Writing Male Characters by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Recently, while browsing the internet, I came upon a blog post about bad writing tips for women writing male characters. Of course, I was interested because I’m Konnie’s go-to person when she’s having trouble with her male characters. And I use male POVs a lot. I wanted to make sure I was doing it right, because, you know, I am a woman.

For starters, the post is at howtodothewritething.com and it is titled, “If You’re a Woman Writing a Male Character Avoid these Bad Writing Tips.”

From the title, I was afraid that I might be using bad writing tips.

I am not.

Actually, I’ve never even heard these bad writing tips the author mentions.

So far so good.

I particularly like what he said about emotionless robots. But then I am a fan of Data. Heck, I am a fan of Spock! Then there is also Seven-of-Nine, too.

However, when I read that, for some strange reason I started thinking about a female character in a certain sci-fi series. Said character is emotionless, or rather appears to be. She is a well-written and pivotal character for the series. And I promise, she isn’t totally emotionless, she just hides her feelings really well.

And if you want to read this story, I am afraid it isn’t published yet; I just know the author oh probably better than anybody else, certainly longer.

The author is Konnie. Enough said.

There is some exceptional advice in the aforementioned post, so it should really be a must-read for everyone.

And no, Konnie, it is not going to help you with the issues you usually have with male characters, but I am still right here!

However, the best tip I read in this post was about being true to your character. A tip that is helpful for any character you are writing.

I have no idea how many times either Konnie or I have said to the other, “He/She wouldn’t do that!” while talking about a character the other one has written.

I do it most often when it's Konnie’s male characters, and she’s said it a few times over my less strong female characters. I’ve said it more than Konnie has.

She has in fact only helped me with a couple of female characters I described as timid and or fearful. Clearly, I don’t know how that would work. Without Konnie, I wouldn’t have been able to write them.

Konnie has trouble with her male characters constantly.

“Uh, no, a guy would not say that.” “Uh, no, a guy would not react that way.” Yeah, I say those two a lot.

With Konnie, she’d be saying, “(insert character name) would not react that way! She’s shy/timid/fearful, you need to fix this.”

As you can see, her comments are specific to a character whereas mine are more gender related. I’m not saying I haven’t made character-specific comments, but more often than not Konnie’s issues with male characters are more gender related than character-related.

My few issues with my female characters have always been character-related rather than gender.

Sometimes I actually wonder why I get my male characters so right.

Is it because growing up, most of my friends were guys? In those younger years, I remember one girl who was for a short time my best friend, but she had like five or six big brothers and no sisters. We got along great until my family moved, again.

And the one person who was my best friend for the longest time was my cousin, Jon.

It only changed when I hit puberty, and I no longer liked “cops and robbers” and other rough-and-tumble games.

And it isn’t like I haven’t doubted if I have my characters right. I have doubted. One time an older male friend of mine didn’t like a scene I’d written where three buddies were discussing each other’s choice of a spouse. The older gentleman said no decent man would disparage their friends’ women in that manner.

The only thing is they were not really disparaging their friends’ choices, they were merely saying they wouldn’t have picked that person.

I got so worried I hadn’t written the scene in a believable manner I finally broke down and read the scene to my husband to see if he thought they were acting out of character. I figured he was a better choice because he was in the age group of the characters during the time of the story.

Tom informed me it was totally accurate. Actually, what he was, “Guys do talk like that.”

How do you handle writing characters of the opposite gender? Do you need help? Or can you usually manage?

Anyway, happy writing everyone!