Michael’s answer to “Hey Michael, I absolutely loved your books and have gotten my friends/family to read them as well. …” > Likes and Comments

That's fair and likely a sign of a good character, but I wonder if swapping genders easily is really such a good thing, after all.

While there are more similarities between the sexes, than differences, ideally - in my opinion - the characters should approach things like sex differently, so while swapping genders would not change the romance or character development, you would have to rewrite the sexual part of the character's personality. Then again, you don't write sex (correct me if I'm wrong) so that's not an issue in this instant.

It also makes me wonder if gender roles can mean different starting personality set for a character. That's based on cultural difference of the sexes and can depend on the time period, which, again, isn't as relevant to fantasy, I suppose.

I don't know if you've read Game of Thrones, but Sansa, I think - who has all the starting qualities for a romanticized noble lady - could not have been written as a boy, due to the cultural differences between the sexes.

I hope this makes sense to you. I'd like to know what you think.

I agree you can't always switch...but in the cases when I did it recently it worked. As you pointed out it probably would be different if there was a lot of sex in my books. As to cultural differences, that's one of the great things about fantasy - you get define the parameters of the culture.

I did read part of GoT, and I've seen all of the series...and no I wouldn't gender swap Sansa - but all I can really comment is on my own characters and how they are created.