♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦
Topic #177
What’s the most difficult thing about writing
characters from the opposite sex?
Welcome back to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop! If you’re new to the series, the authors included are grateful for your reads and appreciate, even more so, when you share our writings with your friends. If you’re new to the series, welcome aboard. The authors engage and impress weekly. Be prepared to become a regular reader.
Photo by Michael Prewett on Unsplash
I don’t find it difficult to write the opposite gender at all. One of my professors remarked, it is easy to portray men, because most every book is from their perspective. There is no end of resources from which to pull, and accurately, about any aspect of maleness. If you’re well read of literature, then you won’t struggle. From films to books, I’ve been immersed in the perspective of the male by media from early on. I suppose, anything lacking might be bolstered by my biology background.
Where I have struggled is with ethnicities and non-cis-gendered characters. The issue here is, no matter how supportive I am, no matter how progressive, I am still limited by my perspective. Just like literature classes in the United States taught me cis-maleness, it also taught consensus on race and gender, as desired by conservative Christian ideology. Until reaching college, the group buy in was around two genders and whiteness: the nuclear family (of the 1950s).
There was not a struggle to unlearn the social conditioning and start to perceive of other lives in the world, nor to understand that my singular experience was the equal of others. It’s super easy to dismiss that notion when you realize there are so many kinds of people with so many kinds of experiences. No one is the same. I think, on that, we can agree. At least, it is my hope that others don’t go around really believing that what they go through is the same as everyone else—that race or gender, or location, or family make up, all has a lasting affect on shaping us, and determining not only our outcomes but our choices.
When I wrote Henrietta Benson in Blue Honor, she was, and remains, the most difficult character I have ever written. The reason is that I understand her from the perspective of a woman, but I cannot fathom the depth and breadth of what Henrietta experienced as a black woman. It is just not possible. I am white. I will never live the black experience in the United States. However, I can empathize. I can listen and try to correlate. That’s the best I could do for Hettie. It still bothers me to this day that I couldn’t be her voice, like she needed—like she deserved. Yet, it’s powerful that my shortcomings and my perspective illustrate the racism and white-knighting that is integral to the discussion of racism and equity in the United States.
Photo by Levi Saunders on Unsplash
In Trailokya, I have gay, lesbian, trans, and queer characters. I’m not sure that readers will recognize them, and that concerns me, because representation matters, especially in a work like Trailokya. The work is meant to challenge the comfortable notions of the past, and be representative of a higher and better thinking. The reason that some might not recognize the characters is that I treated them as people, and their sexualities secondary. For instance, Naajah and her wife. There’s no lurid scenes to describe them. Naajah is guardian, and her job is the concern of the text, with her home life, what keeps her going, in the background. These women are more than sex.
As times change, it has become somewhat easier to portray characters that veer from my norm. If I do them the justice they deserve, and portray the full rainbow of humanity, I can’t say beyond hoping I was fair. Ultimately, the readers who see themselves or their family and friends in the characters will decide about the works, if they were fair or showed the bigotries of the culture in which it was written.
Let’s hop on over to see where the other authors struggle with gender…
This is a super easy question to answer. The best money I have ever spent on my books is my editors. Paying them is not only wise for the art, but it makes a great deal of business sense. Let me be the first tell you, when you find a good one, they’re worth every penny. I’ve gone through a few that were less than I had hoped, while I have worked with those who should be paid the big bucks. 
Depending on the size of your book, you can end up paying the most out of your book budget to this person. Be sure to plan for $1,000-1,500. If they come in under, then you’ve got yourself bank for promotions. That’s what’s always wanting by the end of my publishing effort on each book. 