Second Wind Publishing discussion

Let’s discuss writing about gender. I’m obviously not a male, and certainly not an African American male, yet the lead in my thriller series is. None of my readers have yet to voice displeasure with the words I have presented and the lead character I have created. I suspect because I don’t dwell on my hero’s ethnicity—merely that he is the first and only deputy of a sleepy county deep in the Great Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina. Steven Hawk came to my imagination as a southern black man therefore that is who he will always be. Many agents and editors I encountered along the long road to publication wanted me to change these elements, which would always be the deal breaker for me.

Have you readers encountered any displeasured with characters written by opposing gender authors?

Oh, this fight goes on and on in the m/m aka gay fiction field. There are those guys who get all lathered up over women writing as guys. Doesn't bother me in the least. Hey, would I love to have written Brokeback Mountain? Hell yes! I was very popular writing as a woman in the 70s, as Jan Alexander. I'm a bit more cautious about cross-racial characters, depends on their role in a story. Obviously as a white male I could not write in real depth about the black experience, but let's face it, mostly humans share the same fears, needs, wants, dreams - there's plenty of common ground.

I love to write in the hero's POV hey it's fiction. What about the paranormals? Is a male warewolf or vamp out side a human male? I think maybe so at least some.

Like Victor I don't think I could write in depth but I read (and write) for enjoyment so I don't get into really deep theory or technical areas. If I ever do I'll write what I've personally experienced or do a whole lot of research.

Male characters written by female authors - British detectives spring to mind - Wexford by Ruth Rendell for example. She seems to portray a middle-aged, staid, conservative man pretty well.

A modern trend is to have more female protagonists - even if written by men. Jack Ketchum's Off Season is an exapmple I'm reading now. Again, they seem to be fairly realistic, though I might find it difficult to judge :)

For an example of an author portraying a character totally unlike his or her own, I might recommend the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child. His MC is an ex-major in the American Military Police. Child was born and raised in the UK and has never been in the US forces. Yet his character is totally believable. Massive amounts of research there, I would guess.

A side question; do any male authors now need to fabricate a female identity in order to get published? George Eliot in reverse?

Everyone says Wally Lamb's potrayal of a woman in She's Come Undone is done well, but I didn't agree.
I want to write a story involving a half-Japanese gay man. A lot of my characters are different from me in terms of race and gender, but they are like me in terms of passion for music and stuff.

I usually shake my head at many authors' inability to write characters of the opposite gender, something all too common these days. The flaw is to delve too deeply, as a general rule. The key for success for creating characters is staying with what one has closely observed or heard. To extrapolate past this point successfully one must have, I think, a quirky character in whom almost all things are possible. A character which comes to mind is Lisbeth Salander in the Stieg Larsson novels. Salander is not well drawn, but her personality is explained by her background of abuse as well as a kind of super intelligence. I don’t think that is sufficient, but it is better than supposing too much of the inner workings of a person.

As an example of good opposite gender characterizations, one of the best examples is a book I read recently called The Coal Tattoo by Silas House. At first I was utterly astounded by his ability to write women characters perfectly. However where he succeeds is in not going too deep... and yes, he does make a few errors, but nothing that would ruin the book. Still his powers of observation are unusually acute in this vein and are extremely accurate and believable.

Staying with a particular type of person is an excellent way of writing. Agatha Christy does this well, again not going into the psyche and also demonstrating a few eccentricities. Jane Austen, for example, wrote about men watching them very closely, but never supposing she could write of the deep inner turmoil. Instead she subtly develops her characters’ beliefs ultimately in the outward manifestations of the characters.

I have more trouble with men authors doing women, not that it's not always done well, John Updike comes to mind. But women have raised male children and as everybody knows a man is just a baby boy grown bigger. Writers can do anything well if they can imagine it well. I'm working on a sequel to my BLUE TURQUOISE WHITE SHELL, where many of the main characters are men, historical as well as contemporary. My sequel's main character is an 1860s teenage Navajo warrior, coming of age. I adore him and to me he's breathing. He could be one of my sons. Virginia

I don't know if I've experienced displeasure, but rarely have I found it done well. I attempted a short story from a female perspective and I fell flat. A woman in my writers group does it and while the others in the group raved over it, I felt some of her word choices questionable. Maybe I'm OCD, but I found it somewhat distracting, even with her third person narrative, her feminine word choices when she described a building's facade. A male would likely describe a cornice as handsomely wrought, not beautiful.

However, in Staccato, I found the male protagonist believable.

Thank you, J. So pleased that Deputy Steven Hawk in STACCATO rang true for you.
And thanks to all of you who have left comments on this discussion so far.

I haven't yet. I'm a black woman and most of my characters are white. I have more respect for authors who write from different perspectives than those who are afraid to write about things they aren't or don't know. As a minority, it offends me when I see some authors saying, "I don't know how to write for blacks, Asians, Hispanics, etc." Yet they find it easy to write about something like a demon and vampire? Are real people that are different from us, really that hard to understand? Sad world we're living in if it is.

Writing is supposed to be about taking chances and writing different perspectives. If I had to only write about black women just because I am one, I'd go nuts. I am sure a lot of other folks feel the same about who they are. The fact is, people should stop looking at folks as a color or as what they are and just write them as people.

My gender and color is a PART of who I am, it's not the only thing I am. My personality, spirit, drive, likes and dislikes, emotions, that's what makes me ME first. I think some writers forget that. They get too focused on race and gender instead of remembering, that's the covering. It's still a person.

As long as a writer is writing a person and not echoing stereotypes, I commend them. I think it comes from ignorance, and sure that's not always a person's fault but a writer needs to get out there and know different types of people. If you haven't ever truly been around someone of a different heritage or religion, etc and you try to write about it, you're only gonna go by what you see on television and in other books which most times is stereotypical.

And just for the record, when I started out writing ALL of my characters were white. Why? Because that's who I identified most with. A lot of black people didn't have the same interests I had so white people were who I had things in common. Also, I am a person who dates interracially (white guys), that's why my stories also have elements of interracial romance in my crime stories.

So maybe it was much easier for me, being around white folks and knowing that white people might have been different, but I always saw the person. I realize, that some people might not be the same way but they should.

I also get ticked off when writers are scared to talk about race because as writers, we should be way more worldly than the average person since our work is part of us.

My fourth book's coming out next year, and let me tell you this, you write what you want and what you're happy with. If that character is a black man, then keep him as a black man. Don't let someone dictate your characters. I love my agent to death but if she EVER told me to change the race or gender of a character, she'd see another side of me, LOL.

What comes to the writer's mind first is what should be followed if they are happy with it.

I commend you Deborah and I hope it works well for you.

Best Wishes!

http://www.stacy-deanne.net

I see no problem with writing a character different from oneself, so long as one doesn't rely on stereotypes, which a conscientious writer who cares about their writing wouldn't do anyway. Like Stacy-Deanne, I've heard that argument about White writers being afraid to write Black characters. It's never been an issue for me to write about White characters. I wrote a story about a Russian man. I did my research to get the in-depth aspects right. But, as many have said, we are all human beings.

If a writer can write about aliens, werewolves, demons, angels, faeries, etc, I don't see why it's a big issue to write about the opposite gender or a different race.

I completely agree Stacy-Deanne, writing characters with a common interest helps bring them to life. And although some of my favorite characters to write are truly "bad" and often diabolic I do my best to give them at least one redeeming quality. More than a few African American men and women who have been kind enough to read STACCATO and reach out to me have expressed how much they enjoyed Steven Hawk. More than anything he is human and a sympathetic hero.

And right again, no way would would I change a single element about Hawk--that was the deal breaker for me. I passed on these agents and editors who required me to make him something he was not and went with Second Wind Publishing. They allowed me to fly with the novel and characters I always intended.

Hi Danielle,

Great to see you here!

Deborah,

You gotta do what's right for you and your story. If you changed something you really wanted to do, you won't be happy with it and you'd feel like a sellout or something. I know I would. Writing and being published is wonderful and I love being published but if I had to sell myself out or write according to someone else's opinions of what I should write, I would hate myself because I wouldn't be doing it from the heart. I'm glad you're sticking to your guns and I believe that's only gonna bring you more rewards in the end.

Best Wishes to you and thanks for the friend request!

http://www.stacy-deanne.net

I try to do a male pov in most of my books, mostly to encourage men to read them, too. I always try to get male pre-readers to be on the safe side. I heard a while back that many earlier Harlequins were written by men, and I wondered because so often the women were very young and almost victims.. The latest book I'm reading does a male pov that seems too touchy-feely to me.

http://lisalickel.com

Right, Lisa, so important to have the male perspective before the final polish. There are two men in my intense writing group and quite a few in the critique group I monitor.

www.DeborahJLedford.com

I know of a lot of guys who write category romance but say people have told them to go to women pen names and they really don't want to.

In a writers' board there was a thread one day in the Romance section where a guy asked straight out if women would read a book where the romance was written from a guy. Most of the women said, "No." At least they were honest but it opened my eyes seeing how all of those women were writers and STILL they wouldn't be willing to read a romance from a guy.

I write in a genre (crime fiction) where a lot of women went through the same thing. A lot of men don't wanna read books from women because they assume all women are into romance, etc. My books might have some romance as the subplot, but I write HARDBOILED crime fiction. I write is what I enjoy. I also don't care who reads my books, men or women, LOL! If a dog and cat read them I'd be happy.

Still, I feel bad for the guys coming up who wanna write romance but don't even get a chance to. The reason is because people have wondered for years why some men don't write more romance. I thought maybe they didn't want to and came to find out, many love writing romance but aren't accepted unless they pretend they are women. I think most men just switch to writing other things if it's easier.

Sorry if I got off topic, LOL! I wanted to say this since we were speaking about gender.

Best Wishes!

http://www.stacy-deanne.net

I've read novelists who do an excellent job of writing creating characters of diffent races & genders; notably Octavia Butler and Tad Williams. And not to toot my horn (OK yeah I am tooting it/smile) I do a reasonably well job myself.

But, and I'm not going to call any names, there are several things authors do which I find irritating even when it's an author I like. Notably: the "Magic Negro" character, the one token Black person with "special powers," is something that irritates me.

The contrast between male and female authors' creation of female characters is rather interesting too. I've found that men's protrayal of female sexuality can be rather flat. Women tend to be more creative. I've also found that men use more violent sexual portrayals (e.g. rapes). What a surprise -:)

"...men use more violent sexual portrayals (e.g. rapes)"

Oddly, I find the opposite to be true. Women often write rape scenes into M/M fiction - because, of course, they're mostly writing for other women, for whom rape is a long standing traditional fantasy (see The Sheik, the bodice rippers of the 70s, et al - allows all sorts of sexual freedom while retaining all innocence and purity) - men writing gay fiction sometimes write rape scenes as well but for the most part the dynamic is quite different. With men it isn't so much the sexual issue but the matter of control (this is true even in heterosexual rape). Even the nelliest queen dislikes losing control. Generally speaking the "bottom" is usually the one in control, however the sex comes about. I can always tell when a book has been written by a woman, whatever the pen name, by the rape scenes.

I guess I hope I'm okay portraying characters different from myself - I use the excuse that I live in a household of males (who, of course, don't read my writing or I'd ask their opinions). My first eBook's just come out and the protagonist is male.

My dad wrote a book, the story of a young farm wife, suffering through an abusive marriage with no place to go, during the 1940s. He told the story from the woman's perspective and did it very well. I think because he was closer to his mother than his father, he identified well with his female protagonist.

Authors who are good at protraying characters do well with either sex.