Writing The Opposite Gender

So, today's a writing day and because the task ahead of me is so daunting, I'm here procrastinating instead of doing my work. Due to some news and business advice, I decided that instead of working on my Middle Grade novel, I was going to bang out this Young Adult novel that was next on my list. One of the biggest struggles I've come across in writing this story is that the main character is the opposite gender that I am.

I've written male leads before, and I'm by no means a girly girl, but I have to consider my audience, my limited knowledge of the male mind, and the story of this novel when I'm writing. For example, I believe more females read YA than males do, so my book having a male lead could be harmful if not done well. I noticed that of my two published short stories and my novel, the one with a male lead character and male on the cover does not sell as well as my other two. Could it be that the cover is just not as strong as the others? Perhaps, but when I consider how many YA books out there have a male lead, it makes me wonder.

This book I'm working on will have a much stronger romantic element to it than anything else I've written/published thus far, so to help attract the most people, I intend for the cover to show both an attractive male AND an attractive female. Doing so should keep it more neutral. I don't want to give anyone the impression that it's a paranormal romance, because it's a paranormal mystery of sorts, but I think highlighting the romance will help me reach my target audience, which is young adults between 13 and 19.

All that aside, the actual writing can be a challenge at times. In a good way, of course. But how much teenage boy do I want to include in the story before I start losing girl readers? I've been thinking about good YA I've read with male lead characters, and most of them were written by women. For example, Beautiful Creatures is a great book and has a male lead, and while the characters voice was there, I don't recall him feeling very manly. Teenage boys think about boobs and girls and nice legs, don't they? But I don't recall much of these things happening in the YA books with male leads written by women. I'm not saying that they have to overpower the story with the character talking about sex or boobs, but if a girl's blouse is too low or skirt too high and all the character does is mention this like an asexual third party observer, then what does that mean?

It's possible that I'm just over-generalizing teenage boys and that the majority of them don't sneak an (un)intentional glance at an attractive girl's chest when she leans over in her low cut top, or they don't notice long sexy legs in a short skirt. Maybe all of the guys in the books are too effeminate or too much of gentlemen to do such things. Or maybe the women writing the stories don't think it's important enough to mention, and maybe it isn't. I'm not sure, but I always found it strange that the point of view male characters were never as teenage boy-like as they should be. Again, it could just be me not knowing what I'm talking about.

So, how can I convey that this main character is in fact a teenage boy and not a woman trying to write a teenage boy? Voice and characterization are key, but how do I do this without making assumptions or stereotyping the character? An idea I had was in the way they notice things. Generally, I would say men are more visual and women are more intuitive. This is not to say that every single case is exactly the same or that both genders can't be both visual and intuitive. I know this happens and that's fine, but I'm speaking in general terms for the sake of this example. If both a man and a woman were to walk into a restaurant scene, how would their narratives differ? Would their narratives still differ if they were written in 3rd person rather than 1st? As a writer, I would tackle them differently, even in 3rd because the things they notice and the way they notice them would be different between them, not just because they are different people, but because they are different genders too.


[READER INTERACTION]: What are your thoughts on the subject? If you write, how do you tackle this challenge? Know any great examples of an author writing a lead/POV character of the opposite gender?

Changing Points of View and Voice

So, a week or so ago in class, we did this exercise about changing view points. We had to write a narrative in third person limited about a group of people doing something and change points of view for each character while keeping their voice. I like the exercise because I prefer to write in third person and often times it can be difficult to give a character a strong voice. Here is what I wrote for this class exercise:

Lily relaxed her body as she listened to the deep breaths of three clients sitting around the circular table in her spiritual parlor. Her grimiore lay open in front of her; behind it in the centre of the table, stood four white pillar candles. Lily held out her palms to either side and invited her guests to hold hands. As the others closed their eyes, she gazed at the candle flames, watching them wane and bloom in succession. Her eyes drooped as she chanted words from her book; she knew them by heart, but insisted on keeping the grimiore nearby.

Amanda was losing her patience. She’d been sitting around the creepy table for almost an hour and nothing had happened. She rolled her eyes, then shut them again. What was she doing here? The card someone, she assumed Lily, slipped under her apartment door had a date, the time and directions to a location with the words ‘In need of a Spirit Medium?’ written across the top with red grape coloured ink. While she wasn’t in need of a psychic, Amanda’s curiosity got the better of her and she found herself at Lily’s homely cottage anyway. At least she wasn’t like the poor SOBs who came hoping to talk to their dead kid.

A cool breeze blew over Danny’s neck, sending shivers through his body. He wished Madame Lily would close the window, but didn’t want to interrupt her. Danny brought his wife, Erin, to Madame Lily because she was having trouble getting over the loss of their daughter 4 years ago. He received a card inviting him and his wife, and under any normal situation he would have just tossed it, but they had tried every “normal” option without avail. Danny gave Erin’s hand an encouraging squeeze. He couldn’t stop shivering. Was the wind blowing that hard? The only sound Danny heard was Madame Lily chanting.

Tears fell from Erin’s closed eyes as she thought of her baby. She never forgave herself for falling asleep on the couch while three year old Anna wandered outside the house and into the street. The sight of her child bleeding and broken lying in the street bore into her mind unlike any memory she’d ever had. Half of her baby’s grated face was flecked with black from skidding across the assault. Erin felt sick. An immense moan echoed throughout the room and Madame Lily flew to her feet. Lily insisted that they would have to resume at a later time. Erin thought what little was left of her heart was breaking. She tried to protest through sobs, but the words refused to come out. Lily lead them to the front door as she explained something to Danny that Erin couldn’t comprehend through her disappointment.

[READER INVOLVEMENT] Feel free to try this exercise and post it or a link to it! How do you feel about voice and changing points of view?