How easy is it to write characters of a different gender? I'm finding it may be more difficult than I'd thought. Last night I finished reading Greg Iles' book Dead Sleep, which is narrated by a female character. I won't go into a full-scale review of the book here, but throughout the entire reading experience the fact that the character was being written by a man was never far from the back of my mind. Was he getting it "right"? I'm not a woman so I don't know for sure. It didn't quite feel right.
I'm not writing from a woman's perspective in this book, but as I write the female characters, I find myself paying more careful attention to what they say and how they react, than I do the male narrator or other male characters. Are the women reacting the way they should, as characters, or the way that men think women would react? Which is not the same thing.
This morning I also realized, as I reviewed my notes for the first draft, that my major female characters are all fairly adversarial. Hadn't intended it that way, so I will probably change the genders of one or two more "helpful" characters.
Perhaps I'm being too meta. Repeat the mantra: get it written, rewrite later.
