Men are human too.

[alex_beecroft]

As a writer of m/m romance I’m always a bit taken aback and amused when I see blog posts about “how to write male characters,” as though it was something you had to approach in the same way as you’d approach “how to write Regency street-urchins” or “how to write convincing aliens.”

I always read the blog posts with enormous interest, but in my limited experience, they’ve mostly consisted of a rundown of cliches about what men are like (apparently they all watch sports, prefer beer to wine and don’t wash their socks,) that vaguely offend me in the same way that stereotypes about women offend me.

In my lifetime’s experience of men, no two of them have been alike. Most of them have liked beer, but that could be because I like beer and it tends to be something all my friends have in common, the women too. Even so, I know some male wine snobs, and some men who are sports-hating domestic gods, and can whip up a fine meal in the time it takes them to wash and iron their socks.

So what do I do, to create convincing male characters? Well, I look at the one human being about whom I have inside information – the one person who, to a certain extent at least, I understand in depth. That is, of course, me. Then I gift my character with a selection of traits that I either have, or can imagine having. I put the character in situations that I have never had to face, under pressures that I have never had to face, and I imagine how I would react, if I was them in their circumstances.

Of course, those circumstances involve being male, and that means that society shapes the way their traits manifest in a different way from the way I experience things. John Cavendish from False Colors has my temper, for example, and in writing him I do need to take into account the fact that society treats men’s anger and women’s anger differently. In men it’s expected, even respected, in women it’s unexpected, and is treated with suspicion, as irrational and hysterical. So, (in general) a male character can afford to express his anger outwardly, whereas a female one can’t, if she hopes to be taken seriously. Conversely, (in general) no matter how upset he is, a modern male character can’t break down in tears and expect not to be mocked, whereas a female character can.

It’s much easier to figure out what society expects from each gender and how that determines the way a common human trait plays out, than it is to write male characters as though they were not quite as fully human as the writer.

Mirrored from Alex Beecroft - Author of Gay Historical and Fantasy Fiction.

Comments

[sharpiefan]

I have written slash - though not for a while. And while it was not m/m and had absolutely zero romance in it whatsoever, one of the comments I got for a multi-part fic mentioned the wonderful way you keep everyone in character and so manly, which was kind of weird to read at first, because I've never had any issues with writing men. (Or if I have, I haven't thought so, and nobody's ever told me my male characters come across as at all 'girly'.) Of course, it might help that most of the fiction I read is written by men, about men... but we're all people at the end of the day, aren't we?

[alex_beecroft]

It is weird isn't it? Interestingly enough, when George RR Martin was praised for writing such good female characters, he also said "well, I've always believed women are people."

I think maybe it's people who assume men and women are really different who then think themselves into a corner over how to write them.

[darkemeralds]

I've felt many misgivings writing male characters from inside their POV, and I really appreciate your words here. In fact, I think what you describe-- I do need to take into account the fact that society treats men’s anger and women’s anger differently. In men it’s expected, even respected, in women it’s unexpected, and is treated with suspicion, as irrational and hysterical--explains a lot about why I (and so many other women writers) are drawn to write M/M in the first place.

At least, speaking for myself, the exploration of exactly that kind of thing--how society treats a man's sexual expression, a man's anger, a man's emotional attachments--is incredibly liberating.

[alex_beecroft]

It's funny, it never occurred to me that there could be a problem with it. After all, we are expected in daily life to be able to tell what the men around us are thinking and feeling, and nobody expects us not to be able to understand what's going on in the heads of all those male heroes on TV and in the movies. I would have thought it was assumed that women could understand men. And given that women can understand men, it's only logical to assume that men can understand women too, if they only cared to make the effort.

*g* I think you're probably examining your own sexual expression and anger, just using a vehicle that doesn't have the same system of oppression attached, so you could see what it would be like if you didn't have to worry about all of that.

[darkemeralds]

I think you're probably examining your own sexual expression and anger, just using a vehicle that doesn't have the same system of oppression attached, so you could see what it would be like if you didn't have to worry about all of that.

Exactly. You said it way better than I did.