: Re: How do I keep the gender of my main character purposely ambiguous? I'm a newcomer to this community, and have recently started giving serious thought to my first novel. I'm basically working

@Connie138

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You could make the narrator fascinated with the main character and write your story in the second person. Perhaps the narrator is a friend or mentor of some kind, to whom the main character shares most of what happens, but not their gender.

In Peter Pohls book Janne, min vän, translated into English as Johnny, My Friend, the main character is either Janne or Krille, but the narrator is clearly teenager Krille. The narrator is unambiguously male, as are all his friends he hangs out with in 1950s Stockholm. One day, they are joined by the mysterious Janne. As the book progresses, the nature of Janne only becomes more and more mysterious as Krille finds out more.

Only at the very end, after the climax of the book, is there a hint of Jannes gender. But even then it remains unclear. And certainly, initially, Krille and his friends assume that Janne is male.

The mystery is shared between narrator Krille and the reader. The reader can identify with Krille. From the perspective of Janne, it would be a completely different book, and mystery would be out of the question.

Another book by Peter Pohl, without such mystery, does employ a grammatical technique that could aid in keeping it a mystery. Vi kallar honom Anna (no English translation; the title means We (will) call him Anna) is entirely written in the second person, in the form of a letter, if you will, that the narrator writes to the main character.

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