Better to write from a female or male's perspective?

psiberzerker said:

It was the one I was responding to. sort of. It's the best example that you can't account for luck, or the tastes of the masses, but it was written by a woman, (Mostly) from a woman's PoV, and for some reason, a lot of women (And unfortunately girls) related to it.

{Sigh.}

So, if even the worst example seems to back me up...

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Hehehe. I am surprised that so many women and girls related to it. I would never have thought they would. But does that not prove, in fact, that you can write literally anything, and someone will relate to it? And if your audience is 'some form of human (probably), male, female, anything in between', you will find that audience?

I know, being obtuse. But you love it.

JasonClearwater said:

I am surprised that so many women and girls related to it. I would never have thought they would.

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Yeah. I started reading it online when it was just a Twilight fanfic. I couldn't make it past him buying her a Car for the first date.

PSA: If you get a car for your first date, he's a creep.

Hmmm, this is a good question. Even though I am a woman, I never struggled writing from the male perspective simply because my goal was to never think like a guy, but to just create a well developed character. I'll admit, when creating a character I use certain tropes as a starting point, but I know characters are going to change anyway.

JasonClearwater said:

Hehehe. I am surprised that so many women and girls related to it. I would never have thought they would. But does that not prove, in fact, that you can write literally anything, and someone will relate to it? And if your audience is 'some form of human (probably), male, female, anything in between', you will find that audience?

I know, being obtuse. But you love it.

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50 Shades is basically just a Gothic romance novel, but with bdsm thr own in. A Gothic romance is always told from the woman's point of view. The plot virtually dictates that. A young innocent woman meets a powerful older man cloaked in mystery. There would be no mystery if you told the tale from the man's point of view.

I am sure the readership of 50 Shdes was predominantly though not exclusively women.

psiberzerker said:

Yeah. I started reading it online when it was just a Twilight fanfic. I couldn't make it past him buying her a Car for the first date.

PSA: If you get a car for your first date, he's a creep.

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'PSA: If you get a car for your first date, he's a creep.'

Truth.
And - horribly controlling IMO.

I've never read it, and couldn't watch the film for laughing. But - there's got to be something out there for everyone, even something like 50 Shades?

Zodia195 said:

Hmmm, this is a good question. Even though I am a woman, I never struggled writing from the male perspective simply because my goal was to never think like a guy, but to just create a well developed character. I'll admit, when creating a character I use certain tropes as a starting point, but I know characters are going to change anyway.

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Many of my characters, sometimes the MC, I just make up. They may be rather cartoonish but stroker readers don't care.

More complete players are based on folks of any gender that I think I know. I spy on their personas, get inside their skulls, talk and act as they do, or as I want them to. I may split one person into several, or merge a few into one.

First vs third person POV trades intimacy for overview. I've not yet tried a genderless observer's POV, like the motel mirror or magic bra or blow-up fucktoy relating their histories. A conscious dildo tells of the tender spots it's tingled, the orifices it's invaded. Cucumbers and bananas chime in.

Then there was the theology class assigned to rewrite Genesis from the serpent's POV. I don't know if they included A&E sporting with unicorns. Can't be sure of the serpent's gender, either. Let's have a female+male serpent team's parallel accounts. Look, Nephilim!

Another reason to chose the persective is for the situation at hand. I alternate narrative, and basically chose who's PoV for a given scene based on what I want to reveal, and what I want to conceal. If it's from the Liar's perspective, then the reader is in on the lie. From the Dupe's perspective, the reader at least suspects the lie, but still has to discern the Truth. (Knowing someone is lying doesnt' tell you the truth.)

In the OP example, the son-in law is getting to have sex with his Mother in law, and presumably his wife. So, his perspective allows him to compare the older woman, and her daughter directly. (You also get this comparison 3rd person.) The Mother in Law can tell you Why she's doing this. What motivates her to do her son in law beyond "He's hot." (Never really a satisfactory reason, but it's an erotic story.)

About her biological clock, jealousy of her young perky daughter, and then possibly forcing him to compare her to her daughter. I would hate to be him in that situation. Compared to "How does my butt look in this dress," is my daughter better in bed?

The daughter's PoV only if she's involved, catches them at it and decides to watch, Or suspects he's cheating on her with someone, and sets out to find out. That might be an interesting way to play it, making this the twist ending instead of the entire narrative, but you'd have to add red herring characters. (If she's the only other female character, and he's cheating with another women, process of elimination. She would have gotten away with it too, if not for that meddling kid.)

I'm still leaning toward the son-in law, because he sees the most action. That means you get to write at least 2 sex scenes, one with each, then compare/contrast the two. Unless it ends with the stereotypical threesome.

SuperWriter said:

I usually do it from a guy's, but am going to try a mother in law cheating with her daughter's husband. Should I do it from her outlook? What's the norm for these kind of stories?

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I try and write from both character's

But then that is possibly why I've not submitted any under this profile!!

The old adage is "write what you know."

I always write from a male perspective because I don't think I could authentically present a feminine one.

PrincepsCyberius said:

The old adage is "write what you know."

I always write from a male perspective because I don't think I could authentically present a feminine one.

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That's an oversimplification. If you're going for realism, start with what you know, and research what you don't. (If you're going for shear fantasy, make up whatever you want, and Worldbuild.) Nobody wants to read about a middle-aged man jacking off in his living room.

I'm not a child molester, but I can write about compulsive opportunists, prefferential, and age indiscriminate offendors, because I've talked to them. (I'm a sex-therapist.) A lot of them, that also goes for women who remember being molested as little girls, despite never being a little girl in my whole life.

Writing is hard, that's why so many people fail at it. Make it as easy on yourself as possible, and focus more on making it sexy.

PrincepsCyberius said:

The old adage is "write what you know."

I always write from a male perspective because I don't think I could authentically present a feminine one.

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It also depends on what you are trying to achieve with your story.

What can make a difference to me with some stories is how the writer narrates the story flicking between the two minds as the events unfold...

CFMB_fan said:

What can make a difference to me with some stories is how the writer narrates the story flicking between the two minds as the events unfold...

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Okay, I have to warn you that this confuses some readers. Especially by paragraph, which is why I tend to alternate chapters. (It still confuses some readers.)

psiberzerker said:

Okay, I have to warn you that this confuses some readers. Especially by paragraph, which is why I tend to alternate chapters. (It still confuses some readers.)

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Yep, I know perfectly what you mean

CFMB_fan said:

Yep, I know perfectly what you mean

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Since you're published under a different account, could you PM me some stories? I'm one of the few who alternates narrator out there. It would really help me with my work, but in the interest of Quid pro-Quo:

https://www.literotica.com/s/neighborhood-association-swing

https://www.literotica.com/s/head-of-the-class-mff-coed-class

I'd really appreciate some feedback from another author who uses the technique, because I find it tends to break down, the more bodies are in the room. Especially with pronouns, while MMM Troi is easier to conceptualize, it's harder to follow, because he says "He..." Which he? How many ways can I say the tall one, or the circumcised one?

In an Mff, it's easy from either coed's point of view, because she can just thing "His cock," or "Her Ass." However, from his PoV, he has to differentiate between the girls, ever time he refers to one.

psiberzerker said:

Since you're published under a different account, could you PM me some stories? I'm one of the few who alternates narrator out there. It would really help me with my work, but in the interest of Quid pro-Quo:

https://www.literotica.com/s/neighborhood-association-swing

https://www.literotica.com/s/head-of-the-class-mff-coed-class

I'd really appreciate some feedback from another author who uses the technique, because I find it tends to break down, the more bodies are in the room. Especially with pronouns, while MMM Troi is easier to conceptualize, it's harder to follow, because he says "He..." Which he? How many ways can I say the tall one, or the circumcised one?

In an Mff, it's easy from either coed's point of view, because she can just thing "His cock," or "Her Ass." However, from his PoV, he has to differentiate between the girls, ever time he refers to one.

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I read your story Neighborhood Association and enjoyed your writing style very much. I think limiting the number of narrators might have helped make the technique of switching between them more successful. To me, different perspectives should create tension and contrast between characters and their internal and external conflicts. This seems to be best achieved when the different perspectives are returned to at least once, to offer some resolution.
I'm currently writing a story in third person that switches between four characters perspectives without any section breaks (so no real transition between them) and it's certainly an exercise in discipline.

Alice_Rosaleen said:

I think limiting the number of narrators might have helped make the technique of switching between them more successful. This seems to be best achieved when the different perspectives are returned to at least once, to offer some resolution.

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Thanks a lot. This is exactly the kind of feedback I needed. I think the swinging husband, and wife were necessary for contrast. It's basically all about the sheltered prudish missionary couple discovering the decadence across the street, so I had to show the opposite perspective on the same scene. (The wives talking over a drink at the bar.) However, the tertiary characters, like the son, and his interracial lover could definitely have been an un-needed distraction. That helps a lot!

One of the effective uses for the alternating perspective is showing how different witnesses perceive the same scene. I've also used it in my crime fiction, but only through testimony. (Spoken out loud to the same detective.) Unfortunately no erotic content, and I can't even find a copy of it online any more, but that's really a more common use for it.

I'm seriously considering a double voyeur scene, where 2 kids watch the same sex between a couple, but don't see each other. The boy focuses on certain things, and the girl on others. I might have to get started on that, but i have a lot I'm juggling on another site, including a massive worlbuilding Sci-Fi in the far future. (4.7 Billion AD.)

psiberzerker said:

I'm seriously considering a double voyeur scene, where 2 kids watch the same sex between a couple, but don't see each other. The boy focuses on certain things, and the girl on others. I might have to get started on that, but i have a lot I'm juggling on another site, including a massive worlbuilding Sci-Fi in the far future. (4.7 Billion AD.)

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I like the separated double voyeur concept. I've thought about a meta-voyeur situation where someone gets off watching someone get off watching a couple have sex.
And I'm fascinated by sci-fi world building so far in the future. Their tech would probably seem like magic...

To the OP question, I think it best to actually knuckle down and write rather than to spin wheels engaging in the nonsensical discussion that there might be only one right/accepted--or even better--way to write anything in fiction.

Alice_Rosaleen said:

I like the separated double voyeur concept. I've thought about a meta-voyeur situation where someone gets off watching someone get off watching a couple have sex.
And I'm fascinated by sci-fi world building so far in the future. Their tech would probably seem like magic...

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Well, the main thing is that the sun has gone Red Giant, so the Earth is a ball of obsidian being licked by solar flares. Honestly, there is an upward limit to technology. People look at things like Moore's Law, or the Industrial Revolution, and seem to think it will just keep advancing until we have the power of the Markovians, but at some point the limiting factor is Humans.

Okay, so we can make microscopic computers with massive computational power the size of a grain of sand. You still need a display your eyes can see, and you're limited to the information you can process. Sure, it can render all of human History in the blink of an eye, but the narrator still has to be Human.

So, that tech is basically in the background. Here we are, watching the sun slowly dying, and faced with the reality that we can't survive inter-stellar travel. Oh well, we still have millions of years, and I'm not going to live to see a thousand. Wanna fuck, and have kids anyway?

Amazing technology is neat, and all, but you still have to relate to at least one of the characters.

psiberzerker said:

but at some point the limiting factor is Humans.

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This is true from a literary point of view, though maybe not from a scientific one.

In the future, we may be able to download consciousness into a medium that can survive space travel, and send out emissaries with the recipe and ingredients to embody that consciousness in an organism when it arrives at its extraterrestrial destination. Or maybe we'll just engineer ourselves out of existence, into something else entirely. We very likely will have the ability to do so within 100 years.

But it's hard to see how you write a story about such an entity in a way that a contemporary reader can enjoy. We may not be able to fathom such an entity.

psiberzerker said:

Amazing technology is neat, and all, but you still have to relate to at least one of the characters.

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Exactly. No matter the world building, it's still about telling a story, and at the crux of that are characters.
As far as future technology goes, I think it's not so much how "advanced" it is, but how integrated and ubiquitous it becomes and how that in turn augments our evolution.

SimonDoom said:

But it's hard to see how you write a story about such an entity in a way that a contemporary reader can enjoy. We may not be able to fathom such an entity.

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Que? Isn't that the fundamental foundation for vast amounts of sci-fi and fantasy over the last hundred years or more - writers imagining what was then unimaginable?

Alice_Rosaleen said:

As far as future technology goes, I think it's not so much how "advanced" it is, but how integrated and ubiquitous it becomes and how that in turn augments our evolution.

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Well, this kind-of goes to Perspective, but I chose a bit of a "Meh" attitude where it comes to certain tech. Yeah, to us Phazers seem pretty neat, but even Westley isn't like "Phazers! Cool! Say set phazers on kill, Worf!"

It's a tough juggling act, between presenting the tech to the readers, without the characters wowing over stuff that's literally been around for millenia at this point. It's just there, so I had to split it up between Factions, where one might be advanced in 1 area, another might in another. Not to the point of Divergent, mind you. There's only 3 of them, but these are human beings, there has to be conflict, and the technological needs of say Roja (Used to be Mars, but almost doubled in Mass so it can hols an Atmosphere) and the Islas (Asteroids) are vastly different. So, the Latines don't have the radiation shielding on their suits the Angelians do. They generally have an Atmosphere, and geo-magnetic field for that.

psiberzerker said:

It's a tough juggling act, between presenting the tech to the readers, without the characters wowing over stuff that's literally been around for millenia at this point. It's just there, so I had to split it up between Factions, where one might be advanced in 1 area, another might in another. Not to the point of Divergent, mind you. There's only 3 of them, but these are human beings, there has to be conflict, and the technological needs of say Roja (Used to be Mars, but almost doubled in Mass so it can hols an Atmosphere) and the Islas (Asteroids) are vastly different. So, the Latines don't have the radiation shielding on their suits the Angelians do. They generally have an Atmosphere, and geo-magnetic field for that.

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Good technique. And more realistic than having all the tech homogenized. I'm thinking about expanding my geek pride short story into something novel length. If you ever want to exchange ideas, shoot me a pm sometime.

KeithD said:

To the OP question, I think it best to actually knuckle down and write rather than to spin wheels engaging in the nonsensical discussion that there might be only one right/accepted--or even better--way to write anything in fiction.

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^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Yes, there is that approach. As Frank Zappa once said, "Shut up and play your guitar."