Writing from the Other Side
I have been told that I have a masculine way of looking at things. I’ve been told this many times, from many different people—so nobody was surprised when I, in a writing workshop my junior year of college, mentioned that, even though I was female, most of my protagonists were male. It always surprises me, though, when someone says that they have trouble writing protagonists who are unlike them—hell, if I solely wrote protagonists that met my government checklist, that limits me to White Female 18-26. Take into account other things and it limits me further—sexuality, straight, home, rural North Dakota—and, even though professors have told me that most American novelists (the serious ones, at least) write autobiographically, that just doesn’t cut it for me. I don’t want to write autobiographically. Sure, each of my characters has a part of me in them...
