[ SECRET POST #2419 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2419 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Way early because taking dog to the vet. :c

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 075 secrets from Secret Submission Post #346.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[ariakas]

You're right, most writers do seem to have no clue what to do with the opposite sex, but you wouldn't be the first I've read who had no clue what to do with their own, either.

You could try a trick my English teacher suggested (originally for men who said they "couldn't write women", but it works for both): make a cast of genderless characters. Flesh out their backstories, give them personalities and professions and relationships, decide on their roles in the story, grow interested in them and attached to them as most creators do - then, flip a coin to determine each character's gender. You must keep the result.

For the few writers I've seen try this out, it turned their one-note damsels and smurfettes into fully-fleshed, fascinating women overnight. It might do wonders for you, too.

Bonus: this method will not only give you a cast that is roughly equal-gendered, but will result in some same-sex relationships if you establish those before the coin toss.

[ill_omened]

Double bonus,

50% of pregnancy stories become Junior.

[ariakas]

Looooool. Or the kids become adopted, but your solution is more hilarious.

[blunderbuss]

That's actually a very good trick. I'm gonna try that!

And I guess if you can't create genderless characters in your head, then I guess you can just imagine them as men and then flip a coin to keep them as male or not.

[ariakas]

Yeah, that's the other version. The bonus of imagining them all as men first is that you will rarely (or never) have given them the tropey baggage that female characters so often get saddled with (Rape as Backstory, Smurfette syndrome, pregnancy as character development, justifying their existence through their relationship to a man, etc.).

[(Anonymous)]

not op, but I'm gonna do this from now on, it sounds like a neat way of writing!