by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Oh boy. Or, should I say…oh girl. Reviewing in my mind the male – female ratio character radio in my mind of these four novels I’m developing and writing and there appear to be a lot more female characters than male characters.
I know why this is.
First, I love women and if I’m going to think about a fictional person as is required to develop a “person” and not a “character,” I’d at least like that person to be a woman. Second, developing a female character is far, far more interesting and challenging.
But this also comes with amount of baggage. You can’t just “write a man then switch the pronouns” as is often suggested. Anyone who believes that is an oblivious idiot. The reason why they say that is so male writers won’t choke when it comes to writing from a female point of view.
And, yet, it gets worse!
Another problem is, by definition, there is a large segment of the female audience that hates the very idea of a man writing from a female point of view, no matter how well meaning they may be.
It’s all so problematic, conflated and annoying that all you can do is just figure out what your story is and press forward.
