Classic Blunders and how to easily spot a female author writing a male charater

[The Deposed King]

-Deleted-

[Galvatron]

I always thought the first classic blunder was getting involved in a land war in Asia =P

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

1) A man will almost never describe himself or another man as 'pretty, beautiful or gorgeous' its just not done... and by that I mean unless he's gay or works in some kind of field I'm unaware of that requires such lingo.  Hot is also extremely questionable, unless he's bragging about himself to a woman and he's low on the class radar.
   a: Exception - may describe a 'gay' character as pretty or beautiful with varying levels of snorting, sarcasm or scorn.
   b: FYI For female authors - Handsome (or good looking) is the approved descriptor, when a man would describe himself or other men, its doubtful a man would verbalize, even in the privacy of his own head either his or the other guy's level of attractiveness to the extent most female authors go to.  He might focusing instead on his winning features such as body shape, muscle mass, height, or detractive features such as a scar or broken nose possibly describing it as a face that only a mother could love.  Possibly he might even remark how he seemed to have the kind of features that attracted the opposite sex.

This is a very culture-specific, setting-specific and time-specific thing.  If you're writing about a culture or setting other than the ones you grew up in or the one you currently live in, research whether it's different.  Particularly with reference to the inherent attitude to homosexuality implied by your exception a; ask me to believe that in a novel about Spartans and I will point at you and laugh unkindly.

I also suspect that if you think female authors are overly focused on descriping their characters in terms of physical attractiveness, you are reading a narrower range of them than I am.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I always thought the first classic blunder was getting involved in a land war in Asia =P

Unless your name is Alexander or Genghis, yes.

[LizW65]

I always thought the first classic blunder was getting involved in a land war in Asia =P

Or going up against a Sicilian when death is on the line. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha h-

FWIW, I recall reading years ago--probably in the Seventies--that a male writer will always forget to have his female character complain about her feet, and a woman will forget to have a man shave. (As for the physical descriptors in the OP, I suspect the book's target audience is the primary influence rather than the sex of the author.)

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Here are two that from my experience, North American writers writing things set in Europe and particularly Britain pretty much always get wrong:

A hundred miles. It's a long way. A really long way.  Psychologically a long way.  It may only take a couple of hours, but for a contemporary European, or even more so a nineteenth century European, just because you could theoretically do it and back in a day does not at all mean you are likely to or will.

On the other hand, a hundred years ? Is a short time. North Americans have lots of unoccupied space between stuff.  In Europe it's to a first approximation all stuff.  We live among it.  It's not noteworthy to live in a 150-year-old house or to have a thousand-year-old wall still just being a wall at one side of a car park.  Anything in the past thousand years isn't history yet, it's current affairs that aren't finished working out.

[Shecky]

Very recently, a select group of fantasy authors anonymously submitted short pieces for a test: a bank of readers were supposed to decide based on the writing whether the author was male or female. Result? The guesses were only as accurate as a random choice between A or B. Random, people.

[Gilitine_Memitim]

There is what is considered to be a feminine way of writing and a masculine way of writing even outside of even word choice. There's grammar and sentence structure too. But some men do write what might be considered femininely and some females do write what may be considered in a masculine fashion.

[Shecky]

There is what is considered to be a feminine way of writing and a masculine way of writing even outside of even word choice. There's grammar and sentence structure too. But some men do write what might be considered femininely and some females do write what may be considered in a masculine fashion.

I think this is more a function of genre standards + assumptions than of an actual gender-related style.

[Shecky]

This is pushing uncomfortably close to a discussion of sexism, and as such is edging into Touchy Topics. Probably best to steer away unless there is a good purpose in bringing it up.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Very recently, a select group of fantasy authors anonymously submitted short pieces for a test: a bank of readers were supposed to decide based on the writing whether the author was male or female. Result? The guesses were only as accurate as a random choice between A or B. Random, people.

Indeed, IME of about a decade of gender-obscuring online, people going solely my prose style have come up pleasing near to 50/50 on their guesses.

[LizW65]

And there's this:
http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.php
It's a load of crap (it guessed Jim as female and me as male and European the last time I tried it out) but it's kind of fun.

[Shecky]

There is no longer a Touchy Topics subforum, so I can't advise to move it there, and simply moving it behind a spoiler tag doesn't change it from being in the Touchy Topics field. It might have been better to make the opening post broader, such as "Make sure the character's dialogue and internal monologue are consistent with his/her situation", without referring to broad stereotypes. But the moment for that is past, so all that's left is either 1) to drop the subject entirely or 2) be very, very careful with how it develops. You have to admit that stating openly that character X is poorly written because "I've never heard a man/woman talk that way" looks and quacks a lot like sexism. I can't think that it was your intent, but since gender roles are a hot-button issue for a number of forumgoers here (not to mention people in general), that button can get inadvertently pressed awfully easily.

... which is part of the reason Touchy Topics were defined and placed off-limits here in the first place: too often, those hot buttons got pressed and people had powerful emotional reactions that led to completely avoidable dust-ups. Deliberate or otherwise, it really doesn't matter in the end—we've placed maintaining the peace in here in everyone's hands. So, you can certainly proceed if you wish, but please do be careful in guiding this thread's direction.

For what it's worth, words fundamentally do still mean what they mean once you strip a lot of stereotyped "conventions" from them. I'm a straight male, happy and completely at ease with it, yet I can see a guy like Matt Bomer and feel perfectly accurate and appropriate in describing him as "beautiful". Because, dammit, the jerk is. Makes me bullfrog-green with jealousy that some other guy can be that damned gorgeous while I got not one gene in that direction. XD In fact, the lingo you're describing as "not done" may simply belong to the also-stereotyped group of self-proclaimed "man's men", which is a fairly sexist direction to take right out of the gate, anyway.

So, to repeat, if you want to continue with this thread, it's certainly okay; just be aware how close the subject matter and the direction of the conversation are to the borders with TT, and self-monitor accordingly. Sound good?

[jeno]

For a counter example, doesn't Jim repeatedly have Harry call Thomas beautiful at points in the story?

Historically, it was very common for males to be described as beautiful (or the local language's equivalent thereof), particularly if the person in question was a youth or the setting was one in which the male form was accepted as the pinnacle of beauty.  (I'm looking at you, Greece).

Contemporary Renaissance era men (if they were lucky  ) would be described with having a 'long, shapely leg, shown to great advantage in their hose.' By other men. In Europe, before and after that time period, men's fashion was much more involved and complicated - moreso than women's, in fact, since a woman's fashion choices were limited not only by her social class, but by her marital status. Men wore heels. In ancient Egypt and Rome, they wore eye liner.

Heck, I know guys who wear eye liner now, though obviously this depends on a lot - frex, I would not see a factory worker in eye liner. I might very well see a punk rock musician in it, though.

But that's all just background stuff. At the end of the day, the author (male or female) probably uses the word 'beautiful' to describe a man because that is precisely the word they need to convey an aspect of that character. What cultural connotations are attached to the word depend on the setting. *shrug*