Hello Pegasisters (and hopefully Bronies as well)! I'm a male editor who's thinking of starting to write and I have been influenced a lot in reading by female protagonists in a number of novels and stories. Building on that, MLP's cast is almost entirely female and so I would like to not only see more stories with female leads but write some myself.

Besides the obvious, are there things that all the female writers would like for us males to watch out for when we portray our characters? Advice, words of wisdom or anything like that.

Well, I can't really give you the female perspective, but I can give you the "male who's writing a female character" perspective...

I think it's important to remember to be honest with your characters, and figure out what motivates them. Gender is, when you get right down to it, just one aspect of many that makes up a person. After all, I don't walk around reminding myself all day that I'm a man, it's just part of who I am.

We all share very common drives, after all, whether we're men or women. We all want, basically, the same things: comfort, friendship, love, stability, happiness, adventure, and so on. Different people just have different levels of "want" for all of those things. No two women will want exactly the same things out of life, just like no two men will.

From there, once you figure out basic motivations, it's a matter of putting yourself in the character's shoes... or horseshoes, as the case may be. Not only what motivates them, but how they act or react in various situations. Once you start getting a good handle on your characters, they tend to write themselves, at least to a point.

To get a woman's "voice", I find that talking to my female friends, my wife, and my female relatives and then listening and thinking about what they're saying (and why they say it) is very helpful. Also, reading a book with realistic female characters written by a woman is helpful as well. It's just not as useful, in my opinion, as talking to a real woman.

When writing, if you can, have a female friend do a quick check to see if what you wrote is realistic or not. I find that this helps a lot.

Just my 2 bits

I think guys are doing a pretty good job. I really just made this group because I felt like an outsider because I felt like girls weren't getting as much notice as the boys but now I see that is not the case. I really think this group is important though.

For normal social interactions, there's really not much difference between men and women (or mares and stallions in this case?). Like Hoppy said earlier, being a man/woman is just a minor thing that makes up a person(or pony) when compared to everything else.

The one area I have major problems with however is writing sex for a female. I can sort of visualise how oral might maybe feel, since it's basicly licking of sensitive parts, but when it comes to penetration I'm dumbfounded for obvious reasons. I mean, I lack a vagina so I have no idea how that feels, and I really REALLY doubt it feels the same as anal penetration.

Maybe I should just write M/M gay porn instead.