I think it has something to do with my tendency to inhabit the character, almost as though I were an actor playing a role (is that just me?). However, that doesn’t completely explain it, because I try to inhabit all of my characters and, although not impossible, it would be difficult to tell a story from the first person perspective of each and every one of the characters.
Anyway, I have a new idea for a story, which is a modern spin on The Taming of The Shrew. However, the essence of The Taming of The Shrew can be viewed as quite misogynist - something I’m eager to avoid. To this end, I think it’s important to really get inside the heads of both lead characters, Katharine and Peter. Peter (Shakespeare’s Petruchio), in particular, needs to be portrayed in a way that makes his masculine posturing inoffensive, so that he remains attractive to a predominantly female audience.
What this long preamble is getting to is that, for the first time (in an erotic work of fiction), I’m going to attempt to tell some of the story from a man’s point of view. On the face of it, nothing radical - plenty of female authors write first person narration from a male perspective and have done for hundreds of years. But it got me thinking - can we ever really get inside the head of a member of the opposite sex?
Well, as men make up half the population, we all know quite a few of them and, chances are, we grew up with some of them and may even live with a few now. So, I tend to think we know them pretty well…In fact, most women think they know what men want, especially when it comes to sex. Do we really, though?
In truth, our opinions of men - and theirs of us - are based more upon clichés than on fact. Of course, some clichés are true, but we can be very wrong about what men think. Moreover, most of us, make the crazy assumption that all men are the same, particularly if we’ve been hurt by one. Ask a group of women the following questions and you’ll get consistently similar answers.
- Given half a chance, would a man be unfaithful? Women say: Yes.
- Do all men separate sex and love? Women say: Yes.
- If a man’s getting his kicks, does he care if the woman is sexually satisfied? Women say: No.
- Do men measure their masculinity by how many women they’ve slept with? Women say: Yes.
- Do men think with anything other than their genitals? Women say: No.
Why do we think these things? I suspect it’s because the vast majority of us have met a man who fulfils the criteria. The problem is, we tend to tar them all with the same brush. All men are different, just as all women are different. We have vastly different tastes, as do men. Not all men are promiscuous and not all of them are disrespectful where women are concerned. We can never truly get into another person’s head, because each and every one of us is completely different - that’s true of a woman or a man.
But this train of thought brought me to a bizarre conclusion. If women and men are all individuals and, therefore, just as difficult to penetrate (no pun intended) or second-guess, then writing a female character is just as difficult (or easy) as writing a male character. In other words, I shouldn’t have to put on my special writing-a-male hat in order to achieve a rounded character. Regardless of whether it’s a man or a woman, I should approach writing in exactly the same way.
And I think, on the whole, that’s a good rule for a writer to live by.
I should never assume that a male character would think the way I do, but that’s true of a female character, too. Just because she’s a woman, doesn’t mean that the two of us are in any way alike. Male characters, no more or less than female characters, need to be their own people - completely separate from my views, opinions or emotions.
Do you have any specific techniques or rules for writing male (if you're a woman) or female (if you're a man) characters? Do you think I'm talking nonesense? Let me know in the comments below.
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