Men--my nemesis. Today I have to write from a man's perspective, and I find myself dreading having to do so. It's not that I can't write a male character; it's more that there are a lot of things going on with male anatomy that are simply different from women. That means that the way they move is going to be a little different. Also, men are generally raised in a different way than most women are, which I will admit that I find incredibly interesting. Why do we do that? Is it necessary? But more importantly, what does it change?
For example, most male children are expected to do things like play sports and own fast cars and ...*waves a hand* You get the stereotypes there, and I have to wonder why that's so. It seems to me that we've created an ideal for our society of "what men should be," and anything outside of that is called "problematic" or "unnatural". And I have to admit that I'm not a fan.
That said, ...I have no idea what having testosterone is like. Chemically speaking, men and women are hard-wired differently, and that's important to remember. I watched a TED Talk a while back about a woman who had had some brain trauma, and she and her doctors were having to synthesize a concoction of chemicals to simulate what should naturally be there. As it turned out, even small changes in the amounts of various chemicals could have extreme effects on how she felt, what she did, and what she thought about and wanted.
So when I say that I dread writing male characters, I mean more that I dread not portraying them in a realistic manner. And we, as writers, should really want to strive for realism. So, ...if I get this wrong, guys, I apologize. But perhaps you can offer some thoughts and insights on how I can make things better in the future.
----------
All right! So I took a day off to tackle my male issues, and today, I think I'm ready to get to work again. Let's see how this goes....
I took a page from the prompt (haha,) though Reliq's looking into his books and defeating his enemies is going to take a little longer than the scope of this story. We return again to John's and my book idea in today's story, and I hope you all enjoy it!
