By Jackyln Crooks

Jacklyn Crooks is back with part two of her series on writing characters of the opposite gender. Check out these helpful tips on how to make your characters believable!

Tips for Writing Convincing Guys

 

So you have this great story idea, right? It’s great, and you actually like it. There’s only one problem…the main character is a guy. Actually, that’s not the problem. The problem is that you’re a girl, and you don’t understand guys, so you’ve never successfully written one. Well, here are some tips that you may find helpful. First of all, when you're thinking through an idea, that moment when you start to go, "No, that's crazy, it'll never work!" Yeah, that's the moment when a guy decides it's a good idea. No kidding. As girls, usually if it's risky, we back off until we can come up with a better plan. When you're writing a guy, remember that he's going to take risks. But they're going to make sense to him. In his mind, they're not cray, or stupid, or wacked out. He's going to justify the risks somehow. Be it for his girl, for his family, or for some personal benefit down the road. Whatever the reason, it's gotta make sense. At the same time, it's okay for your reader to sit there, shaking their head, wondering what's gotten into him. 

Second, guys and girls deal with conflict differently. There really is no right answer for this, but it is important to be aware of the difference, and to account for it in your work. It's been my experience that men prefer to deal with conflict on their own. They don't want to talk it out, or discuss the emotions attached. They would rather move on, and process on their own. Then, they'll come back later, and it'll be all better. As women, we like to talk. We want to talk about how something made us feel, and how to do it differently next time - usually three or four options. Mark Gungor put on a women's conference I once attended, and he compared it to boxes and string. Men organize their minds in boxes. One does not touch another, and nothing shares a box. Women, however, don't organize their minds. It's more like a wad of string, or spaghetti noodles - everything touches, and everything is connected to something else. Keep this in mind when writing either male or female - and especially when writing an interaction between the two.

Third, I want to briefly address woman, as seen by men. I’m not even going to attempt to get in a guy’s head for this, but I want to make sure you’re thinking about this. Guys notice attractive women. If your male character can make it through an entire novel without noticing a cute girl, that’s a pretty good indication that he’s not a well-rounded guy. Or it could just mean that there weren’t any girls…but besides that. I’m not suggesting that your guy needs to be consumed with women’s appearances. I’m merely proposing that once in a while, when a woman is talking to him, or passes by, that he notices her. “Tears filled her blue eyes as she whispered goodbye to her father, soft bangs falling across her face.” It doesn’t have to be a big thing, but he should notice that she’s pretty. Or ugly, if that be case.

Next, also briefly, keep an eye on how your female characters relate to your male characters. Guys need to be needed – that’s how God made them; and why He created women to be their help meets. Which means your female characters, no matter how self-sufficient they may indeed be, should at some point or another, need your guy to come save them.

Lastly, you should determine your guy's personality, as it pertains to the clothes he wears. I have friends that change outfits in the morning more than I do, before going somewhere, and I have other friends that would wear the same t-shirt and jeans for two weeks if their family would let them. As girls, most of us anyway, want to make sure we aren't wearing the same shirt as we were the last time we saw a certain group of people, or the same event. Guys, as a general rule, don't care. At all. But like I said, identify his personality. Maybe he cares a lot. Or, perhaps this shows in other areas - maybe he couldn't care less about the jeans, and but he never carries the same knife twice, or wears a belt more than four times. Whatever it is, find out and incorporate it into your story. 

 

 

Tips for Writing Convincing Girls

 

 

Most guys would like to say that the tips for writing girls would be exactly the opposite of those I laid out for writing guys. And in large part, they would be right. But there is a lot more to each of us than just those four points, so here are a few things that may be helpful to any guys trying to write a female character.

All girls are insecure about something, but it’s rarely the things that guys think it is. I’ve had guys guess that I was insecure about being single, or, while I was on cancer treatment, being bald, when really, I was worried that people would notice the weight I had gained back. Get to know your characters. Know their individual fears and insecurities; hopes and dreams. You may think you know girls, but let me tell you a secret – girls don’t even know girls. You’ll never figure us out completely. So get to know the one you’re writing, and let her tell you her story.

Like I told the girls – your character is going to notice guys. That’s the way girls are. It shouldn’t be all she thinks about (if it is, you should have a talk with her!), and for your reader’s sake, keep it clean. But she’s going to notice when a cute guy walks by. And yes, if he stops and talks to her, her stomach is going to be instantly full of butterflies, and tying up in knots. Each girl deals with this differently. Some giggle uncontrollably; some of us ignore the feelings until they finally give up and go away. And most are somewhere in-between. Just make sure you account for whatever your character does.

Lastly for the guys: Prince Charming. I’m just going to say it. Every girl has a secret dream of her own version of Prince Charming coming in and saving the day. And by the time she’s about ten or twelve, the world has convinced her that not only does Prince Charming not exist, but if he did, he wouldn’t be coming for the likes of her. Again, how she deals with this will vary, depending on your girl, but I can almost guarantee she’s feeling something along these lines. Sparkle Mart stories (Amish romance/Twilight/etc) have cheapened this tragedy by bringing Mr. Perfect in just when the heroine is giving up all hope. That’s not what I’m suggesting. Sometimes Mr. Right is the farthest thing from perfect. And sometimes he doesn’t come for years after we’ve given up hope. And sometimes he’s been under our nose all along. I don’t care which you pick, or if you don’t have a romance in your story at all – sometimes the best way to deal with this is pushing her closer to the Lord.

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Where to go from here

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God. This was the issue that finally turned me against Sparkle Mart stories. Somehow today’s Christian authors have cheapened individual’s relationships with Christ. I have one friend that lost her father seven years ago, and in the past few years she’s found a way to let Jesus in to be that father-figure in her life. But besides her, I’ve never seen a relationship even a little bit alike to what I’ve read in popular novels. So if you’re going to write your character’s relationship with the Lord, please, please, keep it original. I want to feel why God is important to them, not see it on the paper. That’s the only way I’m going to keep paying any attention to it. If it feels faked, or put on me by the author, nine times out of ten, I’ll close the book and never go back. Think about how God affects your everyday life, and see if you can incorporate that into your story in some way.

Everything I’ve said so far can really be summed up into three words: Know. Your. Character. Ultimately, that’s the only way to ever write a convincing character. If you don’t know them, how will your reader? Spend some time with them – if you need help, get a friend to come up with a list of questions for them. When you know your characters, you won’t have to describe them to your reader, your reader will be able to see them through your eyes.


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