Tuesday, January 10, 2012

What's Your Guy IQ?...

This question pertains to you. Yes you. All of you female authors out there. When you have a male character, whether he be your main or otherwise, how well do you know your man?

There have been times when I read about male characters written by females and they're too... feminized.

And not in a good way...

When your guy hits on a girl, is he sweet and shy? Does he blush when she sneaks a peek in his direction? Not necessarily a good thing. You want him to be sweet, shy, possibly flushed a little when a good looking girl glances at him from under her long lashes. But you also want him to man up, right?

They care about their appearance, but less than girls. Most guys don't worry about their hair.

1) They'll usually take a sniff at the closest t-shirt/jeans/underwear and if it doesn't knock them out, they'll wear it.

2) Fingers through the hair counts as combing.

3) If it itches, they scratch it no matter where they are. I think I would laugh my butt off if a character actually scratched...

Oh, and for that matter, since when do characters not have to relieve themselves? Make those boys write their name in the snow. Don't forget to dot i's and cross t's.

4) Boys/men have to "peacock". They strut to impress the girls. They love to wrestle in front of girls if they can get away with it.

5) They want to be protectors. They'll defend their honor, they're loyal to their friends and most of them will defend the girl. Then there is the extreme opposite. The bully.

Most bullies think that defending their sense of honor means fighting everyone who looks at them sideways. Anyone who seems different in any way suddenly will have a huge target on their forehead.

So make sure you do your guy homework. Don't wussify your guy. Ha! My favorite joke from the male human in World of Warcraft is "Cover me! I gotta take a whiz behind that tree."

So what's your "Guy Q"?

6 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Hey, I resemble that!
And my guy IQ is very high, thank you.

Nicole Zoltack said...

Great points! Boys and girls are so different that it's really important to make sure you have the male voice down. And for guy writers to nail down the female voice for girl characters.

Angela Brown said...

HAHA!! I think my Guy IQ just went up with this post. I have to take a look at my MS, make sure my male characters are just feminized dreams...but guys.

Mel Chesley said...

Lol Alex! I sure hope your Guy Q is high.

I'll be hitting those points tomorrow, Nicole.

And yes, Angela, make men out of those characters!

Unknown said...

My main characters are men, and I think I'm doing okay with them. Since my pen name are my initials, most readers have no idea I'm a woman, so I feel I've hit the mark when male readers review and either refer to me as "he" or like one reader did on my FB page. He said, "You're the man!" lol

I don't do too much of the frat boy behavior with them though, as they are adults, but I don't think I make them girly either.

Mel Chesley said...

I'm with you on the initials, Mary. M. L. Chesley is what I'll be writing under. And I think you've nailed your men spot on!