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Writing from the POV (point of view) of someone of the opposite gender can be challenging to do realistically, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. If you’re a girl, writing from a girl’s perspective will naturally come easier simply because girls know how girls think. And vice versa for dudes. However, sometimes you don’t want to write from your gender’s POV. Some books just wouldn’t work with a female protagonist, and some wouldn’t work with a male protagonist.

 

Can a girl write from a guy’s POV? And, more to the point, can it be done well? Absolutely. Jill Williamson’s Mission League series, Gillian Bronte Adams’ Songkeeper Chronicles, Anne Elisabeth Stengl’s Tales of Goldstone Wood, K.M. Weiland’s Storming—they’re all female authors, they all have guy POVs, and they’re all very well and realistically written.

Can a guy write from a girl’s POV? Ditto to above. Brandon Sanderson’s Edgedancer, Neal Shusterman’s Arc of a Scythe, Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series. Male authors, with unique and realistic girl characters.

 

I’m going to switch to talking about writing from a guy’s POV now simply because focusing only on one makes it less confusing. But for the guys here–it’s exactly the same for you, just switch the genders around. 😛

 

Let’s take a look at some ways to write a guy narrator/main character if you’re not a guy yourself.

 

Ask the guys in your life for tips
Your dad, brother, friend, friend’s brother—whoever it happens to be. You can ask them questions of how they’d react if they were in such-and-such a situation. What do they think when faced with a tough choice? What does getting stressed look like for them?

Don’t be shy to ask. It might feel weird to ask your dad what he’d do if he was trapped in an elevator that was stuck halfway up the shaft, but in the long run it’ll improve your story.

 

Read books by guys or books with realistic guy POVs
The list I gave at the beginning is a good example. There are plenty of books that have good guy POVs. Other good books actually by guys aren’t very hard to find either. (Feel free to ask if you want recommendations.) Reading is incredibly important to both keep your creative brain in good condition and to learn from other peoples’ work.

 

Get a guy friend to read through your story
It doesn’t even matter if they’ve never done critique reading before. Just ask them to read through it and tell you any parts where you didn’t get it quite right. It’s immensely helpful to have an actual guy’s perspective.

And if you absolutely don’t have any guys in your life who can/will do this, then hunt up a writer friend who has written guy characters before and get their view. It won’t be as good, but it’s still better than nothing. They’ll have experience in writing a guy’s POV, and maybe have spoken to a guy about it themselves as well.

I started off my writing career with a girl main character but after my first novel, I switched to a guy narrator (because guys are much easier to realistically write in a sci fi action novel). These days I’m actually more confident writing a guy character than I am writing girls, simply because I’ve had more practice with guys.

 

Common problem with guy characters by a girl author: don’t assume that guys don’t have emotions, they do, but they’re shown in different ways.

Common problem with girl characters by a guy author: ‘Tomboys’ and ‘girly-girls’ don’t exist, most girls are in the middle with a different mix of each side.

 

 

Though it can be a challenge to start off with, it can still be fun and easier to work with a different gender POV character overall. e.g. if you’re writing a sci fi action novel like I was, it’s really hard to have a realistic female character doing all these action scenes, but doing it with a guy makes much more sense (unless the girl is basically Black Widow).

Help out your fellow writers if they want help with their girl/guy characters! And don’t forget to ask for help if you’re writing from the opposite gender’s POV. It’ll be worthwhile.

 

Have you tried writing from the opposite gender’s POV? What’s a struggle you have when writing those characters? If you have any specific questions, ask them! We’ve got a great mix of guys and girls here and we can all help each other out. What’s something that you notice guys get wrong about girls in novels, and vice versa? Do you have any advice to give to fellow authors when writing from your gender?

Let’s make this thread as useful as possible! If someone asks a question, I don’t have to be the one to answer. We can all pitch in and learn from each other!

 

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