Now Strut
"Ah, I see you have a sword. I have one too. They're very manly, and tough."
Happy Little Quote from Mulan
Sometimes I get compliments on how I write the male voice in my stories. I think this is extremely sweet, and so I thought I'd write a post dedicated to my philosophy for writing men. I figure that everything a male character does in a story can be broken down into three categories.
No. 1 - What a guy would actually do or say.
No. 2 - What a guy would actually think.
No. 3 - What a girl wishes a guy would think.
Because when you write from the male perspective you are given free access to the character's mind, it's very important to filter categories No. 1 and No. 2. It's not that I think all guys are hentai geeks or boring professionals, but there are only certain thoughts that my female readers are interested in. So, anything that's described must be something that would be of interest to a female reader.
I remember when I was a teenager, I'd read romance novels, and I'd always be sitting there going, "A real guy would never say that". Please don't think that I write guys the way I do because I don't really know what guys are like, because, I do know what they're like. The thing is that I write for girls, and the stuff I'm working on right now doesn't really appeal to guys. And to write what a guy is actually thinking is boring as . . . (you get the idea) to girls who are only interested in the romantic angle of the story. I know what they're like, because I used to be one of them. But I try desperately not to stray too far, because if I do it comes off LAME. Ever so LAME.
I think the key is to not write what a guy would NEVER do. It's okay to go along with concept No. 3, right up until the point where it infringes on what would really happen. Then you turn your hero into a she-man, or something like that. So, that needs to be avoided at all costs.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed my little idea. I'll probably look back on this in ten years and think I was on crack. Enjoy.
No. 1 - What a guy would actually do or say.
No. 2 - What a guy would actually think.
No. 3 - What a girl wishes a guy would think.
Because when you write from the male perspective you are given free access to the character's mind, it's very important to filter categories No. 1 and No. 2. It's not that I think all guys are hentai geeks or boring professionals, but there are only certain thoughts that my female readers are interested in. So, anything that's described must be something that would be of interest to a female reader.
"Do you think I don't know what the true witchery is, just because I do what I do?"
Strange Little Quote from The Last Unicorn
I remember when I was a teenager, I'd read romance novels, and I'd always be sitting there going, "A real guy would never say that". Please don't think that I write guys the way I do because I don't really know what guys are like, because, I do know what they're like. The thing is that I write for girls, and the stuff I'm working on right now doesn't really appeal to guys. And to write what a guy is actually thinking is boring as . . . (you get the idea) to girls who are only interested in the romantic angle of the story. I know what they're like, because I used to be one of them. But I try desperately not to stray too far, because if I do it comes off LAME. Ever so LAME.
I think the key is to not write what a guy would NEVER do. It's okay to go along with concept No. 3, right up until the point where it infringes on what would really happen. Then you turn your hero into a she-man, or something like that. So, that needs to be avoided at all costs.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed my little idea. I'll probably look back on this in ten years and think I was on crack. Enjoy.
posted by Sapphirefly at
11:43 p.m.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home