Here is my question:
As a generalization, do you think it would be easier for a female author to write in a male characters voice, or a male author to write in a female characters voice?
This is taking into consideration that it isn't easy to pull that perspective off correctly.

I have never done it, because it is easier to keep to your same sex when writing your main viewpoint character. Although, I think it would be good practice so the characters in your stories that are the opposite sex would become more real.

Perhaps, if you are going to answer this question, and it isn't abundantly clear by your board name, state your sex, just so we can keep your answers straight. Also, elaborate why you think the way you do, and throw in any other necessary bits of wisdom that will allow other males/females to understand the finer points of writing for the opposite sex. Make your answers as short or elaborate as you wish. Maybe as a sidebar you could state whether most of your main characters are your same sex or not.

I am kind of torn on this one, as there are so many points that contirbute to characterization. But I am leaning toward saying that a female writer might do better with a male perspective. For the record, I am MALE.

**note: no battle of the sexes is intended, it is my hope that we can glean some helpful info about the male and female perspective. We have discussed crying recently, and other portions of this before, I'm sure, but this could be interexting... no?

I haven't done a statistical study of my work, but my impression is that I've written roughly equal stories from male and female POV.

characters. not gender.

For me its a bit like trying to write from the perspective of someone in another culture. I feel like I am competent with the broader, universal themes but flounder with the details. As it is often the details that lend authenticity to the piece, feeling insecure about their veracity can seem like an impossible barrier to deal with.

I would say though, that if you pick your details well, you need less of them to be more effective. Choose a person you know well and trust and base the details on discussions with them. That way you are less likely to fall into the traps that can accompany stereotypes and more likely to give this character a fuller nature. In a pinch you can always call the person and ask 'hypothetical' questions.

Learn from Margaret Mead who was a famous early 20thC anthropologist studying the peoples of polynesia. She wrote a fantastic book about the society of Western Samoa with its exotic peoples and strange sexual behaviour of teenage girls. It was a sensational hit, titilating the public and capturing the interest of the scientific community. Now, however, we know that she relied heavily on information from a small group of teenage girls who took delight in telling 'tall tales' to the naive white girl. Today, that element of the book is generally discreditied.

Moral? Pick someone who wont give you a bum steer.

Females and males react differently in specific situations. Getting those reactions and emotions correct in those situations, to me is important. I've seen it done well, and not so well. I've even had a person submit a story for critique, that I didn't know at the time was a woman. It became apparent to me that the male character in whose POV she was writing, was very feminine. In the critique, I said that her character seemed feminine, that is when I found out that the author was female. She responded to me and said that she was having trouble with the male perspective.

It's important to be self-aware enough to realize when you've come to a point in your story that, perhaps, someone of the other gender might make different choices.

My observation of men who write as women: if the man has preconceived ideas of what women will do or think, based on HIS MINDSET, then the stories come across as false sounding. I've seen stories that show women in caricature, where you take all the worst stereotypes of women (nagging, does everything based on attracting men, doesn't think rationally) and make that into a character.

It would be like if I took all of my male characters and turned them into beer-swilling, crotch-scratching, emotionally disconnected pigs. Are some men like that? Undoubtedly there are a few. Is a character based on that stereotype going to come across as "real"? Not likely. Men, like women, come in a spectrum of personalities and behaviors.

The men who write great women characters (and vice versa) are the ones who understand that people have more on their minds than attracting someone of the opposite sex. They write each gender as deeply complex characters with all the potential to succeed (or fail) as the other sex has. And most of all, they avoid stereotypes like the plague. At least, if they want to attract intelligent and thoughtful male AND female readers.

For the record, I be female.

If I'm writing a female POV, I have to really consider what the character might or might not do, what she might think or say or feel, and I find that it gets in the way of my story telling.

Unless they are really humans in alien suits, that makes the male-female question really easy in comparison. You can research, talk to subjects, etc. But to portray truly alien characters...how do you do that? Are the ways to do so similar to writing the opposite sex or other human cultures (aside from being ABLE to do research)?

I find that starting out with their more normal human type aspects and then adding on bit by bit their less understandable aspects works better than hitting the reader all at once with the true alienness.

Men do not think like women, and it's really obvious in books written by men, especially when describing sexuality/romance. I've seen very few who describe the woman's POV in that area accurately.

(edit: I'm female)

The majority of my writing is done using a female MC/POV character.

I'm not aware of any reader, male or female, who has had a problem with my main characters. I like to think that this is because they're fully rounded individuals. Fully rounded individuals tend to be believable as characters, whether or not they fall into a reader's expectations of what a male or female person "should" be like. It's only when you don't know someone that you demand they fit into the stereotypical boxes (this goes for different cultures, and bny extension even alien protaganists, as well).

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I write characters, not genders. I've never really understood why some people think it's difficult to write from the POV of someone whose anatomy is different than theirs. I'm not saying this is something people don't struggle with - just that I don't understand the struggle.

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Because there are gender related issues that are worth writing about; like whether to go out alone at night in a given neighborhood or society; to future plans, vocational, academic, or parentwise; not to mention rape and the quality of attention that occasions attractive or unattractive women is different in kind than the quality of attention that goes along with being an attractive or unattractive man; to social constructs concerning promsicuity, all of these considerations inform the aspirations and regrets of a character.

Now if your story is about a meteor hitting the earth, it doesn't matter as much. But if your story is about people living and regarding each other as both fellow humans and sexual beings, then yeah, there is a difference. (Even in the meteor example, the fact that most geologists are men used to working in all male environments who may or may not be comfortable with the feelings aroused by working around women is going to change the dispositon of the characters.)

I don't think that it's wise to throw out the effects of 2,500 years of gender based social conditioning, including the asymetrical facts of biology, and how they effect the quality of a person's character.
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I write crappy women. If I write a man and just change the name, then the woman doesn't feel right, and if I write a woman, she is boring, or the singular type of gal I'm drawn to, who is great, but I'd like to be able to write more than one kind of woman. I'm fixing this by reading more books written by women about women.
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One of the reasons why writing compelling women is subtle, hard work is that the drive for public greatness isn't expected of women. It's a man's domain. Whether right or wrong, I think it's the case, and most compelling protagonists, for me, usually act in public and with noble aspirations.
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All of that "just write the character regardless of race or gender" is wistful BS, and I think that it ends up with every character having the sensibilites of different versions of white men.

I think the main thing to remember is that while men and women are different, they're also individuals. The worst thing you can do is to fall into stereotypes.

For example: I play World of Warcraft, which has mostly male players, some of whom play female characters.

You can generally tell when a female character is played by a male because he'll take the "female" thing waaay over the top based on stereotypes for pornography, sitcoms, and stand-up comedy.

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You can generally tell when a female character is played by a male because he'll take the "female" thing waaay over the top based on stereotypes for pornography, sitcoms, and stand-up comedy.

A female playing a female character, on the other hand, generally won't say or do anything particularly feminine.

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A female playing a female character, on the other hand, generally won't say or do anything particularly feminine.

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I haven't noticed that anyone really picks specific gender issues when commenting on the plausibility of my characters, though. I think that it's just easier for me to remember the basic limitations of a human when I'm thinking about a human female. I also probably have a moderate edge in terms of experience with human females as opposed to males, females are generally more open to talking about their feelings and specifically more interested in talking to me. Not that I find them particularly more trustworthy than humans in general, but it's easier to sense discrepancies with a larger set of data.

I think that men have a much higher tolerance for implausible depictions of men by women as long as those depictions are not "girly". On the other hand, I've noticed that often men will find a very plausible portrayal unacceptable if it is too "girly". So probably the "girly" issue is independent of plausibility. And a lot of men will automatically throw that accusation at any male character written by a woman, one very real reason that women often use masculine pen names.

Unless all of your characters are actually you, or at least the protagonists (which for some reason reminds me of Ayn Rand) some kind of creative extrapolation is going to have to occur.

I think the description of someone's character and thoughts has to occur in a space where the reader can access it as well as the writer. To me, that means it wouldn't be so detailed as to have no flexibility. That is to say, you don't have to be so accurate.

I'm male. When I have a character defined in my head, it doesn't matter what the gender, I can write them fairly well. I don't find myself falling into stereotypes. However . . . I have a MUCH harder time inventing interesting male characters than female characters. In fact, my default tends to be to create female characters for any given storyline. Only once I start playing with character or plot choices, do genders get assigned. So . . . at the core of it, I'm a man who's most comfortable writing women.

I think part of it is that I'm quite introverted, with a personality very heavily biased toward schizoid tendencies. (Look at the fancy word . . . they way it was explained to me, it just means that I escape very deeply into my own imagination as a default behavior.) The other part is taht being a healthy young male, I'm quite fascinated with women. Consequently, I've spent a lot of time imagining how women with various motivations will act in certain situations. I've spent a lot of time watching how the women around me ACTUALLY act on their motivations. Then I've spent a lot of time reconciling the two. I guess you could say I've spent a fair part of my mere 28 years studying women quite intensely. That and 6 years of marriage have made me quite confident that I still know nowhere near all there is to know about what makes women tick.

But I know a hell of a lot more about what motivates women than I do about what motivates men.

Mainly, it's 'cause I just don't care about men. I care how INTERESTING men act . . . how ADMIRABLE men act, and there's so few of those, I haven't had much opportunity to study them.

So . . . long and short . . . an irrisistable hormonal drive, coupled with an overactive imaginary world has given me the ability to write women better than I write men.

I think.

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Interesting. I wonder why that is. In real life, the females I've met do at least something that is feminine. I've not been around anyone tomboyish for long, so can't really comment on them.

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