Woman writing from a man's point of view?

Well, why DIDN'T you say that in the first place??

 

At the risk of sounding off topic...as a photographer, I can tell you that, depending on the type of photography he does, it's really hard to be a successful, "sought after" photographer, much less rich. So he almost had to do the starving artist thing at one point in his life. Maybe this could tie into his flaw? Just thought I'd throw it out there!

As for writing from a male POV, I agree with everything I've read on here, but also, guys tend to write, for lack of a better word, more simply (no offense to the Y cromisomes out there). Try to avoid flowery language and any writing that doesn't relate to the topic at hand. And I agree that guys don't analyze situations...they try to fix them. These are my main tools-of-the-trade when it comes to writing from a guy's perspective. Hope this helps!

 

You're just supposed to INFER, ya know? Like when we say 'of course I don't mind if you want to go out to snooker with your mates instead of spending a night in with me in front of a nice film', but we really mean 'if you go out to snooker with your mates I'm going to burn your Special edition blue ray box set of Star Wars and you're sleeping on the couch'.

 

Just as I expected.

 

He does sound alarmingly perfect, and these don't really strike me as flaws. Instead of making him perfect and then bolting on some flaws, I'd instead be inclined to take away some of his "specialness". Does he _have_ to be "hot" _and_ rich _and_ "could date anyone he wanted to"? It's the third one, in fact, that worries me the most - I don't think that there is or ever has been a man who could date "anyone he wanted to"; the idea that this guy is so great that no woman would ever reject him suggests that you're building him as too perfect to be real.

What if you made him poor, poor enough that he considers taking on some porn or near-porn photography jobs in order to pay the rent? Or made him short, short enough that women who are focused on male height would refuse to date him? What if you gave him ADHD, so that he struggled to focus on his work and his career never advanced to the point that his talent could take him, because he kept failing to complete jobs?

A hot, rich, perfect, confident, flawless guy might seem as if he'd be interesting, as if he'd dazzle the readers into wanting to read the book. But instead, characters that perfect will usually bore a reader. I'd suggest that you start stripping away the perfect.

 

I knew a few guys like this, rich, nice family, good job, lots of money, good guys... But not one of them I would date. It's not that they were unattractive, just, I didn't fancy them. So no man is clever and rich and so handsome that they can date anyone. And most guys who are sensitive won't be comfortable just dumping their girlfriends, most of them will be reluctant to hurt them, so it tends to become an issue for a while.

So, even though "perfect" guys exist, they aren't quite as perfect as you portrayed them, or at least, there is a lot more under the surface. But the more perfect that they are, the more boring is the character. Characters are only interesting if they mostly struggle. Bizarrely enough, nobody wants to read about a happy and successful person with no serious problems unless it's an autobiography and we want to get some tips on how we can achieve the same. But even then, there is at least one serious flaw or complication, otherwise the success would not feel very good.

With this guy, I suggest for him to get a complication.
Is there a girl who won't date him and it is driving him crazy, is it a death of a close someone, was he kidnapped as a child and still has nightmares about it, was he used by women before so now he thinks that every woman is only after his money, does he have a drug problem, has he lost all his family's money in the recession so he is suddenly poor?

All these and many other issues will help you make the character more interesting, more three dimensional, show how he deals with adversity, and that is what the readers really want to know.

 

For some reason, this reminds me of a cartoon I once saw. Two professors are standing at a blackboard, and one has written out an extremely elaborate formula, then has left a huge space next to it. And he is saying to his counterpart, "...and then a miracle happens..."

 

@shakespear57: When I write a story the first thing I want to know is what it's about. Since I tend to lean towards comedic horror, I decide what types of challenges will be presented in the piece for the characters to go through. Then I decide the cast of characters. Who's experience of these events would be the most entertaining to watch. I build shells of characters, with reactionary traits, ways of thinking, relative backgrounds (family life- history, ect...) and gender doesn't really play a factor in it until the end, because gender is but one aspect of how we react. Our upbringing is influenced by our gender, our perspectives are outlined in our gender.

I'm female. I write a blend of male and female characters. I make them real people, not stereotypes or cliches of the surface layer people present to the public. I've spent years studying psychology to increase my understanding of the human condition and how gender fits into it.

When I first started writing, my male characters were always flat, two dimensional, stereotypes of the types of men I knew, but never a good understanding of them, because I looked at them as mysterious different creatures from myself. This was the wrong point of view to improve my writing ability. Once I started treating the psychology of the human being as all the same, no gender to it, I could create characters of substance, and then apply a layer of glaze to those characteristics once I determine the best gender perspective to tell the story. Gender's influence is subtle on the psychological pathology of the human mind. Maybe another way to say it would be the gender is a perspective more than a characteristic of a person.

For the sake of an example for my formula, my rough outline for a lead character might include strong will, determination, high energy level, makes decisions quickly, but sometimes doesn't weigh out the situation full so some decisions lead to failure, some what humble but confident, mid level sexual prowess, reactions to situations on the fly, not a planner, has a high level of compassion, and can empathize with other characters. Now none of that is gender specific. At the moment my MC could be either gender. Applying a gender to those base things allows me to expand those base things into subcategories influenced by gender, as well as add secondary traits based on gender.

It's easier for me to create a full character. Sometimes my characters will not be deeper people, more two dimensional, because there really are shallow two dimensional people out there, but they are always supporting cast, couple scene filler characters, like people we don't know very well in real life, but are acquaintances. Periphery People, that's what I like to call it. Maybe if you knew them better they'd have more depth, but nothing about them makes you want to get to know them better. Those people exist in real life, I put them in my book. Those people can be male or female. Doesn't matter. Whatever fits into the story. They're like stock characters.

So, if you're hung up on character gender, there's a chance you're not fully exploring the psychology of the character as a person. Flaws aren't the only things that make our character's human. How they react to things is based on their deeper psychological make up. As creators of humans, we have to strive to craft three dimensional characters that are human, not cardboard cut outs.

I trash a lot of characters. I have a whole folder of just character files. Some of them are 10,000 words long, as story of it's own. But they're all duds. They didn't go anywhere. So I shelved them. I do sometimes recycle character names. Just remember, either gender can write a story from the perspective of the opposite gender, but how well that is done is determined by the writers ability to recognize that they are writing still writing with their own gender bias. I've found the only possible way to for me to overcome this, was to shut off the bias, to honestly allow myself a moment to imagine being my character. It is still hard for either gender to fully understand the hormonal differences that do influence thought process and motivations. So that too has to be taken into account while writing.

 

Haha, quite

^This. Very well said, that's how I think about it too. Since in writing POV, we get to see everything that's going on inside a person's head, men will think much the same as any person, they'll be outwardly more reserved about discussing emotions, more tongue-tied to express them, but they have eyes, ears and brains just like women do (same goes for children) and while they might have slightly different preoccupations and concerns, in certain situations, they'll still have a rich perspective, emotionally and otherwise.

 

He had a hard childhood. He ran away to photography college when he was 17. He failed his course, ended up basically on the streets for a while, with his camera. He got into drugs, gambling, the whole crap. Then he took a photo of woman crying in the street, at sunset. He sent it to a studio he'd seen around and from there his career skyrocketed. Now he spends half his time trying to forget it. He's unsecure, and he's spend years trying to create the perfect image for himself.

... in my head he's real I just dont know how to put him down on paper ?

 

Never, ever forget that the character is YOUR creation, and that YOU can make whatever changes are necessary for the story. He in dot real!

This, by the way, is one of the hazards of over-defining a character before the story is begun. You need to be able to mold the character to fit the story. When you are more experoienced, you learn to bend an established character in the direction needed, but a new writer often places arbitrary details into the character that make the character less malleable.

Begin your character as a rough sketch, and let the story fill in the details as necessary.

 

My thoughts exactly. I've been doing photography for a while and while people can become successful quickly, it still takes several years and it's lots of hard work. There's no such thing as snapping a girl+sunset photo, sending it to a studio (or even an international competition) and all of a sudden your career is a "boom" and you are a millionaire. It takes decades to become really wealthy from photography, and that's if you are a really popular fashion photogrpaher (where the biggest money is).

There are lots of cliches in your ideas but the overall plot has lots of potential, you just need to really study the characters and plot, come up with logical and inventive solutions. It takes time.

 

Maybe that's his flaw? I'm new round these parts, but I've spent a lot of time hanging out with guys. Might be an interesting way to look at it, that his "perfection" is his flaw.

 

I know that he cant just take the photo, thats not what he did. he did take it, he did send it in, but his career after that still took a long time to get started. he still lived in a tiny studio above a shop in the dingiest part of town, advertising as a photographer. he did some shoots, not enough to get him anywhere at first. it's taken him years to get to the point hes at. and now he meets the girl from the photo, and she recognises him. shes a threat to hisi careeer, blackmailing him so she would ruin his image that he's spent so long creating.

 

How would she be able to blackmail him? If it's just something like his failing to get her to sign a release, perhaps she could sue him to stop printing that one photo, but I don't see how that would destroy his career.

 

because hes living in a world where any type of exposure (ie of his background, especially considering how bad it was) can ruin his career in one shot. she uses him to make her image, to show her off to the world, because she wants to be a model and hes her way of getting there. if he doesnt make her the image she wants, she'll expose him.

 

So this is an alternative-world story, rather than one being set in our world? Because in our world, I have trouble thinking of anything, barring serious crimes that he committed, that would have that effect.

 

To me it sounds unlikely that she would try to blackmail him for having taken that photo. If the photo was that successful to "skyrocket" his career, she will likely be as famous and sought after as him by now and doesn't need to blackmail someone to get anywhere. But that's just my pov, of course.

 

I agree that a lot of the comments are verging on over-simplification of traditional gender roles. There are masculine women and feminine men. It's all about the individuality of your character and their personal traits that originate from the character's past experiences, their motivations, etc.

 

As a female who writes 95% males, be aware that males are just as emotional as females. They are human, to reiterate what a lot of ppl have said.

Differences I notice: men rarely think twice about going out in the dark, not because of boogy men or that it's dark. But because they don't have the same fears as women. Women have a lot of mental baggage like, will someone attack me if I walk alone to the store.

Discussion with my SO:

Him: stop by the store and get milk on your way home.
Me: no, I don't stop anywhere after dark.
Him: why?
Me: I don't want to get raped.

Not every man and woman are like this, I have my own set of fears and I overthink things. However, he overthinks other things.

Men have feminine thoughts just like women have masculine thoughts.

I don't know how a man thinks or behaves, but I know my characters.

Know your characters and you'll be fine.

 

Apparently, I write men better than i write women.
out of my 2 MC's everyone likes my male MC more than my female MC

either that, or i'm just better at writing misunderstood/tragic antiheros than angsty, wise cracking heroes....

 

Wow! Talk about thread necromancy!

I guess it's still a valid question, but I wonder if resurrecting a 10-year-old thread is the best way to ask it anew.

 

That's the fun of this site.

And it's making me vigilant about how my hero is reacting to a relationship crisis with the heroine.

 

I once joined a forum - first time ever to join any forum back then when I was 17 or so - and I just went round responding to threads I found interesting. Then at some point I saw someone post in response to someone else say, "Who's that person who's gone round digging up all the decades old threads!?" Me. That person was me I hadn't paid any attention to the date stamp on any of it lol.