Can men write from the woman's perspective?

[Crystal_Dust]

I don’t know this guy either, but, I can’t believe he meant that unless his own work has zero female characters.

Does it?

He does not write them well. They are really just there as props for the male protagonist.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

I don’t know this guy either, but, I can’t believe he meant that unless his own work has zero female characters.

Does it?

What if it does? Does it mean you can't recognize the man's perspective in his writing? And to the point, does it mean that he (R. Morgan) cannot recognize the woman's perspective in Leguin? As he claims he can? As others claim they can?

 

[VerbalAbuse]

He does not write them well. They are really just there as props for the male protagonist.

I imagine he'd agree with you. R. Morgan is not the go-to author for understanding women. As he admits it himself. Then again, that's the topic and that's what he says. Which is, he writes from a man's perspective.

 

[ColtonWrites]

I read recently a short interview with Richard Morgan (sci-fi writer), where he briefly (of course) touched this topic. His answer is "no." One gender cannot write the other -- that's what he said. He talked Leguin's works, noting how distinctly female the perspective.

Me... I'd say that anybody can learn anything. Not really anybody, but you get the point. Yes, you can study a certain corpus and train yourself to replicate the style, perspective, etc. Failing that, most men and most women write in an easily recognizable gendered voice.

I'd be curious to know what gendered voice you think my characters are written in. Genuinely. My POV characters to date are all male-ID'd except one, and most of the side characters as well. But I've never tried to practice writing in a "male" voice.

IMO anyone can write any gender, if they treat the character as a person rather than a stereotype. Men who write women badly do so when the woman isn't the protagonist/POV character, and the same goes for those who write women well. I don't think much changes if you just shift the reader's perspective.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

I'd be curious to know what gendered voice you think my characters are written in. Genuinely. My POV characters to date are all male-ID'd except one, and most of the side characters as well. But I've never tried to practice writing in a "male" voice.

IMO anyone can write any gender, if they treat the character as a person rather than a stereotype. Men who write women badly do so when the woman isn't the protagonist/POV character, and the same goes for those who write women well. I don't think much changes if you just shift the reader's perspective.

As said before, I agree that one can write any gender, and any perspective. but that requires, IMO, study. Yes, you can write as somebody from across the globe, and from a different era -- once you studied and learned the "voice." Many writers did just that. Examples abound. Could I write a victorian novel, especially one in the tone and style of the great female victorian writers? Why, I can definitely learn to do it (but no, I can't do it right now, I haven't prepared for it).

 

[ColtonWrites]

As said before, I agree that one can write any gender, and any perspective. but that requires, IMO, study. Yes, you can write as somebody from across the globe, and from a different era -- once you studied and learned the "voice." Many writers did just that. Examples abound. Could I write a victorian novel, especially one in the tone and style of the great female victorian writers? Why, I can definitely learn to do it (but no, I can't do it right now, I haven't prepared for it).

Oh, Im not saying you don't agree that it can be done!
I'm just honestly curious. You said you think men and women sound different to you unless they practice. I haven't practiced, and I don't consider myself to be fully a man OR a woman, so I really wonder what my tone sounds like.
(For clarity - the men in my stories who identify as trans DO generally think of themselves as just men. IME most trans men feel that way. Its me that doesn’t.)

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I don’t know this guy either, but, I can’t believe he meant that unless his own work has zero female characters.

Does it?

He does have female characters but his POV character has always been male, at least in the books I've read (altered carbon and 13 universe, not storm light archive).

I wrote an NC/R story from the perspective of the female victim and got a bunch of comments from women that it was so realistic it was unpleasant for them to read.

https://www.literotica.com/s/snowed-in-with-a-predator-1

I wonder what these people would say if they knew that I didn't really think about the gender dynamics much as I was writing it. For me it was mostly a story about class and economic precarity and family obligations.

 

[StillStunned]

I read recently a short interview with Richard Morgan (sci-fi writer), where he briefly (of course) touched this topic. His answer is "no." One gender cannot write the other -- that's what he said. He talked Leguin's works, noting how distinctly female the perspective.

I've read a couple of Richard Morgan's books (The Dark Defiles and its sequels), and his few female characters (there's one female POV character, IIRC) didn't strike me as being implausible. Not that I'm a woman, but they didn't come across as any more masculine than many female characters in books written by women.

I've also never had any issue with how Ursula K LeGuin wrote Ged or any of her other male characters.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

Oh, Im not saying you don't agree that it can't be done!
I'm just honestly curious. You said you think men and women sound different to you unless they practice. I haven't practiced, and I don't consider myself to be fully a man OR a woman, so I really wonder what my tone sounds like.
(For clarity - the men in my stories who identify as trans DO generally think of themselves as just men. IME most trans men feel that way. Its me that doesn’t.)

this veers in a different direction
do the "men in [your] stories who identify as trans" have a penis? it's a bit unclear. suppose I could look at your stories. incidentally , most of my stories are in the TS/TV/CD category. To be clear: my stories are just that, stories. Hopefully entertaining fantasies, nothing more.

but I'll say this -- and it's something I have said in the forum before. Emmanuelle is written in a very raspy voice. You can almost feel the thick musk coming out from the speaker's breath. Signed with a woman's name, it transpired that the story was written by the pretended author's husband.

and Leguin? she often writes men -- but it's plain she doesn't know what she's doing. Her "men" speak in an unmistakable high pitch voice.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

I've read a couple of Richard Morgan's books (The Dark Defiles and its sequels), and his few female characters (there's one female POV character, IIRC) didn't strike me as being implausible. Not that I'm a woman, but they didn't come across as any more masculine than many female characters in books written by women.

I've also never had any issue with how Ursula K LeGuin wrote Ged or any of her other male characters.

I think these two are different matters: female characters being plausible/implausible, and the perspective being that of a man. You can have a story written from a man's perspective with perfectly plausible women, or conversely, a story written from a woman's perspective with perfectly plausible men.

 

[Statius]

Tess

 

[Britva415]

I think these two are different matters: female characters being plausible/implausible, and the perspective being that of a man. You can have a story written from a man's perspective with perfectly plausible women, or conversely, a story written from a woman's perspective with perfectly plausible men.

Sure, they're two different matters, but I don't think the difference impinges upon the question of plausibility.

 

[StillStunned]

I think these two are different matters: female characters being plausible/implausible, and the perspective being that of a man. You can have a story written from a man's perspective with perfectly plausible women, or conversely, a story written from a woman's perspective with perfectly plausible men.

I was talking about POV characters. None of them struck me as implausible.

Not like Melanie Rawn's male POV characters, for instance (although I haven't read anything of hers since about 1990). Her male characters were either comically evil or insufferably perfect. Mercedes Lackey also stood out as writing men who felt more like a woman's idealised version of men (but again, it's been a few decades since I read anything by her).

Also: those books were essentially romance, or even romantasy before it was codified, so the male characters were probably written with a specific audience in mind, and I wasn't it.

 

[ColtonWrites]

this veers in a different direction
do the "men in [your] stories who identify as trans" have a penis? it's a bit unclear. suppose I could look at your stories. incidentally , most of my stories are in the TS/TV/CD category. To be clear: my stories are just that, stories. Hopefully entertaining fantasies, nothing more.

They do not. Its sort of a theme in a lot of my work - pre/no-op trans men who date gay men and are accepted as gay men by their partners.