Writers out there - what about genders?

[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)?????

[Saraphim]

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.

So usually, my characters are in thier mid-twenties or early thirties. I know that's not exactly old in any sense of the imagination, but, on a general scale, they are usually a tad bit wiser than most teenagers.

A tidbit about your friendly Saraph: I don't like teenagers as a group. Individually, they're fine, but not in large numbers. So, this reflects into the age of my characters and the way they interact with others. i have problems not making them seem too old, actually.

[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.

[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?

[elronds_daughter]

i'm a writer, (haven't writen much yet...) but i must admit that i have never differed from having a female as a main character. possibly because i originally design my main character to be based on me, but i always, without fail, change her to have a totally different personality than me. however, after reading all these lengthy posts, i've decided to try to vary from my steriotypical "females-in-every-leading-role" and try to put a guy in a leading role for a change... it'll be a pleasant challenge. i've never written any fantasy either, but i'm working on a fan fic... that's an equally pleasant challenge. i've never tried writing a guy before. yeah, as i look back at the few things i've written, i'm finding that all my guys either are the boyfreind of the main girl or are just people i threw in for minor roles and equally minor purposes. it'll be quite an experience to try to put myself in his shoes. if anyone has any suggestions about overcoming the steriotypical "guy-from-a-girl's-perspective" please pm me. i need all the help i can get.

cheers!

Elrond's (other) daughter

[Audreidi]

No, no, Kransha, your tangent is very interesting...(rubs chin thoughtfully)

I can say, truthfully, I don't have an inclination toward male OR female characters. I find a wonderful way to tackle the issue of the gender of my main character is to sort out traits I wish for them to have, what I think I need the story to include. For example, I'm spinning the beginnings of an original fantasy piece together at the moment. First I decided my protag's traits, like how they interacted with others, how they carried themselves, etc. Then I threw in what I thought to be a sufficient amount of wisdom and knowledge. Based on these things, I decided their age, and finally their gender. I made young Ilan to be a somewhat impetuous seventeen-year-old, but he could have just as easily been a middle-aged mother striving for the same thing (the point of my story, which I will not yet reveal).

Something that will help a writer IMMENSELY is playing the opposite gender in a dramatic production. I took on the role of a male hero in a play just a little while ago, and I learned much about the mind of a man, so to speak. Now I'm able to write a male character more confidently, and if I get stuck I usually base them on a man or boy I know in real life, to get me started. My dad has some traits that I often employ when creating a middle-aged male character, and that helps greatly to make the person more realistic.

[PaleStar]

It depends on the talent of the writer whether their characters turn out horrid or not.
I tend to make all my lead protaginists female. In fact, in the story I'm writing now, the female protaganist will end up being trained in sword-fighting and actually kill a few people effectively. This may seem more realistic for a male, but, I tend to not conform.
Hopefully, it won't turn out horrid, but my point is this; regardless of gender, race, or age, it's your talent that determines how real and plausible these characters are.
So throw out the 'heroines are blithering idiots' thing. I've seen plenty of male 'heros' that were as stupid. In fact..*picks up cruddy heros and heroines and tosses them into a fire* There...let's begin anew, shall we?

[Eowyn Skywalker]

But that's the point, you see, is the female is TRAINED, as you say, PaleStar. Females can do such things, I know I can, but in a book, if you write the perfect heroine... out comes *theme music* Mary-SUE! That was my mistake with my first book, is I now realize that the main character was a way out Mary-Sue, main CHARACTERS actually, not that there was any romance, and they needed new names. Because the names they had just added to the Mary-Sue effect.

But then, one also has to think of species, and so on. A female Wookiee COULD tear someone's arms off... however, a female HUMAN could NOT. As usual, I can come up with Star Wars examples, snrk.

And, there's also the issue of age. No three year old guy is going to be adept with a sword, even though it's a guy... not even a three year old Force-sensitive is going to be adept with a sword. There are just so many angles a person has to conceter (sp?) unless you really are actually looking to write a Mary-Sue!

-Eowyn Skywalker

[VanimaEdhel]

I typically go for female characters when I write fantasy, as I am a female. However, they are usually not really warriors and the like. When I first started role-playing, especially, I frequently made the mistake of Mary-Sue'ing - as many of you will remember when I started Role-Playing here about two years ago. My characters usually have an element of me in them. It is actually typically one of my flaws, to be honest, but every now and again I sneak in a good trait from my own personality. In terms of looks, depending on what I'm writing - Middle-Earth fanfic, fantasy from the own worlds I've created, or some other type of fanfic - I usually go more towards bland normalcy of the race. For example, if I'm going for Tolkien Elf female, I typically want her to have dark hair and grey eyes, whereas if I'm doing something from my first world I created, the people typically have rather dark skin and lighter hair.

When I do write from the standpoint of a man, I have a hard time not making him really, well, feminine. The part of me that typically comes through in my characters is an overly feminine set of emotions. I try to tone it down, or at least change the focus of the emotions a bit. While obviously men are sensitive - some even more so than women - it doesn't quite seem right to have him stopping to go through a very feminine sequence of emotions. I try to think of the thought processes of some of the more sensitive guys I know, and try to keep that the extreme. But you know, as I am missing that Y chromosome, I think it's always going to be harder for me to write from the point of view of a man.

Although I have not done so yet, if I do at some point write a story about a woman that's a fighter, I will probably only have her either using a bow and arrow in "army" combat, or only fighting opponent women. Perhaps I'll even have her die at the hands of a man in the end. When I've written about stronger women (they haven't been fighters), I usually subtly point out at some point that she's not as strong as a man. I mean as much as feminists say, "A woman can be just as good as a man", due to body configurations, while a woman may be swifter and gain the upper hand in that way, we're not really built to best a strong man in a show of brute strength. Unless of course you were to create a race in which the women did happen to have more strength than the men: if that were the case, then you would be fine.

On the aforementioned topic of age, my characters' ages usually translate to...oh about twenty-five to thirty years of age. Every now and again, if I'm doing a story that allows it, the character can be younger. If it's a story that doesn't really involve the physical training and maturity of the character, but they are more observers, then I could go as young as I want, really. For example, I'm sure someone could do a very interesting story from the point of view of, oh, say a young ten-year old spoiled (or not spoiled) princess kidnapped for ransom. Go through the kidnapping, and the time with the captors, then eventually describe the people that come to rescue her, and the journey home. At ten years of age, the child wouldn't really be doing much, but would be able to at least mostly grasp what is happening. One could even do first person later looking back on the events. Third person would also work. Very rarely do you see stories about victims, but I think that if one wrote it, it could be very interesting.

Yes, I'm brainstorming as I write here. Forgive me: I'm in eternal Brainstorm Land...also known as Up In The Clouds by most people.

That's another thing. For writing, if I just hear words that sound odd together, or someone uses some odd metaphor or reference, it gives me ideas for stories or even poetry. It usually transforms completely by the end into something unrecognizable, but just the spark gives form to everything else.

[Araréiel]

I always use males as the heroes. Just something...not right...about females saving the world. Okay, so Eowyn was cool, but masculine. And what man reading a piece of writing wants a manly woman? And what woman reading fantasy wants to read about a woman rather than a man she can fantasize about? (You women out there know it's true!!)

I usually make the heroes good looking (okay, downright hot), but unsure of themselves, desperate to prove something, even if their "places in society" are high-born. And they have women and stuff. And servants because I make a society. Stuff that doesn't make sense bugs me.

[PaleStar]

Not to get into an issue, but there is nothing wrong with a strong heroine, though so few authors are able to create them without delving into Mary-sue land..a very, evil place.
If you don't believe me, read Ella Enchanted. No, don't see the movie, read the book; Ella is possibly my favorite heroine in books, except Eowyn. *sighs* there just aren't that many to choose from.
Age, gender, speicies, race, they all matter; say, to use Eowyn Skywalker's example, what if a three year old demon( in the asian sense of the word) child were to pick up a sword?
All this stuff is part of what makes writing so hard.

[VanimaEdhel]

I always use males as the heroes. Just something...not right...about females saving the world. (Araréiel)

Well, firstly, as long as you do not make them Superheroine, it can be quite an enjoyable read. Also, who says that the protagonist has to be an in-your-face, save-the-world heroine? Writing about females could even involve, as I mentioned earlier, one involved in action, but does not really end up being the number one hero of the story. Today, I actually picked up The Pillars of Creation. Now many people do not like Terry Goodkind - even I will be the first to admit that he can be downright frustrating every now and again - but in this story, one of the major plotlines follows a girl, Jennsen. She is supposedly skilled with a knife, but it is not as though she ever takes on five heavily-armed men on her own (so far, I only read the first two-hundred pages today). Although she is supposedly attractive, it fits due to her heritage. Other aspects may seem rather cliché, such as her being an illegitimate child, but Goodkind even blends that into the story rather well.

At the same time, though, while a sense of normality is necessary to a hero to make them human, we all have to add something to them that makes them even able to do what they are doing. Just to be the hero of a fantasy story, there has to be something that makes them unique. I mean it's not as though John Doe in Fairytale Land is going to randomly pick up a sword and decide to save the world. If he is a normal person, usually it's a remarkable event or catastrophe that makes them take action. Sadly, the "your father isn't really your father," "mysterious men are hunting you," and "it's your job to save the world because you have mysterious powers" excuses are overused in my opinion these days. And while modesty is an admirable trait, the "why me?" stubbornness of modern heroes is rather annoying. I mean to dwell on it for a chapter or two is all right (actually a natural shock reaction), but when you've read three series in which the hero is like that for at least four seven-hundred-page books of the series, it gets old.