Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Leaving the MC's gender open

This is topic Leaving the MC's gender open in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Grayson Morris (Member # 9285) on :

In my most recent story, 3K words in first person present, my first reader assumed the MC was male. This fascinates me, because I assumed she was female when I wrote her. The story apparently works independently of the MC's gender (though my first reader said he'd prefer to have an unambiguous MC so he could visualize him/her better).

I now wonder if, in general, it's a plus to have the MC interpretable both ways, so that male readers can read the MC as male, female readers as female (or whatever they find most natural to assume). Or do readers generally really, really want to know the MC's gender before they're able to get into a story? What are your experiences, as a reader and as a writer/editor?

[This message has been edited by Grayson Morris (edited November 01, 2010).]

Posted by johnbrown (Member # 1467) on :

I can imagine a story where the point is that the MC could be either. I know there's a Poe story where you don't know for sure and it has led interesting critical readings. And I know there are those who like to experiment with the reading process. Make the story about reading as much as the story content. But if that's not your purpose, then I'd say I'd prefer to know who I'm dealing with. Gender, to me, is as important as knowing if the MC is a human or troll or fairy. It's just part of being clear.

Posted by Crystal Stevens (Member # 8006) on :

I agree with John on gender rolls and what kind of creature the MC might be if not human.

I remember reading a book that didn't clarify gender from the beginning, and I assumed it was a man. It didn't help that the MC's name never hinted at gender either and was a "made-up" name for a race of people on some faraway planet in the future. Then, pages later, I find out the MC is a woman and had the hardest time not trying to think of her as a man. It just totally ruined the story for me.

I had the same problem with a book that I thought the people and the MC were typical humans when, bingo!, they weren't only another race but didn't look anything like humans. This all came out when the MC met up with a visitor from Earth.

I don't appreciate getting that bad of a shock in a story that I think I know exactly what is going on and then find out I totally misread the whole thing. It makes me want to go back and read it from the beginning so I can get back into the story and understand it the way it was meant. Anything else is just too jarring.

Posted by tchernabyelo (Member # 2651) on :

There's a Chelsea Quinn Yarbro story - "Allies" which features a large cast, all of whom have gender-ambiguous names (Chris, Sidney, Pat, Robin, etc), and there's not a pronoun to be seen. In her notes about the story, she has this to say:

"Before (the story sold) it had been rejected elsewhere. One of the rejects said that the premise was silly because Chris Tuttle was so obviously male. Another reject said that the premise was silly because Chris was so obviously female.

Do I, in fact, know what sex Chris and the other characters are? Of course. Will I tell you? No."

If you want to make it clear, use pronouns. If you don't and are happy with letting the reader make their own interpretation, then go ahead and do so.

Posted by Grayson Morris (Member # 9285) on :

Thanks, all, for the feedback.

In my story, it isn't important that the MC have a gender - and there's nowhere in the story the reader is jarred into changing his or her view of the MC, which I can understand being a major off-putter. So I'm curious whether readers really, really want to know gender, even if it doesn't play a role in the story.

I didn't intentionally write the MC to avoid revealing gender; it just never came up. Much the same way I rarely write physical descriptions of characters, unless they actually matter. (I hate reading gratuitous "her flame-colored hair..." and "his rugged, handsome face...".)

Posted by MAP (Member # 8631) on :

As a reader, I don't like long passages of description, but I do like some description of setting and characters' appearances. It helps me picture the story and makes it more real to me.

Not knowing the gender of characters would make it difficult for me to picture them. Don't assume all readers will fill in the blanks with their own gender. When stories I read don't let me know key points like the age and gender of a character, I spend a lot of time trying to puzzle it out which keeps me from being engrossed in the story.

I have no problems with the gender being withheld for a good reason, like being tied to the theme of the story. But withholding the gender for no reason, would annoy me.

Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :

One of my personal pet peeves is author withholding. If the author (and character) knows something, it shouldn't be hidden from the reader. If there's some kind of point you'd like to make about your character's gender not mattering, then go ahead. If there is a gender you've assumed, though, and you've written the story with that in mind, why wouldn't you clue your reader in?

I also dislike stories that don't name the character for pages and pages, drives me bananas. I'd rather have some kind of contrived "My name is Jonah, and the whale ate me" bit early in a story than to have it left unsaid. Might just be me.

Posted by MartinV (Member # 5512) on :

It certainly helps to know the gender. It could be great experiment though. Maybe you can make it so that a male reader will see a male character and vice versa.

Posted by Grayson Morris (Member # 9285) on :

I didn't write the story to withhold her gender - in fact, I had no idea it wasn't obvious until my first reader told me. So I have this idea that her gender just doesn't matter to the story...and in fact it doesn't, unless readers demand knowing a character's gender even if it's unimportant to the plot.

Her name comes in on page 2, but this being a future society, the names don't help with gender determination.

KayTi - I get what you're saying. But there's a line somewhere between willful withholding of useful information, and simply not mentioning irrelevant information. I mean, a viewpoint MC knows lots of things about herself that are irrelevant, like how tall she is and what she's wearing each day...but I think what this thread is showing is that gender is largely considered relevant by readers, even if it isn't crucial to the story.

I'd be happy to reveal her gender on page one, but it just doesn't fit in the dialogue there...I'll mull.

Posted by tchernabyelo (Member # 2651) on :

It's certainly interesting to see that the predominant opinion on the thread seems to be that gender is something the reader really wants to know. I'm presuming this is because of "identification" issues but I'm not sure everyone reads that way.

I think I might start a separate thread to see what other things, if any, are considered important by a reader.

Posted by Amanda1199 (Member # 9295) on :

I think knowing the gender helps the reader identify more closely with the character.

However - it could be interesting to write something experimental, with non-gender being the thematic to the piece. If you're wanting to make a statement, create a dialogue about gender, then I think it would be very appropriate.

Otherwise, it might be irritating not knowing.

Posted by WouldBe (Member # 5682) on :

In many, if not most cases, you'd have to go out of your way to avoid identifying the gender, to the point of seeming contrived. You'd have to avoid he-said and she-said dialog tags, for example, which are more invisible than using 'Pat said' all the time.

And you'd have to avoid saying 'his hat' and 'her hat'. You'd have to avoid mentioning any gender-identifying clothing, such as skirts, and such.

This doesn't seem worth the hoops you have to jump through, unless this is the a major point of the story.

Posted by Grayson Morris (Member # 9285) on :

Agreed, but only in third person. The situation is quite different in first person.

Posted by Owasm (Member # 8501) on :

I agree with Amanda's comment. If your intent is to give your reader a smooth read and get into the story, then identified genders are important. If you intent is to add an edgy element so that the reader is challenged, then go gender neutral, but many readers won't get closely involved in your story.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

Consider that one of the first things we tend to automatically try to determine about every individual we come in contact with is whether they are male or female (it may be so automatic that we may not even notice that we do it).

That said, there is a character in one short section of Vonda McIntyre's DREAMSNAKE whose gender is never given. The character's name is Meredith, and if you want to see how McIntyre did it, you may want to check the book out.

Also, there is a whole series of mysteries set in England, though I can't recall the author's name (and I'm not where I can check my bookshelf), about a judge named Hilary (something), whose gender is never revealed. If someone knows, please speak up, so others can take a look at those books, too?

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

I think a certain thing to shoot for might be for the character's genre to remain a mystery, but not so that the writer is practically shouting, "Look how clever I am for doing this this way,"---and not so that the casual reader even notices it. A lotta stories I've read, that tried this stunt, foundered on it.

Reminds me of a story of the last Neanderthan in a world of Cro-Magnon man, where the writer was careful not to be too definite about whether the Neanderthal spoke, or communicated without speaking...but the readers made their own assumptions. ("The Day is Done," Lester Del Rey.)