3

Possible Duplicate:
The opposite sex in first person?
How to write realistic female dialogue

Is there an inherent difference in how man and women speak that would translate to writing dialogue? I find this hard to contemplate as while I am male, I don't feel that I have found many differences in how the women i have known tend to speak, at least when it comes to dialogue.

Body language and topics and such would and are different, but for dialogue?

To try and give an example, consider a friend comforting another friend over a break-up. Men and Women may try to comfort in a different way, but when speaking about the issue would my hypothetical friend characters dialogue be influenced by their gender?

I'm reminded of a story of an actress replacing a male actor in a big hollywood movie (can't remember which) without any of the lines being rewritten for her, which was not even noticeable.

Is there any kind of established good practice when it comes to writing genders? What is the reasoning behind it, if it does exist?

Community
  • 1
J.T.
  • 191
  • 1
  • 2
  • 6
  • 1
    This is a question that could probably be expounded upon at great length. Perhaps it can be narrowed down a bit? What lacks in particular do you need to address in female dialog? – Goodbye Stack Exchange Mar 08 '12 at 18:00
  • And, just to confirm, you're specifically asking how to write women's dialog? Or are you asking if you can ignore the differences when writing dialog? – Goodbye Stack Exchange Mar 08 '12 at 18:10
  • 1
    Possibly of use: http://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/4325/the-opposite-sex-in-first-person – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum Mar 08 '12 at 19:12
  • Voted to close. This could be a good question, but it needs some narrowing. I cannot even imagine where to start when answering this question. First: Does there have to be... Answer: No. There does not need to be a difference. Politicians talking about finances use the same language, no matter of their sex. A gay caricature can speak as flowery as a pink-loving girl. Give us an example to narrow your problem down. – John Smithers Mar 08 '12 at 23:05
  • 2
    J.T., I think many of your concerns are addressed by the question Lauren linked; I don't think this is a precise duplicate, but I do think it's difficult to tell what you're asking beyond what that question did. I'm closing for the moment, but if you'd like to come back and explain your question a little better, we'll edit and reopen. Ping me or Neil (@standback or @neilfein) in a comment, and we'll be happy to help you focus the question. – Standback Mar 09 '12 at 07:11
  • 1
    I also found this, which is maybe even a better match: How to write realistic female dialogue – Standback Mar 09 '12 at 07:17
  • @Standback sorry for the delay in getting back to you. As Neil asked, I am writing if I can ignore differences, or more importantly if there are inherent differences. I don't feel that the other answers are useful, as they assume that there are difference in answering the question. – J.T. Mar 12 '12 at 23:16
  • JT, I appreciate the edit, but I'm not seeing the difference from existing questions. eg., justkt says there's no single well-defined difference; it's all about getting into the head of somebody different than you, which is a much wider issue. While OneMonkey adds suggestions of differences that might be inferred from typical physical and social differences between the genders. You feel these don't address the question, but I don't understand why not. – Standback Mar 13 '12 at 13:58
  • @Neilfein I would still like some assistance in focusing this question if possible as I don't think it is a dupe. – J.T. Apr 02 '12 at 00:40
  • Sure. I left you a message in chat, let's take this there. (This comments thread is getting a little long, and the site's gonna kick us there soon anyway.) – Goodbye Stack Exchange Apr 02 '12 at 00:53

1 Answers1

1

First of all, the link that Lauren provided in the comments provides a lot of good, practical information rgearding possible issues in writing from the perspective of a different gender. However, I get the impression that you are more concerned about the dialog, which is most likely going to be different as well.

You need to keep certain aspects of your characters in mind as you write different genders. For example, two guys talking to one another might be included to call each other "Dude". A man and a woman having the same conversation are much less likely to use such terminology. Also, two guys shooting the breeze might be inclined to throw in some colorful language or share inside jokes. They may also have some light banter about a sports topic or about a certain female.

While none of these are expressly taboo for a woman, you will want to make sure that if your female characters engage in such dialog, then the personality and other characateristics you provide for her should fit with that characaterization. For example, a formally educated high class woman is not likely to curse like a dock worker.

The best thing to do is just write your dialog without consideration of the genders. This will be your initial draft and will allow you to just get the words down. Then when you go back and start to edit, you can look at the dialog (and other aspects of your writing) and see if it really fits. That is the point where you will want to be more considerate of the dialog and mannerisms of your characters based on their genders.

Steven Drennon
  • 10,565
  • 3
  • 35
  • 75
  • 1
    "For example, a formally educated high class woman is not likely to curse like a dock worker." Well, I have no idea what you mean by "high class", but educated people, men and women, swear all the time. So do upper class people. "High class" is, I suspect, somewhat different to "upper class", and implies value judgements I don't share. – TRiG Feb 01 '13 at 23:48