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That is an interesting problem. (I’m a girl, though…*headscratch*) I think it has to do with the form of appeal. The gal who wants everyone to get along will appeal to emotion and spend a lot of time talking about common goals. The guy is more likely to storm off and [i]show[/i] everyone why they should work together by attempting to fight a small class evil bad guy to show that the team should focus on what he wants. Show versus talk.

Girls tend to want to cater to every viewpoint and build a suitable compromise so everyone is happy. Guys tend to want to get everyone on board with [i]their[/i] plan, [i]their[/i] vision. They like to show off their skills and abilities and strut their stuff, rather than the feminine instinct of wanting to support and nurture other people’s talents. The gal version of getting along is compromise among interests and consensus and willing to sacrifice your interest for the good of the group; the guy version of getting along is “everyone agrees with me.” 😀

This is coming from a girl who has spent far too much time observing guys for precisely the reasons this topic outlines…

The other “scientific” thing I’ve heard about guys is that they can spend days in either their left or right brains, whereas women easily switch between the two within minutes. For reference, the left brain is mathematical, logical, and puts things in order and makes sense of stuff, while the right brain is more creative, interconnected, and emotional.

How does this play out in the story? Let’s say that you protagonist is fighting an evil bad guy and one of his friends gets injured. A male protagonist would be in left-brain mode because he is fighting the evil bad guy, so he would ignore the emotional impact of what happened to his friend and continue the fight and win. After the fight, he would take his friend for medical care (again, still logical) and see to the treatment. But it will take hours for the emotional impact of the injury to sink in. If another evil bad guy needs to be faught in short order, the guy will go straight back into battle.

By contrast, a female protagonist in the same situation will have the emotional impact of the injury will sink in immediately, and they might even mess up the fight with the evil bad guy as a result of the distraction. The fight will be much harder for the female protagonist to win, and even if they do win, they won’t feel good about it because of the emotional cost, because in their mind beating Snorgface wasn’t worth it if their friend’s arm got amputated. After the fight, they will be beside themselves with grief and crying with their friend. Okay, that might be slightly exaggerated, but you get the point.

Contrast another type of story – let’s say that a couple just had a baby. The guy in the situation will be in right-brain mode ready to hug and protect his little child, and more likely to make mistakes in battle – or in work – and cheerfully write them off or make man-excuses because he’s on cloud nine. Aww.

The woman in the situation will register the emotional impact of the situation too, but she will be immediately able to be more practical about the matter. She will be into the logical aspects of caring for the new child – do we have the right brand of sippy cups? Do we have enough diapers? Unlike her husband who is enjoying himself and being a goofball, she’s on top of the emotionally loaded situation and making sure the family infrastructure doesn’t collapse.

Thus, for the female writer writing male characters, it’s important to know which side of the brain your male character is in, and keep him there for long sections of prose. Unlike your female characters who will instantly register all of the logical and emotional things and all of connections between the two within minutes, your guy will enter the logical realm…and stay there…and enter the creative/emotional realm…and stay there. Make no mistake – they perceive both realms in detail, and sometimes in more detail than their female counterparts due to all of the hopping and switching we do, but it takes them longer to make the switch and understand the connection between the spaces. As a result, they may feel that their identity is fragmented into separate people and roles and that they don’t understand themselves as a result, an almost uniquely male thing.

It’s also why a man fighting alone versus a man fighting with his son is very different in text…anyway, I’ll knock this off since I’m not a guy. But I’ve found this writing advice to be extremely helpful in writing realistic male characters – it’s kind of like what @karthmin said, but maybe a bit more practical.

(I also found all of the other advice in this topic to be helpful, gentlemen. Thank you for your contributions. :D)