Writing a Proper Balance of the Sexes
I’ve found out that depending on the stories I write, there’s a severe lack of what I could call a “balance of the sexes” in them.One would probably think that, being a woman, my main characters would be women, or that the secondary characters at least would be. Well, it’s not necessarily true for me. I have an ongoing story where there’s close to no significant female characters in the first part, and the ones who really play a role are behind-the-scenes plotters whose role get unveiled much more later. I didn’t do that on purpose, it’s just the way the characters themselves imposed their presence to me, so to say. I have many female characters leading the way in other stories of mine, so I know I’m not allergic to women—only in this specific story are the main characters male (the females who do appear, on the other hand, aren’t there for romance purposes; creating a female character just to put her in the hero’s bed is something I’ve always, well, have had problems to envision, because it seems so shallow for this poor woman!).The reason why I mention this is because I once gave the first chapters of said story to read to a friend, and got told that it was weird to see me write about male characters, and not about strong female ones. I can’t remember exactly what was said (and it wasn’t said in a nasty way, it was simply a remark in passing), but I know it sounded as if it was surprising coming from me. I’m not sure if I appeared like a hard-line feminist at the time, or if it looked weird because I had been writing about strong women characters before. I’ve just remembered this today, as I was drafting character sheets for another project.Is there a problem with a lack of balance of the sexes in a novel? Personnally, I generally don’t care: as long as the characters are well-developed and make sense in their respective roles, I think the author reached his/her goals with them. However, I can also envision that a reader would feel miffed at not seeing his/her own sex represented more in a specific story; one thing many people tend to look for, consciously or not, is “someone to identify with”, and as such, the lack of significant presence of their own sex in a book could throw them off… perhaps. I’m not really sure about that. I just know that until now, I had never really given the matter a thought. Isn’t it a little weird?.
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Comments
Jennifer
I’ve written from bother perspectives but my main characters tend to be female. Though I’m more of your opinion if the characters well developed and interesting then it really shouldn’t matter…
Yzabel
Yes, I want to think that a good character is a good character, whether female or male… and if it’s a badly developed one, no change of sex will ever make him/her completely right 😉
russ
Oh, relax. You’re fine. Some stories are about a woman, some about a man. Some about groups of men, too. Unless you’re writing to prove a point or make a statement (which I think weakens fiction), I think good characters are the best we can hope for.I think we write the stories we want to, the ones that come to us, and they’re no more under our control than dreams are.
Lee Carlon
This is something I’ve noticed in my own writing, I try to keep a balanced mix, but don’t force it if it isn’t write for the characters.
Yzabel
Hm, I don’t think I’m writing to prove a point–if I were, I’d probably turn my male characters into females just so that I can’t be blamed of “sexism”, and I know I don’t do that, as it’s, uhm, lame. 😀
Benjamin Solah
I’ve never written from the female perspective before. I think I’d find it a little weird as I’m not female and therefore I don’t think I could do it right.But even in my stories I lack even female secondary characters, they’re mainly girlfriends.It’s a problem I think, and you’re right, I am risking alienating my female readers.
Yzabel
That’s the kind of challenge I like in writing, I must say–trying to present convincing male characters. I don’t know if I manage to do it well, but so far nobody has told me that my characters were sissies, so I guess I’m not doing it completely the wrong way either. I’ll agree though that it can be tricky; sometimes I find it hard even with female ones, yet they’re the ones I’m supposed to have no problems with. Go fig!
N. Mallory
I was just considering the fact that almost all of the charactrs I’ve been contemplating for my possible NaNo story are women, which is interesting since it’s a dark fiction/vampire kind of idea. I guess I just have a problem identifying with male characters. Mine always seem too stereotypically macho and cardboard or they end up too sensitive or gay. I find it fascinating that you tend to write more male characters than females, but then I have a female friend who almost always plays male characters in RPGs and a male friend who almost always plays female characters and both do so very well though they are both very solidly hetrosexual — I think they play the kind of man/woman they would want to be with. Maybe I should look at it from that perspective. Just some random thoughts.BTW, hope you feel better.
Yzabel
I used to play lots of male chars when I started role-playing, too. It was a fun change from “being a female”, sort of (plus I was quite used to it: at the theater club, they always gave me male roles, since I was one of the bulkiest members, and we had a severe shortage of males :D). Now I tend to play females most often, but it really depends on the game and of the character I envision. If it strikes me as a male one, I play male. I have enough men around me to hit me on the head if I’m to play such a role in some kind of “not male” way LOLAnd I do feel better regarding the running nose, but now I have no voice left. Those who hoped to have long discussions with me this week-end will have to talk, and I will only listen!