Male characters

In the interests of equality.

Another interesting article on the same site dealt with female authors writing male characters.

So, good gentlemen of TV Tropes, do you agree with this article? What would you add to it?

...and now I'm depressed.

Thanks a lot.

Why is the article depressing?

Yup, this pretty much hits the nail on the head in regards to writing male characters. A friend of mine needed quite a bit of help writing a WW 2 soldier coming home to meet his family.

The basic rule I give to writing male characters is that the primary goal in any man's life is to impress other men.

No, not in the Ho Yay sense.

Everything we do, from the number of women we've slept with, the amount of muscle we have, the sports trivia we know, and how we conduct ourselves in public are all geared to make other men see us as either an equal or a superior. I'm not saying that every action we take supports this, but in a generalization, this is the underlying drive that most men live upon.

That's not a man thing, that's a peer thing. Females do the same thing. It's why fashion is a big deal to them.

Oh, I know. But you'd be amazed how many people don't recognize the difference.

I've used this to explain to female RP writers why men aren't just cheating barbarians interested in sex with streetwalkers or who would beat the crap out of their Sympathetic Sue wife and then go brag about it to his homies. Most guys would at least go, "Dude . . . what the fuck?"

Well, that depends on the society. In some societies beating your wife might be the sort of thing other men would be impressed by.

Obviously, so is staring into a man's eyes and calling him "sexy", as the article author described.

edited 12th Jul '11 5:25:20 PM by KingZeal

That's sure a crapsack interpretation of men.

King Zeal's.

edited 12th Jul '11 7:29:41 PM by jewelleddragon

^ Which is? The article, or something in this thread?

I thought the article was interesting. Though it's a pity that the comments section derails almost immediately, because I'd have liked to see how accurate other people thought it was. If it's correct, I'm doing a pretty poor job of writing male characters at present, but that wouldn't surprise me because I find writing overtly masculine characters fairly tricky already.

Actually I know a lot of men who are perfectly fine with talking out their feelings with close friends, and thinking in detail about other guys in a not Ho Yay way.

It's all about the individuals personal comfort level as a character.

For some reason, I don't really have any problem writing both genders. I usually just treat them as character, and have their gender affect stuff like how people react to them, their backstory, etc. I'm also comfortable roleplaying both genders.

I don't know why. Maybe it's the fact that I hang out with girls a lot, since my interest lie in more feminine-dominated fields. For example, in my Harry Potter camp right now, there're ten girls, and only three boys. And in most of the dance classes I been in, I'm the only guy.

Or maybe because I had picked up the subtle difference for each gender just from reading a lot.

I don't feel I have a problem unless I try to write a character who is overtly (or even intentionally) masculine or feminine, in which case they end up seeming narmy or weird.

This is reassuring. I'd already figured that to make my male characters more... well... masculine I need to lay off the passive tense that I do so love to use in my own informal speak. Very nice to have a bit of backup.

edited 12th Jul '11 7:52:24 PM by Bur

Hmm... if the article is accurate, and describing the character's surroundings makes them seem feminine, how would one go about writing from the perspective of a masculine character who is very observant?

I like playing with gender traits a lot (like making Justin a Shrinking Violet), so it doesn't matter to me anyways.

edited 12th Jul '11 8:02:28 PM by chihuahua0

According to this article, apparently I'm not a very masculine person at all. Never would have seen that coming.

I feel really annoyed, I mean I know tropes ar etools but I am human and I can only be aware so many things at a time.

Like I said, it was a generalization. And as someone pointed out afterward, the desire to fit in or be applauded by one's peers is pretty much a universal human desire. For most men, those peers are other men, likewise with women. The trick (which the article breaks down somewhat) is knowing what sort of behavior the generalization of both genders goes for.

For example, I began to know J.K. Rowling (who intentionally wrote her name this way to appear male) was a woman when Harry Potter started to take notice of his male friends' intimate features and feelings. For the most part, men don't spare more than .0233 seconds (and that might be too long) considering the freckles on another man's face or wondering what he can do to help ease his best friend's splintered heart. Any thought we have regarding either will be instantly pragmatic and/or dismissive:

"What's up with dude's freckles?"
"Ron looks depressed. I hope he sorts that out."

... are you saying "Basically men are just inherently selfish. There are exceptions of course, but most of them are"?

I'm sure men have to pay attention to other people's feelings a little more than that.

I don't know. I'm writing a story where the main focus seems to be on people's smells. I was thinking about this in terms of "men don't notice details about other people" but really I think smell being the main sense in a story, especially when identifying people, would be considered creepy by both men and women.

. . . No, that is not what I'm saying.

I'm saying that men (generalized) are not as concerned with intimacy amongst their peers as women are. Again, this depends on the individual and society they live in, but if your aim is to paint with broad strokes, a good rule of thumb is to understand that men operate "at arms' length". We'll be there to support someone we care about, but we expect and encourage them to figure things out and stand on their own feet. Trying to insert ourselves into someone's life or form conclusions about intimate details often gets construed as "nosying".

edited 12th Jul '11 11:38:43 PM by KingZeal

Men generally aren't as centered on others as women are. But that doesn't mean that men are self-centered. Men tend to be centered on things and systems, not self, and not others.

In hindsight that was a pretty stupid post of mine >_> Ignore it.

edited 13th Jul '11 12:15:01 AM by LoniJay