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just an idle question. I'm writing a story and i've hit a segment where my protagonist has turned into a female...more or less. I'm still using male pronouns and i intend to keep using them until he acknowledges that he is now female and may not be going back, though this may confuse the audience.
I'm curious though, when do you start having your protag reffer to themselves by their new gender?
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Simple answer
When it is most effective for story purposes. It varies by story and character.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
If it flows right then it fits?
That's probably not very helpful but it's true, if the pronoun change doesn't feel natural when your reading back then it's probably too early.
There can also be a difference if the story is written in first person, third person or disassociated (outside narrator) perspective.
-First person it is almost entirely dependent on the characters thoughts and feelings on the topic.
-In third person has a bit more leeway but generally you can follow whoever is the plots current focus's opinion on it all.
-Disassociated is completely up to you when to change it because you pretty much ARE the narrator.
That's the way I've always looked at it at least, not sure if other people see it differently, a lot of choices like that in writing seem to come down to the personal preference of the author a lot of the time.
Nessa
To me, I see it as being the
To me, I see it as being the moment where there is no turning back, that the character accepted the situation and feels that they are not a male anymore or that damage done to their body is too great to continue to be a male.
It is both a physical change as well as mental, but the big thing is finality. They are female and they have to be female to live on.
I'm told STFU more times in a day than most people get told in a lifetime
She or He
Let's see. In dialog, a person should refer to a changed person as whatever he would actually say, based on both his perspective and intent. My story "John's Living Nightmare" had this issue occur the most, or where I had the best chance of mixing things up. Obviously, John thought of himself as male, so when writing about him, I referred to him with male or female pronouns. On the other hand, everyone else thought John was female, recognized John as female, or pretended to think that John was female; and therefore referred to John with female pronouns.
In narrative, if the story is written from someone's viewpoint, follow what the viewpoint character thinks about the transformed character.
If the story has a pseudo-viewpoint character -- the narrator is a separate entity sitting in the viewpoint character's brain, snarking about what the viewpoint character thinks, says, and does -- well, do it from the viewpoint of that narrator. (In my view, the pseudo-viewpoint character is just bad writing.)
If the narrator is omniscient, write the character as he is -- or write the character as the consensus is what he is. (The TG character in "The Crying Game" would be "she" until the Reveal, whether the story is written from the soldier's viewpoint or objectively.)
-- Daphne Xu
Well...
My suggestion is to look at this in two parts.
On, is reference of physical gender in action. While the other is reference of gender in dialogue.
Personally, to prevent confusion, I prefer to use the proper gender terms the person physically is at the time. Though, that does not mean one cannot have friends other people, and the person in question, in dialogue conversations reference in their statements the gender the person in question mentally identifies with.
One of the reason I enjoy reading and writing gender bending stories is that such genres push the limits of what the current English language can do. Such as the gender neutral pronoun issue that the English language has.
The Author Decides
It is down to you as the author and whatever you decide is the right decision. It shouldn't cause any confusion either way. It's how you feel when writing the story that makes the decision in my opinion. If it seems natural to switch then it's right.
Hugs