I'm not a prolific fanfic writer by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm not a prolific fanfic reader either. I tend to write personal OC projects and plays and stuff (which I have about ten going right now), so I'm stuck more in a male-dominated domain of OC writing, particularly in the genres I write in (noir, drama, thriller etc.). But if anything makes me aware of the gender difference, it's the slash and Suefics. There's something odd about going to look at fanfic for any given canon (say, for example, Heroes, which logically would have more male viewers), and seeing 90% of the fics being self-inserts or Sues (including one named after that bloody Twilight canon Sue) trying to get their rocks off with the main character (say, for example, Peter Petrelli). It's an odd experience, but not one I'm crazy angry about or care about a lot.

I dunno. Since my original fanfiction was within the Pokemon fandom, which has a surprisingly large amount of male writers, I can't really answer the question the same way.

The only thing that frequently sets me apart is the fact that people often assume I AM female, rather than male. I've only ever been amused by this, but it is a frequent question. I have noticed I do tend to have a different writing style than many females, prefering to break the cliches rather than reinforce them (No Prince Charming, sorry!). Male stories that I have read do tend to focus more on action - actual getting the story to go ahead, but all good male writers I've read do acknowledge the need for romance and emotions.

So, I suppose my point is that it is easier to notice a good male writer because they know when to use emotion, something many females tend to get wrong, unfortunately (Again, represented by the Prince Charming figure). I know I'm rambling, so I'll sum it up.

1) Only difference is people usually assume I'm female.

None of my stories really portray males and females in their traditional roles. For example, the toughest character in my first story was male, based on strength, however, he could have his ass handed to him by my female character since she had a very good knowledge of martial arts.

Ok, done rambling. Time for Artic to go to bed.

Honestly I don't feel too set apart. Sure I might have a strong hatred of badslash or any slash for that matter, but otherwise I'm fine. I just go through life with an attitude of die-hard indifference.

Let me preface this by saying that I am a rather girly boy. The vast majority of my friends in high school were girls. I read Pride and Prejudice because I wanted to. I appreciate a good romance every bit as much as a good adventure, and get just as annoyed as Mom does when Dad asks the inevitable "did they win?".

I agree with Leto, by the way - Mercedes Lackey is a tremendous author, and definitely one of my favorites. She's on my list, along with Lewis, Tolkien, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Neal Stephenson.

Anyways, back to the question at hand. There are times, both while reading published fiction and fanfiction, that it's quite obvious that the story was written by a woman for women. They fall into two main categories - bad thinking and bad biology.

Bad thinking is (fortunately) by far the most prevalent. There have been lots of moments in stories where I've thought "wait, guys don't think like that." It's usually minor enough that I think of it as an error like a plothole or a typo.

Obviously, there is enough variation in guys that as long as a character stays in-character for himself, he can think a little bit (or a large bit) strangely. It's just the occasional "wait, what?" moments that are confusing.

When it happens, bad biology is a lot more annoying. I won't go into details here, because the more common mistakes are definitely not PG-13. (E-mail me if you're morbidly curious - Techno.Dann(at)gmail.)

My advice for writers is fairly simple - if you're worried about making mistakes when it comes to writing the opposite gender, find someone who is said opposite gender who you can ask the embarrassing questions.

I really don't feel set apart from the community because of my gender - thanks to the Internet, everyone is a user name and a few paragraphs of text. Sure, I know that the vast majority of you out there are girls, but that isn't shoved in my face on a regular basis like it would be if we met face-to-face. The biggest things that stand out to me are errors in writing.

I don:t know about other guys, but my main view at it is preference. My favourite published author is a woman, Mercedes Lackey. (I know the hissing starts now) but I like the way that she writes. That doesn:t mean that all of her work is really good, or even mediocre, but her gems outway the busts in my opinion.

This has bering on my view of fanfiction. Because I have read books by both male and female authors, reading the fanfiction of the opposing gender is interesting. LotR is a prime example. Unfortunatly, the majority of the fanfiction is about a mary sue falling into middle earth, which is interesting because there are increadibly few actual relationships in the serise. There is a fundamental shift in the point of view.

While I am not saying that men don:t write relationship stories, it is just that there is less emphasis on the relationship aspect of the story unless it is key to the plot (Terry Pratchett "Wintersmith" or Terry Brooks Shannara serise (a couple of them)).

To answer the question: No, I personally don:t feal set apart because the fics are something that I would have never conciders (I am only counting well writen ones in this category) Which I hope is the same for the reverse.

Leto