Is your protagonist male or female?

by Adrian Sroka
27th June 2014

I wonder if most protagonists are the same sex as the author.

Replies

I meant a single protagonist..

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Adrian
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Adrian Sroka
28/06/2014

Yes I was reading Sarah Perry's article earlier. I found it interesting, I am part way through writing a novel (currently re-writing!) with a female main character. I started doing it to try and learn how to write from a perspective other than my own. Yes it's a challenge, but why opt for the easy way?

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Malcolm Richardson
27/06/2014

I was just reading a post 'Sarah Perry Discusses Not Being a Woman Writer' when I saw your question. (It's in the advice section.)

I take it you mean the author being the same sex as the one central character. It would produce some weirdly skewed stories if we all only ever wrote about the same gender of all the characters. In which case all books would have to be set in convents/monasteries, single-sex boarding schools or an apocalyptic future where all of one sex has been wiped out by the latest strain of influenza. We'd soon get bored with that.

As for me, I have written both male and female central characters, in different stories.

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27/06/2014