? Not sure I understood what you said...
"Somehow
what sounds horribly wrong"? That males are easier to write? Of course they aren't, but for me -- they are because I would become paralyzed at the onset with writing any female character.
(Or I
will manage writing one. But I would likely squirm with doubt and frustration and anguish all through it. So I won't enjoy it).
Thus, for me -- male characters automatically are 100% easier to write. Sorry if I implied they are easier to write for
everyone! Didn't mean to.
But if you meant that my whole post sounds horribly wrong -- then yeah.
Sorry.
But it's like being in a very strict reeducation program that changes your entire mindset and you just
can't. turn. it. off. afterwards. Even if you hate it. Right now, writing female characters frustrates me, period.
(God, this pun is very unintentional but it also fits a little, lol). I try but the Internalized Misogyny and my awareness of it kind of disrupts my writing and makes me think TOO much about gender, stereotypes, my own biases, and the cultural reference pool (it is much smaller for FC than for MC. And I love using references and allusions in my writing. Just, the female-ones are kind of narrower than the male ones and I hate restricting myself).
I can't move past all these issues without losing steam and inspiration to write .
Thank you. This is really inspiring, but the three stories with FCs that I have -- I put on the backseat while I "learn writing better"
. In my attempts to avoid the Madonna/Whore/Honorary-Male stereotypes, I overthought and probably over-worked my female characters too much.
All of my old FCs were seen by readers as extremely erratic, unlikable, hysterical (....... not at all a historically-painful remark, is it?), misguided, incomprehensible, etc. One of the stories had the FC and MC as deuteragonists. The dude did so much worse stuff than the girl (literally, a serial murderer), yet every reader picked on the girl for being an awful human while the dude was "likable and genuinely charming". In one case, she jumped in front of an X to save his life and actually broke her spine doing that, and the reader told me about her:
"She's so selfish. She obviously did it for her own gain".
Grrr, made me want to rip my hair out, te-he ^^.
The most amusing thing? That reader was a woman, too.
Anyway, I shifted fully to BL to rediscover how far I can strain my
male protagonists in the likable/unlikable meter to decide whether the issue is really with me being unable to write a complex + likable + underexplored character types and if I am writing past my capabilities. So yeah, I am still in experimenting phase ^^.
I think one day I will graduate to trying to write about women again, but not right now... It's too scary
. I am tired of pouring my soul into characters who I felt managed to walk around all the common negative stereotypes of FCs while remaining flawed individuals -- only to be told "thanks, we hate it. Now show me that charming dude again. He was awesome".
I actually am considering something like that one day.
6 girls lost in a shadow world where they are the only people left (Dolores Haze, Dorothy Gale, Alice Liddell, Sakura Kinomoto, Sophie von Kuhn, Virginia Clemm -- all the coolest little girl muses together). ^^ But so far, I am still not ready to "graduate" to writing it past my own fears and doubts...
SH helps in my rehabilitation, though ^^. Everyone is so nice and thoughtful here. And not judgmental for a change, thank god!