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One of the most essential decisions you'll make about a character is what gender it should be. Although it may seem obvious, this is only because we are so in-grained in our societal expectations of gender that we tend to lump all people into two basic camps of male and female. In so doing, we subconsciously establish a list of attributes that each individual is expected to possess, while in reality, any given person may have a unique combination of gender traits. In this lesson, we'll identify several of the key gender attributes of a character, and explore how making gender choices for your characters is far more subtle and complex than simply determining if the character is a man or a woman.
In some stories, who is male and who is female is nonnegotiable. For example, a story about two lesbians would pretty much suggest that both characters be female. But in many action stories, there is little that would preclude a character from being either sex. In the movie Alien, for example, the Sigourney Weaver part of Ripley was originally written for a man. The producers more or less changed the gender references and left everything else the same, thereby creating a very strong and independent female character.
Too frequently, authors fall back on behavioral expectations based on anatomical sense, leading to shallow characters that are driven by societal norms, rather than by attributes unique to the individual. Often it can help you understand your characters better - help you get a sense for what their human issues are - if you imagine them as the opposite sex, and then consider how they might react in the situations in which you place them.
In addition, try to break out of the strict male/female physical expectations as well. There are very thin, non-muscular men, and very muscle-bound women. Some men have little in the way of body hair, while some women have to remove theirs every day. In fact, if you pick just about any physical attribute generally associated with men or women, you'll likely find that is it more of a spectrum that ranges between the two sexes, rather than being limited solely to one or the other.
In building your characters, try listing the physical qualities you normally expect to find in men and those you find in women. Then, combine your lists, and as you develop your characters, select attributes from that list with disregard for the character's anatomical sex. Then, consider each attribute a spectrum from one extreme to the other, and set the "value" of each attribute where you would like it for that specific individual. In this way, your characters will come off as being much more real, and less designed by cookie cutter. After all, the term "normal," is nothing more than the average of everyone's individual abnormalities. A character that is portrayed as normal, is not very real at all.
Gender Identity focuses on the masculine and feminine traits of your characters. But beware! Most of these traits are assigned by societal traditions, and are not inherent to one sex or the other. In another culture, many attributes we associate strongly with one sex may be just as strongly associated with the other.
Thinking logically, being intuitive, liking sports, enjoying the ballet, being good at math, being sensitive - bland writers assign these traits in the expected, stereotypical manner. The main characters in Silence of the Lambs, Hunt for Red October, The Piano, and even the father fish in Finding Nemo all exhibit gender identity traits in a non-traditional arrangement, which is part of what makes them special, memorable, and endearing.
In your own stories, consider tempering the cut and dried gender roles of society and allowing your characters to be individuals. We see people conforming to those narrow roles all around us in our everyday roles. Most of us find them confining in at least some ways, but would never consider straying from the norm. But people go to movies and read books to step into other lives: lives they would never dare to live themselves, but that bring them a sense of freedom, self-exploration, and even simple variety.
Statistics say that one out of three adult males has had at least one homosexual experience in his life. And that figure doesn't include those who would like to try, but are bound by fears or by honest religious convictions.
Whether or not you are sympathetic to alternative lifestyles, there is no argument that such lifestyles exist. And no matter the causes you ascribe to such activities, the activities themselves are a part of our world.
If you wish to write stories to promote certain sexual values, you may focus on or away from these lifestyles. If you choose to write a stories that mirror the actual cross-section of the population, you will want to include a representation of alternative lifestyles as well.
Keep in mind that for those who do not feel bound to solely explore heterosexual relationships, sexuality appears as a range from same sex to opposite sex. Many are more attracted to the personality of a potential partner, and have no preference for one anatomical sex or the other.
And though it is beyond our scope to list all human qualities that grow from sexual desire, as an author you may wish to consider the vast variety of interests and endeavors which draw people in a physical manner. In this way you might add intrigue and a sense of reality and/or grit to your story, whether it is a re-telling of Sodom and Gomorrah or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Study Exercises: Gender Traits in Well-known Stories
1. Consider the principal characters in The Matrix, Poland New Hampshire, JAG, the Harry Potter novels, and other popular stories of your choice.
2. List the unusual gender traits that don't fall into traditional roles for each character.
Writing Exercises: Assigning Gender Traits
1. Select three existing characters you have previously developed enough to know them well.
2. List all the gender traits you can identify in these characters.
3. Add and remove traits from each of these characters to create a less typical mix of gender attributes.
Copyright 2003 Melanie Anne Phillips
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