Is your protagonist male or female?
I wonder if most of the main characters in novels are the same sex as the author.
There are examples of famous writers have failed when they have based their novel on the opposite sex.
There are also famous authors who have intelligently avoided the pitfall of writing about the opposite sex.
‘The Professor’ by Charlotte Bronte is based upon her experiences in Brussels, where she was a teacher in 1842. Much of the same subject matter of 'The Professor' was reworked from the perspective of a female student into Brontë's later novel Villette, which attracted MUCH HIGHER critical acclaim.
Jane Austen wrote about men in situations she was most familiar with. In her personal encounters with men. In situations when both men and women were present. But she knew little of what men spoke about in the absence of women.
Austen avoided pitfalls by writing about what she knew.
Jonathon got a dislike.
I wonder who by ;)
It never even occurred to me - quite honestly - not to have my main protagonist as a girl. Having said that, she's a 13-year-old girl. I think I would struggle to write as a believable 16/17-year old girl...
I have two protagonists in my series, one male, one female, of a similar age. I flatter myself that they write themselves, and they are as believable as each other; but I err on the side of caution, and tend to write the character-based passages from the boy's POV, and the plot-developing pieces from the girl's.
Whether we write from our own gender viewpoint (not to mention sexual orientation) we can surely only really write from our own perspective - enhanced, to a greater or lesser degree, by our observation, empathy and imagination.
There is no way of knowing a world totally outside our own experience.
This is why I completely agree with Jonathan's last statement ;-)
David