How do you write a character of the opposite gender as yourself?  The first caveat is to beware of stereotypes.  Otherwise, you’ll doom your protagonist to a fate worse than death:  the dismissive eye-roll!

I’m a female writer who creates a lot of male characters for some reason (don’t ask why; I really don’t know).  I’ve had male readers look at my work.  So far, none of them have said I didn’t get it right (although I’m sure not every single detail was completely accurate).  My brother read Rose’s Hostage and said Joshua was exactly as a man in love thinks and behaves.  (Yay!)  Even so, that’s still only one man’s opinion.

Overall, men and women are more alike than different.  Aside from our naughty bits and reproductive organs, we have the same basic anatomical structures.  Heart, lungs, gallbladder, intestines, liver, eyeballs, etc.—all the same.  We all poop, pee, sneeze when we have a cold, and bleed when we’re cut.  And it’s all red.

Except maybe for this guy.

 Image:  Wikipedia.com

We both get hungry and feel better when we eat.  We get tired and feel refreshed after a good night’s sleep (unless there is some kind of underlying health issue).  We have the same emotions, the same hopes, fears, and dreams.

Still, dissimilarities exist.  What might a female writer need to consider when creating a male character and vice versa?

The genders are different in certain ways.  Physiology is probably the most obvious.  Men are generally larger than women.  Agent Scully might end up crawling through the ductwork because Agent Mulder won’t fit.

They have more upper body strength, proportionately.  Mulder can probably carry Scully out of the burning building, but she might have to drag him out.  Anatomical differences will dictate how characters do certain things.

Re the naughty bits:  how do you describe physical sensations?  What does it feel like to get socked in the nuts?  How does a male orgasm differ from a female one?  What’s it like to have menstrual cramps, or give birth?  How many men want to know that last one?  Not many, I’d guess.

Nope nope nope nope.

Image:  artur84/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You could read a lot of literature about men that describes similar feels.  You could Google it (believe me, it’s out there).  Or, you could ask someone of that gender and hope they can describe it to you in a way that makes sense.

Men and women are pretty much the same when you’re talking about personality, intellect, and things like values and qualities.  Your biggest difference is going to be socialization.

It’s definitely something to consider.  You should start with personality and socialization, because those two things will dictate a lot of the following elements:

• Language choices:  Men use fewer words on average, but does this occur due to a guy’s personality or societal norms?  You could have a male character who talks everyone’s ears off.  That wouldn’t necessarily be considered feminine, nor would a woman who doesn’t talk much be thought of as masculine.

• Perception:  The cliché is that men don’t notice the same details that women do.  This study seems to think there are differences in literal sight (and they favor the men on small detail!).  But a trained observer—male or female—is going to notice more things overall.

He sees EVERYTHING.

Image:  marcelmovies.blogspot.com

In Thomas Harris’s brilliant novel The Silence of the Lambs, agent-in-training Clarice Starling excels at victimology because she sees details about the female victims that drew the gender-confused killer.  Her observation that kidnap victim Catherine Martin owns bespoke clothes for large women leads her to Jame Gumb, the murderous tailor who is making himself a woman suit—out of real women.  Clarice doesn’t do all the work (she’s too inexperienced), but her perception hones in on things the male agents do not notice.

Remember, this is a female character written by a man.

• Expressing emotions:  Women are often perceived as being more emotional than men, even when they’re acting rather reserved and businesslike.  Your female character doing so-called non-traditional work (a firefighter, for example) might yell at a fumbling trainee in exactly the way a male character would.  Because of this stereotype, her coworkers may react differently.

Bob yells at trainee Walter.  Everyone says, “Bob’s a tough trainer.  He lets you know when you screw up.”

Catherine yells at trainee Walter.  Everyone says, “Damn, Catherine is a bitch.  She’s too emotional for this line of work.”

Yes, I know.  You’re thinking Dafuq? But it’s real.  And male writers, you have to consider it, because it could change the way Catherine acts in certain situations.

Below, I have listed some books I particularly enjoyed where the author was a different gender from his/her protagonist.  If you have any recommendations, feel free to post them in the comments for other readers to check out.

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris 

Discussed above.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden 

This book was so good it made me insanely jealous I didn’t think of it first.  You would not guess a man wrote this if you didn’t know.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

All the main characters are men.

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

This series has male and female characters of all ages, but the main protagonist is a boy.

F is for Family.

Does the character have one?  How did he/she grow up?  I put this under family and not children or childhood because it extends into adulthood.  A character who grew up with a family who did not give a crap about her may not give a crap about anyone else.  She could defend people who cared for her as a child or exhibit vengeance toward them if they did not.

If she has a child, this will change how she reacts to other people and things in the story and affect what actions she takes.  Her reactions will differ from someone who doesn’t have kids, even someone who may be protective toward younglings.  Most mothers would fight a ravening grizzly to the death to keep their little ones from harm.  Other moms might be too high to care.

You can also have a character hook up with a surrogate family.  A great number of people consider their friends their families, either because they’re too far away from blood relatives, estranged from them (or don’t know who they are), or none of them are living.

Even if they are, they might just irritate the hell out of you.

 Image:  cinepremiere.com

And of course, when a character forms a long-term romantic partnership, he or she creates a family.  It may not contain children, but the two together are now a unit.  For someone who grew up on his/her own, this could provide all kinds of readjustment for a writer to explore.

This leads me to another point.  The events of your story should dictate whether your character has a family, too.  In Rose’s Hostage, I deliberately chose to alienate many of the characters from this kind of relationship to increase their vulnerability.  Libby, the hostage, has no family at all; all her relatives are dead.  Her best friend Jade is like a sister to her and is in a serious relationship herself.  Libby has tried to form a romantic attachment, only to have it blow up in her face.  When we meet her, she’s bored, directionless, and ripe for the picking.

Along comes Joshua the bank robber, who has no family ties either and whose one attempt to create them ended fatally.  Libby is vulnerable to the capture bonding that occurs when he kidnaps her.  Despite Jade’s attempts to support her, it’s not enough to prevent what happens.  (I’d love for you to find out what happens, if I ever get my manuscript back and get it published.  Rawr!)  Joshua becomes vulnerable to her as well, which proves a huge (and deadly) distraction.

Bonds with coworkers can affect the story too.  Example:  When Skye in the TV show Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D first joined the group, she tended to be sneaky about stuff and fly by the seat of her pants because she was so used to being completely on her own.

Now that she’s more a part of operations and Agent Coulson (love him!) is offering her stability and guidance, she’s starting to open up and work more collaboratively with them instead of going her own way (i.e. behind their backs).  She’s becoming one of the S.H.I.E.L.D family.

“Daddy?”

Image:  zap2it.com

In turn, Skye has begun to mean something to them.  If you watched the “T.A.H.I.T.I.” episode where

****SPOILER****

she gets shot and they go to the underground bunker to get the drug used to bring dead Coulson back to life,

****END SPOILER****

(By the way I figured out how to do this, haha!)
you will have seen what lengths her new family will go to in order to help her.  Adversity is a good tool with which to build relationships in a narrative, and so is a common goal that characters share.

No tornadoes yesterday, at least not here.  But it’s now cold again.  I don’t know about you, but I’m thoroughly sick of it.  It’s cold in my house and it’s hard to type.  What I really want right now is a nap (thanks, comfy blanket!), but I’ll do the best I can.

D is for dynamic.

A dynamic character is one who changes over the course of the narrative.  Does he learn anything?  Do the events of the story alter his perceptions in any way?  Does he do things he would not have done at the beginning, for whatever reason?  Is there growth?

Unlike static characters, who stay the same throughout a story, the inner personalities, thought patterns, and outward behavior of dynamic characters will alter as the events unfold.  The change can be abrupt or it can be a slow process, a struggle through the entire story arc.  It doesn’t have to be a positive change either.  The character can fall apart completely and then either stay that way, die, or hit bottom and come back up.

Whatever you do with him, it must make sense within the narrative.  People don’t alter their entire worldview for minor things.  You can’t have your character show signs of extreme trauma when he’s merely stubbed a toe.

“Finding out your wife has an enormous and dangerous secret vs. tripping on the kerb?  Well, bollocks; I don’t know which one’s worse.”

Image:  buddy2blogger.blogspot.com

You must also avoid derailing the character; that is, don’t make him do things he would never do based on how you showed him earlier.  If he’s doing something because the story demands it, then it better be an action he could and would reasonably be capable of performing.  Keep your evil characters evil.  Don’t make a menacing villain suddenly turn into a ginormous teddy bear.

SPOILER! 

This happened in The Dark Knight Rises, when Ra’s Al Ghul’s daughter revealed her childhood association with Bane, who then made puppy eyes at her like a nanny on crack.  All the air went out of him at that point, and he ceased to be a frightening and credible threat and just became stupid.  TV Tropes calls this badass decay.  Don’t do it; it’s annoying.

OKAY, SPOILER OVER.

Sorry, I’m on the free version of WordPress and it won’t let me blank out spoilers (that I’m aware of).

Don’t make the cute little girl suddenly pick up a machine gun and blow everybody away, unless you’ve established a clue earlier that she either might know how to use it or can learn really quickly.  Most small children can’t handle automatic weapons.

I have my doubts about these two.

Image:  Phaitoon/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Dynamic characters will move your story along.  As they evolve, their actions and reactions will initiate changes from other characters.  When Samwise Gamgee leaves the Shire with Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, he’s just a simple gardener and Frodo’s manservant.  By the time they reach Mount Doom, he has ridden in a boat, fought orcs, and killed the horrific giant spider Shelob.  Frodo’s deterioration and steadily decreasing ability to even care for himself brings out fortitude in Sam that he never knew he had.

Come on, say it with him; you know you want to.

Image:  xoyannie.com

The best protagonists don’t stay the same through a story.  Have fun putting your characters through their paces.  Give them things to do that challenge them.  We should all live this way in real life, too, because it keeps us fresh.

Today, I went to the passport office to turn in my application, so I can invade the U.K. later this year.  It will be so nice to have an actual vacation, far away from the yapping dogs and revving low-riders that have overtaken my neighborhood.  Perhaps I’ll win the Lotto drawing before then and I can afford to move.

This will do.

Image: xedos4/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 On to A-Z!

B is for backstory.

 In what sort of culture did your character grow up?  Whether we like to admit it or not, our backgrounds influence what sort of adults we’ll be.  While backstory doesn’t have to be a part of your narrative, you should definitely think about for your major characters.

The three male protagonists in my novel Rose’s Hostage had absentee fathers and one who was abusive.  This shaped them in various ways:

•  Pierce the detective adopted his wife’s dad as a surrogate father
•  Joshua the bank robber values independence and control
•  John Cook the serial killer rebelled silently, underneath a façade of decorum

Libby the hostage also never knew her father, though she spent summers with her grandparents and did have a male influence.  Still, she seeks a bond with a strong man who perhaps to her is the fulfillment of a wish fantasy, a hero type she has built up in her head who will swoop down and save her from her humdrum life.  Too bad the one she finds (Joshua) is more of an anti-hero.  Libby is every woman who ever fell in love with the wrong man.

Single mothers raising kids alone is common.  Will this bond the character to another one over their shared background?  Will they seek to put it behind them?

Actors who study or practice Method acting talk about motivation.  As a writer, you’ll seek the same inner contemplation for your major characters.  To make them well-rounded, you will have to think of them as real people, with hopes, dreams, traumas, and fears.  They feel all the same things you do, in varying levels of intensity.

Even this guy.

Image:  fanpop.com

 So how to do this?   It’s not always easy to identify with people in situations that are alien to you, and that can make it difficult to write a character’s behavior authentically.  If you can draw parallels to the situation, you might find moments in your own life where you can recall a similar feeling.

You can elicit your own past here, but eventually, as a writer, you’ll have to imagine scenes to which you have no possible real-life connection.  Re acting techniques again (so many of them are useful for writers; or maybe it’s just me, because I did so much theater in high school and college), Stella Adler modified the Method and urged her students to use the scene’s circumstances to stimulate their imaginations.  Adler also advocated doing research to understand different experiences better.  (I do this too!)

Another helpful tool is character worksheets.  I love these; I make one for each of my major characters and even paste pictures of people or drawings in them that resemble how they look in my mind.  Many of them have questions or list items where you can jot down things like your protagonist’s socioeconomic status, whether they have siblings, where they spent most of their childhood, etc.  Imagine you are your character as you fill it out.

You can make your own, or google character worksheets for writers.  There are thousands of them.

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Reveal backstory carefully; avoid the “information dump,” where all your backstory suddenly shows up in the narrative in one large clump.  Work tidbits in here and there.  Let the reader get to know the character as we read (I need to work on this one).  Your tale may not make much use of all the background, but your characters will have more depth if you think about where they came from.

OH HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS.  I completely forgot about the A-Z Challenge!!!

I had a meeting at school on March 31, late in the day, regarding a class project.  Since the professor is also my adviser, we had a discussion about my desire to run like the wind from school.  Conclusion:  I’m taking the summer off to write the sequel to Rose’s Hostage, and I may or may not come back in the fall.

I apologize for forgetting, so today I’ll be posting my A and B posts.  (I knew I should have put a pop-up reminder in my calendar, but noooooooo, I thought I would remember.  Bollocks.)

The theme for this year’s challenge is Character.  Throughout these posts, I’ll discuss elements I consider when I’m developing a character for a story.  I might even make one up as we go along.

Ready?

A is for age. 

What the character does and thinks affects the story, so your first task is to figure out how old the person should be.  There are profound differences between perspectives at each age and how they drive a character’s actions.

For example, children lack information that adults have gleaned through experience, and they don’t always see things as they actually are.  Stephen King’s It and The Body (you may know it as Stand By Me, the film version) and Robert R. McCammon’s Boy’s Life contain fairly realistic depictions of how kids see and cope with events in their worlds.

Let’s make our character a single adult woman named Sarah.  What are some of the things she might be concerned with?

• Family (children)
• Career
• Money
• Relationships

These are pretty basic to every adult, but Sarah will most likely be thinking about them in a different way at forty-three than she was at twenty-three.

Nope, gonna party ‘til I drop!

 Image:  photostock/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 Twenty-three

If Sarah is typical of most young people, she’ll be on her own but still learning how to handle her own affairs.  A twenty-three-year-old who went to college might not be working, but if she is, she’ll likely be entry-level.  She may be a saver, or she might blow her entire salary on cute shoes (or books, or computer parts, or whatever hobby you want to saddle her with).

Sarah could be in a relationship or dating around.  It’s up to you.  A serious boyfriend is an option here, but depending on where she lives and how she grew up, she may have a family already.  If so, her responsibilities will differ from other people her age.  She may be more resourceful or mature (unless you decide to make her a complete meth head or party animal).

This is a good time for a character to meet an older mentor, someone who will guide her into adulthood.  It could be an older lover.  It could be a coworker, a relative, or a friend.  It could be the story’s antagonist—adversity builds character, you know.

Her outlook on the future will skew toward possibilities.  When I was this age, I felt I had the whole of time and space ahead of me.  I could have adventures.  I could do things that mattered.  I might even change the world.

Boy, I really didn’t know jack.

 Image: David Castillo Dominici/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 Sarah in her twenties will adapt to almost instantaneous changes; she probably rents instead of owns a home, and she may move far from where she grew up, more than once.

Forty-three

By this age, Sarah will probably have settled into some kind of routine existence, unless she’s a test pilot or an archaeologist or an astronaut.  Most people entering their forties have been working for a while, so they’re more aware of how to handle money, their time, and their duties.

This may also be a time where Sarah looks at career changes—maybe she had a family earlier and wants to do something different with her life.  She could return to that future optimism she had at twenty-three.  She could go back to school, which would revitalize her.  Overall, older adults tend to be more risk-averse, so Sarah might decide that she’s not willing to risk any stability for what could amount to a pipe dream.

Many people start to face their mortality in their forties.  They begin to lose parents, siblings, friends, and classmates.  Their kids grow up and have kids.  They may face health issues of their own.  They discover signs of aging (this can really mess with a character’s head).  It’s the age of evaluation:  is my life what I wanted it to be?  Is there anything I can do about it at this point?  If so, what?

Sarah in her forties is still young enough to change her life, but unless change is forced upon her (divorce, loss, asteroid), will she want to?

———-

You’ll find tons of things to think about when deciding how old to make your character.  If you’re stuck in your story, try changing your protagonist’s age and write a few scenes from that perspective.   It might be just what you need to give your story some punch.