Here’s a writing exercise I got years ago that is still very useful today.

Write a scene centered around two characters, one male, the other female. It can be any type of scene, romantic, comedic, confrontational, you decide.

Now here’s the thing: You have to write this scene from the point of view of the character whose gender is opposite your own. So girls write as guys, and guys as girls.

I won’t be judging this, but what I’d like to see is for the ladies on Ficlets to be commenting and rating (if ratings work again) only on what the fellas wrote, while the dudes comment and rate the gals (I mean, what they wrote).

Let’s see how well we grasp the other side’s point of view!