Another little tidbit I picked up from the recent Mayhem in the Midlands conference involved writing characters not of one's own gender, again from the What Authors Get Wrong panel. One of the authors (male, I'm thinking, although I'm not going to throw out a name, because I'll probably mis-remember!) related a story about a woman in his critique group who wrote a scene with a "manly man." The rough, tough testosterone-driven protagonist enters a home to interview a suspect and notices ...The lovely pattern in the drapes.
The critique group pointed out that a guy is not likely to notice (much less comment on) the print curtains.
Writing characters from a gender differing from your own is a topic of some discussion. Here's a sample of blog posts and discussions:
- Writing a POV character of the Opposite Gender on Crimespace (Brian Thorton, back in 2007) ... check out the comments and discussion
- Gender, Author, and Characters on Author Intrusion (Rod Duncan, recently)
- A Writer Can be Anyone or Anything on Daily Writing Tips (by Maeve in 2008)
I slapped in the first 800 words for the as yet nascent 4th Silver Rush book ( first chapter drafted and I know where the second is heading). I checked the "fiction" button and punched "submit."
... Here's what popped up ...
Score: Female: 796 Male: 1046
Result: The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!
I'm intrigued (but not male)!
The results list "feminine keywords" and "masculine keywords" and the occurrence of each in the writing sample. The words are apparently weighted according to an algorithm. What I take away from this is that I am comfortably balanced between the two worlds.
Try it and let me know what your results are....
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