30 Day Fanfic Meme - Day 6

[dimity_blue]

6 – When you write, do you prefer writing male or female characters?

I don't think I have a preference. Hmm...maybe I do. In fanfic, I tend to write from the male character's POV but that might because all the fandoms I'm actively writing in mostly have male characters as the main characters. I have written from a woman character's POV, I just seem to mostly write from a man's.

Looking at the fandoms I've written in, they're definitely more male character oriented than female.

Garrison's Gorillas - 5 main characters, all male. They had some female characters pop up, but most of my stories feature the 5 guys.

Hunger Games - Katniss is the main character, but the only fic I've written in this fandom was about Haymitch, the male mentor, whose back story wasn't explored much at all.

Lord of the Rings - Very heavily male-centric. We've got Arwen, Galadriel, and Eowen to represent the women, and that's against how many male characters? The Fellowship alone stands at 9. All men. The 2 stories I wrote in LotR featured male characters.

NCIS - Women are fairly well-represented here, I think. We've got Kate, Paula Cassidy, and Abby who are all awesome characters. Also Ziva. I never took to Ziva much though she grew on me after a while. Also Jenny Shepherd (Shepard?) but I really didn't take to her. I've only written 3 stories for NCIS: 1 Tony-centric, 1 Paula-centric, and 1 Gibbs and Tony Sentinel/Guide fic.

Person of Interest - Finch, Reese, Fusco, all guys. However, there's Carter. No wonder they have to use 3 guys to balance her out - she's *that* awesome. Even after Carter, they still have to have 2 women (Shaw and Root) to replace her. Proof of Carter's sheer awesomeness, IMO. :oD I do like Shaw and Root a lot though. My fic? 1 Fusco and 1 about some bad guys. I have 2 WIPs about Finch and Reese.

Rat Patrol - I think this was even more male-centric than Garrison's Gorillas.

Sherlock - 4 main characters who are men, vs. Mrs. Hudson, semi-regular Molly, and newly arrived Mary. IIRC, all of my fic is from a guy's POV, usually John's or Greg's. I've got a Mary-centric story planned, if I ever get around to it.

Stargate SG1 - Another awesome Carter! This time Sam Carter. One of my stories was written from her POV, but I think the rest were mostly from the men's.

Stargate: Atlantis - Character-wise, we've got John, Rodney, Teyla, Ronon, Ford, Radek, Carson, and Elizabeth. So, 2 women, Teyla and Elizabeth. To me, SGA is mainly a John and Rodney show, and my fic reflects that.

The Hobbit - Again, very, very male-heavy. The 3 stories I've written were about the main characters who are, unsurprisingly, all male.

The Sentinel - Jim and Blair are very, very much the main characters. Simon (Jim's boss) is also a main character, but Jim and Blair take over. Women? Carolyn, Jim's ex (season 1); Cassie (3 eps, I think); Alex (a 2 episode baddie). Most of my stories are from Jim or Blair's POV.

So that question went from "do you prefer to write about men or women?" to "wow, there really aren't that many women characters around!" :o(

Comments

[stargatesg1971.livejournal.com]

I think female characters are gaining momento now so who knows maybe in a fews years your answers might be different. I tend to prefer to write male characters mainly but that's because they're the ones I click with the most. While I like Carter in SG (and later SGA) I can't do her voice justice at all, and I never bonded to the other female characters in SGA, well ok maybe a smidge but not much. I do like Megan in TS though (and yes, I kinda like Cassie too and I know I'm in the minority when I say that) but again, I can't get the voices. It was interesting reading your thoughts above. Thanks for sharing.

[leesa_perrie]

I tend to prefer male character POVs, but there are the occasional exception (I liked writing Sam Carter and Elizabeth in SGA). Not sure why, but I find them easier to write usually!

[thisbluespirit]

Hmm, I think mine is more evenly split, although still biased a little towards male characters, although a lot of that is to be blamed on me writing so much Silver!*

DW may be far from a perfect fandom, but all the companions over many years, episodes, and all kinds of spin-off media mean I have masses of great female characters to play with even before I get into my rare fandoms.

But, yeah, they are outnumbered... Still, at the end of the day, we're in fandom solely to have fun & that's the thing. :-)

* (he was under-represented and I was overly obsessed! I mean, there were about 6 Silver fics in total when I first looked and some of them were a bit mean about him. Obviously I had to do something!).

[dimity-blue.livejournal.com]

Darn it - I forgot Megan! I can't believe I did that. I liked Cassie too. She was rather Blair-like sometimes.

Yeah, I never really took to the female characters in SG/SGA either, though I really really like some of them (especially Janet Frasier), I never got into writing from their POV.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Yeah, now that you mention it... and often if there is a female character, it'll really just be that one female character who plays a large role. Kind of depressing when you stop and think about it. :/

[dimity-blue.livejournal.com]

It's weird, isn't it? Some POVs are so difficult while some are so easy.

[dimity-blue.livejournal.com]

Who could be mean about Silver? He's such a delightful character!

The disproportionate amount of male to female roles in TV isn't something I'm stressing about. I was just surprised once I stopped to think about it. It isn't going to put me off having fun. :oD

[dimity-blue.livejournal.com]

I was rather surprised myself. Hopefully things will change for the better soon.

Having said that, there are some fandoms with a lot of female characters. They're just not fandoms I'm in.

[stargatesg1971.livejournal.com]

I suppose was a little Blair-like on times, never really considered her from that aspect before.

I really like Janet too.