A couple of things have set me thinking this weekend. I started reading a novel, written by a man, from the POV of two women. Then I read a comment on here about a piece written by a woman from a male POV.

I started wondering how easy/difficult it is to cross the gender divide. The more I write, the more I feel drawn to a male POV. I can’t explain this. I’ve just finished a novel, The Winter House, in which I found it much easier to write the sections in Fynn’s POV, rather than Georgia’s. I’ve also written two short stories (Tot’s Wake and Carter’s Money), both from a male POV.

As for the novel I started reading: it’s so obviously, and laboriously, a man’s idea of how women think, that I can’t get past the first couple of chapters.

So what’s the secret? How is it done? I’d be happy for anyone to read my short stories and say whether they work as a male POV. Can anyone give tips on how to write cross-gender? Or suggest authors (on WW and/or in published novels) who can successfully cross the divide.

Dee

This is a subject that fascinates me, Dee. Two works that immediately come to mind of where a Man wrote a woman convincingly would be Nick Hornby's How to Be Good and a lesser known play from the eighties by Anthony Minghella called Whale Music (great play). I've read loads of stuff by male authors where I think they don't get it right, though, and the female characters just seem shallow. I can't really speak for the other way round!

Didn't this come up in a forum before and someone put a link to an article about the specifics of how men and women write differently? Or am I going mad? Or perhaps getting mixed up with a conference from my Writing course? (If it's the latter, any useful stuff links will have died along with my old hard drive - sorry).

Cath

Yes, good one, Cath. I’ve read ‘How To Be Good’. Great example. But what’s the secret? Is it a matter of empathy? Putting ourselves into an alien point of view? Or is it seeing what we expect from the opposite sex?

And how do we know if we’re getting it right, unless someone is brave enough to tell us?

Dee

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden is often sited as a good example of this. It doesn't just cross the gender divide, but also the cultural devide. An american bloke writing as a Japanese woman. I haven't read it myself, but most reviews say it's pretty damn convincing.

Colin M

Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, Tess of the D'Urbervilles etc etc - how long have you got?

Moll Flanders....

I wasn't sure about Memoirs of a Geisha, actually. I mean he'd done loads of historial research,etc. and it was engaging, but it lacked something female somehow for me.

OK, we've got all these examples of men writing women but what about the other way round?

But yeah, Dee's right, what is the secret? Empathy must be part of it, but I did read something online that said the language used was part of it too. Grr, if only I could remember where I was given the link!

Cath

I think it's all summed up rather well in the film 'As Good as it Gets.'

On a visit to his publisher Jack Nicholson's character is asked by the receptionist how he writes women so well, and replies:

"I think of man, then take away reason and accountability."

He he!

(lots of smiley faces)

Harry

Run, Harry, run!!!

I haven’t read Memoirs of a Geisha. I adore Thomas Hardy but I’m not entirely convinced he got the female POV right. It’s so long since I read the others that I can’t remember what my impressions were on POV.

Most of the authors, novels, mentioned are from a much earlier period. What about today’s stuff? What about us? Unless we write from a single POV, we all cross the gap at times. How do we make the switch? I found it strangely difficult sometimes, while I was writing The Winter House, to get inside Georgia’s head, and yet the sections in Fynn’s POV came much more easily… I don’t understand why.

Sharon (eyeball) has written a novel entirely from a male POV and I think she does it brilliantly. Perhaps it’s because we like men, and make an effort to understand them… apart from Harry, of course… you’re dead, mate… LOL

Dee

Zadie Smith is a current writer who basically doesn't give a damn about whose POV she writes from!

Dee, I don't know the secret, but you seem to. When I first read Tot's Wake (I think it had another name then), from the start it was instantly male, without you needing to tell me... So after seeing this post I went for another read...to try to find parts that seemed 'un-male'. It was tough. The voice is very male. I tried to read it with a female voice and it didn't work. I found ONE thing that to me seemed feminine - Near the start "I point to the blood, now drying and stiff against my thighs" - Perhaps only me, but I would not have said 'thighs', I would just have said 'legs', or maybe 'top of my legs'. IS that a male thing? Or just me?

But that wasn't enough to break the male illusion. You did a fantastic job there... So you tell us what the secret is .

Derek.

Hi, not sure I can offer much on this but here's my 2 cents...

A male who writes good female POV is Douglas Kennedy in The Pursuit Of Happiness. I know i'm a fella but a couple of female friends said the novel was amazingly true to women. I can only agree and found it very helpful with my own writing.

I'm apparently good at the female POV and when my test readers (females, mostly) said how I mamaged it, I replied, 'I think both men and women are exactly the same in terms of mind structure, it's just a completely differing agenda.'

Different things matter to each sex and completely govern all behaviour. Sort of like old and young or different nationalities. (I feel a little bit patronising now, that's really not the intention.)

As for this blood on thighs business, I agree. A man wouldn't say that. He'd say lap or something. Apart from that, it sounds like you've already cracked it and suffering from a spot of harsh self critisism. I'll happily read a short you've done and offer my own opinion on this POV problem. And you can read something I've done so you can asses, 'is this guy talking through his ****?'

Hope that didn't bore you, good luck,
Al.

Didn't this come up in a forum before and someone put a link to an article about the specifics of how men and women write differently?

Are you thinking of the R4 Woman's Hour thing a while ago (before Christmas?) where they got a popular vote on books that changed attitudes towards women?

Jon

I don't know if it's just me, but I find that any character comes out false if you think about them too much, as in TRY to make them one thing or another. I wonder if the characters written by a writer of the opposite sex work when they just think about the character and don't work when they think 'now I have to write A WOMAN or A MAN'. I worry about getting things like physical sensation right if I'm writing male, but I don't tend to think too much about psychology, which is what we seem to be talking about here, because I think if you do, you end up with a stereotype.

William Gibson (my fave) writes great women, I think.

Oh, and thanks for the compliment, Dee

Sharon

I'm with eyeball; forget the gender, just think about the person, their life, their daily geography and topography and most importantly, I think, the way in which they are seen and treated by OTHER people - that's what defines us, really. I don't greatly go for gender definitions, and have a long-time prose work in progress in which the first person narrator's gender is never divulged - it's taking a long time!!!
Dee, I think Anthony Burgess did a great job in The Piano Player, which is narrated by a female character as she grows up through puberty, her first sexual experiences, and a fairly tough start to making her way in the world.
Peter Ackroyd has recently written a very convincing Mary Lamb in The Lambs Of London, which I recommend very highly.


Best,

Mike


P.S. To support my view, I found a lovely description of Hunter S. Thompson, by his partner, which he quotes at the end of Kingdom Of Fear; she says, "You have the soul of a teenage girl in the body of an aging dope fiend." (!!)