Tag Archives: Writing Men

Writing Men: Compartments

Posted by natechen on

Welcome back to Writing Men, a look at what things a writer should keep in mind when writing male characters in fiction. Previous segments include the introduction, goal oriented behavior and axioms. Up to date? Then let’s get cracking! 

One of the best pieces of advice for women seeking to understand men that I have ever heard is this: When you’re dealing with men, it is important to understand that they are not women who are failing to communicate properly. Men have their own ways of dealing with ideas and emotions and they are just as correct and just as dangerous as those used by women. A perfect example of this is the way men compartmentalize. 

We’ve covered the way men are goal oriented and the fact that they amass a set of rules and principles that serve as the foundation of their behavior. To this point, the behavior of men is fairly straightforward and easy to understand, even if you’re not a man. From here on out, things get a littler murkier, even if you are a man. 

See, men tend to disassociate one object from another, devoting the entirety of our energies and thoughts to one thing at a time, where women frequently try to connect everything to everything else. I’ve heard this described as “waffles” vs “noodles” where men’s minds are a grid of separate and independent boxes and women’s minds are a dizzying mess of ideas running haphazardly into one another. We could dissect both these systems of thought, but our focus here is men and that means compartmentalization, a system of though that has effects on male behavior which are baffling to everyone involved, except possible the man doing the decision making. 

Let me give you an example. In the Firefly episode “Trash”, Malcom Reynolds decides to team up with a swindler, one both he and the audience have tangled with before (in the episode, “Our Mrs. Reynolds”) even though the last time they crossed paths Mal and the crew of Serenity almost wound up dead. Why does Mal decided to do this, in spite of the obvious dangers involved? 

It’s because the last, near-death encounter was a different situation. Mal and his dubious partner will be allies this time, not adversaries, and there is a whole lot of money to be made. Yes, there’s no trust between these two, but they both want a payday. Further, Mal is dealing with a known quantity this time. He doesn’t trust the swindler, sure, but at least he knows to be prepared for the double cross. 

While it didn’t happen right away, Malcom built an entirely different frame of reference around different goals and axioms than those he used on his first encounter with the swindler and used it to asses the playing field during their second meeting. The result was his agreeing to take the deal and try his hand at a heist. 

This is the same kind of behavior you see from kindergarten boys, who will be calling each other names during lunch break and then turn around and play soccer like they were old buddies. Women do not usually indulge in nearly this level of paradigm shift when their circumstances change and unless they train themselves to identify and work with it they’re going to be frustrated by the men in their lives quite a bit. 

But this is not a relationship advice column, this is a column on writing men in fiction. So what does this mean for the male character you are writing? 

First and foremost, it’s important to point out that the fact that men compartmentalize does not mean men don’t interconnect the areas of their life. Rather, interconnectivity itself is a kind of axiom, a rule that is applied or ignored as circumstances dictate. If a man doesn’t see a need to switch on the interconnectivity node, he won’t. This means that, at least eighty percent of the time, he’s not actively building connections between what he’s doing and whatever else might be on his mind. But he can do it if he thinks he needs to. 

Second, the scope of a man’s thought may be narrow at times, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t nimble. One of the benefits of compartmentalized thinking is it’s very easy to shift from one paradigm to another. Men can dance through several different mindsets in a short period of time, allowing them to adapt rapidly to changing situations or sending them dashing off after random side thoughts to the annoyance of everyone in a conversation. (Good luck getting them back on topic, since that bunny trail is going to be the total focus of their thoughts for the next five minutes.) 

But, by the same token, a drawback of compartmentalized thinking is that building new paradigms to switch to takes time, effort and significant fine tuning. Sometimes a man will just take a paradigm they already have and that looks like it fits a situation then run with it, without taking the time to really test their assumptions. In military strategy this is called fighting the last war. In social situations, it’s called putting your foot in your mouth (in the best case scenario.) If a man’s done this a lot before, he might instead ask a number of clarifying questions to make sure of the situation he’s dealing with, which might make him come of as obtuse when he’s just trying to cover all the bases.

Finally, men can be accused of switching off or suppressing their feelings because of compartmentalization. While sometimes this is true, far more often they are acting as they think the situation dictates – and all the while feeling something quite contrary to what their actions suggest. The classic example of this is courage, or the ability to ignore fear to do what needs to be done. Not all compartmentalization is courageous, of course, but it does all take an emotional toll that is rarely appreciated and poorly understood. If we leave these emotional conflicts unsorted for too long, it can take a great toll on relationships, personality and eventually sanity. You, the writer, should exploit this for all it’s worth.

Like all the things I’ve talked about in this examination of writing men, compartmentalization is not unique to the male gender. But it is something that is far more definitively associated with them. As always, I don’t pretend to assign values or reasons for this, only encourage you to look at it carefully, assess the corresponding strengths and weaknesses, and try to write your male characters accordingly. Good luck!

Writing Men: Axioms

Posted by natechen on

Obligatory opening summary: Writing Men is a thing. But not enough of a thing. Thus, I’m writing about it. Huzzah! If you haven’t seen them, my introduction to the topic, an analysis of the importance of having objectives. That is a brief summary of everything I’ve written on the topic so far.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about axioms. First of all, I’m talking about the principles that form a foundation for a line of reasoning, not the starliner from Pixar’s WALL-E. One is part of a great animated film. The other is a fundamental part of how men look at life.

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about.

A while back a friend was trying to explain the TV show Defiance to me. I had not and still have not seen this TV show, but I know from what I was told that it features an alien invasion of Earth (and they obviously haven’t read the guide) that results in humanity nuking the invading space fleet and destroying it (or something like that – again, this is hearsay). When I heard this, the following exchange took place:

Me: They nuked them?

Friend: Yeah.

Me: While they were in orbit?

Friend: Uh-huh.

Me: Okay, let’s ignore the radiation poisoning issues that creates for a minute. How is it even possible that you could stop a race technologically advanced enough to cross interstellar space-

Friend: Because Nukes.

Me: (pause) I’ll buy that.

Okay, so maybe I’ve edited that a little, but the point-blank justification “because nukes” and my immediate acceptance of it did happen, and is an example of what I want to talk about: The tendency for men to look at life through a series of simple principles. In this case, nuclear weapons represent the most terrifying destructive weapon mankind has every created. The scale of their destruction is beyond the ability of most people to comprehend, most people believe they exist only because they’ve already been created and used. Of course they’re gong to destroy the alien fleet. Nukes always destroy their targets when they hit. If they didn’t, that would mean there was something even bigger than a nuke out there, and that’s just silly. It’s like saying there’s something bigger than infinity.

The axiom: Nukes always win.

Therefore, when you have nukes vs. aliens the nukes win because they are nukes.

Men are always thinking in axioms, even when they don’t realize they’re thinking in axioms. Take a big special effects blockbuster – for this example, The Avengers. Many people have watched the movie and griped that the Hulk’s sudden willingness to work with the other heroes of the movie rather than against them makes no sense. (These people were not paying close attention to Bruce Banner’s character progression through the course of the movie. Watch it again carefully and pay attention to people’s interactions with Banner – not what they say about him or what he says about himself but what he’s saying and doing the rest of the time – and it adds up a lot better. Banner’s character progression affects the Hulk’s. After all, they are the same person… ish.) Regardless, many of these people are okay with Hulk’s sudden switch because it’s followed by a crowning moment of awesome.

Axiom: Blockbusters exist to be awesome.

Therefore sometimes the awesome can trump the plot. (You heard it here first.)

Note that you’ll almost never hear a woman offer this explanation. It’s axioms taken to the point where they fly in the face of sense. Men are okay with doing that because we live by axioms.

When writing men, axiomatic thinking is a must have. Of course, just like with objectives there’s nothing saying the man you’re writing has to be aware of their axioms, just that they have to exist and be informing their actions. Also, no one has just one axiom they live their life by, no matter what they say. Axioms can range from “Telling the Truth is Better Than Lies” to “Paperwork is a Bane Upon Existence” to “Boxers Are Better Than Briefs, Period”. There’s nothing saying you have to even know all the axioms a man is living by. But it doesn’t hurt to mention one or two when he stops to make a decision of some importance.

When multiple axioms go into a decision a man usually sorts them based on his objectives (yes, an understanding of objectivity is vital here). Thus a man who wants to live to have a million dollars will not want to spend much money, because he can’t get to a million that way, but he will spend money on food, because starving to death also precludes reaching his objective.

As I continue to note when writing these bits, axiomatic thinking is not a strength or a weakness, but rather a double edged sword. I used some very absurd examples at first, in part because they illustrate my point in a fun way but also because a man can work himself into equally absurd (but also painful) quandaries when axioms conflict or point him toward potentially harmful situations. And why doesn’t he ignore the axioms and go with what makes him feel better, you ask?

Because ignoring the axioms makes him feel just as bad! Just one of the burdens of being a man.

At the same time, axiomatic thinking also lets the man put aside feelings like fear or anger and deal with a situation with a clearer head – at least, if he’s doing it right. The axioms help him quickly sort, prioritize and deal in circumstances where stopping for conscious thought could be counterproductive.

In short, just like with objectivity, axioms are an important part of writing male characters. Whether it’s a man in the crux of a moral dilemma or just trying to figure out what kind of shoes to wear that night, look for a chance to show the principles that undergird his thought. It will give you a better rounded, more believable character.

Writing Men: Objectivity

Posted by natechen on

It’s time to talk about writing men a little bit more. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, clicking that link will take you to the introduction of the idea a little while ago. Feel free to catch up and check back when you’re done. We good? Okay.

According to Merriam-Webster’s, objectivity refers to a lack of favoritism for one side or another. Throw out this definition, at least until you finish reading this.

When writing men, objectivity refers to the way we love to have goals and seek to fulfill them.

Now some of you out there might object to this by claiming that a lot of men today seem kind of aimless, just drifting around life with no real goal in mind. I’m not going to argue with that, because I’ve met my share of guys who sound exactly like that. However, that just means that they have little interest in life as a whole, if you observe their activities you’ll start to see the objective theme playing you.

For example, the vast majority of men who are drifting through life probably have an obsession of some sort with video game(s). Most video games are objective driven affairs – clear this level, defeat those enemies. In fact, there’s a special term for these kinds of objectives in videogame land: Achievements. And people become obsessed with them.

Even the most free-form video games become objective driven for most guys. Take the bizarrely popular Minecraft, for example. It’s a game that lets people gather blocks and build things out of them. In my day, we called these Legos. The appeal of Minecraft is that it offers an infinite number blocks that are basically free. Some people will use them to recreate famous buildings, others will set out to build the Ultimate Fortress, some people want a life sized model of the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701 no bloody A, B, C or D).

So even the seemingly aimless men you meet actually have goals, they’re just goals that have been provided by someone else, or goals with little connection to reality. Whether it’s wealth, enlightenment or the World Record for time spent on a unicycle, the odds are that 99% of the men you meet have some sort of objective they’re actively pursuing at any given time. What does that mean for the way you write men in your stories?

  • Men are pursuing goals. Given today’s subject matter that probably sounds obvious but it bears repeating.

  • The goal isn’t necessarily something a man will talk about. Maybe they feel embarrassed about it. Maybe they don’t want anyone else to try and get there first. Maybe they haven’t given their own motivations enough thought to properly articulate them. Regardless, the fact that a man doesn’t mention or understand his goal doesn’t mean he isn’t pursuing one.

  • The objective has a high level of importance, possibly being the most important thing in their life. Men are far more willing to obsess over and sacrifice for their goals than most women. This is why they frequently wind up running businesses, making massive scientific breakthroughs, setting out on quests for vengeance and destroying their families and lives in the process.

  • The above doesn’t mean that men never take a break. In fact, most men have multiple objectives and balancing them can become a goal in and of itself. With the exception of the most obsessive, men are okay with taking a breather now and then. Particularly when there’s nothing more that can be done to advance their project at the moment. But they’re rarely drifting aimlessly. They’re just pursuing a different goal.

  • Men will evaluate their actions first and foremost in terms of their objective. This is why doing something crazy risky like jumping over a spike pit is only stupid to a guy if it doesn’t result in the man getting something of value in exchange. The actions of other men are also evaluated in terms of the impact they have on goals, both the observer and the observed.

  • Men evaluate other men by their goals. The things a man values and pursues are usually viewed as the foundation of his character, at least by other men. This is why men who share interests tend to get along so well even when their personalities seem to have little in common.

If you’ve been reading this with a discerning eye so far you’ve probably already figured out that being objective centric is a double edged sword. Just having something you hope to accomplish and putting effort into it doesn’t mean the goal is good or bad. But when the goal is good, that focus makes it more likely that the objective will be reached.

To men, accomplishing a goal is something to be desired. It’s a foundation of who we are. So when writing men, remember to give them their objectivity.

Writing Men: An Introduction

Posted by natechen on

A lot of people think that men are a simple topic. When Dave Barry wrote a book on the subject he made jokes about how no one thought he’d be able to get a whole book’s worth of material out of it. Even a lot of men share in this attitude. Sports, sex and video games are pretty much all they are shown to care about – unless power and money take the place of sports and games.

Now part of this might be because of the prevalence of sitcoms on TV, which have a tendency to reduce people to easily sketched caricatures. Dramatic television and books are a little more balanced, but even then outside the central characters there is a tendency to create men who are fairly one dimensional.

It’s true, in many ways men are simpler than women. We take a lot of pride and a lot of flack for that. However, there’s an assumption that simple because we’re dealing with one thing at a time we’re single dimensional. There’s a line to walk in properly depicting men and a skilled writer needs to learn what it is.

But, while there’s a large and growing body of study into women in literature as writers and characters, little or no study has been put into men. Some might say that’s because men are already so prevalent in stories, so isn’t it time for women to have the spotlight? But that assumes that all the portrayals of men are accurate and depict the thoughts and characters of men with all their good and bad points. That’s not a good assumption to make any more than it would be to make such an assumption about the depictions of women.

I am in no way an expert on writing or men, although I am one and that makes me better suited to speak on writing men than, say, on writing women. So what I propose is take a look on some things that I think you should keep in mind when writing for men. There’s a comic strip that runs in the local newspaper called Between Friends, a comic about  the friendship between a trio of forty-something women . My mother was surprised to find that I read and love it. But there’s nothing that’s given me more insight into women than reading a comic strip that’s written by them, for them. While the entertainment value might not be as high, hopefully in exploring what writing men means we will develop a better idea of what writing men entails for all of us. This isn’t going to be a regular even, to the extent that Genrely Speaking is, but it’s an idea that’s caught in my mind and I want to explore it with you some.

If you are a male writer, please chime in with things that you think I might have missed. If you’re a non-male writer, and something doesn’t sound right to you, by all means hash it out in the comments. It’s not possible to have a definitive set of guidelines to writing for men, but hopefully we can get a clearer picture over time.