[stylist] Opposite gender for main characters

Mon Jan 9 22:38:51 UTC 2012

I agree with what you say, Brad, however I'd like to add that it also
depends on how you characterize characters, ha-ha! Meaning, you may have
a 50-year-old man who uses slang more commonly used among teens and
twenty-something's, but he's a stoner, or tends to hang out with younger
people or just trying to stay "cool." Or you may have a 20-year-old
female college student who speaks like a professor and reads books on
string theory. Age and gender doesn't necessarily mean certain
vocabulary and personality traits will be attributed to any given
character. In general, yes, what you suggest is true, but a writer
determines all this when developing characters.

During university, I wrote a story for a fiction workshop, but I based
my characters and plot off of real people and situations. My mom-in-law
was one of the characters. Mom will wear any clothes hanging around,
old, new, her's or my dad-in-laws, etc. She goes without make-up a lot
and reads books typically popular among a much younger audience. She
loves her horses and is outside a lot no matter the weather- hence the
wardrobe. So I established my character, who was the same age and gender
as well as a mom, but classmates said a mom wouldn't act and dress like
that. They didn't like the unorthodox mom figure, which I found funny
since it was all based off of my own mother-in-law.

Anyway, when creating characters, anything goes. The writer must
determine an entire back-story for each character. A lot of writers will
write pages and pages of stuff never intending to use any of it because
it's simply a way to "map" out and define each character. In order to
have those complex, realistic characters, the writer needs to know the
entire back-story even if it isn't stuff readers will ever be privy too.
I guess J. K. Rowling has bundles and bundles of papers that are just
things she wrote about characters and plot situations so she knew where
things were going and who her characters were. She even did this for her
minor characters, but never intended to use it for the actual books.

I'm straying a bit, but I'm just trying to say that age, gender and even
socio-economic background, doesn't always place a character into one
mold over another. A writer must, however, establish this so their
characters come across realistically  to readers.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/

"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 4
Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 12:21:16 -0700
From: "Jacqueline Williams" <jackieleepoet at cox.net>
To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [stylist] what I've been reading...
Message-ID: <7A1B6897F80B4206A88E5FF5342923C3 at JackiLeePoet>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

Ashley,
You describe very well the detail of what happens to me. It seems that
if the auditory mode  is not a person's strong one when sight is lost,
the effort to listen attentively takes more energy and concentration
than some others experience. It interests me that Chris can listen while
doing many things. And he listens fast. First, this must indicate a
portable recorder, and an excellent auditory modality.  I am a slow
listener because of only limited hearing in my right ear. I have a FM
system that talks to my hearing aid, so that when it is fully charged, I
can do kitchen tasks and still listen to material. It runs out in a few
hours however. I had a totally blind teacher for computer classes for a
short time. He played JAWS at such a speed, I could understand nothing.
So, yes, I guess the visually impaired can indeed be "speed" readers.
Like Chris, I take Newsweek, The Writer, and add The Atlantic Monthly,
The reader's Digest, and listen to about ten other magazines on
Sunsounds of Arizona which reads from about 250 magazines, and
newspapers from across the country. My favorites are Science of our
Times, Mindscapes, the Future magazines, Time, The Economist, and
various medical news letters. Yes, it is paralyzing at times, but
addictive. 
The only justification is that by feeding the mind with such a variety,
and then drifting off into a daydream state, many ideas for writing
start to jell. Time for all? Ignore e-mails for a time, I guess. Thanks
for sharing a common dilemma, Ashley. Jackie

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 15:10:44 -0600
From: Bridgit Pollpeter <bpollpeter at hotmail.com>
To: <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [stylist] Peter and rock
Message-ID: <BLU0-SMTP213C1E2A2C0492609D489BCC49B0 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Vejas,

Peter means rock. For you Bible scholars, Peter became the "rock" of the
Catholic church, and all the derivatives of Peter (Petra, Petras, etc.)
mean rock in any language. My married name, Pollpeter, means rock by the
water, though nowadays many find the name funny and snicker. For those
who don't get it, think pull like pulling a cart and then think of how
Peter is often used in slang terms. Yeah, lots of immature people,
ha-ha!

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at: http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/

"History is not what happened; history is what was written down." The
Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 25
Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:43:54 -0800
From: vejas <brlsurfer at gmail.com>
To: Writer's Division Mailing List <stylist at nfbnet.org>,
	newmanrl at cox.net
Subject: Re: [stylist] Braille Monitor and Vejas
Message-ID: <4f08e6f6.9e1de70a.4d5d.ffffc898 at mx.google.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed

Wow, how did you know that it's rock? Petras's name is Peter in 
Lithuanian, but it also means rock.
Vejas

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:26:55 -0800
From: vejas <brlsurfer at gmail.com>
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] using opposite gender for main characters
Message-ID: <4f0a7acd.d4dbe00a.32b0.ffffe314 at mx.google.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed

Hi,
As all of you know I'm a boy.  However, I often like to use girls 
for my main characters.
Is this wrong? I guess it might not be, but I still think people 
might feel it weird.  For some reason, I like to use girls as my 
main character, and I'm thinking of a story in which the main 
character is a girl.
Any thoughts?
Vejas

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:07:38 -0600
From: Brad Duns? <lists at braddunsemusic.com>
To: Writer's Division Mailing List <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [stylist] using opposite gender for main characters
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20120108234843.054915a0 at braddunsemusic.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed

The only issue I can see, and it's not really an 
issue if handled proper, is when writing from the 
perspective of the other gendre, depending on the 
age and background of the  character, you need to 
speak the gender language and have the character 
behave accordingly . For instance you might hear, 
"Dude!  Your fro lost its mojo."
  Boy or girl? In this case either, if in the 
teens or first years of college. Another example 
might be  two girls might hug each other  if they 
hadn't seen each other in a while,  guys will 
shake hands, slug shoulders or some other 
gesture.  These are obviously extremes or obvious 
but there are other subtle differences to take in 
consideration  depending on age, situation, rural 
or city dwellers, etc. Point is to be  character 
convincing, other than that away you go. Look at 
Agatha Christi with 
<http://www.docstoc.com/docs/69876981/Death-on-the-Nile-Hercule-Poirot-b
y-Agatha-Christi---The-Best-Poroit-Book>Hercule<http://www.docstoc.com/d
ocs/69876981/Death-on-the-Nile-Hercule-Poirot-by-Agatha-Christi---The-Be
st-Poroit-Book> 
Poirot, though  HP isn't  who I'd envision 
could  "man up" as the Miller Lite commercials 
like to say on Sunday football, but she still 
pulls off an opposite gender character.

Brad