Posts tagged gender

Half of the people in the world are women.  Depending on where you are, that differs by one or two percentage points.  Males have a slightly higher chance of being born, whereas females have a bit longer of a life span.  Unless the place where your characters live kills off most babies of one gender, your book should also reflect that.  We’re mostly getting past having a token female, but having three guys to every one woman is hardly better.  If you have too many men (or too many women) in your book, just change their genders.  It shouldn’t change their personalities at all.

Similarly, depending on who you ask, anywhere from three percent to ten percent of people are homosexual.  If you have a lot of characters, more than one of them is going to have to be gay.  One percent of people are asexual, meaning that they have no sexual attraction at all (but might still have romantic attraction).  Two to four percent of people are bisexual.  Not every man is going to want a woman, and vice versa. 

You should also look up the demographics of your setting.  Most stories set in America, for example, will have both black people and white people, but ignore the growing amount of Hispanics.  In Japan, on the other hand, there is very little ethnic diversity, and the likelihood that a character will have, say, blonde hair unless they dye it is slim.  In science fiction settings, unless something goes horribly wrong, pretty much everybody should be of mixed race. 

The follower of the day is faviizstuff.