Female centric stories

[nice90sguy]

my sexuality is mostly about aching knees

Hah, never figured you for a fellow kneeler

 

[Voboy]

Unless you "achieve uptake" in at least some of your readers, you've failed as a storyteller. So it has to resonate, and the cry of "yeah, but that actually happened/it's how I see it" is no excuse. But "ya can't please everyone" IS okay.

“Please everyone” isn’t synonymous with “get it right,” in my mind.

“Get it right” relates to the characters, not the readers. The readers, as a mass, are unknowable. The characters, however, are eminently knowable, and nobody understands them like their writer.

 

[nice90sguy]

The movie "Peeping Tom" is a must-see for feminist film critics. Of all the sweeping statements about how men differ from women in their attitude to porn, Laura Mulvey's view accords with my own observations. No matter how "feminist" I might think I am (not particularly, in actual fact), this will always mark my "female-centric", female-empowered stories (often the MC is female) as written by a man.


My stories are always shot from below.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I have no idea what a hard-on feels like. I have no idea what blue balls feel like. I have no idea what a male orgasm feels like. I have no idea what male gaze is.

Have you never talked to a man about such things? Watched them have sex? There's certainly no way to have avoided films and TV shot through a male gaze, assuming you're over 20.

Yes I can write a male centric story however I cannot write it from a male perspective because I am not a MALE!

I think you are using 'perspective' in a much narrower sense than most people do. It simply means trying to write from that person's point of view.

Whether authors are necessarily good at it is another question, but it certainly can be done. Reading your posts just makes.me imagine school kids faced with GCSE English questions like "Write a speech to take place at the end of the events of The Merchant of Venice, from Antonio's perspective" and going "But sir, I can't write from his perspective, because I'm not a male in the 16th century who's Christian and in Venice..."

As Lawrence Olivier said to Dustin Hoffman, "My dear boy, have you tried acting?"

Congratulations to you as well for pretending you understand and experience everything about being a female. Take your well-deserved bows as well, unless you are experiencing menstrual cramps.

Are you seriously saying that anyone who hasn't had period pains can't understand being female? Because that's about half the female population you're writing off there.

Seriously, I've read enough stories by men describing how they feel when they are desperate to nut. If I copy those descriptions, in what way is my male narrator, saying the same things, not from a male perspective?

 

[Annabelle1990]

I just submitted part one of my next story!

 

[Voboy]

Have you never talked to a man about such things? Watched them have sex? There's certainly no way to have avoided films and TV shot through a male gaze, assuming you're over 20.

I think you are using 'perspective' in a much narrower sense than most people do. It simply means trying to write from that person's point of view.

Whether authors are necessarily good at it is another question, but it certainly can be done. Reading your posts just makes.me imagine school kids faced with GCSE English questions like "Write a speech to take place at the end of the events of The Merchant of Venice, from Antonio's perspective" and going "But sir, I can't write from his perspective, because I'm not a male in the 16th century whose Christian and in Venice..."

As Lawrence Olivier said to Dustin Hoffman, "My dear boy, have you tried acting?"


Are you seriously saying that anyone who hasn't had period pains can't understand being female? Because that's about half the female population you're writing off there.

Seriously, I've read enough stories by men describing how they feel when they are desperate to nut. If I copy those descriptions, in what way is my male narrator, saying the same things, not from a male perspective?

This. All of it.

Any good writer can take the perspective of someone who's different from them. That's why it's called "CREATIVE writing."

I cannot comprehend the narrow attitudes of some of our members whenever this topic arises. It just makes no sense to me. It's as if they've never experienced imagination before, which stuns me.

 

[SimonDoom]

The whole point of publishing stories (or any art and communication in general) is to share. Unless you "achieve uptake" in at least some of your readers, you've failed as a storyteller. So it has to resonate, and the cry of "yeah, but that actually happened/it's how I see it" is no excuse. But "ya can't please everyone" IS okay.

I generally agree with the idea that writing is a communicative act, so it makes sense to be mindful of, and respectful to, the reader. I don't take the attitude, "It's my story so to hell with what anybody thinks of it." That philosophy doesn't make sense to me.

At the same time, it's essential to realize you can't please everybody, so you ALSO should not write with a primary purpose of ensuring that nobody dislikes your story. If it gets read by enough people, some will dislike it. In the case of an erotic story, especially, while some readers may appreciate your writing skill, some are bound to find it just doesn't tickle their erotic fancy. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. As a writer, you should press on, knowing this is true.

I agree, too, very strongly, with Voboy that imagination trumps experience in storytelling. I think anybody can write anything, and that they should feel free to. "Female-centric" is, at best, a very fuzzy idea. Anybody should feel free to try it if they want to.

I'd say many of my stories "lean" male-centric, but at the same time many of my stories have female protagonists and are told from the POV of the female character, and I've received praise for my stories from both male and female readers.

 

[StillStunned]

It also helps if you can draw on some experience that you *do* have, and give that a significant part in the story. To give an example from my own catalogue: Tammy, Jessica, Yuliya. I'm not a woman, I'm not lesbian, I'm not a massage therapist. But I went through some difficult times at school when people who I thought were my friends suddenly turned their backs on me and made me an outcast.

So in writing the story I could place myself in Jessica's position, and wonder how I'd react if I found myself in a situation to do one of those former friends a favour, or take advantage of them. That's where the real story lies. The sex - even though I believe it's a stroker - could be taken from any of a thousand stories. After all, most of us know what it's like to be aroused, and from their you can extrapolate. If you've given the characters enough sense of being real, the readers will go along with it.

Similarly, I'm not a troll but I am an introvert. I'm not a stalker but I've had a few illicit glimpses of people through a window. I'm not a rich former pop star, but I know how it feels when a sexy redhead enters your life and takes control.

These are things that a writer might have in common with their character and that make them feel authentic, despite the differences.

 

[Duil2]

This. All of it.

Any good writer can take the perspective of someone who's different from them. That's why it's called "CREATIVE writing."

I cannot comprehend the narrow attitudes of some of our members whenever this topic arises. It just makes no sense to me. It's as if they've never experienced imagination before, which stuns me.

There is also the concept of 'applied knowledge'. I have not ( I swear your honour) ever murdered anyone and so theoretically I cannot know what it would be like to want to murder someone, right? Well I remember being shown quite clearly how you could use an experience you have had, and apply the knowledge and emotions to an experience you've never had.
e.g.
I'm sitting in a room reading and a loud buzzing insect flies by. It's buzzing is annoying. It's buzzing is so annoying that I become angry. I don't want to open windows or I'll let more bugs in and so I shut the door and decide to try to kill the fly. After all it's only a fly. Not consequential. My comfort and relaxation is more important than the fly's life. I plan how I'm going to kill the fly with cold distance, totally dispassionate about the fact that I am about to extinguish a life. I roll up a magazine. I listen for the fly. When I spot the fly I follow it until it lands on a flat surface. I swing and hit the wall. Bam! I check the wall. The traces of fly are mashed into the wall. I get a tissue to dispose of the corpse. I settle back to reading my book, happy that my life is back to normal. I am a murderer but I don't care.

Can I apply this to a story? Of course. The fly becomes another human being. The annoyance at buzzing becomes a rationale in the murderer's head that justifies the death of the other human. The rolled magazine becomes an appropriate murder weapon. The murderer kills the other human, just like I did with the fly. They dispose of the body and congratulate themselves for a job well done.

If as the author I've been able to tap into the emotions I felt or didn't feel as I swatted that fly I can likely make the thoughts/emotions and motivations of the murder believable. That is where the skill of the author comes into play.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Good authors are sponges. They observe and they absorb. Good authors have empathy. They can put themselves in the shoes of another person. Good authors research. They look for articles on experiences they are unfamiliar with, or other stories. Good authors know humanity transcends gender, or skin-color, or age, or country, or culture. Good authors have respect. They take the time to try to make their characters real. Good authors have imagination. They can conceive of things that they haven’t experienced themselves. Good authors can write pretty much anything.

Note: I edited my ‘stump speech’ to add the line about respect.

 

[SimonDoom]

It also helps if you can draw on some experience that you *do* have, and give that a significant part in the story.

Totally agree. To me, the adage "Write what you know" should be seen as enabling, not disabling. It doesn't mean you should write only what you know. That would be no fun, and it does not accurately describe how writers have been doing things for as long as stories have been told. But bring your own experience to your stories, even if those experiences seemingly have little to do with the plot or setting of your stories.

 

[Annabelle1990]

Good authors are sponges. They observe and they absorb. Good authors have empathy. They can put themselves in the shoes of another person. Good authors research. They look for articles on experiences they are unfamiliar with, or other stories. Good authors know humanity transcends gender, or skin-color, or age, or country, or culture. Good authors have imagination. They can conceive of things that they haven’t experienced themselves. Good authors can write pretty much anything.

That must be what separates real authors from amateurs. I am very much an amateur. I have empathy but it is hard getting into the shoes of someone else experiencing something I have not!

 

[EmilyMiller]

That must be what separates real authors from amateurs. I am very much an amateur. I have empathy but it is hard getting into the shoes of someone else experiencing something I have not!

I don’t know that I’m a real author. I’m an enthusiastic hack with no formal training who’s trying to improve. But one way to improve is trying to write perspectives other than my own. I of course get things wrong, but the missteps can be addressed next time and doing difficult things poorly is the only way to get to doing difficult things well.

 

[Annabelle1990]

I think what SmilingLez refers to is that, despite the best pov writing, with sensitive empathy, research and plot, there may still be those ‘gotcha’s’ when a male writer might wrongly describe how an article of clothing is adjusted, or how a woman might feel in a given situation.

So I agree with SmilingLez - we can’t fully appreciate the nuances of the other gender anymore than we can correctly describe the feelings another person, with all the unique life experience they've acquired. But if we go to a theatre to watch a play, we accept it is not real - it’s for entertainment. The format of a play and an erotic story are not so very different in that respect.

Exactly.

 

[FrancesScott]

I’ve written a story where the alternating narrators are a heavily pregnant sex worker and an older male client. I’ve never been any of pregnant, a sex worker, or an older male client.

Then there are limits. The connective tissue of my Community Pool anthology series is a black, orphaned, lesbian science teacher / aquatics director. Yes she makes a joke of that collection of adjectives with another character (I can lampshade with the best).

I’m not black, and I was concerned about authenticity. A black friend suggested I make her adopted by a white couple, which worked story wise, and gave me a bit of an excuse for anything that didn’t ring true from a black perspective. She even refers to feeling she is an in between person, neither one thing nor another. Maybe it’s cheating, but it seemed to work.

I have another character in the same series who is deaf. She’s never been a narrator, but I did my best to research ASL and deaf culture to try to make her both a positive and believable character. I’m not deaf if that wasn’t obvious.

But, I’m now actively considering writing a story with her as the FP narrator. This is risky and gets to the heart of this thread. I will probably get things wrong, but I’m trying to read blogs written by deaf people, especially deaf women. And I’m trying to seek out deaf authors. I want to immerse myself before attempting to do her - and the deaf community - justice.

 

[Voboy]

we can’t fully appreciate the nuances of the other gender anymore than we can correctly describe the feelings another person, with all the unique life experience they've acquired.

With respect, I don't believe "the nuances of the other gender" are in any way monolithic.

I am a person, and I have nuance. So do all the rest of us. Those nuances transcend gender, and everything I've ever experienced, everyone I've ever met, all the people I've ever loved, all the stories I've ever read, my own children (whose development has fascinated me)... everything in my life tells me that every person is different. Not every man, not every woman, but every person.

Nuance is everywhere, and it's what makes characters fun to write. I don't know that I can fully appreciate what it's like to be a woman, but I'm just as clueless when I try to appreciate what it's like to be any other man. Other men do not experience the world like I do simply because both they and I have a penis. That strikes me as silly.

 

[Duil2]

For me it boils down to this.
We all can write whatever we choose.
To my mind then there are two factors that will dictate whether what we write is 'good'/'right' or not (it'll never be perfect).
1. Talent as a writer
2. How much effort we are prepared to put in to get it as close to 'right' or 'good' as possible.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Good authors are sponges. They observe and they absorb. Good authors have empathy. They can put themselves in the shoes of another person. Good authors research. They look for articles on experiences they are unfamiliar with, or other stories. Good authors know humanity transcends gender, or skin-color, or age, or country, or culture. Good authors have respect. They take the time to try to make their characters real. Good authors have imagination. They can conceive of things that they haven’t experienced themselves. Good authors can write pretty much anything.

Note: I edited my ‘stump speech’ to add the line about respect.

You know my prime advice for writers: cultivate compassion.

I think that applies here.

 

[lovecraft68]

One thing my mind keeps circling back on is while we discuss this as authors and from that perspective, who are we writing for?

And for those saying "Ourselves" try again, we might in the sense of writing what we want over what 'works' but if we're here, we're posting stories in hopes readers, at least some, enjoy them. We are writing for an audience

Taking that into consideration, how much do readers care?

If an author writes in the opposite gender do we think the readers are closely monitoring it? I don't feel they do. I don't feel the average reader will mid story stop and say "A woman would not say that, she'd never wear, or no guy would..." I think unless something is so glaring its like a written form of a jarring pothole, they take the story and character at face value and as long as the story in entertaining, interesting, hot, whatever if they like it, they like it, and if they don't its usually for another reason.

I've been writing female POV here for 16 years and in all that time I have received one comment that said, "A woman like that would never be so crude, you need to get better at writing women." Now, I'd say its great he knows every woman in the world and none of them are ever crude, but main point is, that's the only time I've gotten that criticism. That's not to say some other readers didn't think it and just not say it, but there's no way to know.

I have three lesbian stories I wrote a long time ago that I will be the first to say come across like a guy writing lesbian encounters but they rank #11/27/54 on the all time most faved stories in that category. Which doesn't mean I nailed the POV as much as it indicates people don't pay much attention of don't care as long as they liked the story itself.

So as this is argued on at not just the level of the author side of things, but personal opinions, I just wonder other than 'being right' does this topic matter that much to the audience its written for?

 

[EmilyMiller]

With respect, I don't believe "the nuances of the other gender" are in any way monolithic.

I am a person, and I have nuance. So do all the rest of us. Those nuances transcend gender, and everything I've ever experienced, everyone I've ever met, all the people I've ever loved, all the stories I've ever read, my own children (whose development has fascinated me)... everything in my life tells me that every person is different. Not every man, not every woman, but every person.

Nuance is everywhere, and it's what makes characters fun to write. I don't know that I can fully appreciate what it's like to be a woman, but I'm just as clueless when I try to appreciate what it's like to be any other man. Other men do not experience the world like I do simply because both they and I have a penis. That strikes me as silly.

Where is the button for voting 5️s?

 

[Duil2]

I can only speak personally from when I'm reading on the site.

No, it's not something that I'd be overly worried about if I'm enjoying the story.
I agree that if I'm not enjoying it, it's likely for other reasons, some rather petty like repeated words or bad grammar etc.

If something really jumps out at me where I think 'that would be odd for a woman/man to do/say' I'll either discount it as the author's choice for that particular character or I might think 'I bet the author's a man/woman or whatever the case may be'
So while as a writer I might take the time to try to give my reader the best experience I don't think they are on the other end applauding me for that specifically but rather giving me a general, 'liked it', or 'didn't like it' for a myriad of reasons.

 

[Voboy]

I can only speak personally from when I'm reading on the site.

No, it's not something that I'd be overly worried about if I'm enjoying the story.
I agree that if I'm not enjoying it, it's likely for other reasons, some rather petty like repeated words or bad grammar etc.

If something really jumps out at me where I think 'that would be odd for a woman/man to do/say' I'll either discount it as the author's choice for that particular character or I might think 'I bet the author's a man/woman or whatever the case may be'
So while as a writer I might take the time to try to give my reader the best experience I don't think they are on the other end applauding me for that specifically but rather giving me a general, 'liked it', or 'didn't like it' for a myriad of reasons.

I definitely do notice when clothing is wrong, though. That aspect does make some sense: I've never worn a bra, for example.

But I know women, so I understand bras. I've heard them complain about fit, and about underwires poking through. I've heard their lamentations about how expensive they are. I've seen that often, when they get up after sitting for awhile, they have to do this little shimmying adjustment where they settle their boobs into the cups. I've seen sportsbras at the gym with a dizzying array of support straps.

So. I can easily include all those things into my stories, and I have. It's not rocket science. Do I know what it feels like to do that little shimmying adjustment? Nope, but I've adjusted my balls before, or shifted my boxers around my ass when things aren't sitting right, and how different can it really be?

This isn't all that difficult. As others have said, you just watch people, talk to people, and do some research if necessary. Then imagine from there. It'll be fine.

 

[StillStunned]

So while as a writer I might take the time to try to give my reader the best experience I don't think they are on the other end applauding me for that specifically but rather giving me a general, 'liked it', or 'didn't like it' for a myriad of reasons.

As a writer, I'd feel I was cheating myself if I tried anything less than my best. Of course it's wonderful if readers appreciate it, and awful if they don't, but for me the whole point of writing is to do the best job I can.

I write stories I'd want to read, and when I read them back, I don't want to feel that the writer half-arsed it. I want to be swept away into a different world, and I don't want to see any holes in the tapestry that makes up that world.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I'm a bit late to the party, but I'll offer my somewhat ambivalent view.

While I'm not a woman, I'm exposed to their behavior daily, like everyone else. I've had thousands of opportunities to see, to observe, to read their behavior in many situations, and to imagine their thoughts, reactions, and emotional processes. It's fair to say that a relatively perceptive person can learn a lot from all that experience.

Will my women be absolutely authentic? Of course not. But if I write them well, they can be believable enough, real enough. And that's all that matters.

On the other hand, I remember a thread in the Story Feedback forum a few years ago, started by a female author. It was about her story that featured a young male character. That character was a young guy who had been talking to a high school (female) psychologist about his problem. And the problem was that girls objectified him because he had a large penis. He was all sad and broken about it.

Anyway, my comment was that guys don't act like that. A realistic guy, especially a young guy, would embrace the objectification, pumping his fists in triumph. He wouldn't be all broken about it and pouring his heart out to a psychologist. I remember the author being somewhat offended at my criticism and saying, "Well, MY guys do act like that!"

Looking back at it, I'd say that both of us were right. I think I was right that most guys would never behave like that. And she was also right in saying that some guy could realistically behave like that.

And from this perspective, I'd say that I was mostly criticizing the lack of character background and development in her story. There was no compelling reason offered for her young guy behaving in such an uncharacteristic way.

If we write very atypical characters of either gender, we should build them up properly and offer at least some reasons for their atypical behavior. It doesn't have to be anything spectacular; it just needs to be enough not to stretch our disbelief too much.

 

[EmilyMiller]

From an Atlantic article (about Nolan casting Nyong’o as Helen in The Odyssey):

Art’s great gift is to allow us to transcend divisions of language, color, and nation, even of time and place—to imagine ourselves in lives other than our own. I do not need to be Russian or to see myself physically mirrored in Ivan Karamazov to be transported to Dostoyevsky’s world. Indeed, I can identify with Ivan on a far deeper level than that of blood and skin, which “do not think,” as Ralph Ellison observed.