Writers out there - what about genders?

[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.

[Eowyn Skywalker]

Saraph said:

I try to stay away from having teenagers, or too many of them, in my stories. I look around, and there are very few teenagers at my high school who would be able to do the sort of things I want my characters to do.

I am on the opposite end there, as, though most teenages that I know shouldn't be able to do half the things that I need them to, regardless of gender, they aren't all straight out teens. I'd almost say that the ones that really are teenages have an extra amount of wisdom as they go through the story, which comes from their upbringing. Yes, I have had to change characters ages, because a thirteen year old girl couldn't be the world's best female spy thing, so I am working on editing her to become around mid twentys. But many of my charactera are teenaged, at least in looks, and have to learn to do the things that they must, at least, in that aspect (sp?) they are like to teenagers. But there is a reason for their added wisdoms... but I'm not bringing up that plot point, because it's a main part of my story, and I don't want anyone stealing that idea...

...they are usually a tad bit wiser than most teenagers.

(yeah, more from you, Seraph...) Ha. That's a laugh. Most of my older characters aren't exactly the wisest characters out there... half of them are Han Solo's, over daredevils, etc. And others are wise, very Aragorn type, but they never show it... not all the time. It's the younger ones who can come up with wisedom, but, as I mentioned, they aren't EXACTLY young... but then, some of my middle aged characters have nearly killed off the teenaged (yes, teenaged... not teenager...)characters, and not just because she's older and stronger... being middle-aged does give some more wisdom. But still, the teenaged characters can think faster, and more on the spot, which gives them an upperhand... even though most of them are girls, again.

I don't like teenagers as a group. Individually, they're fine, but not in large numbers.

You'll never survive my main story then... an awful lot of younger characters. Okay, NOW I'm done with the quoting, now I shall get to my comments... my own...

You bring up ages in human years, and such, but what about say, elven kind? Think of the elves, they age differently, at least in my worlds. So, an elf could still think like a teenager, with the hastiness, and such, and be around thirty years of age. So, do not be so quick to assume that, just because they have lived longer, they are wiser. And not all teenagers will be overly hasty and such... there can be quite wise teens. And females. Not all females cannot read maps, I am quite adept at it, for a female teenager!

-Eowyn Skywalker

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I'm not normally a fiction writer, so my only experience of character planning and writing is on the RPGs here. Way back in the old Rohan RPG, I jumped in to take over an abandoned male character, since there were already enough females involved in that story. I found it quite difficult to write for him, since both mentality and actions did not come easily to me.

I wrote two cameo characters that were both females and seamstresses - I find it easier to write characters that have both the gender and a profession familiar to me when I don't have much time to get into the character.

Now I'm writing two characters in an RPG, a mother and son - she middle-aged, he not quite out of his teens. I find the question of age less problematic than the personal characteristics - I can identify with the young man's openness and curiosity about life and foreign countries better than with the scheming and hard-hearted mother. I took on that challenge to expand my writing and thinking horizons, and I think it's a great idea to try different characters.

...and then there's my parody RPG, where interestingly, there are more male writers than females - wonder what that signifies??!!

[Sirithheruwen]

I try to stay away from having teenagers, or too many of them, in my stories. I look around, and there are very few teenagers at my high school who would be able to do the sort of things I want my characters to do.

I think, when you are writing for a teenaged audience, that you might want to make your characters (or at least your main ones) a little younger. Such as, early to late teen through about mid-twenties. I know when I read fantasy, I (personally) prefer characters that are near to my own age, but not always. *coughLordoftheRingscough* If you are writing to be published, always always always think of the reader.

...they are usually a tad bit wiser than most teenagers.

(Yes, I'm quoting everything Eowyn Skywalker (Ha. I didn't forget the "Skywalker" ) quoted. So sue me. ) The characters in my story aren't a "tad bit wiser that most teenagers" from their world, but they are considerably more "wise" than teenagers in our present time and day. In a nutshell, they're more mature than present-day teenagers, but in they're world they are still considered young and incompetant (sp?).

Well, I'm done.
Happy Writings!

[Kransha]

You know what? I do believe I've had an epiphany (hair-raising, I assure ye)!

This whole thread and its tree-reminiscent branches stems off the same, semi-essential question of 'variety,' dare I say it. The thread was originally a simple question of gender in literature, but it has been diverted towards queries concerning age and other variations of "normality." Now, I don't believe that the phrase "normality" exists, since no one is purely normal, but that doesn't mean than the concept of "abnormality" does not. Hear me out here...

We've been talking about the persona of female and male, young and old, and so forth and so on. The whole question is: how do you interpret something that is different, or perhaps similar, or a touchy subject, into literature. Let me pose another example here, based on an RPG I'll be playing in soon (Ha! I fit a shameless plug in this post!) What about, say, this?:

There was a brief discussion in this thread of dwarf and elf playing, female and male, young and old, as mentioned. What if you had to put more depth than just simple, stereotypical, static monster personality into...a dragon! Think on The Hobbit, if you will. It's a question of race, rather than gender, but that's where the discussion leads. It's not a tangent, but a more advanced form, slightly reversed, of the original question. How do you put yourself into the shoes (or scales) of a dragon? Tolkein did it expertly. But wait, there's more! What of other members of the non-humanoid sect. Dwarves, Elves, Gondorians, Numenoreans, Rohirrim, all have a different persona, which is often a bit stereotyped in itself, but what about a fox? A tree in Fangorn Forest? A giant spider at the pass of Cirith Ungol? A Wather in the Water? What about genders, eh? What about species? What about planes of being? It can get into, quite literally, playing god (read: Valar).

Now, stem off again! Does a female giant spider, Shelob or Ungoliant, think differently from a male (not that there are any male giant spiders, but what if?) Wait, I've got a better branch for that. How does an ancient, great grandmother of a spider: Ungoliant, differ in mind and thought pattern from an old, but comparitively much younger and weaker spider: Shelob. Are they both driven essentially by the same resolve, or was their something that was different in their grand designs. Surely they weren't exactly the same. Shelob was content to stay in the confines of Cirith Ungol and eat the food that came along. Ungoliant, on the other hand, refused to be satiated until Morgoth himself was being digested in her ample belly. I'd say there must be some difference, no matter how subtle. Ungoliant lusted for vengeance, obviously a more adapted sense of evil in her old age, but Shelob only sought food, unless that want was what drove them both. Maybe I'm trivializing the matter by using spiders as 'food for thought' (forgive me, I couldn't resist), but it has to count for something...

Do tell me if my tangent is utterly irrelevant, confusing, and senseless...

P.S. to Fordim: Great Caesar's Ghost! How could I have forgotten?