Why is every almost fantasy adventure story with a female MC gender bender?

[SailusGebel]

The concept of writing a character is always subjective regardless of whatever gender they might be. I, personally, want to write a story involving a character of neither gender. I've yet to touch that because I know how it would start and run off but not where to go with it in the end.

It's just that I heard this saying, that a great character is genderless. If you are the one to plan before writing, you write quirks, personal traits, etc. And after doing an interesting character, you give it gender or sex, or whatever you want. The reader then can swap the gender midstory in his mind, and won't see any difference, because of how strong of impression the character, not his gender, holds.

I know that while you write gender bender or LGBTQ stuff in general this method is a bit lacking, but not every time. You can still apply it. If your character's most pivotal trait is gender, something is wrong there. Unless it's a story about understanding your gender and so on. But somehow I doubt that EVERY GB story is about that.

That's why most of the female characters that were brought up recently suck so much. Because everything they do is attributed to them being female, instead of creating an interesting character.

 

[Queenfisher]

I know that I'm doing an asshole move, pulling this out of context and misinterpreting this. However, males are easier to write. Somehow this sounds horribly wrong.

? 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 .

In my experience, the only thing for it is to bite the bullet and write women. Write terrible, ridiculous women, then go back and pick out all their flaws. Find what you did wrong and what ingrained misbelief was driving you.

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".

You can also force yourself to write stories involving nothing but women. You really have no choice but to pay them their dues then.

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!

 

[CL]

It's just that I heard this saying, that a great character is genderless. If you are the one to plan before writing, you write quirks, personal traits, etc. And after doing an interesting character, you give it gender or sex, or whatever you want. The reader then can swap the gender midstory in his mind, and won't see any difference, because of how strong of impression the character, not his gender, holds.

I know that while you write gender bender or LGBTQ stuff in general this method is a bit lacking, but not every time. You can still apply it. If your character's most pivotal trait is gender, something is wrong there. Unless it's a story about understanding your gender and so on. But somehow I doubt that EVERY GB story is about that.

That's why most of the female characters that were brought up recently suck so much. Because everything they do is attributed to them being female, instead of creating an interesting character.

I remember that saying too. I forgot about it, but, yes you are correct. A good character is genderless because they shouldn't be defined by their sex but for those qualities you listed and more. Thank you for reminding me of that.

 

[SailusGebel]

? 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!

You don't need to apologize, it was my mistake for understanding this wrong.

 

[minacia]

It's just that I heard this saying, that a great character is genderless. If you are the one to plan before writing, you write quirks, personal traits, etc. And after doing an interesting character, you give it gender or sex, or whatever you want. The reader then can swap the gender midstory in his mind, and won't see any difference, because of how strong of impression the character, not his gender, holds.

I know that while you write gender bender or LGBTQ stuff in general this method is a bit lacking, but not every time. You can still apply it. If your character's most pivotal trait is gender, something is wrong there. Unless it's a story about understanding your gender and so on. But somehow I doubt that EVERY GB story is about that.

That's why most of the female characters that were brought up recently suck so much. Because everything they do is attributed to them being female, instead of creating an interesting character.

Hmm... I feel like my instinctive reaction is to say there are notable differences in the way that each gender experiences the world. It’s not always perfectly interchangeable simply by flip flopping it.

It reminds me a lot about what people say about race.

In an ideal world, a black protagonist might experience the world the exact same way as a white protagonist (and therefore the characters should be perfectly interchangeable... in an ideal world). However, it’s not really the case in practice...

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with writing a story that way. However, there are several instantly recognizable life aspects that get lost when a colorblind or gender-blind approach is used. But I mean, that’s the difference between realism and fantasy, I suppose.

 

[SailusGebel]

Hmm... I feel like my instinctive reaction is to say there are notable differences in the way that each gender experiences the world. It’s not always perfectly interchangeable simply by flip flopping it.

It reminds me a lot about what people say about race.

In an ideal world, a black protagonist might experience the world the exact same way as a white protagonist (and therefore the characters should be perfectly interchangeable... in an ideal world). However, it’s not really the case in practice...

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with writing a story that way. However, there are several instantly recognizable life aspects that get lost when a colorblind or gender-blind approach is used. But I mean, that’s the difference between realism and fantasy, I suppose.

True, but we also don't narrow the variety of genres and tropes down to our world?

And again, the struggles of genders, the struggles of race, should come in second in my opinion. Because there is not a difference in gender or race experience. There is a huge freaking difference in humans experience. Everyone just narrows this down to race, gender, country, whatever. But they tend to forget that every, single, human, every person is unique, and the experience we have in our life is unique as well. The way we were brought up, the way our brains work, and so on.

Sure the world isn't a great place, but just because there is racism, you can't deny that someone from the cast of 'oppressed' did lead a great life without seeing such problems. The same goes for the 'privileged' cast. They may have power, but that doesn't mean there can't be people who were mistreated, oppressed, or whatever else.

The world is a dynamic place, the viewpoints change tremendously in different cities, neighborhoods, I won't even talk about countries. There are so many unique personalities out there, yet everything goes down to gender and race. And how TREMENDOUSLY it affects the personality of the characters in fiction.

 

[minacia]

True, but we also don't narrow the variety of genres and tropes down to our world?

And again, the struggles of genders, the struggles of race, should come in second in my opinion. Because there is not a difference in gender or race experience. There is a huge freaking difference in humans experience. Everyone just narrows this down to race, gender, country, whatever. But they tend to forget that every, single, human, every person is unique, and the experience we have in our life is unique as well. The way we were brought up, the way our brains work, and so on.

Sure the world isn't a great place, but just because there is racism, you can't deny that someone from the cast of 'oppressed' did lead a great life without seeing such problems. The same goes for the 'privileged' cast. They may have power, but that doesn't mean there can't be people who were mistreated, oppressed, or whatever else.

The world is a dynamic place, the viewpoints change tremendously in different cities, neighborhoods, I won't even talk about countries. There are so many unique personalities out there, yet everything goes down to gender and race. And how TREMENDOUSLY it affects the personality of the characters in fiction.

Oh certainly! But I mean, I'm not even talking about it in terms of privilege or whatever modern political stuff.

I'm just talking about it in terms of practicality as a writer.

For instance, suppose you are a writer and you want to make your protagonist Japanese (for god knows what reason). It's a reasonable very approximation to assume that they act, think, and grew up in a similar way that you did (assuming that you're not Asian).

But at the end of the day, it's just an approximation -- and there are often things that get left out when author's attempt to write over cross-cultural or cross-gender lines. It's not always major things, but there are aspects that make it different in many circumstances, to the point that typically many people might say that it's better to write things that you're much more familiar with. Why try to set your story in Japan when you've never lived or visited there?

And I would generally say that most authors don't boil their characters down to just gender and race.

I mean, I like to add flavor from my own life into my characters -- so I often have Asian-American characters. It's easy for me to relate back to my upbringing and my family, and various other cultural components that I simply just grew up with. It simply ends up becoming a background flavor feature of the setting that comes as part of my perspective as a writer.

I don't have anything against writers deciding to make Japanese characters with a poor grasp of the underlying culture.

There's nothing wrong with that, and we all write fiction.

But to me, there still is a difference.

 

[SailusGebel]

Oh certainly! But I mean, I'm not even talking about it in terms of privilege or whatever modern political stuff.

I'm just talking about it in terms of practicality as a writer.

For instance, suppose you are a writer and you want to make your protagonist Japanese (for god knows what reason). It's a reasonable very approximation to assume that they act, think, and grew up in a similar way that you did (assuming that you're not Asian).

But at the end of the day, it's just an approximation -- and there are often things that get left out when author's attempt to write over cross-cultural or cross-gender lines. It's not always major things, but there are aspects that make it different in many circumstances, to the point that typically many people might say that it's better to write things that you're much more familiar with. Why try to set your story in Japan when you've never lived or visited there?

And I would generally say that most authors don't boil their characters down to just gender and race.

I mean, I like to add flavor from my own life into my characters -- so I often have Asian-American characters. It's easy for me to relate back to my upbringing and my family, and various other cultural components that I simply just grew up with. It simply ends up becoming a background flavor feature of the setting that comes as part of my perspective as a writer.

I don't have anything against writers deciding to make Japanese characters with a poor grasp of the underlying culture.

There's nothing wrong with that, and we all write fiction.

But to me, there still is a difference.

You aren't familiar with males or females? This question isn't addressed to you exactly. What I mean is, from practicality, nothing holds you down from doing a genderless character and then add gender. Because we are surrounded by males and females and using the excuse of, I've never felt the world through the male\female perspective and don't have enough experience. Well, it kind of ruins EVERY female writer that writes BL, and basically, anyone who isn't LGBTQ but still writes about it, don't you think so? You can write whatever you want, you say, but writing an interesting character before giving him gender isn't practical. But writing about BL while being female is apparently practical?
Yeah, it's difficult to write about something you don't know about, that's why good writers do research. Also, maybe you got my point wrong, or I worded it weirdly.
Sure people of different races or gender do act differently, but it's not to the point that they act like an alien species either. We are unique, but we are still humans. You look at Asian\Black\Red\White\Purple\Green whatever, and think like, oh, how does he thinks? It's almost like looking at a monkey in a zoo and wondering what is he thinking about. That's what I was talking about. Sure a person raised in Japan may be completely different from the one being raised in say France. But they also can be very much alike.
You can write any kind of character, with any number of traits. Because there will always be those, 'out of norms', who would tell you this, or that isn't like this. Damn, there are even people who do it for other people. You can't say stuff like that about 'those kinds of people'. Damn, you aren't even one of them. How the hell do you know how 'those people' think?

 

[Erios909]

Something I’ve noticed is if a story is fantasy (though it happens most often in isekai,), with a female protagonist, and isn’t primarily romance, it’s gender bender. Why?

I want to point out the Isekai I'm writing has a female MC and isn't a gender bender.

Spoiler

It's also a lot more popular and sells more

It's also been pretty popular so far! So gender-bender isn't required for that. I think there is room for everything

 

[DreamOfRen]

I want to point out the Isekai I'm writing has a female MC and isn't a gender bender.



It's also been pretty popular so far! So gender-bender isn't required for that. I think there is room for everything

I'd like to check it out.

 

[OvidLemma]

I write mostly GB with various fantasy themes and, honestly, my non-GB stories get about 1/10 the views and 1/4 the feedback. If more people read my other stories, I'd write more of them. I've got a fantasy story with a spunky orphan FMC coming out soon, and I guess I'll see how that goes. Otherwise, if there just isn't an audience for my non-GB work, then it's a waste of my time to write more of it.

 

[minacia]

You aren't familiar with males or females? This question isn't addressed to you exactly. What I mean is, from practicality, nothing holds you down from doing a genderless character and then add gender. Because we are surrounded by males and females and using the excuse of, I've never felt the world through the male\female perspective and don't have enough experience. Well, it kind of ruins EVERY female writer that writes BL, and basically, anyone who isn't LGBTQ but still writes about it, don't you think so? You can write whatever you want, you say, but writing an interesting character before giving him gender isn't practical. But writing about BL while being female is apparently practical?
Yeah, it's difficult to write about something you don't know about, that's why good writers do research. Also, maybe you got my point wrong, or I worded it weirdly.
Sure people of different races or gender do act differently, but it's not to the point that they act like an alien species either. We are unique, but we are still humans. You look at Asian\Black\Red\White\Purple\Green whatever, and think like, oh, how does he thinks? It's almost like looking at a monkey in a zoo and wondering what is he thinking about. That's what I was talking about. Sure a person raised in Japan may be completely different from the one being raised in say France. But they also can be very much alike.
You can write any kind of character, with any number of traits. Because there will always be those, 'out of norms', who would tell you this, or that isn't like this. Damn, there are even people who do it for other people. You can't say stuff like that about 'those kinds of people'. Damn, you aren't even one of them. How the hell do you know how 'those people' think?

I mean, BL and yaoi as a genre gets a huge amount of flak for not being realistic or depicting men well, you know?

My point is that there is a difference between approaching a topic/genre realistically or through a fantasy lens. Many authors approach their characters through a fantasy lens, and BL as a genre isn't meant to be compared to actual gay relationships.

Female critics of film, television, and many other forms of media have complained for decades about poor or unrealistic portrayal of female characters. It happens for every demographic when authors attempt to write across cross-cultural lens; they run the risk of their character portrayal backfiring on a certain demographic of readers.

There's nothing inherently wrong with approaching characters through an imaginative perspective, and everyone does it. However, I also think it's important to have a certain degree of humility to recognize when something is drifting more towards fantasy and struggling on the realism front. There isn't always a cure-all answer to this type of issue.

No amount of research can really fixed a botched portrayal of an issue that you aren't personally as familiar with.

I mean, I run into this issue a lot in my own writing. I write heavy/dark subjects and my protagonist self-harms (she cuts) -- and I've never personally gone through this myself, but I feel like it's extremely important to remain cognizant of the fact that I'm not the expert on something even though my protagonist is a certain way for the sake of my story.

 

[Moonpearl]

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!

Sometimes people can't see past society's weird sexist programming, but not everyone is like that and it doesn't always mean that you failed.

I remember being shocked to hear that there were Utena "fans" who demonised Anthy, said she was the "real villain", and made Akio out to be a "good guy" who was hurt and misled by his "evil" sister. Just cause he was sexy, I guess.
Utena literally talks about Anthy being used as a scapegoat for her brother and how wrong it is, and they let it fly completely over their heads. Insanity.
But Anthy's not who they say she is, and I'm confident that many of them later came to realise this via their own character growth. (Kind of like how I grew up and stopped hating Inuyasha's Kikyo.)

I've been pretty lucky with my women, since I grew up writing my worst ones in games only my friend and I play and only had a (very tolerant and forgiving) audience of 1.
Of the fanfiction I wrote, they were either for fandoms that loved women to begin with, or I managed to land on my feet and get praised for not killing off the love rival.

If you want to practice creating female characters without the pressure of an audience, I recommend creating them for games.
This can be roleplaying or D&D games, or it can be developing a character and ongoing headcanon story for games like Skyrim. Or you can make use of interactive text-based games like those from the "Choice of Games" company, found here: https://www.choiceofgames.com

But, from what I've seen of your writing, your women are really good. (It's late here, so excuse me if my vocabulary is starting to run thin.)

 

[Aaky]

Don't worry, I am here to save you! my dark fantasy has neither Isekai nor GB.

 

[SailusGebel]

I mean, BL and yaoi as a genre gets a huge amount of flak for not being realistic or depicting men well, you know?

My point is that there is a difference between approaching a topic/genre realistically or through a fantasy lens. Many authors approach their characters through a fantasy lens, and BL as a genre isn't meant to be compared to actual gay relationships.

Female critics of film, television, and many other forms of media have complained for decades about poor or unrealistic portrayal of female characters. It happens for every demographic when authors attempt to write across cross-cultural lens; they run the risk of their character portrayal backfiring on a certain demographic of readers.

There's nothing inherently wrong with approaching characters through an imaginative perspective, and everyone does it. However, I also think it's important to have a certain degree of humility to recognize when something is drifting more towards fantasy and struggling on the realism front. There isn't always a cure-all answer to this type of issue.

No amount of research can really fixed a botched portrayal of an issue that you aren't personally as familiar with.

I mean, I run into this issue a lot in my own writing. I write heavy/dark subjects and my protagonist self-harms (she cuts) -- and I've never personally gone through this myself, but I feel like it's extremely important to remain cognizant of the fact that I'm not the expert on something even though my protagonist is a certain way for the sake of my story.

What is a fantasy lens though? Who decides on this fact? Because without answering this question the discussion can't go on. Or do you mean they look at our world as if it was fantasy? Like a black and white world?

I don't know, and neither I want to know about BL, or GL, nor whatever else is realistic. I don't care. And I don't understand how we once again went down to an imaginative perspective. No amount of research can fix anything. You ran into issues yourself.

I'm going to ask you a question. Do we always write looking at practicality, or do we want an interesting story and character? You yourself went towards the second pass. Then what is wrong with writing a genderless character which in my opinion is superior because it negates even a slight chance of attributing the character personality traits and so on, to gender or race, which turns out to be lazy writing in my opinion?

I just can't understand this. As a male, if I depict a male that is clearly not like every other male, I would get critique from males for depicting a male poorly. Then how does everything of this change if I depict a female character? The answer, it won't. I would still get a critique. I would get a critique for whatever I write or depict because there will ALWAYS be the person who sees the world differently. See radical Islamists and their views on LGBTQ. It's a rather extreme example, but it's the easiest one to describe what I'm talking about.

What imaginative perspective you are talking about? Why can't I, as a male, make a strong and interesting character, that had ups and downs, interesting backstory, and goals in life, and later on decide to make this character female. I don't care even if half of the world(you know what half) would curse me for being a misogynist as long as the character is interesting. Because I myself, know, I wrote this character without gender, I could've either swapped it.

I feel like we are going in circles. I'm telling you that this is more superior than that, because other conditions are equal, and they always will be equal. And you telling me about practicality, about the critic. What for? Are we writing according to the rules? I've shared a method on how to write a character more interesting in my opinion, it's not even my technique. You say this can backfire. The conditions are equal, whatever you do will backfire, you can't please everyone even if you are a hundred dollar bill. Yes, there are people out there who hates dollars or don't care about them.

 

[minacia]

What is a fantasy lens though? Who decides on this fact? Because without answering this question the discussion can't go on. Or do you mean they look at our world as if it was fantasy? Like a black and white world?

I don't know, and neither I want to know about BL, or GL, nor whatever else is realistic. I don't care. And I don't understand how we once again went down to an imaginative perspective. No amount of research can fix anything. You ran into issues yourself.

I'm going to ask you a question. Do we always write looking at practicality, or do we want an interesting story and character? You yourself went towards the second pass. Then what is wrong with writing a genderless character which in my opinion is superior because it negates even a slight chance of attributing the character personality traits and so on, to gender or race, which turns out to be lazy writing in my opinion?

I just can't understand this. As a male, if I depict a male that is clearly not like every other male, I would get critique from males for depicting a male poorly. Then how does everything of this change if I depict a female character? The answer, it won't. I would still get a critique. I would get a critique for whatever I write or depict because there will ALWAYS be the person who sees the world differently. See radical Islamists and their views on LGBTQ. It's a rather extreme example, but it's the easiest one to describe what I'm talking about.

What imaginative perspective you are talking about? Why can't I, as a male, make a strong and interesting character, that had ups and downs, interesting backstory, and goals in life, and later on decide to make this character female. I don't care even if half of the world(you know what half) would curse me for being a misogynist as long as the character is interesting. Because I myself, know, I wrote this character without gender, I could've either swapped it.

I feel like we are going in circles. I'm telling you that this is more superior than that, because other conditions are equal, and they always will be equal. And you telling me about practicality, about the critic. What for? Are we writing according to the rules? I've shared a method on how to write a character more interesting in my opinion, it's not even my technique. You say this can backfire. The conditions are equal, whatever you do will backfire, you can't please everyone even if you are a hundred dollar bill. Yes, there are people out there who hates dollars or don't care about them.

I mean, by the same logic you can't criticize people who write trope characters because they like them.

90% of harem anime follow the same formulaic lens, and it's incredibly successful because the audience likes them.

By the same perspective, it's also why the same wish fulfillment yuri GB novels are always trending on SH -- the authors are writing characters they want to write (and like), and likewise the readers are consuming characters that they want to see (and like).

Everyone is really doing the same thing here...

And there's frankly nothing wrong with that.

There's no real basis to say that one method of writing characters is "superior" to the other, except that it's coming purely from each of our own individual opinions. I've seen plenty stories backfire when authors attempt to project their own perspectives onto something that doesn't translate. It's usually harmless, but I've also seen instances when it's extremely wrong...

Regarding your question about practicality vs. "interesting story/character"...

For me, I like to write stories that are true to life, that have themes and emotions and circumstances that are relatable and thought provocative. It's important to me that characters seem complex and real, and I heavily leverage my own life experiences and feelings to give the words I write more emotional weight.

Of course, everyone writes stories with different purposes and focuses, and it's sort of self-evident that I'm not really constructing the ideal shounen protagonist or ultimate scheming grandmaster antagonist, but again, every writer has their own purpose and aims. Everyone has their own story that they want to write.

 

[yansusustories]

I think this discussion is really interesting. To jump in for a bit in regard to this:

Then how does everything of this change if I depict a female character? The answer, it won't.

I think you are right with regard to the initial creation of a character. I think it's wrong though for everything happening after that because unless you create a world that doesn't care about things like gender at all, the reactions the character gets will be different depending on their gender (or race or whatever) and that would, in turn, likely shape the character's development. So I don't think it's something that can just be ignored unless you have a good reason like a world that has complete equality for all genders, races, etc.

 

[PieCoNsUmEr]

The concept of writing a character is always subjective regardless of whatever gender they might be. I, personally, want to write a story involving a character of neither gender. I've yet to touch that because I know how it would start and run off but not where to go with it in the end.

Well first off figure out what kind of story you want, do want adventure, do you want physiological, romance, self discovery, episodic?
Then figure out what’s next, does the character grow into a kinder person, do they choose to put up a facade and ignore their trauma, does the setting remain mostly constant but the character changes, or are they a constant in a whirlwind of a world?
Then choose an endpoint that either echo’s, or contrasts the character’s views.
Though this is just a suggestion.

 

[minacia]

I think this discussion is really interesting. To jump in for a bit in regard to this:

I think you are right with regard to the initial creation of a character. I think it's wrong though for everything happening after that because unless you create a world that doesn't care about things like gender at all, the reactions the character gets will be different depending on their gender (or race or whatever) and that would, in turn, likely shape the character's development. So I don't think it's something that can just be ignored unless you have a good reason like a world that has complete equality for all genders, races, etc.

To bounce off of this further, when I think of some of the strongest female characters that I know, a manga called Basara comes to mind. It's like an epic shounen-style adventure manga comparable in scale to Rurouni Kenshin or some of the other big battle mangas, and the protagonist is a badass sword-wielding heroine who spends more than half of the story stealing the identity of her twin brother who's supposed to be the "chosen one".

However, no matter how I try to spin the story around in my head, there's no way to flip her gender. The story doesn't work if the protagonist's gender is flipped because the uphill battle that she experiences against society and other things is closely entwined with her gender -- and it's furthermore extremely relatable for many readers because we're used to seeing or hearing similar things.

This is in stark contrast with a story where it's just Naruto, but someone flipped a coin and decided that the protagonist should be a girl... but other than that the protagonist's gender could easily be switched. I've read some of these, and usually they're not as powerful for me because in most cases the protagonist is basically just a guy (Saga of Tanya the Evil comes to mind), and for me I'm not picking up as many things that are recognizable or relatable for me. It doesn't work as well for me (personally), and sometimes it's even immersion-breaking if it's too over the top.

But then again, this is where seinen as a genre deviates from josei.

There are many seinen manga/stories with female protagonists, yet in josei it's usually given much more of serious treatment. An example here would be My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness by Kabi Nagata which won the 2018 Harvey Award for best manga... and when you read it, there's no way that a male author would ever come up with that kind of subject matter for story.

 

[SailusGebel]

I think this discussion is really interesting. To jump in for a bit in regard to this:

I think you are right with regard to the initial creation of a character. I think it's wrong though for everything happening after that because unless you create a world that doesn't care about things like gender at all, the reactions the character gets will be different depending on their gender (or race or whatever) and that would, in turn, likely shape the character's development. So I don't think it's something that can just be ignored unless you have a good reason like a world that has complete equality for all genders, races, etc.

That's obviously true. The whole time I was talking about the initial point. When a character makes the first appearance in a story, with the already existing story, traits, quirks, personality, mannerism, goals, life values, worldview, the list goes on. And of course later on depending on what kind of story and genre, and what gender and race you chose the character would develop, interact and change accordingly.
What I was talking about, when you write, or plan, yeah, let's go with this word. When you plan a character, it's better to abstain from any race or gender, that way you won't have this temptation to degrade yourself to this. In my opinion, using gender or race traits is lazy writing, and it leads to false depiction much more than planning your character without such traits.
These traits usually outweigh other traits. It's easy to slap, he is gay thus he isn't accepted, or she is a single mother because her husband is an asshole and left her. While writing something like, a gay who is accepted, and the whole drama isn't about this? Or a single mother who doesn't need any love at all after giving birth and going, full asexual. I don't know, I should go to bed already and can't think of a great example.
Anyway, sure, anyone can do anything they want. The art is subjective, and blah-blah-blah.
The art can be judged, and there ate com criteria that are objective, like potholes or garbage characters. Let's not talk about popularity or success. Also, the thing like Dime Novels exist. I don't know about English, but in my language, the translation is, guess what? Low-quality books. It doesn't mean that low-quality books can't leave their own trace in history, but, the exception proves the rule.
That's why I think the technique I said is superior, it leads to more interesting and strong characters, which leads to at least a more interesting story if not a more quality one. Because you don't use overused, cheap tropes, and traits, you abstain from the stereotypes, otherwise, you would somehow play around the stereotypes to carefully implement them, make a comic relief, or disclaim them. That's how our brain works.
And now I'm going to bed because my head doesn't work if you would like I can continue this discussion tomorrow. Good night.