Writers out there - what about genders?

[Saraphim]

When I start writing for a character, I sort of let it choose its own gender. My little "world" that I'm staring to invent, is set in the future, which is a convienient time to set a story in because one can make things up without having to be historically accurate.

Anyway, in all of my little "storylets" (plots that are unfinished and vastly unwritten), men and women are equal.

I'll break it down further than that. Individuals are equal, no matter what gender, in everything that goes on. And it's not just on a lawful scale or anything, it's on a global, ingrained-into-the-conciousness scale. If you understand what I'm saying.

So, as an example, you've got Bob, Tim, Judy, and Nora. Nora is a weak person, weaker than everyone except Tim, who is lazy and couldn't fight a drunken fly. The strongest person in the group is Bob, not because he's a man, but because he's Bob.

Looking back over my post, not much of it makes sense, so apologies all around. It's the best I can do.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Nurumaiel,

Nice post! I think that we are actually saying the same thing only using different terminology. As I said before, whether or not a character (male or female) carries a sword is far less important than other things.

Strangely enough though, the image of a warrior or battler, even if we define it as someone who focuses on struggles other than the physical, appeals to me less than certain other images. I have always thought in terms of a traveller, someone who sets a foot out their door and starts down a Road. That was one reason I was so struck by The Hobbit when I first read it so long ago. Both Hobbit and LotR use this as a central image: being swept away by the Road of Life and having to face and deal with everyone and everything that life brings. I think that this pertains equally to both Men and Women, although the specifics of the encounter may vary. I try to incorporate that sense in each of my characters to the best that I can.

While we're talking about choices of "gender", I'd also like to raise the related question of "age". Have you ever used an "older" character in your writings, male or female? Just how old, and was that easy or difficult to do?

[Imladris]

I have only had one old personage in my writings and that was at the White Horse. I think he was about...eighty, I think? He was a grizzled old man who had lost an eye, had a bit of memory loss, and had a bad habit of talking in rhymes. But I had a terrible time with him because I don't know how an older person thinks. Virtually all my characters are teenagers... because...I guess I know them better. I'm more comfortable with them...I can feel them better.

I have always thought in terms of a traveller, someone who sets a foot out their door and starts down a Road.

In my mind, a traveller is stronger than one who is not, regardless of gender. Speaking of gender, I do not believe that spiritual strength (or strength of character, nobleness, honesty, etc) have anything to do with gender as gender is a physical attribute while those strengths are not. Thus, men and women are equal in that area.

[Sirithheruwen]

Heh. One of my posts on this thread got a negative reputation. (Post #15 or 16 I believe.) Wow, this reputation thing really gets one's curiosity levels high!

But it's not odd in the least to have more then one protagonists... I have done that all the time.

Aye, me too. On the story I'm working on right now, I have four (female) protags. I just hope I'm going to have enough male supporting characters to counter-balance them so it doesn't sound so femenistic (sp?). *wishes*

Both Hobbit and LotR use this as a central image: being swept away by the Road of Life and having to face and deal with everyone and everything that life brings. I think that this pertains equally to both Men and Women, although the specifics of the encounter may vary. I try to incorporate that sense in each of my characters to the best that I can.

My story is kind of like that, but kind of different. (Wait, don't skip this paragraph, I'll clarify, promise!) She (Nen(na)) decides to leave on her adventure of sorts. She also doesn't think of herself as a "hero" of sorts, but someone who is going behind the scenes to gather all of the "heros" together to save Ola. She just happens to be one of the "heros". (Looking back on this paragraph, I probably didn't clarify much, did I? Ah well...)

While we're talking about choices of "gender", I'd also like to raise the related question of "age". Have you ever used an "older" character in your writings, male or female? Just how old, and was that easy or difficult to do?

Well, being very young myself (just turned 13) I mostly do write older characters, but not by much. I like to think that my work would be geared toward the young adult section, but I wouldn't mind if it crossed over a little bit into adult. My characters are usually around the 14-16 age range. It's not that hard to do, because, after all, it *is* a fantasy realm, and whatever I say goees!

Well, I think that's a long enough post for one day!
Happy Writings!

[Bêthberry]

Interesting idea, Child!

While we're talking about choices of "gender", I'd also like to raise the related question of "age". Have you ever used an "older" character in your writings, male or female? Just how old, and was that easy or difficult to do?

I have two "older"characters, one a man in late middle age whose youthful exhuberance caused him to be injured, thus forcing him to seek a very different line of work, as a map-maker in Minas Tirith; he had to learn how to give up his youthful wanderlust and impatience and learn how to accept a more sedate style of life. Then he was called upon to help a band of young warriors! Talk about getting into the saddle again! The other elder character I write is the rag lady Ruthven in Edoras, for The White Horse, in her sixties. I don't think I have found it difficult to play either character as I had a very strong sense of who each was before I ever wrote them. For both of them, the age was not a particular issue.

The oldest character I have ever written, however, was an ent, for the old Rohan game here. I loved that character because I could extend the entish style of speaking which Tolkien created.

One thing I suggested for gamers, when we started the White Horse Inn Act III, was to consider "aging" their characters the fifteen years or so between Act II and Act III. I am in the process of having "Bethberry" face a difficult time watching people who have no idea of what the War of the Ring involved. Her personal experience of the tragedies and struggles has left her with little of her lightheartedness and so I am trying to see how she handles this change. I'm not sure people are quite ready to understand how she has changed, as I am introducing this rather subtly.

Other characters I have written for have been anywhere between their twenties to their fifties. I guess the only characters I have not written for in an RP are children.

I do have an idea for a new game, though. I will get to play a "middle aged shield maiden". Well, the maiden part is not quite right, but I want to try for something like what Mathilde faced in her struggle to be declared rightful monarch, over Stephen, in England around 1140. I have found that there are many female characters in the Middle Ages who provide an interesting subject on which to 'build' a character, such as Lady Margaret Beaufort or Hildegard of Bingen.

And that reminds me of how how Chaucer 'created' his Wife of Bath. As a character, she has traits from several well-known character types in medieval literature, the most original of which was the cuckolded husband, transferred to a female character, whose fifth husband cheats on her. Not very Tolkienish admittedly, but still it suggests another way a writer has gone about creating a uniquely new character. She was somewhat deaf too.

Well, time to go find my 'rocking chair' and let some of the youngsters describe their elders. Alaklodewen has a mute teenage boy in Resettling the Lost Kingdom and now an elderly man who is blind. It was interesting to watch her desribe his movements and behaviours, to glean from those actions his infirmity was before she mentioned it outright. Fordim, you've written a grandfather. What was that like?

[Kransha]

Ah, genders in writing, a 'problem' or rather, and 'obstacle' which all writers must deal with.

To begin, I must admit that I share the one strange exhibition with Fordim. In the real world, in my volumes and writings, I have written more female protagonists and antagonists, as many as I have male, but here, in the RPG forums at least, I find that I get into character more with male characters. This is because I see through the eyes of a male, not through those of a female. RPing as a male allows me too get a little more loose with my character, rather than worrying about the indulgence of a stereotype. Someday, I will surely attempt to RP the fairer sex, but until that date, whene'er it may be, I am doomed to remain locked in this prison of unbridled masculinity (my, that...doesn't exactly sound right).

There is a lot to be had in dual-gender roles for play and game and story. The POV of each is the crucial, focal point, the thing that causes all writers subtle hardships (not all, but probably many). I admit again (more pangs of guilt pour moi) that I have been...how shall I put it, reluctant, to write some female characters. I was afraid of reprecussions, feminist revolts, mobs of random people with triangular bricks and whatnot, but I still write them. I have to carefully pick out their personalities from some illusionary hat, based on the stroy's needs. I hesitate to pursue anything that might be considered 'my picture' of females, and use people I know as examples to base them on. The female mind is no longer a mystery to me, as it once was (ah, those were the days), but I still have plenty to fathom. I could never reduce a gender or ethnicity to a single rubric of emotion, it would destroy my whole continuum with its bland conformity! So, in response, I let the pen go wild, so to speak, and see where my characters are headed. There are always roads to follow, each leading to countless forks and bends, but after the first few turns, the rest are being predetermined until the greatest one comes up, determining whether the character will reverse the course of every other road taken (too reminiscent of Robert Frost's [b]The Road Not Taken[/i], thar)

On the question of age, something I love to experiment with! I rarely right character is book or game that are of 'average' age unless it is required. I like mine to be eaither wet-behind-the-ears, or old and withered. Now, I make my old characters more vivacious than they ought to be and my young ones more mentally matured, so my experimentation goes far beyond stated guidelines. There is always another border as far as stereotype defiance. Sometimes old men can be grizzled, serious folk, merry, content old men, or stark-raving mad, senile dottards who have no idea where they are or what they're doing. Young men, boys, or those at the bottom of the proverbial hill, could be immature and vain, overconfident, haughty, arrogant, meek, shy, humble. The ages of drastic youth and drastic age most pronounce the emotional features of a character, either traits just developing and strengthening, or traits developed to their peak.

P.S. Shakespeare, and other great writers of his day and ours, who apparently understood somewhat what I try to grasp, gave me some inspirational examples. As plated in trait as they air, Juliet (young love, decisive [Romeo & Juliet]), Beatrice (feisty, arrogant, argumentative [Much Ado About Nothing]), Ophelia (tragic, unkempt, uncontrollable [Hamlet]), Lady Macbeth (corruptable, antagonistic [Macbeth]), Miranda (unexposed, naive [The Tempest]) all gave me some insight into the fairer psyche, though bearers of that pysche may disagree...

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Hmmm. . .the question of age is a good one. . .

Yes, I have written a grandfather (for those who do not hang on my every post with bated breath and abandon, I wrote an extremely elderly hobbit in the recently completed, greatly missed, "A Land to Call Their Own" -- *Fordim stands and gives Alaklondewen and Cami a round of applause*) and I must admit that I found Fordogrim Chubb not at all hard to 'get into'. I think that this was due to the fact that I merely observed that some older people tend to forego the niceties of 'watching what they say' and allowing themselves to say whatever they are thinking. Combine that with the fact that in my professional life (and here in the Downs) I am frequently confronted with situations in which I am the oldest person in the 'room', and I found it very easy to immerse myself in Fordogrim's world view.

It seems quite a failing on my part, however, that I could so easily take up the voice of an elder (how successfully I did so, I leave to others to judge) but I cannot face the challenge of writing a female character in this interactive forum (as I said above, I have written women in more static narratives).

Another interesting point -- it seems to me that the bulk of the writers in the RPGs would appear to be women: particularly as one moves into Rohan and Gondor. Is there something essentially 'feminine' about the RPG's (whatever that might mean?). I also note that the women in this discussion apparently have -- or feel they have -- less trouble moving into a man's perspective than the other way around. I wonder why this would be?

Just one more indication of Woman's inherent superiority over us???

Postscript to Kransha -- shame on you, man! How could you forget Cleopatra (Antony and Cleopatra), Kate (Taming of the Shrew), and Portia (The Merchant of Venice)?????

[The Saucepan Man]

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. (Child)

As the creator of a world, you may make your society what you wish it to be, which is something I very much enjoy doing. Not necessarily giving men a subservient role, but making the two genders equal--TRULY equal--and describing what comes of it. (Bethelarien)

Might this depend somewhat on the skill of the writer, though? Although not a writer myself, I was wondering whether it might be more difficult, and require greater skill on the part of the writer, credibly to portray a world where people's qualities and relationships are significantly different from those which we experience in real life. Then again, in many ways, I would think that it is easier to write a credible story set in a fantasy world than one set in the real world, since one does not have to worry about getting all those 'little details' right, as long as it is internally consistent.

Fordim's post raises a similar issue. He said:

So far I’ve changed race (one Hobbit, two Men, an Elf and a Dwarf) and the characters have all been fairly different from one another, but I’ve not yet crossed genders … in this forum I feel the need to inhabit the male mind.

I suspect that it’s perhaps the interactive nature of the Downs. In my own (thankfully abandoned) novels, I had total control of the reality, and thus there were no surprises. But here there are lots of surprises, and I find it more like acting than writing – I have to ask myself frequently, “How would I react to this incident” and then work through from that to “How will my character react to that?” It’s probably a lot easier for me to get from A to B without having to contend with the gender line.

It's interesting that you feel more able to react in your mind to situations as an Elf or Dwarf than as a woman. I would have thought that you and I would have much more in common, in terms of our approach to life and likely reactions to situations, with female humans than with Elves or Dwarves of either gender. Is this perhaps because an alternative psyche which does not actually exist in our world is easier to inhabit than one which does? Then again, every person is different and, unless your character is a facsimile of yourself, you will surely frequently find yourself having to think how someone with different characteristics than yourself would react to a situation. Child's question about people writing characters older than themselves is an example.

Or perhaps it is easier to write Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits in a Middle-earth situation because Tolkien has given us much of the information that we need in his writings, whereas the mind of the opposite sex often remains a complete mystery to us, even to someone like me who has been happily married for a number of years.

[Nurumaiel]

The question of age... I write of no particular age. In my current work I have as main characters....

a boy of ten, left behind when his friends go off to the mainland
two boys of eleven, the aforesaid friends of the above
a young man of sixteen, who just barely gets permission to go off to war
a young girl of sixteen, who assists one of the other characters in building a school
a young man of eighteen, who also goes to war
a young lady of eighteen, who is the character who builds the school
two men in their thirties, older brothers of one of the characters, both of whom go to war
a man in his forties, who is a general in the army
and several other soldiers who are from their twenties to thirties

Quite a range of ages! No one older than fifty yet as a main character, considering the circumstances of the story.

Do I have an easy time writing them? Well, obviously I can't be all of them at once, so it is quite fortunate I know quite a range of people of all different ages. I note how they react to things and use that as a starting point... the things I take from real life I only ever use as a starting point.

What you said, Kransha, about stereotypes is very interesting. That is why I say that my female characters usually have stereotype roles. Their personalites are an entirely different matter! I like to write characters that have traditional roles but unique personalities. Someday I'd like to write a story with a boy character in it like Percy Wynn. More meek, humble, gentle, and kind than he is strong... contrasting deeply with the tendency of boys to try to appear 'tough' when they're at a certain age. Yet Percy is a boy... he plays baseball, football; he goes fishing and boating, and everything else! It's merely his personality.

Really must run now. I'm pressing myself for time here.

[Lhundulinwen]

Most of my stories are more of a 'coming of age' type of story. But the ages of my characters vary a lot. In my novel, the main characters, Adar and Acacia, are aprox. 18 years old. The leading male, Kado, is close to 20. Kado's father is 45-50. Then there is a unicorn who is 500-1,000 years old! I write her much like an elf, and Kado's father is modeled after many of the men of my father's generation. The main characters and Kado are all written after me and my friends. But since I have never been 45, or 1,000, I think it is harder to write those characters at times than Kado or the main girls. I have to think harder about how they'd react, or if they'd react at all.

[Imladris]

On the matter of age:

I was reading this thread and it suddenly struck me: age is a good deal more than just time: it is also a matter of muturity/experience -- in fact, I believe it plays a greater part than time. Eighty year old men can be as immature as teenagers while teenagers can have the experience of eighty year old men.

Doubtless that is not often the case...but it's still something to think about in my mind. Kind of like Frodo and how he aged during the journey to destroy the Ring. He became older, wiser...What I'm trying to say is that age has more to do with personality than it has to do with years.

If I may be so bold as to take a quote of Child's :

Yet, I think we need to be careful about immediately assuming that a female character would do "X" or "Y" simply because of gender.

and change it to,

I think we need to be careful about immediately assuming that a character would X or Y simply because of age.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Wow – what an interesting thread! Substantive ideas about the creative process, and I get to find out all kinds of interesting tidbits about my fellow Downers!

It didn’t even really occur to me until I started reading through these posts that I only ever – in the Downs – have written male characters. So far I’ve changed race (one Hobbit, two Men, an Elf and a Dwarf) and the characters have all been fairly different from one another, but I’ve not yet crossed genders (unless Balrogs have gender, in which case I might have been a female for the birthday party. . .) I’m honestly not sure why I have done this, since the only things I’ve attempted to write in the ‘real world’ (having begun and then abandoned two novels, and finished only one short novel) have had women as the protagonists. I did not really feel any difficulty in ‘writing’ women in those works, but in this forum I feel the need to inhabit the male mind.

I suspect that it’s perhaps the interactive nature of the Downs. In my own (thankfully abandoned) novels, I had total control of the reality, and thus there were no surprises. But here there are lots of surprises, and I find it more like acting than writing – I have to ask myself frequently, “How would I react to this incident” and then work through from that to “How will my character react to that?” It’s probably a lot easier for me to get from A to B without having to contend with the gender line.

But his raises a disturbing notion I’d not considered either (am I really this naïve? Yes, I’m afraid so) – the characters I’ve created in the Downs have without exception been rather flawed people; people whom, quite frankly, I like reading and writing about but would never want to spend time with. If these are characters that I can easily project myself into (or project out of me). . .yipes!!

Hmmmmm. . .anybody got a comfortable couch I could lie on as I write in this place. . .