Those of you with a female protagonist, why did you choose her over a male one?

Was it because you felt you could relate better that way? Did you find a female protagonist much more interesting than a male one, or just because?

The protagonist in my novel is female because I felt that in general, women leads are much more sympathetic than male leads, and that allows them to get away with many things that males can't. For example, a cold, distant female lead could be a real nice girl with a bad past that got them that way, but if a male does that it would mean that he's just acting a badass. When things go wrong, and emotions get shown, my sympathy for male protagonists would be very little in general, especially if there's little development of that character to begin with. I usually want them to "suck it up", while with female leads I feel that it's not as simple.

What about you?

When it comes to writing characters, for me, I feel like males are easier to make into caricatures: people with exaggerated personality traits that usually end up making them quite un-serious. My female characters, on the other hand, tend to be much deeper, more complex characters, with serious problems and debilitating negative traits. They usually make awful decisions, and are sometimes, quite honestly, awful people. It all really depends on the character for me, though, because I do have a pretty eclectic mix of males and females with varying degrees of seriousness. Who I choose to write about is often determined by what kind of mood I'm in.

For this story in particular, I chose female protagonists simply because I've been writing about them for a long time now, and wanted to explore their minds and their worlds more. I just loved them, and thought they deserved more attention. <3

I have a male protagonist in my Nano, but I have had female protagonists in all my other recent work. I think I just feel more able to relate to a female protagonist (yes, even though I'm male) and make them into deeper and more interesting characters than my male protagonists.

I chose a female because if I had a male, a romance with the antagonist could not have been initiated, and therefore stopped the plot from moving ahead and having several assassination attempts at my main characters life.

I usually choose females, however, because I feel that a female role is better for a number of reasons. One being the fact that I involve romances, and myself being a young female, find it hard to write a romance from a male perspective. But I wrote my last story with a male - named Jack. It was hard to wrote and the prose was filled with holes and silly errors that would even make the greatest editor cringe and blush.

I also usually write historical as well as gothic (and Lolita Fashion) tale and to be perfectly honest with you, it is much more graphic to write about FEMALE clothing. Petticoats, corsets and lace and linen... They are all described with things such as delicate, elegant and classical. Male clothing? Those great boots which were lined with fur! Doesn't quite ring as well in my head. :S

For my story, this time, I chose a female because her role was as a protector in a motherish way. And lets be honest, females are much more caring than men, generally, when it comes to kids, and women are more suited to be mothers. Also, I liked the name Tess, and I couldn't really use that for a boy. lol

I started out by writing my story from both ethe POV of my fMC and my mMC1, but once mMC2 entered the scene I realised that the story is about my fMC not about fMC+mMC. (Boy, this makes little sense when I type it in this way.)

Well, my answer to the question is I write after who's story it is. I had to go back and rewrite the chapters that were written from mMC1's POV.. which actually made the story much better.

Chapter 1 is still from mMC's POV since that's his time to shine, and it sets the mystery that will be resolved (partialy) chapters later.

At this point I feel like I could write a story about anyone of my characters, be is a MC or a minor. It's just a matter of who's story it is.

I try to write the books I want to read. In the case of my current novel, I'm trying to write the novel I wanted to read when I was still in high school. And one of the things I wanted back then was a female protagonist I could identify with. So that's who I'm writing.

On the downside, I think that the things I wanted in a book back then were things that turn off a lot of other readers. But, at least I'll be happy with it, right?

My initial idea for this story (many, many years ago) was about a female vampire appearing to be in her mid-twenties. It was kind of a remedy for all the teenage vampire romances out there - which I am a fan of, but feel are a little repetitive. All of those stories either feature a female human MC falling in love with a brooding male vamp, or the brooding male vamp MC falling in love with the 'special' and emotionally hurt human girl. I wanted to read a story where there was a female vamp for the lead, and for an audience of people in their twenties.

I do feel like male MCs are getting a bad rep in this thread though. I've used males for my previous two NaNos, not to mention many short stories and fanfics, and I feel like they can be just as sympathetic as some females. Maybe it's just me, but if I read a cold, distant female compared to a cold, distant male, as the OP suggested, I would view them the same way - as awful people. Take Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange (from Harry Potter) for example. Both are cruel, sadistic people, and yet I actually feel more sympathy for Voldemort because of his past. There have been plenty of MCs, both male and female, that I've wanted to strangle for acting like brats for most of the novel. Harry Potter and Gemma Doyle come to mind. Just my opinions though. =)

-Lizzy

I always start with a character whose story must be told. In the two nanos I completed, I had male MCs; this year I visualized not one but two female MCs, and I also have a demon of indeterminate gender!

Why did I choose to have a female protagonist? Because she was the first character I met in this story, and she was awesome.

Women tend to focus on details and intricacies around them, while males are more action-oriented. Describing beautiful scenery is more believable when it's from a woman's POV.

I enjoy talking about the things that are deemed more acceptable to talk about from a female POV. I love spending two paragraphs talking about clothing hair or analysing people-I just prefer novels inside of a head, and I find that easier to write in a female POV. Also I felt like makin my MC gay, and I think that I could relate better being a lesbian meeself than I could dreaming up how on earth males talk to each other.

I started with a large cast and then sorted through options until I selected which ones would get to be POV and which would be ensemble. Ended up with two female and one male, but who knows; it might change in the rewrite.

I'm kind of having trouble with the male MC, since he's got some psychological issues that have been making his scenes depressing. He needs a boost of some kind to get him passionate again, just temporarily.

Women tend to focus on details and intricacies around them, while males are more action-oriented. Describing beautiful scenery is more believable when it's from a woman's POV

Seriously? Do all of the gender-related threads have to feature sweeping generalisations about the inherent natures of men or women? George RR Martin skips over fight scenes so he can spend two thousand words describing the horse-riding company coming over the hill and all of their heraldry. Tolkien rhapsodised endlessly about the green vistas of Middle-Earth. Stop stereotyping people.

I wrote with a female protagonist initially because my first ever stories were fan fiction based on a female character who I love and strongly identify with. My first original protagonist was loosely based on her. I had intended my nano to have a female protagonist based on either her or another character from the same fandom, but when I started writing she didn't show up. Instead, I got a man.
I did not plan or expect to write a male protagonist because I didn't think I could see things from a male perspective. Now I don't think that makes the least difference. We're all human, after all, even the non-humans. :-)

I chose female because I usually have female MCs. I guess because I'm girl my ideas come with girl characters attached. And honestly, her character works much better as a girl. I'd probably have to switch everyone else's gender along with hers, which could be amusing.


Huh. But now that I think of it it'd just make the story even more cliche.

I often have an FMC - chicks are just better. lol. I do male sometimes as well. The males usually have more personality issues tho.

For this Nano I have a young (50) year old female vampire from a parallel universe earth run my vampires. All the humans as gone there. And no, these are not dead people. Don't believe the human myths and propaganda!

and she comes to evil earth. Well, they wanted to send someone who looked weak and frail and non-threatening. lol.

Gives me lots of good scenes beating up asshole men. ;)

Actually this is an interesting question for what I'm writing now because I actually have written the story I'm writing from a male perspective.

I switched the perspective to the former MC's sister because she has a more active role in the story, despite a lot of the story still being about him -- think of him as like the damsel in distress.

Do you really wanna know the truth? I wanted to write a kinky love scene between two females while one of them being the MC. Well you asked...

Ok no but really. It was because I wanted to write a lesbian love story in a fantasy setting. That and I just didn't want to write a MMC.

Because in the general time period I'm writing about, women were oppressed and treated disrespectfully much more so than men, and it gives my protagonist more to over come.

I used the plot adoption idea that all males in the world get turned into zombies.