I'm working on two stories right now. One has an ensemble cast, but the other one really only has one main character, a man, who's surrounded by aliens and has exciting doctor adventures in deep space.
The cast list of the ensemble story is pretty well balanced, with both male and female characters taking center stage at times. But with the other, there's only one spotlight and it's unavoidably on a male character all the time.
Now, there's nothing wrong with him being a guy. I want to get that out of the way right now. He's perfectly fine as a male character. I like him as he is, and I enjoy writing him.
But there's a part of me - the part that looks around and laments that there aren't more awesome ladies in main character roles, especially in more adventure-style stories - that's been asking recently if I need to leave him as a man, or if I could change him to a woman without changing too much of the story or making her less fun to write.
And honestly, I think the answer I've come up with is no. Changing this character to a woman wouldn't actually affect the story all that much. He doesn't use physical strength very much so the one possible physical difference doesn't really come into play. There would be some different personal concerns, but they're easy enough to work in. And since none of the aliens has much of a concept of human gender, they would be unlikely to treat him any different if he became a she.
And yet, I'm hesitant to change it. I'm sure part of it is just long familiarity with the character as a man - he was a roleplaying character long before I first tried to put him into prose in 2011 - but as I continue debating the merits of making him a her, I have to wonder if part of it's just an unconscious feeling that a man is "right" for the sort of loose sci-fi adventure story he's in. :-/
Progress: Blessed (24,400); Sci-fi story (56,716).
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