A female writing from a male character’s point of view

Writing from a male’s perspective can be challenging, especially as a female writer.

But whether you choose to write from within the head of a female character, a male character or both (within different scenes, of course), the amount of work involved in developing any character is significant.

No character acts as if he or she is merely playing a supporting role. No character thinks that the protagonist is the ‘main’ character or that he or she is somehow considered ‘second best’. All characters have a story of their own (what the writer is concerned, anyway), whether it’s shown to the reader or not.

And after exploring all aspects of your characters, male and female, would a male character’s perspective be as inconceivable as you think? I don’t. And besides, haven’t male authors been writing from female perspectives for centuries?

I realise that there are a number of differences that make us unique. But we’re all human, after all. Emotions are emotions and thoughts are thoughts – just experienced and expressed in different ways, and not necessarily gender-specific.

That’s what makes things interesting.

At the risk of oversimplifying things, I’ll say this – if you take a woman, add a bit of “don’t tell me what to do” and “yes, I know where this place is” – How different are we really? Men, compared to women, that is.

I might just leave it at that for now, my ears are burning already.