[stylist] Opposite gender for main characters

Tue Jan 10 01:58:25 UTC 2012

Absolutely. Very true. The point is as long as it is believeable.

Brad

On 1/9/2012  04:38 PM Bridgit Pollpeter said...
>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
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Writers Division web site:
>http://www.nfb-writers-division.net <http://www.nfb-writers-division.org/>
>
>stylist mailing list
>stylist at nfbnet.org
>http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/stylist_nfbnet.org
>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for stylist:
>http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/lists%40braddunsemusic.com

Brad Dunsé

"After the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box." --Italian Proverb

http://www.braddunsemusic.com

http://www.facebook.com/braddunse

http://www.twitter.com/braddunse