A guide full of tips and tricks that hopefully doesn't recount the same old stuff in every other writing book under the sun, Wattpad and published alike. Covering everything from helpful resources like Susanna's Pacemaker to treating setting like ch...
And here is where I discuss 'how to write in the opposite POV!' I will say this right now: these are my least favourite kinds of blog posts and how-tos ever. I abhor them. For many reasons. For one, half of them are male guest bloggers who in the end complain about idealized romance heroes with Fabio hair that are chiseled from marble while being soft and vulnerable. Ya know, as if perfect hourglass figures of women don't dominate every other form of media out there. I hate their psycho-analysis of the differences between men and women. Men always want to impress women. Women need to be 'strong female characters'. I hate their pompous tone. I hate them. And here I am writing a chapter on POVs and gender.
The perspective on the difference from male and female POV is a little like how the world looks at people. The perception of gender is such a fragile thing. A little girl gets her hair cut short and PTA moms criticize 'how could you let your daughter look like a little boy!'. The things that make people jump to conclusions are superficial indicators. Short hair, make-up, eyebrows, jewelry, the cut of clothes. This isn't anything I need to tell you. You see it every day.
I think the same applies for writing. Write a sensitive boy. A headstrong girl. Everything in between. All people are capable of a wealth of dispositions and emotions. The deep core stuff is so similar.
And that is why I'm going to focus on some tips that might be useful in developing a voice for different genders, especially for writers out there who might be juggling multiple POVs in their work.
If this isn't a trick that is useful to you, that's fine. You're not obligated to use every tip in every writing book ever. You don't even need to tell me it doesn't work for you. That would be even more fine.
The Gender Genie
The Gender Genie used to be a web app that allowed you to copy and paste in an excerpt and it would guess based on particular words whether the author was male or female. I believe the original site was trained on blog posts and made an analysis on words that appeared more frequently depending on the blog authors. It wasn't necessarily made for the purposes I used it for, but I found it an interesting challenge to analyze word choice.
While writing the POV of a deeply introverted 16-year-old boy, I ran every chapter through the Genie in the aim of getting a consistent voice. Eventually, I didn't need the Genie's help and created a style different from my other characters. And I know it was effective from a reader stand-point because, as I was coming off that project with Tim's voice fresh on my fingertips, I started writing Natalie's Diary. In the first few chapters, before the reader really gets to know Jane, someone commented that they thought the MC was a boy for a portion of the first chapter, when I hadn't quite gotten Jane's voice and it was still all Tim in my head.
The Gender Genie no longer exists. I've seen some similar applications, but none are as good, or they don't explain their process. However, there are still screencaps of the Gender Genie's critieria.
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