First Person Novel By Writer Of Opposite Sex

patrick bateman · Jun 12, 2008

I think every first person novel I've read has been courtesy of a writer of the same sex. I'm toying with first person in my next novel and am deciding whether to make the MC male or female. Would a first person story about a young woman cause confusion if it the writer was a man? Would the reader automatically assume the first person character is the same and either think "what does he know?" or get annoyed because they assumed the MC was male?

Gillhoughly · Jun 12, 2008

Would a first person story about a young woman cause confusion if it the writer was a man?

Ian Fleming got away with it.

Just write well. Make sure you have female beta readers.

Good luck!

One Fell Swoop · Jun 12, 2008

From what I've gathered, the average reader tends to assume that the author is the speaker in a written piece, but I've trained myself not to do so because that's not always the case. Personally, I see no problem with writing from the POV of the opposite sex. I'm a girl, and I wrote a short story from the POV of a male that won in a national contest; evidently, there are at least a handful of people that find nothing wrong with it.

I think that as long as you can get inside your character's skin and portray him/her realistically based on his/her gender, then there shouldn't be a problem. You'll just need to give your reader clues early on in the novel (or later on, depending on if you're going for a "surprise" effect) about the gender of your MC.

Hollan · Jun 12, 2008

Not a problem. Writers do it all the time. My WIP is in 1st person w/ a male MC, and I'm a female. Hell, people write books from the POV of animals, and I don't think the writers of those books are mice, cats or any other animals ^_^

JoNightshade · Jun 12, 2008

First-person novels are just less common in general, but lots and lots of third-person stories are written from the point of view of the opposite sex. I don't think it's a big deal.

Shady Lane · Jun 12, 2008

I always write in first person, always from the point of view of a guy. I'm decidedly female and not a tomboy at all. This is just how it happened.

It's totally completely possible.

Kalyke · Jun 12, 2008

I don't think it matters.

maestrowork · Jun 12, 2008

Many authors have done well. Arthur Golden with Memoirs of a Geisha. Nick Hornby with How to Be Good. As long as it's well written, I don't think the readers care.

KTC · Jun 13, 2008

Look harder. There are lots of opposite sex first persons. Convincing opposite sex first persons, too.

JimmyB27 · Jun 13, 2008

One of my favourite series is the Farseer saga by Robin Hobb. Her main character is a man, and I assumed she was for a long time (Robin is more commonly a man's name in the UK).

Phaeal · Jun 13, 2008

One of the many bits of wisdom that Buddy Glass imparts to younger brother Zooey in a long and well-read letter (badly paraphrased below):

We need to unlearn the illusory differences between light and dark, hot and cold, male and female...

But since you have to create an illusion in fiction, keep your eyes open and observe both sexes, day and night, every day and every night. To be a great writer, you don't need to love or respect people, but you'd better understand them.

lawtowriting · Jun 13, 2008

I always find it interesting reading first person female voices from male writers who initially gained their fame from writing male characters. For example: reading How to be Good after High Fidelity, Story of My Life after Bright Lights Big City, etc.

ChaosTitan · Jun 13, 2008

I'm female. The first novel I wrote was first-person, male MC. One of my current WIP's is two first-person male MC's (and teenagers, to boot!).

patrick bateman · Jun 13, 2008

Gillhoughly said:
Ian Fleming got away with it.

Just write well. Make sure you have female beta readers.

Good luck!

I used to write scripts and they usually had female leads and the women who read the scripts always said how good I was at writing women. My first three agents were women too. So I know I can write women. I just wonder if a first person novel by someone of the opposite sex would cause initial confusion in the reader who would probably automatically assume the first person character is of the same sex as the author.

patrick bateman · Jun 13, 2008

One Fell Swoop said:
From what I've gathered, the average reader tends to assume that the author is the speaker in a written piece

I always tend to as well. Now I'm going to have to go through my book shelves and check whether the first person novels are written by writers of the same sex as their MC.

I guess I'll have to make a real effort to insert clues as to the MC's gender very early on so the reader isn't confused.

patrick bateman · Jun 13, 2008

Hollan said:
Not a problem. Writers do it all the time. My WIP is in 1st person w/ a male MC, and I'm a female. Hell, people write books from the POV of animals, and I don't think the writers of those books are mice, cats or any other animals ^_^

Good point.

patrick bateman · Jun 13, 2008

Thanks for the responses, everyone. As I said, I usually wrote female leads in scripts and the response to those from women were very positive so I think I'll have a female lead for this new novel and write it in first person as I did my previous one (that had a male lead though).

vixey · Jun 13, 2008

Anita Shreve wrote A Wedding in December from a male POV (not sure if it was 1st person or 3rd) and she did an amazing job of pulling out all the other characters sentiments. Actually, because we heard his thoughts about a main female character, it was almost difficult to determine who was the protagonist.

IceCreamEmpress · Jun 13, 2008

I Am Mary Dunne by Brian Moore is an amazing first-person novel from an opposite-gender perspective.

And Emily Albert certainly made lots of very sophisticated writers, editors, and publishers believe in the first-person reality of "JT Leroy".

patrick bateman · Jun 13, 2008

JT Leroy had a lot of people fooled. Except Robin Wright Penn. From what I recall, the person who used to "play" JT at events, arrived at some party that was being held in "his" honor and Robin straight away figured something wasn't right and slammed the person against the wall and asked "Who are you?" When I heard that, it was before the revelation broke so Robin came off like a nutcase but, now that I think about it, her reaction kind of makes sense. So many in the so-called cool group were totally enamored of this character and she was one of the few to notice something wasn't right.

Mythica · Jun 13, 2008

My first novel is a first person narrative by a girl, but the second book in the series is a third person mostly seen from a guy's POV. I actually found writing from a guy's perspective to be much easier, even though I'm a girl. Boys are very simple

Chicks over analyze everything, so they are a lot harder to have narrate.

amber_grosjean · Jun 13, 2008

My second book was written with a male POV. It was originally done with one male and one female but my publisher felt it was better with the just one. Now I agree seeing the final product. Its erotica so it was hard at times but I pulled it off I think.

The gender of the author really doesn't matter. Some authors use a name from the oppisite gender as their pen names so reallly, no one pays any attention. I don't, not really. Like everyone said here, as long as the book is witten well than that is all the reader is going to care about.

Amber

Manderley · Jun 14, 2008

"The Secret History" by Donna Tartt is told from a male first person viewpoint. However, I do remember being a bit 'gender confused' in the start of the novel, so it might be an idea to thoroughly establish the gender of the MC early on.

qwerty · Jun 14, 2008

At one time, Emma Blair was a popular writer of women's fiction in UK. I tried reading one of "her" books and discarded it because the characters didn't come across as real people.

I later discovered that Emma is a six-foot-something Glaswegain man, which could have been an explanation of why the female MC seemed hollow, but didn't explain why the male characters didn't work for me either.

So, I reckon it's not a case of the gender of the writer, but whether or not that writer writes well. I write from both perspectives, and I believe a writer needs to be able to capture both male and female voices.

Elodie-Caroline · Jun 14, 2008

I can't remember whether it was in first of third, but Gustave Flaubert did perfectly all right with it in, 'Madame Bovary.'

Elodie

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