Writing from a male's perspective?

If you're not ready to write a character then don't. YOU create the character. It is your voice, your thoughts and your actions. (BUT, it is different parts of you, if you get what I mean) I actually wrote the female character in my book in a swoosh, I just felt I had her figured out.

Many people won't agree with me: you can't be taught in to learning how to write a child, a female character, a male or an old man, it is your book. They are all you. What you need to "learn" is the character himself then fill him with your fantasy, your twist that makes him, him.

I think most writers have different voices in them, I feel like I do, I am good at putting myself in others shoes and think as they would (if I know them of course) and that is just what you need to do with your character, and that is what I do with my characters, and I can see a clear difference from the girl in my book, to my depressed mother, to the knight doing his job and the young adult that is sly and perceiving.

Ugh...I noticed that this wasn't the answer to your question, but I guess you think about what I wrote and perhaps make use of it.

 

Without reading the story he reviewed it's hard to judge.

I think it might be useful to take a step back here. There is the one issue I think we all agree on, characters should not be limited by gender, especially gender stereotypes.

But there's another issue, how do we give the right voice to our characters regardless of how we choose to make them? If a female writer wants to write a very strong male character it takes observation, experience and sometimes help getting it right.

 

You're right, I'd be one that doesn't agree.

I've recently learned, for example, that one can add an action to create the right voice, it's not just dialogue. A 12 yr old that sounds too old becomes younger when she climbs a tree. It didn't come to me magically, I learned it.

 

Hehe, maybe I'm a schizophrenic. Nah but I know it might not come to everyone as it would to me, I consider myself lucky. There are lots of variables to be put in when writing a character, I actually haven't written one word for one of my PoV characters, he's a male, but I just can't find the voice inside my head for him.

Of course though, we could all improve on writing characters, I doubt mine are "perfect" either, I'm just happy that at least something in my book came easier than most.

 

Sure, write characters, not genders, but I think it's important that you, as a writer, acknowledge to yourself when you are deviating from gender norms. That way you are fully aware of the ways in which your character deviates from the stereotypes, especially since sometimes these deviations beg for an explanation. That way you also learn to understand your character better when you know why they are different or stereotypical in a given regard.

For instance, if a guy has no grasp of the social subtleties commonly found in interaction between men, it would be odd to just shrug it off without explaining e.g. that his upbringing was such that he just wasn't exposed to male role models or interaction with other males.

So yeah, deviate from the norms if that's what serves your story, but be aware of it.
There are so many things that affect our behavior: how we are brought up, where we are brought up / where we live (i.e. how society treats us) etc. And then there's the whole issue of biology: men just happen to have generally higher levels of testosterone and, say what you will, it does affect our behavior to a degree.
Ever noticed how people often start acting a bit different when they use e.g. steroids to boost their testosterone levels? Or how men with naturally higher than average testosterone levels tend to act a bit different from men with naturally lower than average testosterone levels. There are exceptions to pretty much every "rule," including this one, but there's also usually a reason behind those exceptions.

Pretending like these things don't matter / exist pose the danger of making the writer look like someone who doesn't really know what they're doing.

Also, it's a good idea to hang out with men. A lot. Granted, you probably won't gain admittance into the boy's club, meaning they will, in all likelihood, act different around a woman, but being around the opposite sex a lot does grant occasional glimpses that may prove useful for a writer.

Unless the character is faking a reaction because of certain circumstances: every cell in his body tells him to do the exact opposite of what he forces himself to do for reason X. Or if the character changes radically when drunk / high on substance X for the first time. Point being, I think there are exceptions to that rule as well.

Yeah, I'd have to disagree with you there. There are many ways to learn to write better characters, but just observing people like your character often gives you loads of new material, new ways to look at the character, things you would have otherwise missed. Even that simple process is, essentially, being taught how to write character X.

 

Yes, but then you are giving the reader a plausible reason for what would otherwise be aberrant behavior.

 

I will respectfully disagree. The use of pejorative, archaic language in a critique of a character shows that he hasn't really considered the merits of the story.

Yes.

 

You want to get married quick, have a lot of children, and think about shoes too much?

Based solely on gender, it'd probably be a mistake to a novice and a pro, but that seems to be the consensus here anyway.

 

May I just say that writing any character that's believable takes close observation of people in general, coupled with empathy. If you don't understand people and cannot connect with their feelings/thoughts, you're going to have stereotypes. I also understand the societal differences for gender - just as I do for race, religion, etc. But that's the outside world for the character. Two different individuals, same gender, will react differently to those societal "norms" if one actually writes them as individuals and not the "typical male" or "typical female". Your characters should not be "typical". They should be unique, just as unique as real people.

 

Agreed.

 

I feel the need to say that men don't cry less frequently because of some innate difference in men. Men cry less frequently because society condemns men crying. The person calling a crying man a "sissy" isn't just observing the reality of men-and-crying, he is in part shaping that reality.

Do I have scientific proof of this, rafts of studies about men and crying and male and female body chemistry and whether crying is as helpful to men as women? Nope. I have anecdotal evidence of my observation. It's not proof, but I'm perfectly confident of it anyway.

However, I'd also say that society's condemnation of men crying does mean that certain--many, perhaps most--male characters are likely to try very hard to keep from crying, especially in front of witnesses. I suspect that "men don't cry" is a stereotype that's pretty scary for a man to challenge.

 

That's true of a great many traits we consider to be gender-based.

 

For the record, one cannot assume gender differences in crying frequency are socially based anymore than we can assume they are biologically based. We need to investigate first. This does not negate overlap, BTW, I think of it as two bell curves that overlap but don't line up exactly.

I don't present the following as convincing evidence, I've not done enough research to say that, this was just from a quick Google search. But it is valid to look at behavior in non-human primates and even other species to sort out social from biological traits, even though social traits also evolved.

The point is one needs to consider both nature and nurture. I would even go as far as to say, dismissing nature without evidence might also be sexist. Why should men need to be the same as women just because we need not hold it against them if they are?

EVOLUTION OF GENDER DIFFERENCES IN ADULT CRYING

 

It doesn't seem to me that what is stated necessarily supports nature over nurture. The participants studied were humans who are part of society, and therefore already shaped by the nurture aspects of human society. The results of the study could be just as indicative of that as any 'nature' component.

 

The point was, you can't assume it is not nature without looking for evidence. There is an assumption going on in this thread I don't believe is settled science. And more importantly, denying any gender differences are biological is contrary to the evidence.

 

Then what's the problem? Either non-normative people are allowed to exist, or they're not.

 

The problem is, why are people in the thread arguing against gender as an important characteristic to consider?

 

Yes, I think people have to be open to the possibility that it is either. Seems like it may be difficult to conclusively answer which it is. But, regardless, there is no reason for any given character (to get back to the original topic) that you have to make them an 'easy crier,' whether male or female.

 

I believe we are somewhat talking past each other in this thread. That's why earlier I posted,

I think it might be useful to take a step back here. There is the one issue I think we all agree on, characters should not be limited by gender, especially gender stereotypes.

But there's another issue, how do we give the right voice to our characters regardless of how we choose to make them? If a female writer wants to write a very strong male character it takes observation, experience and sometimes help getting it right.
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My character tears up here and there because that is right for the character. And her love doesn't, because that's his character. Gender considerations are part of their character.

 

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Assuming we agree on what is meant by 'strong,' I think that's generally true. But in this thread, and in most I've seen like it, the initial question generally seems to pertain to some general idea of having to write a character differently depending on whether they're male or female, which I don't think is a good approach. Instead, I think you look to the individual character and his or her traits. If you want to write a stereotypical male character, then yes you have to know what the stereotypes are so you can incorporate them.

 

Like I said, talking past each other, do you start with 'male' or do you 'ignore it'? I don't think anyone in the thread is saying either, but it seems like one or the other to those reading other's posts.

 

I don't personally choose the starting point for any of my character's traits based on their gender. In fact, I don't take it into consideration at all when determining their traits. When determining how others interact with them, then I consider it. I follow the advice attributed to GRRM, which is basically to write women as "people." Giving them a characteristic based on a distribution of traits among males and females in society doesn't interest me. I want the character that I want to write about.

 

We're afraid of being sexist and old-fashioned and uncool. Who knows! This isn't even bad. Let's try and have a conversation about female fighters, now there's a can of worms for ya!

But I don't think anyone truly believes gender doesn't matter one bit. Absolutes are ridiculous, especially in writing.

I think it was in one of ASOIAF novels... unless I'm thinking about some other author, but damn did I roll my eyes at the female characters checking themselves out from mirrors while men never did that.

 

I think it might be easier to express the character's gender from an external perspective, rather than an internal one. Stop worrying about making the character's voice male - just let it be the character's voice. Instead, allow the people around the character be the ones that point out his masculinity (or lack thereof, as the case may be). Not all guys act like "dudes." Regardless of this, many times, people tend to treat them that way, anyway. When a girl cries, people feel bad for her, because she's a girl. Nevermind that she's not crying over a boy, but because her brother crashed her four-wheeler. People dont' consider that. She's a girl. She cries. When a guy cries, people will have lots of pretty little names for him (faggot, wuss, sissy, mama's boy, eto name a few) and another "dude" might come up and slap him on the back of the head and tell him to suck it up.

 

True in infants and young children, but I would seriously question this as an assumption in adults. It ignores numerous adult phenomena with regard to crying that have nothing to do with signaling a need for attention, such as the fact that many men who feel the urge or need to cry will often to do alone, are crying in contravention of societal expectations that men don't cry and so are anxious not to draw attention to the fact that they are, in fact, crying.