'm a female writer, but for some reason I've always been more comfortable writing males and uncomfortable writing females. I think some of this can be attributed to the fact that I have always been somewhat aware of how fiction is marketed. I always feel this indignant little irk in my chest whenever I find a book cover with a female character on the front, the author female, and the book belonging to a series, noted by the "A (Insert Female Protagonist's name here) Novel" subtitle.
Not that there is anything wrong with this. If the book is good and the character is interesting then it shouldn't matter, but I cannot help but wonder if as a female writer am I expected to write a female protagonist. The same goes for male writers. Can a male writer lose credibility for writing a female protagonist? I can't help but imagine angry feminists with picket signs in front of his house shouting about his sexist point of view of a female...
All of this aside, which are you more comfortable writing? Why?
Not only that, does your protagonist match more than just your gender, but your age, ethnicity and physical description as well? In writing this can be considered a comfort zone of sorts, and can negatively affect your story if as a writer you are unwilling to explore other points of view.
One good example of this I can think of is Stephen King. Don't get me wrong, he's amazing, but I can't even begin to list the amount of protagonists that are male, writers, and live in Maine in his stories. They're great stories, most of them, but you definitely don't want to end up in the position of telling the same story over and over due to the fact that you're using the same template for a protagonist over and over again.
Template:
Gender:
Age:
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Marital Status:
Physical Attributes:
- Take the time to fill these in for the character you are currently writing, or one you spend a lot of time with. How many of these traits do you have in common with your protagonist? Are you willing to change any of those traits and try something new? Will changing any of these traits help or hurt your story?
Some exceptions include authors such as J.K Rowling, whose gender is not determinable just from looking at her pen name alone, Anne Rice who is known for her male vampire characters like Lestat, but is also known for her erotica fiction such as Sleeping Beauty in which her protagonist is of course, Sleeping Beauty.
I of course want to get everyone's opinion on the matter, because for me, it doesn't exactly ring true. I'm a female writer, but for some reason I've always been more comfortable writing males and uncomfortable writing females. I think some of this can be attributed to the fact that I have always been somewhat aware of how fiction is marketed. I always feel this indignant little irk in my chest whenever I find a book cover with a female character on the front, the author female, and the book belonging to a series, noted by the "A (Insert Female Protagonist's name here) Novel" subtitle.
Not that there is anything wrong with this. If the book is good and the character is interesting then it shouldn't matter, but I cannot help but wonder if as a female writer am I expected to write a female protagonist. The same goes for male writers. Can a male writer lose credibility for writing a female protagonist? I can't help but imagine angry feminists with picket signs in front of his house shouting about his sexist point of view of a female...
All of this aside, which are you more comfortable writing? Why?
Not only that, does your protagonist match more than just your gender, but your age, ethnicity and physical description as well? In writing this can be considered a comfort zone of sorts, and can negatively affect your story if as a writer you are unwilling to explore other points of view.
One good example of this I can think of is Stephen King. Don't get me wrong, he's amazing, but I can't even begin to list the amount of protagonists that are male, writers, and live in Maine in his stories. They're great stories, most of them, but you definitely don't want to end up in the position of telling the same story over and over due to the fact that you're using the same template for a protagonist over and over again.
Template:
Gender:
- Male
- Female
- Other
Age:
- Child
- Teenager/Young Adult
- Adult
- Elder
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Marital Status:
- Single
- Divorced
- Married
- In a relationship
- Widowed
Physical Attributes:
- Hair Style/Color
- Eye Color
- Skin Color (not to be confused with ethnicity, but one can affect the other)
- Weight/Body Type (are you willing to write an overweight or underweight character, or a character with an eating disorder?)
- Height
- Clothing
- Identifying marks (i.e tattoos, scars)
- Take the time to fill these in for the character you are currently writing, or one you spend a lot of time with. How many of these traits do you have in common with your protagonist? Are you willing to change any of those traits and try something new? Will changing any of these traits help or hurt your story?
