Writing male characters if you're female

Firstly, let me direct you to a recent post by agent Mary Kole on reactions. She says that reactions are the MOST important part of interiority--they tell the reader how they are supposed to react to a situation, and pull them into what the character is experiencing. I love this advice, because it's something concrete. You can go through your manuscript and make sure you have the appropriate reactions for each significant exchange or event, and noticeably strengthen your book. I love love love this post, and have notes all over my draft to revise for this specificially.

Secondly, I'm finally starting to look at some of the material from this summer's Writeoncon.com. They always have such good information! I liked this video by author Jessica Martinez, which is supposed to be about writing sexual tension in dialogue, but which is really more about paying attention to the subtext of a conversation and also about writing believable male characters if you're female. She points out that sometimes female writers create male characters who behave like they wish they behaved, when no real guy would actually talk like that. They are not going to sit down and just share all their feeeeeeeelings. Her advice: if you can't honestly see your spouse/brother/significant other saying this, it's a good clue a character guy shouldn't be saying it, either. So my additional thoughts on male characters are these:* guys don't play a lot of mental emotional gymnastics. They aren't going to overanalyze the intricacies of what someone said and what they may have been saying underneath, etc. Yes, guys can read (or send messages) between the lines, but most guys I know are not going to spend hours trying to go over conversations to pick out emotional messages about relationships. Also, face is kind of important to guys, you know? As in, they want to be seen as cool and competent. Girls might bond over sharing mistakes and embarrassing moments, but I think guys would rather keep their private humiliations to themselves. Of course all guys are individual, but when writing them, especially middle grade and adolescent ones, they are going to be a mix of clueless, trying not to look clueless, and occasionally, almost accidentally, dead center on target when it comes to doing the right thing or being there for someone emotionally. I've read some rather fancifully fictional guys, but I've also read some really excellent ones that are funny, vulnerable, endearing, but still "real." Some great examples, IMO, are Bobby from Andrew Clements' Things Not Seen (because of his excitement and work into solving his invisibility problem), Ledger Kale in Ingrid Law's Scumble (he is trying soooo hard not to be a failure, but he holds some of it inside, too, you know? He still wants to keep face.) Jeffrey in the Penderwicks series feels like a real boy--he does have deep thoughts (about music, about his father, even wondering about getting married someday), but he doesn't sit on the couch all day, eating cookie dough over it, either. Percy Jackson (and Harry and Ron, for that matter) is a great example, because he's awkward and sometimes insensitive (but not intentionally!), and good-hearted as he tiptoes over the minefield that is understanding girls.

Any other well-written guy characters you want to mention? Any other elements of capturing the essence of a real male adolescent on the page?


*Source of my observations: my husband, three sons, their friends, the teens and kids I've worked with at school and church, and observing the bus line that forms outside my living room window.

Voice, character growth, and Daddy Long Legs

I just finished reading Daddy Long Legs, by Jean Webster, published in 1912, to my girls. The story: Jerusha "Judy" Abbott is an orphan. A trustee of the John Grier Hall finds her snarky high school essay on trustee visiting day at the home amusing, and on a whim, decides to send her to college. He's done it a few times before for boys, but never girls. His conditions: she will write a monthly letter, letting him know how things are going and what she's learning. He will pay for college and send her money, but will never reveal his name or anything about him. She is to call him Mr. Smith. All Judy knows is that he's rich, he apparently dislikes girls, and he is tall (she saw his shadow around the corner as he left that day). So she calls him Daddy Long Legs, and writes funny letters about what she's learning, the extent to which she tries to hide her true origins (because in 1912, the girls who are in college are definitely not people who came out of foundling homes!), and her hopes, dreams, and disappointments. Her attempt to conceal her orphanage past among some rather wealthy friends eventually gets her into trouble, though, as you can imagine.The voice in the story is simply lovely--funny, wise and naive at the same time, and sometimes heartbreaking, too.

There's a recent musical based on the book that uses many lines from the book, but also shows the other side of the stamp, ie what "Mr. Smith" Daddy Long Legs is thinking as he reads these letters, and what happens to him. Umm...if you're planning to read the book first, don't listen to the music until you're done, because there are spoilers. But two things really stuck out to me after listening to the music, things that are just very well done, and useful to study for writing.

Firstly, the voice. There's this great song called "Like Other Girls," where Judy says she just wants to be like other girls (ie without these weird gaps of knowledge and social errors, and without the fears she brought with her from the orphanage). So she sings things like, "I just want to be like other girls--bake lemon pies, cure diseases, win the Nobel Prize--like other girls." Um. Maybe her peers want to bake lemon pies and wear pretty shoes, but I'm pretty sure that not all of them want to win the Nobel Prize. There's just this lovely sense in the whole song that even in all her wanting, she still doesn't really understand what it means to be like other girls. It's this funny mix of her individual perceptions of the world against what the viewer knows is the real reality that gives her such a lovely voice and personality. So think about that with your characters. We all see part of the mysterious elephant, and believe that is the total reality. What part does your character see? How does s/he describe it? That's a part of that character's voice.

Secondly, character development. Early in the show, Daddy Long Legs sings about charity. He's rich through no effort of his own, but since he's come into this amazing wealth, he doesn't think he should keep it. He's very happy to share it with the less fortunate. And there's really nothing wrong with that. He's not "bad." He doesn't love wealth more than anything--he has a basic virtue, and it's charity. But he really only has a theoretical understanding of charity. But the letters--they force him out of being a casual observer. He who doesn't like people is forced to get to know them--and realize that he was lonely before, and now he's starting to get filled. Later in the musical, he realizes that his anonymity has created enormous obstacles to his own happiness, and extricating himself from the situation he's created is going to require other people's forgiveness. And now--he realizes that charity isn't just thoughtless passing around of money, but something you give to someone that they cannot do for themselves. And he realizes that he needs the charity that is forgiveness, too. It's a lovely, lovely example of character growth. You don't have to have your character be horrible at the beginning to grow. You can have them basically good, but untested, naive, with basic but rather shallowly understood good intentions. And then they live it, and understand what they once gave lip service to in a very real way.

Anachronisms

I'm reading a book right now that is well researched and has an engaging main character and a great voice. It's historical, but has a very immediate feeling to it (which is what makes people like or dislike historical novels, I suspect--ie how immediate it feels). There is one aspect, though, that keeps pulling me out of the story. And that's social anachronism.

Okay, yes, you can make your character any way you want to--as long as they're believable as a person. So if one of your characters is a really well educated peasant in the 15th century, or is a person who doesn't believe in marriage in Austen's time, or any number of other non-social-norm situations, well, you'd better have a pretty good reason for that character to be that way. I see a lot of authors who do try to back up their reasoning here. But where things seem to break down is when they want to insert that quirky character into the greater historical world, and everyone's suddenly okay with the modern attitudes and actions they bring along. I am not saying that people did not do some of these things way back when. What I am saying is that they were not considered okay/normal/unsurprising. So for your world at large to have no reaction, for your characters to have no consequences, for everything to breezily move along as if part of the modern world were dropped right into the past with no jarring whatsoever, is not believable.

What? You say I have to write about repressed people? Well, some people were repressed, but I'm guessing just as many people didn't feel that way at all. They had different goals than some of us do, and they felt fulfilled and powerful when they met those goals. And assuming that everyone was repressed for forced into all acting the same is a bit simplistic of a view, anyway. People were varied "back then." Not all people married the person they were in love with, or followed the rules they were supposed to. True. But there were consequences and reactions back then for things that don't raise any eyebrows today. You can write a strong character in a historical context, but to be accurate, you're going to have to understand more than just names and dates when when the zipper was invented. You're going to have to understand the kinds of choices a strong female character would have made in 1940 as opposed to 2012. You're going to have to understand things like faith in more than an atheistic, check-off-that-character-trait way if your MC is going to be a nun. You're going to have to figure out how to make a character feel strong by 21st century reader standards, while at the same time letting them be strong in their own historical context. Which may mean leaving behind some of your own 21st centuryness when you go into that world yourself.

(No, I don't think this is easy! But it's rather rewarding to read when it's done right, don't you think?)

Finding your voice

I have a writing group that has an illustrator in it, and not long ago we had a discussion about voice in illustration. I like drawing and I'm reasonably good at it (and have even earned money with it), but at the present moment, I'm a professional writer and a person who likes to draw on the side for fun. But I think the idea of voice works in much the same way in both text and art.

Because I'm learning about illustration, I do things like look at online sites where potential illustrators post samples of their work. I like looking at them all together because, well, I enjoy looking at picture books--but I'm also there to learn stuff. And one thing I've noticed is that an awful lot of illustrators fresh out of art school draw in the exact same style as everyone else. It might be different than how illustrators drew ten years ago--but there is still a sameness. They might be well done, but some of the artists haven't found their own style yet. My crit partner and I were trying to figure out what made our styles our own, and we came up with the same thing--at some point we had tried to draw the way everyone else was drawing, but after a while, it felt fake, and so we gave up and just drew what we really wanted to.

What I've always loved drawing is realism, especially people, especially kids. I can appreciate Rothko and I can feed my soul on impressionistic landscapes, but the thing that really gets me excited when it comes to my own drawings is people. Their expressions. The lovely way their bodies move and bend and reveal what they may be thinking. My art teacher in high school was frustrated with this (in her opinion) limited view of things. So I tried to draw in other styles. But it all comes down to this: I will always draw best the things I care about most, and I really can't draw in someone else's style, even if I like to look at it.

So that's one of the keys, I think. You go out and read and learn as much as you can about as many different kinds of voices there are. But in the end, you have this individual thumbprint that isn't quite like anyone else's, and once you've developed your craft, you need to listen to that little voice, you need to do the best that only YOU can do. And then you find your voice. It's that thing that happens when you forget about trying to have a style, and just do the very best thing YOU can do, in the best way you know how, in the way that only you can do. That's voice.

Encouragement

Pippa Bayless has reminded me of an old post by Maggie Stiefvater on listening to yourself and keeping going when the world around you is busy rejecting you. I've read it before, but I love this post. As I've said before, I really do believe that you've got to listen to that little voice inside you that says, go for it! (If that's what it's saying, I mean.) Because there are so many voices that will tell you otherwise, and if you listen to them, you will quit. I can't quite say I've never cried over a rejection, as Maggie claims--there have been some real stingers there, and usually they have been the really nice, almost-there kind. But I do know that people are rejected all the time, yet go on to succeed in that very thing. I was the only second grader specifically banned from chorus, yet as an adult, I've occasionally been asked to sing solos. I frequently got points taken off in elementary school for coloring too hard, for not coloring between the lines, etc. But I've earned money off of my art. And as to listening to that little voice inside, when I started dating my husband, I knew almost instantly that he was "the one." He was graduating from college and getting ready to leave for Germany on a Fulbright, and wouldn't be coming back. Well-meaning people warned me not to get involved, because it wouldn't work out, and I'd only be hurt. But something just told me that it WOULD work out. I listened to that little voice--and yes, he got a clue eventually, and we got married AND went to Germany.

I'm still on my writing journey. I have so many ideas whispering in my head, and I hope that everything I write is better than the thing before it. It's not something I plan to give up on. I do think, though, that "not giving up" can mean being willing to change direction and try something new. To learn new things, try new approaches. So if this is you, and you are listening to that little voice that says, "Go!" then don't be afraid to change, either. Write a book in a different genre. Switch your main character. Study a book that excels in something where you are weak, and try out that author's technique (which is definitely not the same thing as taking their story, just so we're clear). If the door you've been knocking for three years still isn't opening, find a new door.

And now that I'm feeling encouraged again, I'm off to write. :)

Why you should read when you're a writer

Obviously, everyone has their own process, and you do what works for you. But I think reading while you're writing is important. Especially if you're stuck. Not because you're looking for someone else's story to claim as your own--that is of course, plagiarism and bad. But writing is a slow process, and when you're examining it pixel by pixel, you can lose sight of what the whole thing is supposed to look like. Reading a book speeded up to a normal story pace can help you find that perspective again, and remember what it's supposed to look like. Not only that, you can see how other authors handle different issues--even when the story is completely different than your own.

The last thing that reading seems to address, especially when you're not feeling the love, is that it opens your emotions. When you're fully engaged in a book, when you're immersed in a story, you let yourself feel more. And when you do, you think of the things that you most want to write about. You want to open up your character and make them bleed a little, you want to feel their heartache, you want to push their triumphs just a bit more. And even when your book is something completely different, that excitement, that feeling--it makes you want to write your own book, and write it better than before.

That's what reading does for me, anyway.

Brandon Sanderson's writing class lectures

Just saw this link from his blog--archived lectures from his university writing course. Even if you're not aiming to write epic fantasy, he's a great guy to learn about craft from.