Boys Who Write Girls Who Write Boys Who Write Girls

As we all know a lot goes into a good book.  You need setting, situation, world building, a decent grasp of the language you are writing in, and of course characters. A really good character is one that you can fall in some sort of emotion with, it could be love, hate, sympathy, empathy, whatever, but a well written character is one you fell something for. Most people tend to like characters that they can identify with in some way.  How many times have you read a book and been "I totally know what that character feels like!" or "not that I would ever do that, but I understand why that character did what he/she/it did".  At the risk of sounding completely biased I would guess that most (not all) people tend to have a stronger identity with characters they have something in common with e.g. gender, race, religion, hobby, talent, location, family, problems and so forth and as potentially limiting as that sounds, I personally think that it's ok.  It does not preclude a person from loving a character that is different from oneself, or even identifying with a character that is completely different, it's just in human nature to find similarities to identify with.  All this preaching and yammering to get to a completely different point. 

I rarely like it when males write females and vice versa.  Hold on now, before you all start freaking out on me, hear me out...then feel free to let me have it :-)  I have been trying to branch out my reading lately (to some small degree of success) and have been trying new authors, styles and genre's.  The one consistent thing I have found is for the most (again not all) part as hard as they try, it is seems to be difficult for another gender (and I am talking all of them male, female, gay, bi, trans, ect.) to fully write a completly accurate portrayal of another gender.  I think without the experiance you can only write what you think the other genders feel/act/think like. This becomes especially problematic when the author uses a first person narrative.  I rarely like the use of first person narrative because it gets you stuck in peoples head to much, but sometimes it works.  When a person from a different gender uses it for the voice of the main character, well to me it's a study in what a person thinks a person should think/feel, versus what a person would probably really think and feel.  Hmmm let me see if I can explain it a little better.  I can only really write this from a straight female perspective so that is what I am going to go with.  Almost every time I read a female character written by a male (especially first person narrative) it always feels like they are trying to get there character to do and say what they think I as a female reader would want them to do and say.  They are either super strong and sassy, or super sweet and vulnerable, or super bitchy and controlling, or super something else.  I have seen this go the opposite way as well, I have read male characters written by female authors and even though I am not a guy been able to see, um yeah that is probably a female talking in a boys voice.  I think it has gotten better to some degree more recently, where it is more allowable for all genders to do whatever they want.  Boys can become nurses, teachers and cooks without too much flak, and girls are actively encouraged to go into traditionally boy fields (says the girl who works at the

firehouse!). Some genre's are better at cross gender writing than others.  Sci-Fi has almost always been a better place for all the genders to meld.  Fantasy, especially some of the newer stuff is starting to explore a more fluid concept of gender, which makes it easier for all genders to get there hands into it. YA is a mixed bag, I have seen some amazing gender study level stuff come out, but there still seems to be a very overarching girls are either super sassy or super sweet and boys are either bad boys with a heart of gold, or the perfect best friend.  Of course there are always glaring exceptions, Robin Hobb is a female author who among other wonderful books wrote the Farseer Series  which not only employs the dreaded first person narrative, but used a male voice as well.  I totally fell in love with the book and the character and it totally blew all my expectations out of the water (note to self, do a rambling on this soon).  Now to be fair, I am not a boy so I'm not sure how well she portrayed the maleness part, but it seemed pretty spot on to me.  Scott Westerfeld has done an amazing job with his Uglies series in which a female is not only one, but two of the main characters. Obviously there are amazing authors out there that can handle any character thrown at them, but for every one of those, there is five that should do a tad more research before attempting to write a different gender. All of this ranting and rambling to say...well...I'm not sure really, just kind of in the mood to rant. 

What do you think of writing for a different gender?  What are some great examples of cross-gender writing?  What are some awful examples of cross-gender writing? How does non-traditional genders play a role? Do you think I am crazy and read way to much into these books?