#WritersCoffeeClub 11/14—What's the most challenging thing about writing characters of a different sex/gender from your own?
Lack of lived experience. (This goes for "writing the Other" in general.) You can try to compensate by watching real people of that gender and understanding the pressures driving their behaviour.
However, I'm baffled by the evident inability of so many married middle-aged male literary novelists to learn *anything* from their wives despite living with them for decades.
@cstross I recently wondered whether having lived experience as another gender (at least socially and practically) is something that is significantly helpful in transgender people. You made me curious whether transgender writers think that experience helps them.
On the topic of "the Other": what do you find challenging in writing characters that think very differently than you?
