Writing our Way into the Mysterious Hearts of Men
I finished a manuscript recently that had an important female character. I understood her. I knew exactly what she was feeling and I knew what she was going to do. I empathized with her, even while she was sowing seeds she would surely regret. I might very well have sown the same seeds myself, in a similar situation. There was very little mystery for me with this character, and so there was no stretch for me as a writer. I didn’t have to work to uncover her secrets.
Men I don’t understand. They confuse me and many times irritate me past all bearing. They are an alien life form compared to myself, a woman, and this is why I write endlessly about them. When I’m writing about men, I’m writing my way into their mysterious hearts, trying to understand them.
I think people in many professions, like healthcare, develop a degree of empathy and understanding that allows us to care about people we don’t know well. Writers are a different breed. We want to know secrets and motivations and childhood fears, and we want to know the weakness that is going to screw them to the wall. We care about them, granted, but we can observe them from a distance that allows us to let them be hurt, and not try to rush in to save them.
I don’t believe there is any significant difference in how gay and straight people love. Men and women have human hearts. We humans are both sadly predictable and full of fascinating mysteries and contradictions. This is why we recognize characters, and why we become so obsessed by them. We know them, and we suspect what’s going to happen to them. But you never really know. Do you? People will surprise you. We really want to be surprised. We want to know a character intimately, and we want to watch that person surprise us by being so darn human.
Some writers, and I am among this group, write to find out what they want to say. I don’t know what’s going to happen in a story when I start writing it. I usually know what idea I want to explore. And though men are strange creatures who confuse me, I do have some intuition about their behavior. Knowing one’s characters deeply, and this intuition, means I can slowly write my way into the heart of the thing, figure out what’s happening, why it’s happening, figure out what the heck did he do that for? Just explain yourself to me. I don’t understand why you’re acting like this! I’m a woman, explain yourself. This fascination sometimes feels like the fascination one must have, watching a cobra rise slowly out of a basket, but maybe this is part of their unending charm.
Men surprise and charm me constantly. I suspect my interest in writing about gay characters in the structure of a romance is because it gives me two mysterious men to learn about, two men who will gradually open their secret hearts and let me look inside. I don’t want to look at their pretty muscles and little tan lines, and I don’t want to watch them having sex. I want to look into their hearts—to me, I’m asking for a greater degree of intimacy, to learn everything about their beautiful hearts. That’s what I’m trying to do when I write- get down into the bones and blood, find out all the secrets that stain their souls. Find out what makes their hearts yearn and weep and break, and bloom into a million beautiful colors when they fall in love. And the cool part is I’ll never really know. Because men are mysterious and unknowable, and I’ll never understand them. But I will probably keep trying.
Men I don’t understand. They confuse me and many times irritate me past all bearing. They are an alien life form compared to myself, a woman, and this is why I write endlessly about them. When I’m writing about men, I’m writing my way into their mysterious hearts, trying to understand them.
I think people in many professions, like healthcare, develop a degree of empathy and understanding that allows us to care about people we don’t know well. Writers are a different breed. We want to know secrets and motivations and childhood fears, and we want to know the weakness that is going to screw them to the wall. We care about them, granted, but we can observe them from a distance that allows us to let them be hurt, and not try to rush in to save them.
I don’t believe there is any significant difference in how gay and straight people love. Men and women have human hearts. We humans are both sadly predictable and full of fascinating mysteries and contradictions. This is why we recognize characters, and why we become so obsessed by them. We know them, and we suspect what’s going to happen to them. But you never really know. Do you? People will surprise you. We really want to be surprised. We want to know a character intimately, and we want to watch that person surprise us by being so darn human.
Some writers, and I am among this group, write to find out what they want to say. I don’t know what’s going to happen in a story when I start writing it. I usually know what idea I want to explore. And though men are strange creatures who confuse me, I do have some intuition about their behavior. Knowing one’s characters deeply, and this intuition, means I can slowly write my way into the heart of the thing, figure out what’s happening, why it’s happening, figure out what the heck did he do that for? Just explain yourself to me. I don’t understand why you’re acting like this! I’m a woman, explain yourself. This fascination sometimes feels like the fascination one must have, watching a cobra rise slowly out of a basket, but maybe this is part of their unending charm.
Men surprise and charm me constantly. I suspect my interest in writing about gay characters in the structure of a romance is because it gives me two mysterious men to learn about, two men who will gradually open their secret hearts and let me look inside. I don’t want to look at their pretty muscles and little tan lines, and I don’t want to watch them having sex. I want to look into their hearts—to me, I’m asking for a greater degree of intimacy, to learn everything about their beautiful hearts. That’s what I’m trying to do when I write- get down into the bones and blood, find out all the secrets that stain their souls. Find out what makes their hearts yearn and weep and break, and bloom into a million beautiful colors when they fall in love. And the cool part is I’ll never really know. Because men are mysterious and unknowable, and I’ll never understand them. But I will probably keep trying.
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You know, I just have to say that I am not the kind of reader who thinks that female writers need to explain why they like to write about men. Neither do I think that male writers need to explain why and if they want to write about women. I find the question bizarre and the answer unnecessary - you write what moves you, period. If I enjoy it, I will read it and I usually do because you do it so well :-).But what actually caused me to respond is the beginning of your post about female character. One would think that female writers in this genre would understand female characters, unfortunately my impression is to the contrary based on how female characters are written in the *vast* and I mean vast majority of the books I have read in this genre. And I am quite well read in the genre by now. Basically "women characters in this genre are usually relegated to bitch or whore position" is something I am 100% agree with.
I know few exceptions of course and happy and delighted every time I see it, but for every exception I can quote probably ten titles where we have horrible, awful, either STOOPID or caricature evil woman and I just wonder why. Why does the genre where vast majority of the writers is female does that to the characters of their own gender?
I am honestly curious about your opinion on that matter.
Please forgive me for the derailing of your post, it is not caused by any book you wrote, it is just been piling up and piling up and piling up with almost every book I read for the review and pleasure and reading your post just was a catalist for this rant :-)
Sirius
I wonder why as well! Maybe we're all so fascinated with men that we don't bother to think deeply about our women characters. Because if we think deeply about them at all, the women are going to have a profound impact on the lives of men, being their mothers, daughters, wives, ex-wives, neighbors, nieces, etc. Positive or negative impacts, but the impact is there. Who doesn't work with women? We don't exist in isolation, maybe with the exception of Chinatown in San Francisco- I suspect that is as isolated a community as exists on the planet. (I have just come from a visit.)
I was actually worried about this latest manuscript, because my female character is so real, and her grievance so valid, I'm afraid many readers are going to side with her- or at the very least, empathize with her to the point that they have no empathy for the guys. Part of the challenge, and why I wanted to explore this.
Maybe we all just need to write better characters? And better stories? Work harder on craft, and pay attention to what we're doing?
I was actually worried about this latest manuscript, because my female character is so real, and her grievance so valid, I'm afraid many readers are going to side with her- or at the very least, empathize with her to the point that they have no empathy for the guys. Part of the challenge, and why I wanted to explore this.
Maybe we all just need to write better characters? And better stories? Work harder on craft, and pay attention to what we're doing?
To follow up on what you said- new writers so often are encouraged to "write what you know"-- with the idea of a degree of familiarity adding some polish or expertise to the narrative. This is why women writers have so often in the past been encouraged to write women characters. We have the details down already. It's easier. It's not as much work. We have some degree of automatic credibility. It hasn't been that long ago that I caught myself staring at a man's name on the cover of a book written from the POV of a woman, and thinking, Ha! What the hell does he know about women? Good luck with that, buddy.
But speaking for myself as a writer, I want the challenge that comes from writing from the POV of a character of a different gender. Writing challenges can also come from form, structure, other craft issues, but I really love character. I don't want it to be easy. I have to work for it, otherwise I'm bored before I start.
I suspect lots of people still wonder, what the hell does she know about men, about being gay, about being 24- none of which I am. I know they do. I've done it myself. I think if I was a young gay man, I would resent being a source of entertainment for all these women. I would question if I was being exploited.
I would just say, let's not be so hasty to put up walls between us. Let's take some of those labels down- labels are really important for forming identity- so it's good for teenagers to be able to put all the labels on themselves they want. Put it all on a tee shirt! But then, when you're older, let's take some of those walls down. We are all so much more alike than we are different. And now, I would say to men wanting to write about women- have at it! Let's see what you can come up with.
But speaking for myself as a writer, I want the challenge that comes from writing from the POV of a character of a different gender. Writing challenges can also come from form, structure, other craft issues, but I really love character. I don't want it to be easy. I have to work for it, otherwise I'm bored before I start.
I suspect lots of people still wonder, what the hell does she know about men, about being gay, about being 24- none of which I am. I know they do. I've done it myself. I think if I was a young gay man, I would resent being a source of entertainment for all these women. I would question if I was being exploited.
I would just say, let's not be so hasty to put up walls between us. Let's take some of those labels down- labels are really important for forming identity- so it's good for teenagers to be able to put all the labels on themselves they want. Put it all on a tee shirt! But then, when you're older, let's take some of those walls down. We are all so much more alike than we are different. And now, I would say to men wanting to write about women- have at it! Let's see what you can come up with.
Sarah wrote: "To follow up on what you said- new writers so often are encouraged to "write what you know"-- with the idea of a degree of familiarity adding some polish or expertise to the narrative. This is why ..."Right, certainly agree with what you said, only as a reader, not writer :-). And certainly - I think some books make gay men question whether they are being exploited and justifiably so. It is just to me it is different from questioning whether men can write women or women can write men. I guess to me the answer is that any good writer who set the goal of writing respectfully and sensitively about marginalized people can do so if they put their mind to it.
Obviously straight woman writer would never know personally what it means to be a gay man and straight man writing about lesbian women would never know that as well, but if they are writing for something other than fetish, well I have faith in their writing abilities.
If they want to put on paper what they learned from research and by empasizing, I think it could be a very good thing.
Sarah wrote: "I wonder why as well! Maybe we're all so fascinated with men that we don't bother to think deeply about our women characters. Because if we think deeply about them at all, the women are going to ha..."Maybe. I mean, certainly asking for some depth in the secondary characters is not too much to ask I hope :). And maybe making the only woman in the story a villain is also not always a way to go? Anyway, thanks for listening.
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