Doleful Creatures Gender Swap?

I’m considering something for Doleful Creatures: A gender swap.

Although the gender swap feels, at the moment, wrong.

I’ll tell you why: My main character, Jarrod, has two principal motivators through most of the novel: Guilt and paranoia. Now, I know it’s not only men who get paranoid or feel guilty, but I know both of these feelings well from the male perspective. Perhaps the male and female perspectives aren’t all that different. But it feels artificial to project these feelings ont a gender I don’t understand as well.

Why am I considering a gender swap, making Jarrod a female (and possibly Aloysius too)?

Feedback.

Feedback from multiple readers who think there aren’t enough female characters in the book.

Granted, the feedback-givers are female. They see only one strong female in the book, and she’s the baddie. And I also know it’s mostly females who read fantasy these days.

Still . . .

I read a lot of fantasy. I have read a lot of fantasy since I was a kid.

And here’s the thing: If the story was good, I didn’t really care – and don’t care now – whether the characters are male or female. It doesn’t make a difference to me.

So it’s either me and my perceptions that are the problem, or the story is the problem.

I don’t know what to think, which is why Doleful Creatures continues to languish.

But I keep thinking back to something that was said to me when I was sixteen. I’ll paraphrase: Put effort into things that seem hard to accomplish, because many blessings may be obtained through that effort. Writing a book feels hard to accomplish. But I can see the blessings. I want them.

So I will continue writing. And editing. And figuring out the gender thing. Because I think it’s a legitimate comment.

I’ll pose the following question on Facebook, and see what the responses are:

A Writer Needs Help: Say through innocent actions on your part, several friends and others even closer to you were killed. What would your reactions be, particularly under the following additional circumstances:

1. Another survivor constantly blames you for what happened
2. That survivor constantly poisons those around you with that blame
3. That survivor has murderous intent towards you.

What feelings would manifest themselves, and how would they manifest?

Would different feelings manifest, and in different ways, if you were male or female? What would those differences be?

We’ll see what happens. I’ll post this generally, and in a few writing groups.