Okay thanks for all the input people. Wow, I got a lot of it! Thanks. Even if I wanted to keep the 'living in a man's world' tone, to my story, I think that perhaps I have enough male characters in that world. I mean it makes sense that some of the authority figures should be male to set that tone, but perhaps other characters who do not affect the story that way, do not have to be. For example, I was watching the show Breaking Bad, and when Skyler White hires a lawyer to handle her divorce, I noticed the lawyer she hired is female. But does that have anything to do with why she hired her? In my story a woman hires a lawyer to defend her against being arrested on a material witness warrant, since she refused to be a witness for the prosecution in a case. But would she prefer a female or male attorney for any reason in such case? The defendant who is she is subpoenaed to testify against, is a man charged with kidnapping and sexual assault. But would he prefer to hire a female or male lawyer in such a case as that?
He might go with a male lawyer that is well known and has power. For some reason men are a power symbol in our society. IDK, this is just my two cents and hope it helps.
I needed more Venus and less Mars, quite frankly. My MC has to connect on an emotional level with this faceless heroic figure from a thousand years ago that left her clues to solving the Big Problem. The heroic figure is a dude. Doesn't work as well when they're both dudes.
I think they'd be more likely to pick a lawyer of their own gender, because people tend to gravitate towards people of their own groups a little. But it wouldn't make a huge difference. The guy would probably hire another guy, because the kind of lawyer your looking for when defended from sexual assault charges is more likely a guy. Women, I think, tend to have a harsher view of sexual assault because they are usually the victims. But I might be disastrously wrong on that so don't just take it from me.
On the other hand, if the case is going to a jury you might very well want a woman presenting your case to the jury and arguing your side.
Okay thanks. The case is not going to a jury though. Basically she is arrested since she is avoiding appearing in court. She is arrested so her testimony will be secured. She gets a lawyer to help her make bail and all. But that kind of cause wouldn't go to a jury, since all she has to after, is show up to testify in the other case, she is subpoenaed to. So is there a reason for her lawyer to go to that? If it's true that having a woman lawyer is better for a jury, how come a lot of people hire male lawyers then?
Okay then. Do you think if I have the male defendant with the male lawyer, and the female witness, with the female lawyer, it could come off as a bit trope-ish?
Now, it should be fine. I don't think something like that will be a concern for most readers. They probably won't care if they're gender matched. I don't even think that's a trope. And why worry about tropes anyway? Tropes are everywhere. It's not a matter of tropes, it's a matter of whatever gets in the way of your story being the best it can. Whether that's an obvious and annoying cliche, or an unbelievable plot point, or a character who isn't as likeable as you want them to be.
With unimportant characters I often make them the opposite gender to the POV character simply to make pronoun-ing easier. Having only one 'he' and one 'she' in a conversation makes it a breeze.
1/ Why is she arrested? She would be issued with a subpoena (A subpoena /səˈpiːnə/ (also subpœna) is a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure.) and only arrested if she failed to comply with it (subpoena = under penalty = testify OR ELSE you will suffer the penalty of going to jail). So, she doesn't get arrested, doesn't need to make bail, doesn't need a lawyer at all. 2/ A woman lawyer works better in certain instances, it isn't a given that a jury will prefer a woman. I've seen it suggested that female jurors are MORE likely to favour a (young, handsome) male lawyer compared to a male juror favouring a (pretty) female lawyer - and juries are likely to end up 50/50...unless you've spent a lot of time researching and de-selecting your panel. Actually, no - not in the UK. 57% of trainees, and 57% of associates, are female. The big difference is at the partner level, where only 24% are female. So the BEST (?) lawyers are male. At the top level, only one QC in seven is female. So, if it's a big case (where you'll have a QC leading and being supported by a plain lawyer, probably with a trainee/junior to assist, it's statistically far more likely that both parties will be represented by a man. Incidentally, while researching the above, I came across https://www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/media/1385164/barristers__working_lives_30.01.12_web.pdf , if you want the likelihood of any particular demographic being your lawyer.
I always know in advance what role the character will play in the plot (I always plot first). From there, it's a matter of working out which sex a character would be depending on how their plot-role fits with everything else (environment, interactions with other characters, etc.) I'm not saying that'll work for you, but it's how I do it. I'm not into making a character a specific sex, race, religion or what-have-you just because I'm trying to hit PC requirements or quotas. Casting has to make sense to me. I wouldn't, for instance, make a woman of Chinese descent president of an Islamic state just to show that maybe someday it might be possible or to fulfill some publisher's dream of bringing in a certain audience. I'd do it because the story's plot required it and because I'd worked out a story-logical way that it could come about.
She is arrested because she keeps avoiding the attempts to be subpoenaed. I based it off a real life case where the police arrested a woman after several attempts to subpoena her, but failed.
For incidental characters like that gender is probably irrelevant and the best way to deal with them is to simply refer to them as the server or the cops without referencing gender. Let the reader decide if they are male or female. If it doesn't impact the plot then it doesn't need to be spelled out. For instance if you are talking about the server you could simply say "she watched as the server brought over the drink and left it on the table with a quick nod across the room "from the guy at the bar", gliding away before any further inquiry could be made." This doesn't specify the gender of the server and leaves it open to the reader. it could be a male or a female. Same sort of idea for the cops if its incidental to the plot then it doesn't need to be referred to - let the reader decide
I daydream a lot. So visually I'm already putting people in the scene. For a scene in my WIP my mc had to audition for a part in a tv series. I went with a woman and two men. Because that is what I could clearly visualize. Even down to the details. One of the men is overweight and bearded and snickers over Finlay's rude behavior, the other man looks like a slim metrosexual and is annoyed by Finlay, the woman is blonde and looks like my childhood librarian. Maybe take the time to daydream it out and it will come to you.
I think the deciding process varies depending on what you're writing. When I'm writing sci-fi, I decide demographically what species makes the most sense, then what culture within that species, then what gender. Because it's sci-fi there's a species with no genders, a species with three genders and a species of hermaphrodites, and a species that is biologically gender-fluid, so... yeah. Just flipping a coin in this situation doesn't work, I'd need to get 12 sided dice or something, so I base it on the job, the government, the culture, the time period and the location. When I'm writing a story with a more limited scope, I still use the same method. And sometimes, I'll realize half way through a draft that a particular character should be the opposite gender or vice versa. This isn't based on a 'gender as personality' mindset, rather, whether or not it would improve the plot. Take for example, Ellis. Originally, Ellis was a cop on an isolated planet populated by a sexually dimorphic species with a social structure similar to hyenas. The females were lager and stronger than the males, and had de-facto dominance over them in any setting. The gender roles were also way different than ours because it's a different species but that's not really relevant right now. Anyway, because Ellis was a cop, naturally Ellis was female. The MCs were female, and most of the characters in high ranking positions were female, but the cast was 50/50. There were just as many male characters as there were females. The roles they showed up in were just different. Typically they were either parents, assistants, husbands, office workers, lab techs (but never directors), the like. According to their inheritance laws, only females are viable heirs, and if you're above a certain social class, only females who are related by blood to the mother. (One of the aspects of their gender roles is that the males have de-facto custody of the children, and the females don't have any obligation to care for them, and males with more children are seen as better mates so often families will have nine or more children, three of which are related to the mother. Also their concept of 'marriage' is different and ends whenever either party gets annoyed with the other, the female keeping all the property and the male keeps the kids. Which leads to interesting power dynamics but I'm tangenting now so I'll shut up about it.) Anyway, Ellis's mother was murdered, and Ellis inherited all her property because all her siblings were male. It wasn't much property, but it was enough that she could keep the family afloat, what with her dad having his position on the force threatened because his wife didn't work there anymore, as he was her assistant, she was influential and made sure he got a decent salary and wasn't harassed by his co-workers. Therefor when she died, Ellis, who was her apprentice, inherited her job, retaining her father as her assistant in lieu of better options because otherwise they wouldn't be able to pay rent, let alone feed her eight siblings. It's a fairly compelling story. But then when I was almost done writing it, I thought, wouldn't it be more interesting if Ellis was just tall for a dude, worked out a lot and was able to pass as a smallish female, thereby forgoing any chance he had at starting a family of his own so that he could provide for his siblings? And not even the reader knows that until the end of the story arc? Yes. It makes the story so much better. Especially since one of the people Ellis was 'friends' with the entire time was a sexist bigot and it makes that character look like even more of an ass. That's really the only kind situation where I'll change someone's gender after writing the majority of their story. It has to improve the story in some way otherwise I'm not bothering with it and I'll stick to my normal method of basing all that on probability rather than someones religious or political agenda. Also, I tend to disagree that gender is a vital part of everyone's personality. There's a certain kind of person that finds it important, and there are other's who do not. There are, biologically, certain ways males and females are different, but psychologically, in my experience most of it is just social conditioning. And I will correct the above statement, sometimes I will plan out a character so that they seem like the opposite gender by some cultural standard and then just not clarify it in the story until the reader has the chance to form a very distinct mental image of this person, (without giving them any real biological hints either way, only behavioral,) at which point I'll state what gender they really are just to mess with people. Why? Because I find it amusing.
I pretty much don't "decide" this question. The characters just show up in my head already bedecked with their secondary sexual characteristics. I've never noticed a story of mine to be boy-heavy or girl-heavy, so it's not something to which I've given too much thought, tbh.
It depends. Sometimes I don't even think about it - the gender of the minor characters just falls into place as I write. It becomes obvious that that the waiter is a male, or the person standing at the stoplight is an old woman walking her pug. Other times, I might realize that the last three characters I inserted were men, so maybe the next should be female, or vice versa. I also take the setting into consideration. Are you more likely to find a man or woman in that profession or in those places during the time period you're working with?
I find myself thinking the same way for minor characters. A lot of times, they're just there to add colour, so I don't think it really matters.
When writing historical stories I kind of go with what was common at that time, and most working people would thereby be men while random shoppers would likely be women. In modern works it just kind of comes to me, and I write whatever appears in my head. I spend very little time choosing a gender because it picks itself. I think my brain has a tendency so spawn male ones though, so sometimes I have to force myself into making them female, just for the sake of diversity. In my current work I have 25 male characters on my list but only 9 females. (Whereof two are dead, two are actually the aliases of the same person and one is a cat.)
It depends on which characters I'm writing. For main characters, a lot of thought goes into this, for a lot of reasons. Do I want them to fall in love, and if so, with whom? What is their history? How will it affect the plot down the road, and what are the consequences of their gender going to be? I have one character, for example, who is pretending to be someone else. So, clearly, both of these characters have to be the same gender. For minor characters, spear characters, etc. it generally matters far less. At that point, I still go over a basic checklist of any gender-specific things that might end up mattering, (Who are they interacting with, does it matter, would they be part of a field dominated mostly by one gender?) and, if I find that it's irrelevant, I usually just try and see whether my book is more dominated by female or male characters so I can keep things approximately close to 50/50.
Ya know, I have never really thought about it. I just knew who they were to moment I thought of them or wrote them down.
For me, the main characters' genders are usually just there when I think up the character. I don't really know why character X is male or female, that's just what felt right. Or if I'm inspired by another story, I'll either have the characters' genders match the other story or else flip some of them. I end up with some stories having mostly female MCs, some mostly male, and some an even mix. For minor characters, I tend to deliberately try to make them around 50/50. For example the vampire hunter ends up attacking roughly equal numbers of male and female vampires. I'll also occasionally throw in a specific quirk that's nonstereotypical to that character role, such as making one of the vampires a guy who was turned in his 80s. If it doesn't affect the plot in any way, why wouldn't I just toss in some diversity to spice things up a bit?
Go with your gut. Somehow I simply just know. I also have the tendency to develop strong female characters. Recently I came up with a character I didn't plan, but just knew. Maybe I'm just weird. It really is something to reflect on until it feels right.
