[stylist] using opposite gender for main characters

[Jacqueline Williams]

Vegas,
In the poetic genre, a Dramatic Monologue is often written as if one is the
opposite sex. In fact, this was assigned to our poetry class several years
ago, and in my mind I thought as I believed my shamba boy (Gardner) in East
Africa would think.  It is a challenge, but truly an enlightening way to
create a good piece of writing. If a woman can write as though she is a man,
why not the reverse. In fact in every fiction piece, this has to be done to
create all the characters. In historical fiction, it also was a common
practice since many historians are men writing about a woman, or women. 
My piece placed second in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies
Annual Contest. It was titled, "My name is Simeon Omokoli. If I can become a
young black main from a distant culture, and convince anyone of my life, you
can be in a female mind of any kind, and use her as the protagonist. It will
bring an entirely new quality to your writing.
Good luck to you. You are truly exceptional.
Also, thank you for the words.
Jackie 

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of vejas
Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2012 10:27 PM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] using opposite gender for main characters

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

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