Writing Which is more difficult (subjective): narrating the MC according to the author's gender or narrating the MC different from the author's gender?

[Eldoria]

Which is more difficult (subjective): narrating a protagonist according to the author's gender or narrating a protagonist different from the author's gender?

 

[Kurayami]

Narrating a protagonist different from your gender will be harder, since it goes against your lived experiences.

 

[AliceMoonvale]

That's like asking if it's harder for a right-handed person to write right-handed or left handed.

 

[melchi]

Try writing a character not sure about their gender...

Do not recommend

 

[greyblob]

in ML novels I can instantely tell if it's written by a man or a woman

 

[CharlesEBrown]

It depends on what you're trying to do - I've attempted both, and, honestly, each has its challenges (even more interesting is having a first person narrator who was your gender but now is not and is trying to come to grips with this).
In general, its easiest to write what you know, and that, in at least 9 cases out of ten is the same gender as the author - but this is not always the case, depending on the story (and, possibly, if the author has gender issues of their own already).

 

[blushiemagic]

Different is obviously harder, but thankfully there's a way around this:

You can have every single one of your MC's share genders with you if you're genderfluid.

 

[ElijahRyne]

Which is more difficult (subjective): narrating a protagonist according to the author's gender or narrating a protagonist different from the author's gender?

Different is harder, but probably because 7/10ths of the stuff I read has a male protag rather than a female one. And I have little to no practice writing a female mc.

 

[DarkCrinkle]

I have to constantly rethink perspectives if I write MCs opposite of my gender.

Idk if it's true or not, but Female writers have tendency to write male protagonist character more emotional than actual. So yeeee def harder.

 

[Makimaam]

As someone who’s always being mistaken for a man online, I think I can write a convincing male MC voice.

 

[IWILLDEFYTHEHEAVENS]

As someone who’s always being mistaken for a man online, I think I can write a convincing male MC voice.

Same here, I got tired correcting my readers so I just let it be.
Can't blame them when the book's a bit crazy

 

[Tetrahedron]

narrating MC from writer's different gender.

There's this fragile end of a cliff between writing a character and a walking though not-so living objectification icon. Like how many female booktubers complaining about male writers objectifying their female characters to no end (and vice versa)

 

[rileykifer]

Woman here. Honestly? I write both genders the same and barely factor it in when I'm writing. Every now and then I'll stop and realize one of my male characters is being too emotional, or dumping his problems to his friends, so I dial it back a bit. But other than that, I don't pay much attention to gender. Maybe that makes my male characters too girlish or whatever, but I'd rather read men acting girly than that forced "I'm man so I watch lots of sports and work out and beat up any man who looks at my woman" stereotype often found in romances written by women. It might not be common, but men are different. (Tbf, a lot of my male characters are a flavor of LGBT+ if that makes a difference.)

I guess that means I'd pick harder to write characters of a different gender, but it doesn't feel like it because of how I treat them all equally.

 

[TinaMigarlo]

It depends on what you're trying to do - I've attempted both, and, honestly, each has its challenges (even more interesting is having a first person narrator who was your gender but now is not and is trying to come to grips with this).
In general, its easiest to write what you know, and that, in at least 9 cases out of ten is the same gender as the author - but this is not always the case, depending on the story (and, possibly, if the author has gender issues of their own already).

I would say "skill issue", but I will add because I try to be fair and balanced... "experience issue".

I would put forward the notion that writing the other gender and not making cringe... is one of the first things that show up in writing.
(I mean when all other basic competency is there)
I would put forward the notion that writing the other gender and not making cringe... is one of the last things to get solved.
(if it gets solved at all)

this is not so different than when a writer clearly has zero experience with firearms... or fighting, or violence.
or hell, a number of other things.

 

[Dawnathon]

It's always a struggle writing masculine male characters for me. The stereotypical macho man or stoic strong silent type, I have to write them the same way you'd write an orc or goblin or some other fantasy creature. I know guys like that exist, I've met them. I just can't get in their heads and write them with the same personhood I feel naturally when writing female characters. It's easier to write them as static characters than dynamic people.

 

[TinaMigarlo]

It's always a struggle writing masculine male characters for me. The stereotypical macho man or stoic strong silent type, I have to write them the same way you'd write an orc or goblin or some other fantasy creature. I know guys like that exist, I've met them. I just can't get in their heads and write them with the same personhood I feel naturally when writing female characters. It's easier to write them as static characters than dynamic people.

and that's hitting the nail squarely on the head.

Look at it this way.
Take "gender" out of the equation entirely, and replace it with something else entirely you have no experience with.
Say... a factory that builds passenger jets for airlines.
Where would you even begin?
---how does a plane even stay up in the air
---how are planes built
---what are passenger plane factories even like
yet... Michael Crichton wrote "Airframe".
He also wrote "Jurassic Park"
He also wrote "Eaters of the Dead"
He also wrote "Andromeda Strain" (his first novel he published under his own name)

His novels are known to contain a *lot* of technical information around the core subject.
He obviously does a lot of reading and studying to create a realistic world.

Now... remove the technical substitute subject... and re-insert the opposite gender.
See the problem?

Its no different than...
your novel will be all about something happening in the world of... Electrical Engineering work.
but you've never held a soldering iron in your hand.
you don't know a resistor from a capacitor from a coil, nor even what these things do.
how would you *solve* this issue? Easier said than done...
you'd have to learn about Electronics.

PRO TIP:
TikTok short video clips, and "click-bait" articles...
are probably not going to give you what you want (need).

 

[Dawnathon]

and that's hitting the nail squarely on the head.

Look at it this way.
Take "gender" out of the equation entirely, and replace it with something else entirely you have no experience with.
Say... a factory that builds passenger jets for airlines.
Where would you even begin?
---how does a plane even stay up in the air
---how are planes built
---what are passenger plane factories even like
yet... Michael Crichton wrote "Airframe".
He also wrote "Jurassic Park"
He also wrote "Eaters of the Dead"
He also wrote "Andromeda Strain" (his first novel he published under his own name)

His novels are known to contain a *lot* of technical information around the core subject.
He obviously does a lot of reading and studying to create a realistic world.

Now... remove the technical substitute subject... and re-insert the opposite gender.
See the problem?

Its no different than...
your novel will be all about something happening in the world of... Electrical Engineering work.
but you've never held a soldering iron in your hand.
you don't know a resistor from a capacitor from a coil, nor even what these things do.
how would you *solve* this issue? Easier said than done...
you'd have to learn about Electronics.

PRO TIP:
TikTok short video clips, and "click-bait" articles...
are probably not going to give you what you want (need).

Ehh. I like to think I'm not bad at that kind of writing. It's just on the creation side of things, it is the more "difficult" of the options OP asks, in terms of having to step back and rethink the approach rather than it not needing any extra consideration.

 

[TinaMigarlo]

I'll apologize that I have a lot of my own words for everything.
I'm sure "The Oracle" (@Eldoria) has an entire series of lectures in her "Narrative Calculus 7: the gender paradox" textbook she's writing.
(and I'm suspecting there's an official/proper terminology word for what i'll call...)

"a drop out"

I'm reading, I got a sort of movie in my head, its automatic.
the movie freezes... I realize I'm reading... something, what?
then the movie starts back up.
reminds me of listening to a CD and it skips a few times, before it starts playing regular again.
if it happens only once every so many pages/chapters, okay.
but if it happens too often, it makes the book aggravating to finish.
I'm gritting my teeth, wondering if its going to happen again.
okay, Eldoria is *ruining* me... I'm trying to invent a really cool sounding writing class term here...
(maybe, "loss of immersion". How's that. LMAO. lol, even)


different things can do this.

I remember reading a ninja paperback once.
what is now called "ninja-mania" swept entertainment in the 80s. A good bit of it was B-grade books and movies.
guess it became its own sub-genre. Anyways...
ninja guy, trained by the master in the far east, but ended up leaving... blah blah, it was an okay pulp paperback...
then his master shows up, he has to go do something... pretty standard plot here. But it was okay.
the new student? it was a woman. Sensei assured him, she was the new star pupil he had once been.

so he takes her pinky finger... and *snaps* it.
she goes white, closes her eyes... but takes it and doesn't really react.
He says, get this...
"Master, has taught you pain control well."
(bwah ha ha...)

complete stop of the movie. I'm giggling, its just so silly of a scene.
but? the book went back to being decent, the movie didn't drop out and stop anymore, no harm no foul.

THAT, is what its like... the movie stops... when a "gender not author's gender" error happens.
but, unlike one silly spot I guess some editor didn't catch, it will tend to keep happening with that character.
and with other ones.

male writers and female writers both do it.
everyone points it out *loud* when male writers do it, though female writers are just as guilty in their own way.
the opposite gender comes out as some sort of... call it what you will.
"a cardboard cutout"
"a cartoon character"
"a stereotype"
etc etc

you can ruin your *own* gender, too.
I've been there, done that, got that T-shirt as well.
but don't we all have a stack of old projects that were otherwise okay, but...

one day you sit back and say, you know what, I won't do *that* again.
hey, you had to get that one out of your system.
and really, I think studying this all TOO much...
will lead you to worrying about 179 different things, to the point you never just w-r-i-t-e, and learn by doing.
I think I'll get further by writing more, more often... then making the next thing better.
as opposed to studying for 10-15 years just to make the first "perfect" thing, then realizing it doesn't work like that.

experience is its own reward.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I'll apologize that I have a lot of my own words for everything.
I'm sure "The Oracle" (@Eldoria) has an entire series of lectures in her "Narrative Calculus 7: the gender paradox" textbook she's writing.
(and I'm suspecting there's an official/proper terminology word for what i'll call...)

"a drop out"

I'm reading, I got a sort of movie in my head, its automatic.
the movie freezes... I realize I'm reading... something, what?
then the movie starts back up.
reminds me of listening to a CD and it skips a few times, before it starts playing regular again.
if it happens only once every so many pages/chapters, okay.
but if it happens too often, it makes the book aggravating to finish.
I'm gritting my teeth, wondering if its going to happen again.
okay, Eldoria is *ruining* me... I'm trying to invent a really cool sounding writing class term here...
(maybe, "loss of immersion". How's that. LMAO. lol, even)


different things can do this.

I remember reading a ninja paperback once.
what is now called "ninja-mania" swept entertainment in the 80s. A good bit of it was B-grade books and movies.
guess it became its own sub-genre. Anyways...
ninja guy, trained by the master in the far east, but ended up leaving... blah blah, it was an okay pulp paperback...
then his master shows up, he has to go do something... pretty standard plot here. But it was okay.
the new student? it was a woman. Sensei assured him, she was the new star pupil he had once been.

so he takes her pinky finger... and *snaps* it.
she goes white, closes her eyes... but takes it and doesn't really react.
He says, get this...
"Master, has taught you pain control well."
(bwah ha ha...)

complete stop of the movie. I'm giggling, its just so silly of a scene.
but? the book went back to being decent, the movie didn't drop out and stop anymore, no harm no foul.

THAT, is what its like... the movie stops... when a "gender not author's gender" error happens.
but, unlike one silly spot I guess some editor didn't catch, it will tend to keep happening with that character.
and with other ones.

male writers and female writers both do it.
everyone points it out *loud* when male writers do it, though female writers are just as guilty in their own way.
the opposite gender comes out as some sort of... call it what you will.
"a cardboard cutout"
"a cartoon character"
"a stereotype"
etc etc

Even more often, you see caricatures - exaggerations of generalized gender traits (woman is "excessively controlling", or "obsessively vain;" man is a "overly tough guy/man's man/into sports, women and beer and not much else" OR the exact opposite, the "sensitive (but (probably) not gay) type").
And, as you point out in the part I just cut that came below, you see this at least as often in people trying to move away from their own gender bias as you do in people writing members of the other gender. And it doesn't help that most of us know people who, on the surface, actually fit these stereotypes that we elevate to caricature or even self-parody; instead we pat ourselves on the back for "drawing from real life" (since they'll probably never read it anyway)...

 

[TinaMigarlo]

Even more often, you see caricatures - exaggerations of generalized gender traits (woman is "excessively controlling", or "obsessively vain;" man is a "overly tough guy/man's man/into sports, women and beer and not much else" OR the exact opposite, the "sensitive (but (probably) not gay) type").
And, as you point out in the part I just cut that came below, you see this at least as often in people trying to move away from their own gender bias as you do in people writing members of the other gender. And it doesn't help that most of us know people who, on the surface, actually fit these stereotypes that we elevate to caricature or even self-parody; instead we pat ourselves on the back for "drawing from real life" (since they'll probably never read it anyway)...

I can understand it in "freshman level" work.
They're just starting out.
They have a handle on writing itself, now they need to work on the other mechanics.
(lord knows that's where I'm at)
its when I've seen it in actual published paperbacks, that it makes me about faint.

this is what a real published author wrote?
this is what a real editor, lets get through?
this is all a real brick and mortar publishing house, cares?

UNRELATED ANECDOTE :
I read the newspaper, I sit and pick out all the errors.
spellchecker is a thing now, so...
now its all the wrong word, used to unintended hilarity, that's not misspelled.

I feel like I could do a better job reading the newspaper, before they put it to press.