Quick sentences or clauses to let the reader know Brin is a girl.

Lakey · Jun 7, 2017

Bryn Mawr - my beloved alma mater.

I think it's pretty clear that the name rings differently to different people, so if getting across the character's gender in first person is important to you, you will have to make *her* think of it for some reason. A few thoughts that occur to me:

"I was never the kind of girl/woman who..."
"When I was a very little girl I..."
"Back in my Girl Scouts' troop..."
"Mr Snodgrass never gave me a chance to present to the class because he thought girls sucked at science."

Something like those last two might be useful for recounting the origins of her interest in plant biology.

I don't know what your setting is but there are lots of sex-segregated spaces and activities that she can simply remember at a relevant moment. Like:

"There was a stain on the floor in the girls' bathroom in my elementary school that looked like Boris Karloff. We were all afraid to be alone in there."
"I was the fastest swimmer on the girls' swim team in middle school."

Marlys · Jun 7, 2017

She's in the forest, right? Have her squat to pee. Or stop for a minute to deal with her period. Maybe even wonder if it's true that bears are attracted to menstrual blood (most aren't, but it seems the sort of thing a teen alone in the forest might worry about).

CJSimone · Jun 7, 2017

MaeZe said:
What if I said this, would it be enough?

In my world I stood up to them... like my mother did.

Or do I need to make it more clear than that?

There's actually a plot point much further on where her mother standing up to one man in particular had significance.

Like others have said, this wouldn't make the gender any clearer to me. A boy can also be doing something like his mother, and might identify with her characteristics and actions. In my WIP, the male MC has his mother's musical gifts and mental health issues, and identifies with / wants to more fully identify with his mother than his corrupt father (though fears he's corrupt like his father). You'd definitely need to be more specific.

Cyia · Jun 7, 2017

MaeZe said:
I could change the name, but she's real to me and Brin is her name. I named her Brin believing it to sound like a girl's name. Now I find out too many readers imagine Brin is a boy.

Brin / Bryn is very much a feminine name. Your readers may be misreading it as "Brian," which is more commonly male (unlike "Briony," which is most often female, and ironically, given your opening mention of the character's love of plants means "to sprout".)

(She's the proverbial 17 and very much interested in biology.)

I need a really short, quick way to hint my character is female, something not too intrusive as the chapter is already well developed.

A snarky aside works pretty well: Yes I'm 17 and playing in the dirt. Don't mess with Plant Girl! Unless you're the kind of person who likes thorns.

MaeZe · Jun 7, 2017

KiwiLady said:
This doesn't make her gender any clearer to me, as it could be a son talking about his mother. What about...In my world I stood up to them. Just like my mother had. The same way she'd told me I would when I was still too small to button my own dress.

That might still be a little vague. Or too assuming since anyone can wear a dress these days. So you could just go for....In my world I stood up to them. Just like my mother had. It was what she'd expected of her daughter, and I was happy to oblige.

I like that!

MaeZe · Jun 7, 2017

Bacchus said:
In the UK Bryn/Brin would almost certainly be read as male, in part due to a highly popular TV series called "Gavin and Stacey" which had a (first-class) support character called Bryn (or Brin - haven't read the script...)

The blurb will help, but I agree with CJ Simone that you might not want to rely on it solely, and with KiwiLady that boy's have mums too (c:

I think getting it in early is vital - once the reader knows it won't be an issue (I had two friends at school called Kim, one M, one F - never got them confused), but a sudden swing might be.

Maybe having something along the lines of "nice girls play fair, they say; well nice girls are at home with their mummies not hacking through the forest"?
..

That's another good idea.

The reason for the Google input is just what you point out, it might differ across the pond or in some other community I'm not exposed to.

MaeZe · Jun 7, 2017

foxesfairytales said:
Just to weigh in on the Brin/Bryn debate: I'd assume Brin to be Female, Bryn to be male. I'm in the UK, don't know if that helps.

I like to idea of the internal monologue idea. You could even just say something about what the other girls/women do while she's out searching in the forest? Maybe tie that into the 'going where she shouldn't go' and her mother's warning's ideas?

Also, Bobette made me chuckle I want to read a book about a Bobette now...

So many good ideas, I do have a reference a few paragraphs down about the other girls. But I think a gender reference is needed sooner.

MaeZe · Jun 7, 2017

Marlys said:
She's in the forest, right? Have her squat to pee. Or stop for a minute to deal with her period. Maybe even wonder if it's true that bears are attracted to menstrual blood (most aren't, but it seems the sort of thing a teen alone in the forest might worry about).

I have a bear story that won a forum short story contest; you can get worked up about such fears when hiking in the Rockies' back country. :tongue

MaeZe · Jun 7, 2017

Cyia said:
...
A snarky aside works pretty well: Yes I'm 17 and playing in the dirt. Don't mess with Plant Girl! Unless you're the kind of person who likes thorns.

MaeZe · Jun 7, 2017

Everyone who weighed in on mentioning Mom and on the gender you think a Brin would be, thank you. That's very helpful.

So many excellent options.

MaeZe · Jun 7, 2017

Lakey said:
Bryn Mawr - my beloved alma mater.

I think it's pretty clear that the name rings differently to different people, so if getting across the character's gender in first person is important to you, you will have to make *her* think of it for some reason. A few thoughts that occur to me:

"I was never the kind of girl/woman who..."
"When I was a very little girl I..."
"Back in my Girl Scouts' troop..."
"Mr Snodgrass never gave me a chance to present to the class because he thought girls sucked at science."

Something like those last two might be useful for recounting the origins of her interest in plant biology.

I don't know what your setting is but there are lots of sex-segregated spaces and activities that she can simply remember at a relevant moment. Like:

"There was a stain on the floor in the girls' bathroom in my elementary school that looked like Boris Karloff. We were all afraid to be alone in there."
"I was the fastest swimmer on the girls' swim team in middle school."

Tasks are very sex segregated in her village. I might be able to use something around the fact she loves to cook but none of the other girls know that because she doesn't talk recipes and cooking with them, that bores her.

MaeZe · Jun 7, 2017

Thanks again everyone. I have at the moment decided on:

In my world I stood up to them … like mother like daughter.

I liked keeping the foreshadowing of the later story arc where Brin reveals that her mother stood up to the council in a way that had important repercussions for years after that.

KnavesAndKnots · Jun 16, 2017

'Brynn' is the name of a female dancer on Dance Moms. That's huge fandom amongst your target audience (if your target is YA girls).

But I think overall the thread is showing that it could really go either way - everyone seems to have a different association. Better to specify for the sake of clarity than to confuse half your readers.

I agree with other posters - some kind of internal reflection about what she's doing and whether its typical or atypical for girls in her society would do it. Or some reflection on 'when I was a girl'. Use it as an opportunity to show us something about the world. If you imply some world building, it won't seem like the sentence is only there to show her gender (which would read oddly).

Anyway, that seems like the direction you're going with it. Good luck

Frankie007 · Jun 16, 2017

Dark Angel has a female character named Brin....

i guess the male version could be Bren?

LuckyStar · Jun 26, 2017

If you've studied the Welsh language Y appears as a masculine letter in a name. So in Wales and the UK names with Y, such as Dafydd, Lloyd, are masculine names.
In America Y has come to be associated with girls, such as Carolyn, etc.

So a name like Lynn, which would/could be a boy's name, is now more popular as a girl's name.

Bryn Mawr means big/large hill, bryn meaning hill. It being a women's college has nothing to do with the name.

I suppose you could name your daughter or your character Bryn, but the word and spelling aren't "feminine", strictly speaking.

Just fyi.

MaeZe · Jun 26, 2017

Her name is Brin. I wasn't planning on changing the i to y, though I find the discussion of the spelling's alliance with gender on different sides of the pond to be fascinating.

Cekrit · Jul 3, 2017

For my novel, I consciously didn't mention Sage was a girl until the end of chapter 1, a solid few thousand words in. Through the prologue my she is hunted- and in those moments gender didn't matter- just survival. A lot of people have thought she was male, until well into the first chapter and its a welcome shock.

You don't need to force gender descriptions onto the reader, let it be natural and fluid- they will find out eventually.

But if you're looking for an easy way, I'd try describing her hair. That's simple. Or she could look at herself in the mirror and describe her own features. I think the easiest way would be to describe putting her hair up or what have you, the long hair reference is easier identified as female than male (though many men, like myself, have long hair)

Quick sentences or clauses to let the reader know Brin is a girl.

Lakey

professional dilettante

Marlys

Resist. Love. Go outside.

CJSimone

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

MaeZe

MaeZe

MaeZe

MaeZe

MaeZe

MaeZe

MaeZe

MaeZe

KnavesAndKnots

Frankie007

LuckyStar

MaeZe

Cekrit