Posted in Methods, Writing

Take a Walk in my Shoes

Posted on by Kassandra Carrillo

I haven’t thought about this in a while but a male classmate of mine turned in a story draft told through the eyes of a woman. It’s not to say that I was against the idea and I doubt he had a girl help him write it. It got me thinking about the difficulties that can appear when writing from the eyes of the opposite sex.

I’ve only ever written from a male’s point of view once. At first, I struggled to write his thoughts because I second guess myself. Was I writing this correctly? Would this be something a guy would say? Maybe I can ask my male friend to read this and make sure it’s right. I came to realize that I had trapped myself in a stereotypical idea of what a male character should say and how they should act. I was young then, well, younger.

It wasn’t until I started seeing my character as a character. It didn’t matter if he was a boy or a girl, alien, cockroach or whatever. He had a life and a past, goals and dreams. Those goals would be the ones to walk him down a path. All I had to do was  and see where my character would go. Although, it was also my goal to make sure he didn’t succeed. It’s only when I let me character be free that I had an easier time writing. I wasn’t too worried about how he sounded or what he said and thought.

Sure, there are some things (I can’t think of any examples at the moment) that a female writer won’t know about a guy or vice versa but that’s why we have brothers, husbands, and/or friends to help us out.

Author:

Kassandra Carrillo received her B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Houston. She enjoys writing dark paranormal fiction. However, she has dabbled in writing fantasy as well, science fiction, western, short stories, poetry, and scriptwriting, but she prefers writing novels. When she's not writing, Kassandra likes to crochet, practice her art, and stream video games.

12 thoughts on “Take a Walk in my Shoes”

  1. Ahaa, its good conversation about this post here at this weblog, I have
    read all that, so at this time me also commenting at this place.

    Like

    Reply

  3. Hey there just wanted to give you a quick heads up.

    The words in your post seem to be running off the screen in Ie.
    I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to
    do with internet browser compatibility but I thought I’d post to let you
    know. The layout look great though! Hope you get the issue fixed soon. Thanks

    Like

    Reply

  8. You’re so awesome! I don’t believe I’ve read through anything like that before.

    So wonderful to find someone with genuine thoughts on this subject.

    Seriously.. thanks for starting this up. This web site is one thing that is needed on the internet, someone with a little originality!

    Like

    Reply

  9. I admire the time and energy you put into your website as well as comprehensive information you offer.
    It’s excellent to run into a blog every occasionally that
    isn’t the same with several other materials.
    Superb article! I’ve saved your website and I’m including your RSS
    feeds to my Google account.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment