I find that the word man is a cliche. As much the word "man" sounds empowering and I feel like I'm leaving out my feminine readers out of the crowd. So what is another general word for "man"? I tried using "person" such as in this sentence... "...as I have transcended to a better person. A person that learned to be...blah, blah, blah." Any suggestions on replacing person?
"as i have transcended to a better life. A life where Ilearned to be..." or you could change the first 'person' to 'being' and keep the second 'person'
You have got to be kidding me! Now we need written permission and a seven day waiting period to own testicles?
no No its clearly a preference of mine but you can go ahead and use masculine words in your writing. Please don't reply to my threads with useless gestures.
Have no fear. You have the freedom to write as you wish, just remember that I have the freedom to avoid what I choose, and this makes no sense to me. When you have to watch what you write, you're not writing. You're avoiding.
Sorry dude, but anything aside from "man" sounds ridiculous in expressions like this. I highly doubt any of your female readers would mind the word "man" if your protagonist is male.
I think "man" is fine. I've even gotten used to seeing "she" used as a neutral pronoun, and I'm one of those old curmudgeons you young whippersnappers have heard about. English doesn't have gender-neutral pronouns (I refuse to use "it" to refer to a human being), so we have to make do with what we have. Whatever you use is going to be masculine or feminine, so you run the risk of leaving out half the human race no matter what you do. We all just have to learn to live with it.
I dislike the use of "he", "him", "man", and so on as gender-neutral words. But given that this quote is in the first person, it sounds like you're using the word "man" to refer to, well, a man - an adult male human being. I don't see how that can be seen as a cliche. A feminine reader who can't comprehend that a male character's thoughts and experiences might be relevant to her.... well, I struggle to imagine that such a reader exists, but if she does, refusing to use the word "man" isn't going to fix her comprehension problem. Now, there are times when I might think of myself as a woman, and times when I might think of myself as a person. If the _character_ is thinking "person", that's a perfectly good word. But if you're just shying away from "man" because you worry that it will alarm your female readers, I think that you'd do better to abandon that worry.
When using the word 'man' in the correct context- how can it be a cliché? Speaking as a woman, I am a bit more miffed at the fact that you see the word man (as used in your sentence) as empowering - it's a noun!
I'm with Trilby. I don't find the word 'man' sounds empowering at all. As a 'feminine reader' I wouldn't feel left out if you called him a man in that sentence. To my mind it's the right word anyway. I'd find it slightly strange, as a 'feminine reader' if your character started out as a woman, changed to a man and thought he was a better person for it. Now that would be a debate!
Earthling is a mildly offensive term for a Terran, used jeeringly by insensitive spacefaring races at our inability to travel beyond our own planet and its satellite.
Hey, I write science fiction, and some of my ficitonal characters would be fictionally insulted by being fictionally called 'earthlings' by other fictional characters in a work of fiction. So watch your mouth!
