Male VS Female Characters

[milejdyvan]

I'm very surprised that so far, there are mostly people who write male leads more maybe it's just a coincidence?

[IndigoShirtProd]

The comic tha I'm woring on prensently has a short list of main characters where the sexes are split evenly. But the remain cast is majority female. However, my main main character is male.

In another story I have with 6 main characters, 4 are male and two are female and most of the human villains are male.

So I think depends on the genre and what feels right. My comic, which is in the action adventure genre, while still being a little more oriented towards boys as an audience, doesn't really require a majority male cast to get the story across. And girls enjoy action adventure too, me being an example. But the other story is a shounen manga, and that has more leeway ehen it comes to being male oriented because the genre is very strongly directed at boys. This a pretty binary way of thinking, and I don't entirely subscribe to it, though I think it's a fair explanation.

[gempompadour]

I try to have a good balance of male and female characters in every aspect of the story: number of characters, power levels, heroes, villains and so on. My protag is female, with a male mentor, and male and female teammate.

[therosesword]

Regarding my changing a character's gender, I wasn't very clear, sorry. I do change them if the character is feeling "forced" i.e. I put it in because I thought it should be there (happens when I overthink things). I haven't done it very often but every now and then I'll realize, "y'know, you're the wrong sex." Once the change is made, everything goes smoothly and they're not a chore to write.

As to which gender presents itself to me the most to be written, male or female, haven't got a clue. I've written so much over the years I'd say it's probably fairly even.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

I have way more female characters, especially in older stories (which I usually recycle into newer stories, so the casts remain lopsided). This is just because when I was younger, I felt there was a disturbing lack of female-led stories or interesting female characters in general, and I sought to fill that void single-handedly. ^^;

What's my present-day excuse, though? Well, I still think there aren't enough great female characters (spoiler alert: there will NEVER be enough) and also...due to the way gender norms are, they're just way more fun to design.
Every once in a while, when I try to do a mostly-male cast, I get SO SICK of drawing 8 million pairs of pants. Pants, pants, nothing but PANTS!! >_< Whoever decided that guys can only wear straight, featureless, boring clothes should be slapped...and that goes for the formal shoes, too. I think my current habit of designing guys with funky heels is less me being unique and more me not wanting to draw soulless loafers for the umpteenth time...

...Wow, I got off topic there. ^^; Anyway, that's really the only reason; I write guys and girls pretty much the same, so the only deciding factor is design.

[DualDragons]

It's quite funny for me. Because RotH has a bigger male cast but I actually find myself having a more prominent female cast in Square One (including the protagonist, antagonist, rival character and supporting characters).
I'm not sure why, I felt like they just fit the vibe/mood more? Can't explain it very well

[ratscout]

Wellll I really don't want to accidentally write a self-insert character, so I think that's why I make most of my main characters men. XD
Let's see, Inheritance has:
Them, Terran, Francis, Eory, Maruka, and Pete for the men.
and Pollyanna, Eliita, and Kori for the ladies.
So they do definitely outnumber the ladies, haha.

[likhoradka]

My current comic has a main cast of 3 male/1 female, and will have recurring of 1 male/2 female. Randos that show up are whatever I feel like drawing at the time since I don't write anything for them in the script. For my backburner novel, the main cast is 2 female/1 male.

I can see how people would write out an opposite sex character to avoid self-inserting (or at least avoid being accused of it). But the way I see it, go for it! Self-insert all the characters! At the end of the day, I find it more enjoyable to write for myself than a targeted audience, so if there's a little self-insertion going on, then...oh, well. =P

[jensrichard77]

My BL story has 2 boys and 5+ girls

My Blue Life has 4 main male and 1 female

My upcoming Bunneh.
Even the female characters are the strongest and most influential characters the males are not behind and not weak.
I believe that there is a great balance, which also is the whole theme of the story. Balance.

[BitterBadger]

Hmm, never really counted how many males or females I have throughout my three comics, but I'd say I feature both sexes fairly evenly. Two out of my three comics have female main protagonists. In fact, my comic Strike Pup is about a female who is able to beat large male characters because she is so good at karate, and since you won't find many women participate in such brutal underground fighting tournaments, the ratio will be somewhat one-sided, at least until a little later when I have her next fight.

[vothnthorvaldson]

My current story has more male than female mostly because of my real life civilisations inspirations.
Even if the civilization in my story has less gender differences and constraints on women than the antiquity/middle age civilizations I'm using as references, this is still there, and some of the characters could not be female without changing a lot the plot (eg. My main character is a teenager who wants to travel the world against his parents' wish, and the reasons they are against it would probably be different if he was a girl. The whole point is that he can't understand why is is not allowed to do it even though his dad did it. So he needs to be a boy).

However. This is mostly for accuracy for the reader.
I don't perceive gender very well and don't personally see my characters as having genders.
I know they have, but I don't care. I only make sure they don't react in a way that would be evidently not typical of their gender to more narrow minded characters, or I introduce that reaction in the dialogue.

I only really discuss gender in a upcoming side story about a transwoman character.
Otherwise my character gender is less important that their clothing choice.

[domisotto]

I think you are confusing leads with the cast? There is usually only one protagonist, even in a multi-Pov story.

[frgmnt]

I think I have a lot more female characters in my stories than male I also don't think I ever made any stories with a male protagonist. (The closest I ever was to it was a supporting protagonist that I eventually made non-binary anyway).
It's not motivated by anything in particular, I guess I just find female characters easier and more entertaining to write and, more importantly, draw. I'm a simple person, I just love to draw girls.
Guys are so boring to draw in comparison and I usually take a much longer time to come up with a design for them. When I'm making new characters, they pretty much default to female (or feminine-looking).

Many years ago I used to worry that I don't know how to write male characters; now I'm not too concerned though, I just try to write them as people. But I still prefer to have female MCs, for reasons mentioned above.

[milejdyvan]

Yeah, that's what I meant just mistook the word happens to me more often than you think 🤣 but it's still true I think even like that. Most of the comments seemed to have male main characters rather than female. (before I wrote that comment)

[NickRowler]

I have a bad habit of having more male characters.

From my main series, out of the 18 main cast, 13 are male and 5 are female.

From my most popular series, out the of the 6, 5 are male and 1 is female (the MC's mom)

I did create a series with only female characters, so far it has been my weakest preforming series. I might go back and add more to it but I am worried that the issue is that I might not be good at writing female characters.

[domisotto]

Well, i have two books on this app, and one has female lead, the other have a male one. I prefer female, but once in a while I want to try something different

[Azifri]

I did a headcount the other day for another thread and from all the characters that are important to the story 19 are female, 17 male, and 3 non-binary; there was no reason for this, it's just how I felt the characters should be. The main characters are 1 male, 1 female, 1 n/a (currently looks male).

[sarahmcsquish]

I've got 4 main characters, 3 are female and one is male. I personally don't care for drawing men because they're shaped weird.

[sxxaint]

I write waaaaaaaay more male characters than female characters - they just seem to come to me easier, and im not even writing male characters 'cause i write mxm, i write mxm because the characters i want to write about are male so what can you do

no one's ever complained about them being too feminine so hopefully they're okay

[shfra13]

Mhmmm, if I consider a story that I'm currently editing, it's quite even. The main characters are 2 males and 2 females; in which a pair of brother and sister being one on the spotlight. However, the actual story itself revolves around the 2 male characters, and an important female entity. Also, my villains are 2 females and 1 male. I'll also be adding 2 more female characters and 1 more character. So, yeah. I don't even realize I write like this lol.