My MG Fantasy has a boy protagonist. I normally don't write in a male's POV simply because I'm not very confident I can make it work. Wait, I should clarify: a teenage male POV. All too often I worry he'd come off too girly or overly macho because I'm trying to compensate for my own lack of testosterone.

So, the question of the day is: (actually three questions. My bad.)

If you're female, do you write in a boy's POV?
If you're male, do you write in a girl's POV?

Or at least, ATTEMPT to?

My boy protagonist is a 12-year-old orphan who's searching for his sister to save her from slavery. This is Fantasy, so it's set in a world of my own making, which is not totally out there as far as geography is concerned, but does have fantastical elements and creatures that I created from the bowels of my noggin. Now, while I don't have a problem writing this boy's POV, I sometimes wonder if I have the guts to make him older. As in, have him be a teenage boy and do...whatever it is that teenage boys do. I'm not actually planning to change him. This is more of a hypothetical question.

See, we already have Harry Potter, of course, and J.K. Rowling made it work (though Harry did start out as an 11-year-old so it was MG-ish before it became YA). The other book written in a boy's POV by a female writer that I can think of quickly is Brenna Yovanoff's The Replacement. Again, it works, though as I am female myself, my perception is flawed. Do actual (read: real and alive) teenage boys read The Replacement because it has a male protagonist, and does it make them think the voice is authentically boy? See, I wouldn't know this, and as I don't know any teen boys around my neighborhood and have none of my own (my son's into Thomas the Train at the moment), I wouldn't be able to conduct a study.




(And vice versa for male authors writing in a female's POV)

So:

Do you worry about misrepresenting your characters, too? Or have you gotten it down to a T? Do share. We'd all like to know.

Btw, here's a list of some MG and YA books with male protagonists, in case you're interested (written by both male and female authors).

1. Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
2. Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer
3. The Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney
4. The Monstrumologist series by Rick Yancey
5. Alfred Kropp by Rick Yancey
6. Percy Jackson/ The Olympians series by Rick Riordan
7. Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld
8. The Missing series by Margaret Peterson Haddix
9. Maze Runner series by James Dashner
10. Inheritance series by Christopher Paolini
11. Leven Thumps series by Obert Skye
12. Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan
13. Ender's Saga by Orson Scott Card
14. Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud
15. Tunnels series by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams
16. Pendragon series by D.J. McHale
17. The Giver by Lois Lowry
18. Anything by Gordon Korman (e.g. Schooled, The Sixth Grade Nickname Game, Maxx Comedy: The Funniest Kid in America, etc.)
19. Holes by Louis Sachar
20. Neal Shusterman's books (e.g. Unwind, Downsiders, Bruisers, etc.)