Writers out there - what about genders?

[Niluial]

I agree with you completely Saucepan Man! Both sexes have different qualities like woman are more the mothers and the loving type while men are the protectors. As we have all said there are exceptions though.

Personally I like using men as main characters, rather then woman. I think it looks pathetic when you have some beautiful woman kill ten strong men, walk out of the fight with her hair in a bit of a messed and maybe a broken nail. It looks unnatural and odd... I agree with Imladris!

I find most heroines to be blithering idiots who think they can fight better, etc.

Agreed...

[Nurumaiel]

The majority of my main characters are males.... actually, reviewing those books I have written, I can't think of one where the main character was a female. Setting aside, RPGs, of course.

While I have female characters in my books, they're never main characters. Perhaps the hero's mother, or sister, or sweetheart... I already mentioned this on this aywsf thread, but I'll say it again: the book I'm currently writing finds the characters in the midst of a war, and in the world I created (or rather, the world that created itself using my head) women just don't go to battle. Therefore there are only brief appearances of women in the book, though a little girl of about seven years old is telling me she wants to occupy a chapter or two... but she assures me not until the second book.

I don't think I'm that bad at portraying male characters, because in all truth the only females I know I hardly ever see (if ever) so it is much easier to pick up on what men/boys say, do, feel, and think.

I find most heroines to be blithering idiots who think they can fight better, etc.

I find most of them the same way, though of course there are exceptions (as had been said many, many times). For a beginner at creating characters I would say don't let your main female character ever touch a sword or any kind of weapon. When one is more experienced they can work out females that can fight, etc. but aren't the classic.... Mary-Sues? I've noticed that many beginners like to make their females warriors because they can do more exciting things, but they don't know how to handle it so they're original female warriors. Tolkien knew how to do that. Eowyn wasn't one of those blithering idiots.

When I write a female character they're just that... not women in pants with swords, with battle skill. They're like all the lassies I know (or most of them). Those who can sew and knit and weave, who are found in lovely dresses they or their mothers made with petticoats and long stockings (and who won't talk about them around men/boys, as I probably shouldn't be doing now ), who are patient loving mothers, faithful lovers, or sweet caring sisters. If the 'warrior' character is well done I don't mind reading it too much, but I don't write it.

And that's how I do it.

[alaklondewen]

I think some interesting issues have been raised on this thread, and I hope it will not turn feministic debate. I'm guessing that most of us writing fan fiction or in RPGs are placing our characters in Tolkien's world. Middle Earth is fantasy, but being thus it is still based in reality. Tolkien had a amazing gift of writing his world so that it became very real. If we say ME is based on Midieval culture, then we have to look at the social norms of that time on which to base our characters. Men and women had different roles...

With that said, I don't know whether I prefer playing one gender over the other. It seems to me that my characters write themselves. I read a proposal or get an idea for a story and the character is already there...needing to be written. All I have to do it put the pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). My female characters are not fighters...they are soft, intuitive, sometimes catty. My male characters are all very different from one another, so I would not be able to categorize them.

I can say that I do prefer to challenge myself with characters that are diverse and all very different from myself (with the exception of one a year or so ago). I don't like to write characters like myself. It could be that I don't find my own experiences 'exciting' enough, or it could be that it makes me nervous to reveal too much of my own inner struggles through a character that is very much like me.

[Child of the 7th Age]

OK, I am going to throw a ringer in the works here by disagreeing with everyone.

The enchanting thing with fantasy is that you are the creator of a world, and you are also the one who sets the rules for that world. Why can't you have a world, for example, where women wield power and men occupy a subsidiary role? Or perhaps a world of Skinchangers where both men and women can morph into the form of dangerous beasts, and are therefore essentially equal?

Even in Middle-earth there is room for variety. It is true that Tolkien utilized women sparingly in fighting roles. But I think it may be short sighted to divide the world into those who fight and those who stay home, with nothing in between. If Gandalf had been looking for someone with brute force who was a miraculous fighter, he would never have picked Bilbo. In such a scheme, Hobbits would be useless! But he thought more creatively, and came up with a character who would have certain physical and cultural limitations placed on him.

When you stop and think about it, this isn't too different from the type of limitations that would be placed on a "typical" woman. Morever, it's precisely because of those limitations that many of us can identify with Hobbits. If I think of myself trying to emulate Arwen or Aragorn in real life, I practically roll over laughing. A typical hero or heroine, I am not! But a Hobbit who lives in a Burrow, runs around cooking meals, and fussing at his children a la Samwise....that I can understand .

Even if you create a 'conventional" woman character, there are many roles that he or she could take on: roles that require dexterity or the ability to conceal oneself; a quick thinker who can get people out of a jam, a mother protecting her young children, a woman gifted in music or a craft, or, of course, the wise woman who has deep knowledge of lore. The list is endless.

I enjoy depicting both male and female characters. But, to be truthful, I think I have more insight as to how a woman thinks and acts. I do like to "break" other stereotypes in writing, such as women who are older and/or unmarried, or pehaps with physical limitations, or extraordinary gifts of one type or another but not necessarily the gift of hack and whack! So perhaps, there is more room for female diversity within Middle-earth than first comes to the eye.

[Amanaduial the archer]

Funny that this should be brought up - I was thinking about it the other day whilst devising a character for an RPG. (I shall stick solely in RPG terms for now).

I don't really consider myself to prefer either gender - I'm fairly relaxed to either one. But recently, I've ended up veering to male characters, pretty much completely! The last female I played was in 'Escape from Nurn' in the Shire, and much have been...well, it actually ended a good few months ago, anyway. But all the characters I'm playing at the moment and for the past few games have all been male.

Possibly this is because I originally ended up with a bit of a stigma with one of the moderators (you know who you are!) that I always played female elves or people with magical powers I know, I know... so my first non-female character was somewhat experimental, after playing all my first games with female characters, and was the Easterling character Kane in 'Ride To The Dark Side'. (I don't include the hobbit character I played - he was a rather mischievous child and almost genderless!)

Incidentally, I found he was quite marvellous to play! Things which were much trickier to execute as a female characters were made simpler by playing a male - not really physical things, as my characters were never weak: they weren't Mary-Sues (honest!!!), but they were hardly weak. Believable though, and with a tendency to die... But also, it seemed easier to make Kane more introvert - by playing more on his feelings, for example in his relationship with one of the female characters (Rhana, played by Maikadilwen), I was able to make him a more unusual character. Strange, because it would be expected to exaggerate them more with a female character, but with a male it made him different. And since then I've played way more male characters, actually....

However, this is not a preference - it's simply what seems more practical at the time, for the specific RPG.

My characters do end up with some of my traits though, quite often - sense of humour, a slightly cynical outlook and, yes, green eyes, are quite often included in their bios I suppose this is just because I like to put a part of myself into my characters - and this is my way of doing it.

[Sirithheruwen]

Personally I like using men as main characters, rather then woman. I think it looks pathetic when you have some beautiful woman kill ten strong men, walk out of the fight with her hair in a bit of a messed and maybe a broken nail. It looks unnatural and odd...

I agree with that...but who says they have to be beautiful, either emotionally or physically. Perhaps this person is wearing a hood, so no one can tell who she is for a physical disformity or she is pretending to be nice but is really evil? If that were the case that you posted above, I would probably have her die in the process of killing "ten strong men". Oh, I don't know...

OK, I am going to throw a ringer in the works here by disagreeing with everyone.

Ahem...(And I shan't hesitate to quote myself either! )

Actually, when writing fantasy, it's all up to the writer. If you want women to be better than men, they can be. *shrugs also* Clearly, we disagree, but I will leave this at that.

Hmmm, Amanaduial the archer, most of my characters end up with green eyes too (excluding the story I'm sorking on right now.). I think more because I want green eyes than because I have them.

[Nurumaiel]

I do agree with what Sirithheruwen and Child of the 7th Age say... if you're the creator of the world you're writing about women can be fighters. And it always works for the writer. They have fun. But sometimes when the writer doesn't know how to work it out it becomes an immense torture for the reader, a person the writer should consider at least once in awhile if they intend to let others view it. If the writer doesn't know what they're doing the female warrior character can so easily become a typical Mary-Sue. But there can be female warriors that aren't Mary-Sues.

If you can make a believable female warrior character, well and good, and I'll enjoy the story. The only thing that remains is that I'd feel it was unnatural.

*cough* Skip this paragraph if you like, because I'm going to give one of my main reasons for staying away from writing about female warrior characters. I don't know if anyone knows what that means or not. It's because of my Faith. I believe men and women were made 'equal in dignity' but were also given different parts to play in the world. Niluial said:

Woman are more the mothers and the loving type while men are the protectors.

And's that how I've found it to be almost everywhere I've gone (except to the realms of Mary-Sue stories, or occassionally a good writer doing a female warrior).

Now if ever I came up with a story idea that had the need as a female for the main character, I wouldn't cast away the idea because of that. I'd write the book if the idea was good. I write females as main characters sometimes, but I just don't write females as warriors.

And I must add I'm not saying that no writer should write about female warriors (just stay away from Mary-Sues, of course), but I'm saying that I don't. It's just one of my preferences as a writer.

By the way, Child, what you said here

But a Hobbit who lives in a Burrow, runs around cooking meals, and fussing at his children a la Samwise....

was terribly sweet. Charming to think about. Hobbits just are simplicity.