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To get my bias clear: what I'm about to say is based mainly on anecdotal experience with fellow female writers both in fandom and without.
Off the top of my head, I can think of no one I know who professes to write men and women with equal ease. Some have an easier time with women because they are women, so it's easier to slip into that headspace, some have an easier time writing men precisely because they aren't men, and feel like they have a freedom that they don't when writing women (and I'm sure there are numerous other reasons for why writing one gender or the other is easier or harder).
That said.
I don't think there is anything inherently easier or harder about writing a man versus a woman, but I do think exclusively writing one or the other, at all times, is a sign of weakness in a writer. (You can certainly choose that all your stories have a protagonist of one gender or the other but I consider knowing how to write both* in the same category as knowing how to write both present and past tense.)
The most common reasons for NOT writing the opposite gender are some of the same ones used for not writing characters of different ethnicities than oneself and hold about as much water. (tl;dr: PEOPLE. MORE SIMILAR THAN THEY ARE DIFFERENT.)
Where it gets tricky is with historical fiction. We have sexism in our current culture and in a lot of times in the past, we had a fuckton more. Depending on how close an author is hewing to historical fact, most male characters would have a lot of sexist ideas about women and a lot of women were severally limited in what they could believably be doing and the amount of agency they had.
The modern sensibilities/historical accuracy balancing act strikes me as way harder than just writing from a man's pov.
But not impossible.
Just look at historical precedent: there have been badass ladies (and I'm going to assume, men who respected them - or am I being too optimistic?) throughout recorded history.
*I know that there are more than two options for gender but in the interests of not tripping over my words, I'm going to pretend for this post.
Off the top of my head, I can think of no one I know who professes to write men and women with equal ease. Some have an easier time with women because they are women, so it's easier to slip into that headspace, some have an easier time writing men precisely because they aren't men, and feel like they have a freedom that they don't when writing women (and I'm sure there are numerous other reasons for why writing one gender or the other is easier or harder).
That said.
I don't think there is anything inherently easier or harder about writing a man versus a woman, but I do think exclusively writing one or the other, at all times, is a sign of weakness in a writer. (You can certainly choose that all your stories have a protagonist of one gender or the other but I consider knowing how to write both* in the same category as knowing how to write both present and past tense.)
The most common reasons for NOT writing the opposite gender are some of the same ones used for not writing characters of different ethnicities than oneself and hold about as much water. (tl;dr: PEOPLE. MORE SIMILAR THAN THEY ARE DIFFERENT.)
Where it gets tricky is with historical fiction. We have sexism in our current culture and in a lot of times in the past, we had a fuckton more. Depending on how close an author is hewing to historical fact, most male characters would have a lot of sexist ideas about women and a lot of women were severally limited in what they could believably be doing and the amount of agency they had.
The modern sensibilities/historical accuracy balancing act strikes me as way harder than just writing from a man's pov.
But not impossible.
Just look at historical precedent: there have been badass ladies (and I'm going to assume, men who respected them - or am I being too optimistic?) throughout recorded history.
*I know that there are more than two options for gender but in the interests of not tripping over my words, I'm going to pretend for this post.
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*nods* I have written at least one story that was 98% one gender (female), and it was one of the easier fics I've written. While I appreciate that, I don't see it as a sign of a good thing. In fact, I've seen an all-female longfic that practically screamed "Can't look outside of self when writing characters."
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Ha, true! Although there have been fandoms where I would have found that delicious as a reader.
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I totally agree.
Given a short amount of leway time to get used to a character, I've felt it generally simply to switch between guys and girls. That may just be because as a roleplayer, when I started out writing, I was writing like Cats, and Wolves, and other type creatures that weren't human. So, as females came to me naturally from being female, I didn't want to only write female characters (because in the roleplay society, you'd generally start being refered to as a "despie"), I created male characters and graduated worked myself into being comfortable with it. (It's in this area where I've met quite a number of female roleplayers who admit they find it a lot more enjoyable to roleplay male characters, and while they will have the occasional female character, play males almost exlusively.)
That being said, I do find myself far more comfortable with writing females than males, at least in terms of a First Person tense. Third person isn't so hard with me, but there's something about being in a character's head that always feels weird for me when it's a guy.
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To be honest, I find 1st person (either gender) harder than third in general. Part of it is that it is overused in a genre I like and write in a lot (Urban Fantasy) and part is that it's hard for me to write a character who's NOT snarky and sarcastic yet has an entertaining inner voice.
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For me, the only big difference is the different gender cliches. If I was writing a fic with a doctor and a nurse, I would REALLY hesitate to make the nurse female, for example.
Which leads into what I find more interesting both as a writer and as a reader; I want to see gender lines and stereotypes get screwy, which (inhmo) makes a writer stronger. If the reader can't rely on the facts that this character drives a truck and is a cop to understand that the character is male, as I writer I'm going to have to get my inner voice much tighter and more effective so the audience doesn't have doubts.
Does that answer your question?
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As for the second part of your post...I'm going to refer to something Nicole Galland (writer) said at one point, and that's that her historical fiction characters are, first and foremost, characters. She's said that there are a lot of good characters in historical fiction, but if you plucked them out of the time period they live in and put them in a diner in NY, they wouldn't be the same person. To her, you should be able to take any character out of their setting and they would still be the same basic person. (I understand that a lot of things can change about characters as per situation, but even without the magic, Harry Dresden would still be a snarky, stupidly brave man.)
One thing I liked about Galland's "Crossed" was how accessible it felt. I love history, but I HATE most historical fiction. I...honestly can't stand Phillipa Gregory because every character, every voice sounds the same to me. It seems like too many historical fiction writers get caught up in the idea of writing for the time period to the point where they forget. It feels like, in most historical fiction, the characters are created entirely to be glimpses into a stereotypical version of this old world setting.
To me? I don't mind if my characters have more modern speech patterns in an old English setting. Along that same train of thought, I don't mind having female characters exist outside of what people THINK women of that time were supposed to be like.
For instance, I'm writing a WWII original story right now, and the WWII mythology is one of the giant sausagefest and the occasional femme fatale (Inglorious Basterds) but I've made a point to include a wide variety of female characters; I have everyone from my silky, sexy doctor to the women who WERE SOLDIERS RIGHT ALONGSIDE THE MEN fighting in the trench dirt (which DID happen, mostly on the Eastern front). Sure, it's probably not LIKELY that they have the stations in life they have, but for the purposes of my story, they do.
So yeah, those are my two rules: write characters before century, and although it may be unlikely, she is here doing this at this time.
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I really agree with this. I think situation has a huge effect on who a person is, but they should still be recognizable if they were put into a different situation (interestingly enough, I'm dealing with this in my own writing; I have a set of character who I know aren't well developed enough precisely because I can't do this yet).
I have everyone from my silky, sexy doctor to the women who WERE SOLDIERS RIGHT ALONGSIDE THE MEN fighting in the trench dirt (which DID happen, mostly on the Eastern front). Sure, it's probably not LIKELY that they have the stations in life they have, but for the purposes of my story, they do.
In The Girl Who Played With Fire one of the chapter headings is about a law forbidding women to fight... which the writer noted meant that they must have been DOING SO to need a law against it.
And if you look, you can find women in every time period doing amazing and progressive things.
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This is a lovely way to think about things. I do think that situation can change a lot- for example, a woman in the thirteen hundreds might not have the specific dream to become a lawyer, but she'd probably still be interested in justice and be smart and want to get it for others etc. I don't know... I've sometimes wondered, what would be different and what would be the same about a me who was born in a different time period? Maybe that is why I can get annoyed at ill-done historical fic.
by the by, your story with set in WWII sounds interesting, and of course, there were women doing awesome things, things that might be even more awesome because they had to fight for their right to even be able to do them...
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One advantage I noticed, from writing from the male perspective, is that it allows me to describe the women in the story without being romantic about it, necessarily. Maybe Daniel looks at Charlotte a certain way but doesn't verbalize it; that aids the story because you're in his head. Or maybe in Psych, Gus likes Abigail okay but doesn't feel romantic towards her. It's less suspenseful but also less confusing, and I try not to leave my readers confused unless I have to.
On the other hand, if I'm writing from the girl's perspective, it's most likely because I want to give her as much power as possible, if not in action then in thought, to your point about historical accuracy. Maybe she can't actually do anything herself - but she sure as hell wants to and will find some other way.
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That is a good point. I admit, I've written a lot of stories that have a male pov but are totally about a woman.
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However, I actively choose to write female-centric stories more because I often love them better, as well as an attempt to fill a perceived gap in lady-friendly fiction.
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*nods*
Yep, some characters are like slipping into a pair of worn jeans, and some where writing them is like pulling teeth.
However, I actively choose to write female-centric stories more because I often love them better, as well as an attempt to fill a perceived gap in lady-friendly fiction.
Same.
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This is kinda why I would challenge myself to write for an equal number of males and females, though it depends on some of the circumstances (if it's a fighting sort of story or others, I try to balance with enough on both sides; if it is a situation where there really are more ladies or men, then I pretty much keep to that). As for historical fiction...I haven't quite lived up to that challenge as of yet, since I'm wary of what the details might be in those times--women's role expectations, etc. ^^; -is not the strongest writer out there...yet-
I don't think there is anything inherently easier or harder about writing a man versus a woman, but I do think exclusively writing one or the other, at all times, is a sign of weakness in a writer. (You can certainly choose that all your stories have a protagonist of one gender or the other but I consider knowing how to write both* in the same category as knowing how to write both present and past tense.)
The most common reasons for NOT writing the opposite gender are some of the same ones used for not writing characters of different ethnicities than oneself and hold about as much water. (tl;dr: PEOPLE. MORE SIMILAR THAN THEY ARE DIFFERENT.)
Exactly. :) The good news is that women and men are very varied in regards to their personalities and values. It also helps make the story with more variety and make the perspectives of the entire situation more complete.
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I do recognize my need to diversify, though. I guess I get nervous about writing women because of the harsher light they get put under than men.
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Do not even get me started on that bullshit. *seethes*
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Exactly. After reading your post, I actually went back and checked (because, my memory is like a blackhole this evening, apperently) how many fics I wrote with POV as one gender versus the other. Not quite half- and half, and a fair portion I switched within the story too. Its just who's head- due to the story I want to tell- makes the most sense or the character I feel I understand better, sometimes. Both seem equally easy (or rather hard) to write, but now makes me wonder if I am putting enough though into how a person's gender would effect their POV in stories....
You do hit upon one of my biggest pet peeves in reading though- that balance between historical accuracy and women/modern views. I HATE it when it is a woman with 21st century sensiblities in a histoical setting.
Depending on how close an author is hewing to historical fact, most male characters would have a lot of sexist ideas about women and a lot of women were severally limited in what they could believably be doing and the amount of agency they had. This is true, but at the same time its only half the story. I think there are women from every age and walk of life that defied convention, in some way, and led lives that are admirable to us now. But it is also unfair if authors (well, or readers too I suppose...) ignore the fact that every society has social constructs, ideas or forms, or what it means to be a woman or a man, deeply ingrained things. A person might break these constructs in some ways, but all ways? No. And it is unnerving and rings untrue when a character in a historical novels ignores all social constructs of the setting of the story, and instead is a modern personage. Its less creative too- after all, our culture shaped us as surely as other cultures shaped people of the past. We may have valued different things and isn't part of the interest in looking at what could or couldn't remain the same?
Interesting and though provoking post!
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Well said.
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I think it does depend on what kind of story you want to write. I just disagree with the idea that "historical fiction" must be exactly like what we perceive that culture was. Historical fiction comes in all shapes and sizes, and to say that it is impossible for a modern mind in older times puts too many constraints on storytelling, IMHO, and that perspective is also wholly unrealistic to me.
Additionally, I'd like to say that it's impossible to try and recreate every single trait or social norm of any given time period. I think that people are admirable for trying, but I don't see the harm in smudging already fuzzy details in order to stay true to your story and your characters.
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Certainly, the characters need to be people the readers relate to. Otherwise, the story is going to be a pain to read- and likely a pain to write. Also, as you point out, a line that needs to be drawn to make sure the story is being served, first and foremost. And that's why no historical fiction will ever be 100% fact (that is what nonfiction is for). Its just for me, the more truthful the story is to the characters and its setting, the better it is. After all, why set it in that setting or with those characters if they are not leading the story? I find it impossible that a person would be entirely untouched by their own culture, as would be the case with someone in a historical setting who acts as a person from our time would be. The character might have some of the desires and/or traits we value (for example maybe, a women in the twelfth century who's an intellectual and wants to go on a crusade, versus a woman in the same time period who describes herself as a career woman ) but all of them and none of their own time? Its not so much demanding that historical fiction exactly portray that time period (though, I do prefer it to be more, rather than less accurate, I admit) because, without having lived then, that's unfair to expect. But to me, I like to read to find what is universal between the characters and myself, but also to expierence a world-view and life I could never live. Part of reading that interests me most is how by expeirncing things second hand, things that we (thankfully) never have to or even can really live through.
Now you've sparks a desire to reread Lies My Teacher Told Me which has some really interesting things to say about how different soceities had different values (well, it also goes on to talk about how this is then treated by public educations, which gets us into a whole different realm, but yeah.) Sorry this is such a tl;dr comment....