Creating Strong Characters Across Gender
I have always found it easy to draw on my life experience as a man to write male characters, such as the motley collection of boys and men in my 2022 debut middle-grade novel, Eddie & the Vegetarian Vampire.
Like most writers, I love to read, especially middle-grade fiction, crime thrillers and mysteries featuring protagonists who overcome isolation and deprivation to achieve personal and professional success. One such literary favorite is Cormoran Strike, the one-legged British bear of a detective who comes from nothing but gives the world his everything. The Strike series was created by Robert Galbraith, a penname for JK Rowling. Galbraith has written six novels with a seventh about to appear.
Part of the appeal of the Strike series is that I feel Galbraith ‘gets’ what it is like to be me and I suspect, many other men as well. I’m thinking of Strike’s habit of shutting the world out while he engages in a favorite pastime, hanging around his shabby apartment/flat in his underwear and drinking beer, watching his beloved soccer/football team, Arsenal. At such times, all that matters is that Arsenal wins. The rest of the world can take a hike.
I have to remind myself of two things. One, author Robert Galbraith is not me, he is not a guy. Two, writing only what ones know is pretty limiting. The world is populated by all kinds of characters with differing life experiences and the ability to create credible characters of different backgrounds – be it gender, age, etc. - is both useful and necessary.
Jane Austen comes to mind as another author who, in my humble opinion, writes well from a different gender point-of-view as, for example, the character of Mr. Darcy in Pride & Prejudice, (albeit we only get a sense of Mr. Darcy’s internal life when he is in the company of women). Others I place in this category include mystery novelist PD James, who created a very credible Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh and Gillian Flynn, who did the same with her somewhat unreliable husband-narrator, Nick, in Gone Girl.
So how, I ask myself, do these writers write so convincingly from a different gender POV? This has become more than an abstract question for me. I am working on a sequel to my Eddie novel in which a minor female character from my first novel (Lynn Sullivan) assumes a major role. I am also about to publish a serialized mystery story through Amazon’s Kindle Vela about a ghost and a nine-year old girl, probably under the title, The Ghost Governess.
Fortunately there is a lot of good advice about the ‘how’ of writing a different gender (or other characteristic) point-of-view which can be summarized in a few pithy points.
First, remember at the outset that character comes before gender. Most character traits have nothing to do with gender. We probably have all encountered writers who don’t write opposite gender well – those characters tend to be flat, one-dimensional, not well-rounded and basically, unbelievable. Nobody wants to read stereotype. Many will be offended.
A second piece of advice is to base your character on someone you know – a family member, work colleague, neighbor, even characters you’ve seen in stories or movies. One writer watches people in doctor’s offices – how they sit, move, ask questions, what figures of speech they use.
My upcoming Amazon Kindle Vela mystery series will be based on an unpublished novel I wrote when my daughter was the same age as my fictional nine-year old female character. Honestly, without my daughter to observe at that time, I doubt I would’ve been able to put that character together. My daughter was, for example, never without a doll and was fond of bouncing on couches, habits my fictional character now shares.
A third piece of advice is to have beta readers look at your writing, readers with the particular life experiences you don’t have. Ask those readers to give you feedback. Do they find your characters convincing? Is there anything about them that does not ring true?
In the Cormoran Strike series, Detective Strike is very observant of the wardrobe details of his female partner, Robin Ellacott. For that reason, one critic opined that she knew that author Robert Galbraith ‘had to be’ a female in spite of the male name.
I’m not sure I agree with this critic. I am not known for my sartorial keenness yet I know some men who are. Regardless, that kind of feedback is valuable for a writer seeking to create genuine characters.
One thing is for certain. If you aspire to be a serious writer, you need to make the effort to write well beyond what you know.
What I am working on now
I am working on a new book for middle schoolers soon to be available on Amazon Vella.
