Writing Male Characters

[SimonDoom]

There have been threads posted about how to write female characters, and there's one going right now. People don't seem to fret or concern themselves in the same way about writing male characters, as far as I can tell. I'm curious--and I'm particularly addressing women authors--do you feel trepidation about writing male characters, or narrating a story from their point of view? Do you feel there's something in particular you have to do to make a male character convincing and/or appealing?

It has never occurred to me that women authors would, or should, have any difficulty writing male characters. I'm a man, and it doesn't strike me as a difficult thing to do.

If doing so gives you pause, what is it that gives you pause?

What do others think?

 

[karaline]

I do, particularly when writing sex from a male perspective. I used to worry about it more than I do, but none of the male editors i've had over the years have ever queried my male perspectives, so i've relaxed a bit. But the sex, yeah i still struggle with that a bit.

 

[Winter_Fare]

It was one of the first questions I posted on this board, and the answers basically summed to "men are people too, write a strong character and they speak for themselves".

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/authentic-portrayal-of-both-genders.1552010/post-94191060

I do still have trouble finding a male character's voice. There are a lot of examples of male perspective in all sorts of written media to draw on as well as observed behaviour but I still find it forced sometimes.

 

[AlinaX]

Men are basically one-dimensional. At least until you get to the balls.

 

[TxRad]

I've found the perfect way to make a male character but I don't want to spend all that time explaining it and causing all the anger and pain for people still trying to figure out how to write female characters.

 

[lovecraft68]

Being male its easier because of course I understand being a guy, but I don't think women struggle nearly as much writing men as men do women.
Partly because-prepare to be butthurt guys-men are simple to write, we're not nearly as complex emotionally or mentally as women, we're a lot more basic.

Why? because\-more butthurt-men don't have to worry what people think if we act like dipshits, women have far more to worry about in how they're perceived; because of men.
Another reason-butthurt roll here- is I don't think women are as concerned in general about 'nailing' it because there isn't much to nail, especially in a simple erotic story, if he has a dick and wants to fuck, its all you need.
There is less fascination with the workings of the male mind and persona because there's simply less there. Not a dig, just going back to being more of a simple mindset.

Thing is too that the internet is a different place for women than men, they ask a question the answers often come in the form of pandering "Let me tell you how it is, little girl" and they don't need that. Or the overly eager, "Let me help you" so I can PM you and eventually get pervy. "Not trying to creep into your boat" as one stalker here likes to say translates into I am creeping into your boat.
No matter what the topic, women deal with that. I think this forum is far better than others here where not every guy wants to perv on you, but mansplaining is universal.

Which brings me to...maybe women don't ask because they're not worried about it.

Men seem more concerned with 'being' a convincing female because I think its harder. I always say I write lesbian scenes like a man writing lesbian scenes, which means I don't think I'm convincing other than the readers are horny and thinking sex, not who is writing this. I don't see women thinking "Did I portray that horny thinks with his dick guy the right way?"

I guess my overall opinion, mine as I'm speaking as a guy and myself, not a woman or women in general, is maybe women aren't as insecure and also don't need to give guys openings to be guys.
Look at all the "I need a woman co-author" threads. Why? Is it that you can't write it, or you looking to get your rocks off talking to a woman about erotica?
Could be wrong, but I don't recall many "need a male co-writer" threads (not counting role play which is for a different reason)
Final answer CMI

 

[NotWise]

Being male its easier because of course I understand being a guy, but I don't think women struggle nearly as much writing men as men do women.
Partly because-prepare to be butthurt guys-men are simple to write, we're not nearly as complex emotionally or mentally as women, we're a lot more basic.

I think you have a low opinion of men. It seems like that probably says something about you, but I'm not sure what that is.

One of the complaints women have about women in literature is that there aren't many. European and Middle-Eastern literature is based primarily on men. A vast and complex spectrum of human feeling and understanding has historically been expressed by male characters, and most of it is attributed to male writers. I don't buy the idea that we're simple and easy to describe.

I've had complaints from women about my male characters. Usually, they find them under-developed; I tend to assume everyone knows what a guy's about and use male characters as a foil for the female characters. For some of my more recent stories, I've gone out of my way to give the male characters more depth. They have interests, problems, and conflicts. To me, that seems like extra work, but I think it makes the stories better.

That probably doesn't do much to boost my fan base in the fap-happy crowd, but they aren't my target audience.

 

[Mastered_again]

I don't have trouble writing male characters, I would just feel awkward writing them in the first person, if that makes any sense. That said, I find it more enjoyable to write for a female protagonist (okay, maybe easier too)

Although I tend to write male leads as dominant (that's just the kind of story I like to write), I want them to be
multi-dimensional, that is, subject to the same doubts and fears we all experience. I would never do a stereotypical egocentric alpha with no concern for others (aka asshat). I could, but I'd hate him, and I prefer to like my characters.

 

[TxRad]

There is no difference in writing the mental part of male and female characters, just the gender applied. We're all the same but from twqo different sides of a coin.

 

[HeyAll]

If you look up those 'bad sex in mainstream novels' you'll find some wierd stuff by female authors. One comes to mind, where the female author compared a man's arousal to being like a werewolf in the night.

It gets dicey when you get into those sorts of feelings.

 

[Winter_Fare]

If you look up those 'bad sex in mainstream novels' you'll find some wierd stuff by female authors. One comes to mind, where the female author compared a man's arousal to being like a werewolf in the night.

It gets dicey when you get into those sorts of feelings.

The werewolf is a metaphor describing uncontrollable desire traditionally a trait of hypermasculinity; fear, or thrills are a big part of arousal hence the whole genre of erotic horror. Is it harmful to fantasize? I doubt it.

 

[Comshaw]

Have definitely had that happen. Quite persistent about it, too.


But, I do think men have more to them than most give them credit for. Or maybe I just tend to see a different side to them. Have had male friends talk to me about suicidal thoughts and depression around pregnancy loss as well as heartbreak and longing just as often as they've talked to me about desires and lust and love. I find it fascinating because I also see these guys putting up these hard-ass fronts around their male friends and I have to wonder how much of each side is real.

That ↑ After 14+ lustrums walking this planet my observation is there is only one real difference between the genders (I am only addressing the two biological ones) when it comes to emotion: males are trained from birth not to show it or talk about it while females are encouraged to do so. Men have the same type of doubts, wants, fears and wishes as women, but the code says you ain't suppose to talk about 'em. Observe: what happens went a male child gets hurt? If they cry they are called a wussy, a baby, a wimp and many other things designed to teach them they shouldn't show hurt or fear or any other emotion. A little girl gets hurt, she's cuddled and held and told it will be okay.

That said, the only difference in writing a male character as opposed to a female is to take into consideration that training. I will admit this is not a universal and all encompassing condition, but it does hold true for the vast majority.

There is no difference in writing the mental part of male and female characters, just the gender applied. We're all the same but from twqo different sides of a coin.

And here ↑ is a succinct and to the point statement of all those words I typed above.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I know oodles of men, have read thousands of male characters in books and in literature, seen so many films and plays with male main characters. I've communicated with thousands more online (I assume few of them are lying about being male).

So writing men on the whole is no harder than writing women, not that I've ever been good at telling them apart anyway (seriously, my partner would have fun in traffic jams going 'is that a man or a woman, KQ?'). I seem to have a bunch of followers who claim to be male. Generally it's just write a character, possibly who feels the need to keep emotions under wraps, though IMO they all spill them out to me. To be fair, I don't think I could write a convincing stereotypical dead-straight macho guy who thinks of his wife as a possession, but mostly because I find such men fuck boring and don't want to try to figure out their motivations. There's similar boring women I have no interest in writing about, too.

 

[Bramblethorn]

In general I suspect it's easier than vice versa, for reasons that have been covered above.

But one area where this question does come up is in slashfic, where there are a lot of straight cis women writing gay male pairings. There's a tendency there to write those male characters as very soft and sensitive, often more so than the canon characters or real people that they're based on.

Whether that's a problem, bad writing, stereotyping, or just writers employing artistic license to write the kind of story they enjoy writing, is another question. I don't have a dog in that fight and I don't feel the need to have a strong opinion about it, but it seemed relevant to this thread.

 

[stickygirl]

I find it straightforward to create and write both female and male characters - male actors in film are easy to use as a muse. Occasionally I do get stuck and I have asked 'what would a guy think/do?' in a situation because it's too easy to rely on stereotypes. I have tried asking guys ... and generally they'll laugh it off and they tell me I'm trying to make things things too complicated. I suspect their reaction can be coloured by their fall-back stance rather than them giving me a more insightful reply.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I find it straightforward to create and write both female and male characters - male actors in film are easy to use as a muse. Occasionally I do get stuck and I have asked 'what would a guy think/do?' in a situation because it's too easy to rely on stereotypes. I have tried asking guys ... and generally they'll laugh it off and they tell me I'm trying to make things things too complicated. I suspect their reaction can be coloured by their fall-back stance rather than them giving me a more insightful reply.

Or, guys are generally less complicated, more black and white, not shades of grey. Sometimes we don't see the middle of a cloud, just the edges.

 

[Thefireflies]

These discussions on writing female or male characters have been interesting (though I skipped the Star Wars discussion in the writing female characters thread). It’s clear many women aren’t happy with the way women are written and portrayed in fiction (in general), for a bunch of different and valid reasons. Obviously male characters can be written poorly, too, and I suspect it comes down to individual writer’s skill, where a sample of good and not-so-good characterisation regardless of gender would probably show this (at least by my intuitive guess).

I’m not sure if it’s already been said, but I think writing personalities and experiences is important when writing characters, regardless of gender. Is the character an extrovert or introvert, sensitive or insensitive, are they creative or not, do they have an education, skills, hobbies, joys, worries, dreams, desires? Do they exercise, drink, smoke? How do they observe the world, have they travelled, what are their experiences and what stage of life are they at? What do they care about? Etcetera...

Perhaps some gender stereotypes and generalisations ring true for some people and their experiences, but I think it’s best to avoid them, where readers are likely to roll their eyes and begin to see increasing faults with other characters and aspects of the story. Take the whole ‘men don’t like to show their emotion while women are emotional’ stereotype. Sure, I've known people exactly like this, but also throughout life I’ve known many women who can compartmentalise their emotions way better than men, while men I’ve known freely share their feelings, emotions and thoughts (sit with a bunch of men or women by a fire and I bet you’d hear them talking their emotions in no time at all).

Maybe I’m missing the point of the thread, but the way I see it, people are complex, and characters of either gender come across as authentic or real to me if they exhibit some complexities in their traits.

 

[ElectricBlue]

These discussions on writing female or male characters have been interesting (though I skipped the Star Wars discussion in the writing female characters thread). It’s clear many women aren’t happy with the way women are written and portrayed in fiction (in general), for a bunch of different and valid reasons. Obviously male characters can be written poorly, too, and I suspect it comes down to individual writer’s skill...

I think that's the nub of it. It's not whether you need some special skill or intuition to be able to write a gender other than your own, it's more whether you go through life and absorb something about people and their characteristics, and have the skill as a writer to write what you observe.

At the end of the day, doesn't it come down to how well you write people? I don't think there's a set of hidden rules you need to know to write gender A if you're gender B.

 

[Lovecraft_Lore]

That may play into why I'm comfortable writing from the perspective of men. I had that type of parenting. Happy and joyful were the only acceptable emotions and injuries were treated as an assault on my mother's parenting skills. I hid a broken arm for days before someone from outside of the family made my parents address it, successfully hid a broken ankle as a teenager because we had no health insurance and I didn't want to be a burden, and almost bled to death as a child because my dad thought I was just being dramatic.

Male or female that is just awful.

I am not sure men think of all the things women do. In part because they don't have to. Women need to make sure they know what the emotional state of males around them is as the males might act out against the women.

Most teenage males the thought on dating is "How do I not mess this up long enough that I get sex out of it."

 

[TadOverdon]

Men are basically one-dimensional. At least until you get to the balls.

The guys POV doesn't usually interest me that much. Usually.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The guys POV doesn't usually interest me that much. Usually.

Interesting that at least two female writers here pretty much dismiss men, yet still want their women written well. Bit one eyed, one dimensional, don't you think?

I'll duck now, shall I?

 

[YourgirlfriendLaura]

That may play into why I'm comfortable writing from the perspective of men. I had that type of parenting. Happy and joyful were the only acceptable emotions and injuries were treated as an assault on my mother's parenting skills. I hid a broken arm for days before someone from outside of the family made my parents address it, successfully hid a broken ankle as a teenager because we had no health insurance and I didn't want to be a burden, and almost bled to death as a child because my dad thought I was just being dramatic.

I hope you have managed to move far, far away from this toxicity and neglect, my friend.

 

[SimonDoom]

But one area where this question does come up is in slashfic, where there are a lot of straight cis women writing gay male pairings. There's a tendency there to write those male characters as very soft and sensitive, often more so than the canon characters or real people that they're based on.

This is really interesting to me. I wonder why this is?

My impression, from my experience with gay male friends--and I've had gay male friends for nearly 40 years--is that, in general, while they do tend toward certain stereotypes--being somewhat more effeminate, more conscious of how they dress and how they decorate their homes, tending to like Barbra Streisand more than the usual straight guy, etc.--they're just dudes who like dudes. Some of them aren't particularly sensitive or soft at all. They're not like women. I remember a gay guy I knew who had pictures of cocks on his wall. I remember in college a gay friend had a birthday party, and someone had prepared him a cake in the shape of a penis, with frosting coming out of the tip. I thought it was odd, but then I thought, yeah, if I was gay, I would do that. That's a guy thing to do.

The fondness of women for gay male fiction is interesting to me. I wonder what is at work there.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The fondness of women for gay male fiction is interesting to me. I wonder what is at work there.

It was explained to me once, by a woman who read a lot of GM, and occasionally wrote some herself, that she at least liked the idea of the harder male bodies avec le testosterone, exhibing a softer, more intimate side to their personality, not feminine as such, more yin and yang, anima and animus. Plus, cock, for her cis side .

In my few arrays into that arena, that's been the drift of the commentary on those stories; for example, someone wrote of my Mickey Spillane story (which featured a bi-sexual protagonist), "Tough, yet tender inside."

 

[AlinaX]

Interesting that at least two female writers here pretty much dismiss men, yet still want their women written well. Bit one eyed, one dimensional, don't you think?

I'll duck now, shall I?

Characters of all genders should be written well, but when a well proportioned character swings their one-dimensional, fleshed-out addendum, you would do well to duck.