Writing from the other gender's POV

[Alex756]

I have been realizing by reading some other threads that it is not the norm to venture out of your own gender for a maincharacter.... am I mistaken?

I guess I don't sit and think, hmmm, what would make a good story about a female character,... Instead some story comes and welds itself to my brain until I write it and I have little control over who the main character is.

Mostly I write in the 3rd person limited, cept if I am writing something where convention states something else.

I know we have an opinionated bunch here, so I was wondering what everyone's opinions and experiences were on the role of a characters gender versus the writer's gender.

-Alex

Oh and I assume I pull off the believeable male POV on those stories from the feedback assuming I am a guy silly gender neutral name

 

[Penelope Street]

Hi Alex,

I'm not sure exactly what you meant by 'not the norm'. Sure, we're all inclined to write as a character of our gender, but I doubt there are many authors here who have not written from the other gender's POV when the story called for it. Those authors who haven't written a story from said perspective have still created characters of the opposite gender. If we can create a believable man, then is it not such a leap that we might write as one? I admit I was a little timid with the idea at first, but now that I've done it few times and no one died, well, it's a little less intimidating

My own experience has been a mix; generally the stories have been well-received, but so far I've gotten with each a comment or two of the variety, "Hey, you messed up here- a man would never say that." Also, while I'm writing, I find that I still want to experience the story as the female character, if that makes sense. This has been difficult to overcome, particularly during the more intense scenes. To help a bit in this regard, I seek male editors for these stories, usually several of them. I like to think this has made my male-POV stories a little more believable- or at least less laughable.

Take Care,
Penny

 

[Belegon]

I played with the differing gender perspective when I was writing with Biplaymate420...and I think it was hard to tell what parts were written by which gender...I enjoyed it. But I do think it is challenging. That was why I enjoyed it.

And I kinda cheated by writing mostly lesbian action. Easier to place myself in the position of a woman eating pussy than sucking dick...

 

[Kassiana]

it is not the norm to venture out of your own gender for a maincharacter

--Yet more proof that I'm not normal. I frequently write first person male characters and I'm female as can be.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

LOL,

I'mout of the norm for sure. i don't even write the other gender as secondary characters usually.

Som eof my best minor characters are men. And in my non erotic works I can write a guy pretty well I think, but in sexual situations, I admit I'm lost when it come to guys and their perceptions of things.

 

[impressive]

I find it easier to write from the male POV when writing light or humorous material (a la The Second Person, Legally Binding), but the majority of my work is from a female POV. A couple of my pieces (30 Seconds, Allure) leave the gender of one of the main characters unrevealed (with the the other being a woman). In one, the narrator is unknown ... in the other, the object of the narrator's affection. I've not received gender-related feedback on any of these pieces, so I assume the POV's are believable.

 

[lil_elvis]

Alex,

Everything I've written so far is from the (my) male POV, but I just started a new one form the female. We'll see how it's received. But it sure helps to have a live-in editor of the opposite gender to obtain a more womanly perspective.

 

[rgraham666]

I switch between the two pretty regularly. Of my stories posted so far it's about a 60/40 split between male and female central characters.

I don't find female characters that difficult to write because I believe that we feel very similar emotions and emotions is chiefly what I write about.

 

[oggbashan]

Alts

Alts are alternative identities.

As Og I am pretending to be a long-dead King.

I have written (as Og) from the male POVs, female POVs and unspecified 3rd person, Oh yes, and from a rabbit's POV. The rabbit's POV was a disaster!

I created an alternative identity as jeanne_d_artois to try writing something different in an apparently female persona. jeanne wrote from male and female POVs.

I also have an alt as Fag-Ash_Lil who is a character in one of jeanne_d_artois's stories. So Fag-Ash is an imaginary person created by an imaginary person who was created by a nom-de-plume. You can't get much further from reality than that - except that Fag-Ash is my only character almost wholly based on a single real person.

If you can write, you should be able to make a reasonable attempt to write from any POV. Whether that POV is sufficiently plausible to convince the reader is another matter.

Og

 

[Alex756]

I have written (as Og) from the male POVs, female POVs and unspecified 3rd person, Oh yes, and from a rabbit's POV. The rabbit's POV was a disaster!


Og

Am I the only one who thought the rabbit thing was awesome? I mean seriously awesome? I remeber back when you did that.

As for the rest. in looking I have 2 stories (one a multi chapter thing) that -smostly are with the male character but are the whole limited roating thing being as they are long. My currant stuff I am writing is much more in the male characters head. I have a piece of fluff that is from the female side and a more serious piece from the female side.

What I get comments on occasionally, I think I've gotten 2 or 3 is my -female- characters being unbelievable What I get is alot of buddy buddy 'hey dude' emails.

Maybe the difference is between writing a sexual vingette (sp?) and writing a story that happens to have sex.

I just thought I'd throw it out after someone was very surprised last night my current pain in the you know what invovles a male POV

-Alex

 

[Sabledrake]

I'm female, but I write from the male POV a lot. Of course, since most readers THINK I'm male, they find it odd that sometimes I write from a female POV Keeps 'em guessing!

-- Sabledrake

 

[oggbashan]

Am I the only one who thought the rabbit thing was awesome? I mean seriously awesome? I remember back when you did that.

-Alex

Thank you for those kind words. White Scut is currently rated at 2.80 with 30 votes and 2 comments that could be read as complimentary or WTF?!!

Og

 

[SadieRose]

Quite!

I'm female, but I write from the male POV a lot. Of course, since most readers THINK I'm male, they find it odd that sometimes I write from a female POV Keeps 'em guessing!

-- Sabledrake

I'm with you on this one, Sable, as I generally write from a gay male POV. (I blame my mother for this as she was convinced before I was born that she was going to have a little boy and did not even believe the doctors when they told her otherwise.) To this day I write as either Josh or Sadie Rose and at work I am known to all my colleagues as Josh (which creates great confusion when meeting people in the flesh for the first time).

In the past I have actually found it quite difficult to write strong female characters. Only one of the stories I've posted here has a female lead and only recently have I begun to write more women into my general fiction, and Gerry, who is the best of them is a lesbian! Perhaps as I get older I'm becoming more comfortable with my own gender. I don't know.

*shrugs*

Sadie

PS> Og, I'm intrigued about the rabbit story. I've gotta go read that now.

 

[Penelope Street]

Thank you for those kind words. White Scut is currently rated at 2.80 with 30 votes and 2 comments that could be read as complimentary or WTF?!!

Og

FWIW, I'm one of the 30. Sorry to ruin your score like that, but I enjoyed your story too; it was far from a disaster.

 

[Guest]

As a male, I have three stories up on Lit written from a woman's perspective. All have met fair success. Actually one is my highest rated story and anothe is in the top three. I have another in the works writing as my female alt about a woman having a lesbian tryst.

But Og, brilliant man he is, has just inspired an idea. I am now thinking of writing from a female alt a story from a male perspective. Sounds easy right? NO. I want to write it as a woman imagining what the male perspective is. That sounds like a real challenge.

Thanks, Ogg-nog.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I jump from one POV to the other in my stories. 3:rd person male, 3:rd person female, 3:rd person omnipotent, 1:st person male, 1:st person female...

Some of my readers are convinced that I'm a man. The rest have no idea whatto think.

 

[Wildcard Ky]

I have a story on LIT that I wrote from the female POV. I thought it was a rather good story, and I received some very nice feedback on it. I don't think it was difficult to do. I did question myself a few times when trying to write sexual sensations from a womans POV, but I found that if you read enough smut, you can get the gist of it.

If anyone would like to read it, here's a link.

Revenge?

 

[cheerful_deviant]

Well apparently I'm odd but I guess that's not news to anyone here.

All of my stories are written from the female point of view, 1st and 3rd. Most have been pretty well recieved and I've gotten quite a bit of feedback thinking I am female so apparently it's at least a little believable.

 

[Alex756]

I wanted to thank everyone for showing that -yes- writing outside your own gender is not as wacko as I was lead to believe.

Untill someone acted like it was weird, it seriously never occured to me that it would be odd to anyone, so I am happy to see other people writing (and well) from the POV of the other gender.

-Alex

 

[oggbashan]

...But Og, brilliant man he is, has just inspired an idea. I am now thinking of writing from a female alt a story from a male perspective. Sounds easy right? NO. I want to write it as a woman imagining what the male perspective is. That sounds like a real challenge.

Thanks, Ogg-nog.

Thank you for the compliment but Ogg-nog? That sounds like lesé-majeste. Where's my headsman and his axe?

Og, King of Bashan and sometimes pretending to be King Henry VIII of England who was actually much more merciful and forgiving than Og.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I wouldn't feel comfortable writing in first person as a female. There's just something a little transvestite about it, as if I'm walking around with a wig and socks stuffed up under my shirt, trying to pass.

Besides, the whole idea of writing in first person and trying to be someone else is a bit more than I'm willing to handle. The pleasure of first person is that you get to be yourself.

But most of my third person stuff is told from the female POV, just because I find women's responses towards sex generally more interesting than men's. Maybe that's because I already know what it's like from the male POV, or maybe because I've just been trying to figure out what it's like to be a woman since I first noticed the difference. Women deal in shades of meaning and nuances that just go right over a man's head. Male POV porn always seems to be thick and plodding in comparison.

 

[oggbashan]

I wouldn't feel comfortable writing in first person as a female. There's just something a little transvestite about it, as if I'm walking around with a wig and socks stuffed up under my shirt, trying to pass.

Besides, the whole idea of writing in first person and trying to be someone else is a bit more than I'm willing to handle. The pleasure of first person is that you get to be yourself.
...

The point of first person for me is that I am NOT myself. I am not writing as me, but as the character in the story. I hear that character in my head but it isn't me. I don't even feel like an actor playing a part. I am the audience and reporter of what the main character is saying. I hear the other characters as well. Whether I transmit in words everything that they tell me is a moot point. I try but I will always fall short of the story they want me to write.

The main reason that I use 1st person is because it has an immediacy that 3rd person lacks.

I think that I could rewrite any of my 1st person stories from the other characters' POVs in 1st person. Whether the story would still work? I don't know. I suspect that the story would turn out to be very different.

Og

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The point of first person for me is that I am NOT myself. I am not writing as me, but as the character in the story. I hear that character in my head but it isn't me. I don't even feel like an actor playing a part. I am the audience and reporter of what the main character is saying. I hear the other characters as well. Whether I transmit in words everything that they tell me is a moot point. I try but I will always fall short of the story they want me to write.

Well, yes and no. I've never killed anyone, as one of my first-person characters does, or done a lot of other things. But there's a big part of me in all my first person stuff. I don't know if I could get away from it.

I also don't know if I'd be willing to read a trans-gendered story. Well, I think I'd read a woman writing as a man, because I'd get a kick out of seeing her understanding of the male experience. But I wouldn't enjoy a man writing as a woman. No matter how honest it might seem, I'd know it was artifical.

That's a terrible prejudice on my part, but there you have it.

 

[oggbashan]

Well, yes and no. I've never killed anyone, as one of my first-person characters does, or done a lot of other things. But there's a big part of me in all my first person stuff. I don't know if I could get away from it.

I also don't know if I'd be willing to read a trans-gendered story. Well, I think I'd read a woman writing as a man, because I'd get a kick out of seeing her understanding of the male experience. But I wouldn't enjoy a man writing as a woman. No matter how honest it might seem, I'd know it was artifical.

That's a terrible prejudice on my part, but there you have it.

I'm willing to experiment with my reading and my writing. Apart from the rabbit POV I have tried, but not posted, a story from the POV of a coin. That isn't original. At least two classic books used that.

Your prejudice might be irrational. Some authors on Literotica are of indeterminate gender. Even if their gender IS stated, how do you know that the statement is true? AVs do not necessarily portray reality, nor do bios.

How do you know that Og is male? All you have is my word for it - the word of someone who is pretending to be a long dead King. Some Litizens know I am male because they have met me face to hairy face. But can you safely extrapolate from me to convince yourself that everyone who writes and posts as a male or as a female is actually the gender they say they are?

You may enjoy stories written by a male pretending to be female without knowing that the apparent female is actually male. It that case would the story be less valid if you knew the truth, or is your perceived prejudice sufficient to modify your opinion of a good story?

Og

 

[Alex756]

I guess I'm kinda confused about the almost emotional response to the differences in a person writing the oposite gender as a 1st person story than a 3rd.

I have a 1st person story on here that really is much more immediate by its being written in 1st person present tense. Perhaps almost to too great of an extent.

I do have plans to write some of the horror I'm working on in 1st person, just because I think it can be used to such a great extent in horror, honestly I hadn't thought about how people would respond from me writing in a male POV than a female. The thing is, if you are already describing in some omnipotent way in 3rd person what a male character is doing and feeling, how much of a stretch is it to switch it to 1st person?

I guess looking at it from a character based way, we do research on how various people think in a situation. "When this was happening how did you feel?" and we try to make characters more 'real' by trying to match experiences of characters to experiences of real people to know real responses so things seem more real.

--Alex