In her comment on my last blog post, the Wonderful Rachel mentioned that a discussion about writing “other than you are” (broadly stated, forgive me) was going on over at another blog. I read some of it but it was a bit overwhelming to catch up in the middle. The thing is though, that it’s fomented a bunch of questions.

We panel organizers/interviewers/con types are really careful about asking The Same Old Trite Questions of authors. One of those is a form of “is your character really YOU?”. The thing is though, that it CAN be a very interesting question. Like most trite topics, it started out interesting but probably wore thin over time. But like “where do you get your ideas?” it could be resurrected, it could lead to a fascinating discussion.

On one end of the spectrum is the Perfect Hero/Heroine known as the Mary Sue. Mary Sues are wish-fulfillment protagonists who are Perfect In Every Way and who just happen to look like, well, the author. (The “Wesley” character on Star Trek is a Mary Sue for Gene Roddenberry, it’s been said (or a Larry Stu or Barry Lou).) And don’t we all sort of want that, or at least GET that? Don’t we all want to be as smart as, as energized as, as clever and brave and strong as the characters we love and admire? I want to face down jerks like VI Warshawski, I want to be brave like Irene Kelly, I want to have the grace and heart of Julian Kestrel, I want to have the courage of Lily Bard or Sookie Stackhouse. So when I have ever attempted to write fiction, I tend to end up with a character who tends to be sort of like me, only better. Way better.

Truth is, I can’t imagine how most of you writers (if any of you are reading this) create the characters you do but ESPECIALLY amazing to me is when you can create protagonists who are really different from you. Who are a different gender, race, especially. I would think that would be SO HARD to do. Not impossible for sure – I mean my gods, we know people who do it splendidly well. It just seems to me that creating characters is challenging enough, so to get into the head of someone who ALSO isn’t you in any major way (they can reflect aspects of your self of course, but you know what I mean, right?) seems to be asking for such a hard task to perform. There are, of course, issues of verisimilitude and there might be folks who give you a hard time, but I’m not talking about that stuff exactly. I’m just wondering how, well to pull two off the top of the stack, Kris Nelscott‘s Smokey Dalton and SJ’s Lydlia Chin work so well. Like you don’t already hae to deal with plotting and getting things to work out. You still have a story to tell, a place to set it in, and people to fill out.

But, for me, I can’t imagine writing fiction where the main character was male. I couldn’t do it. And I admit to being fascinated that some women can. And vice versa of course.

So can you do it? Those of you who write, do you write a lead character who shares most of your characteristics? If you change stuff, are there some things easier to change than other things? How close to the bone is the characteristic? What I mean there is that I suspect that I could, say, write a character who was Christian as long as I didn’t make her devout, simply because I know enough to get by, but I don’t even know the differences between, say, Presbyterian and Methodist, Congregationalist and Lutherans. I could certainly change what she looks like, what she likes to watch, eat, read, where she grew up, what she does for a living – to some extent. But could I make her Asian? Black? Latina? Wow, I’d have to work REALLY hard to get that right because I don’t know enough. Sure I know folks who are fill-in-the-blank but we all know that way lies trouble – if you think your one acquaintance, or friend, or ex, or aunt or whatEVER will work as a model of all fill-in-the-blanks. (I’m having a flashback of the first , when I was 20, that someone started to give me advice about my bad back because she knew someone with a bad back.)

Could I write a lesbian? With enough help from my friends yes I could, I’m fairly sure because I’ve known enough over the years and many have been good friends. But I still would be overwhelmed by the challenge I think because well, you DON’T know what you DON’T know and so you don’t know to ask. The essay I wrote about disabled characters in mystery has some of that. I’ve seen a lot of that too. Imagination is great but there are times when folks use their imaginations INSTEAD of getting the reality. It’s got to be difficult knowing what to imagine and what to get straight but you GOTTA because readers aren’t stupid. Yeah some are, but in general, one reason people like us read is because we want to know stuff and it’s the writer’s obligation to get that stuff right.

What do you think? Do you approach a book differently if you know that the author is a different gender or race (I’m picking those as the two biggest issues, I think, for us to deal with. I think men writing women, white writing black has more potential for error or more challenge than any other. Do you think so? Do you “forgive” when those authors who write that way err, do you give ‘em a little more leeway? Are you comfortable reading those books, or would you prefer that the stuff you read be a little more “reliable” (for lack of a better word) in the sense that someone writing a character has lived a life LIKE that characters so is more likely to get it right. I’m not sure what I think. I know I sure in hell don’t rule OUT reading books about “OTHER” but I’m still working out if I trust what I read in them and if I’m more comfortable with straight-writing-straight, Asian writing Asian, etc. Clearly I'm not of one mind or another - anyone who knows my tastes knows that I'm a huge fan of Lydia Chin and Bill Smith, as a quick example.

I just don’t know. Do you?