-and description. How should I handle this?! Allow me to explain:

I am left-handed and happy about it, but this makes things confusing as I imagine the characters in stories, I automatically imagine them as being left handed as well. This can make me really confused sometimes, and I think also contributes to the fact that I call my left side the "right" side...

So sometimes I'm a little bit frustrated when I'm reading because everything seems "backwards", especially when I'm reading a swordfight scene or something like that, though oftentimes I get away with leftizing everything for awhile, and then something happens that throws me off. Is anyone else here that is left handed and has had a similar problem?
The reason I'm asking is, because this then converts to my writing, if I write them as I imagine them, they all turn out left-handed. Of course this has to change, and I need to write some of them right-handed, yay, most of them should be right-handed for the sake of...I don't know, I guess for the sake of right-handed people in case they would have the same problem I have with right-handed characters.

Even still, I don't care enough about right handed people to keep all of my main characters right-handed (I don't mean I don't like right handed people by any means! ). Besides, historically there were left-handed (or, ambidextrous) warriors that had an advantage over righties, and I think that'd be a neat element to add to some of my races and their elite troops...so to summarize my questions at the end of this rambly ramble:

• (aimed at lefties, but don't hesitate to answer even if you're right-handed if you feel like you could answer it): Do you have trouble reading characters that are right handed (or left handed if you're right-handed) or do you get confused?
• Do you have lefty warriors in your stories? How do you write them that way?
• Are you tempted to make all your characters be left-handed?
• How do you handle handedness in general?

Any advice regarding this is appreciated even if it's not covered by my questions, thanks!

Being a left-handed person myself, I occasionally find it hard to understand how a swordfight works when the combatants are both right-handed, and written like a right-handed person. I generally just switch their hands in my mind automatically though.

I don't think that helped.

That's ok Etvochae, I have that problem too, and sometimes just switching their hands in my imagination ends up not working when it says something like "mrsoso lost his balance and grabbed the railing with his left hand" and I go how'd he do that while he held his sword in that hand? Oh, right...



Yeah, that's the trouble I have because it's never specified that the character is right handed (because most people should know that, even if they are lefties), so I just imagine them left-handed and get thrown off like crazy.



Good advice, I will make a note of that, thank you!



Yes it would, I've thought of doing that with the Reyer in my world...either left-handed or ambidextrous.

I certainly don't see anything wrong with you making all (or most) of your main protagonists left-handed, since you, the author, are left-handed. However, you would still want to keep in mind that many of the other characters were right handed, and as Eleutheria said, make sure the reader is aware that the characters are left-handed since most people automatically assume right-handed.

That makes sense, and maybe right-handed people would find it easier to deal with left-handed characters than I do with right-handed characters...if not, then I'll take this as my opportunity to show right handed people what I experience every time I accidentally imagine a character holding his sword and dagger in the same hand. Ahem, anyway, thank you for the advice, I shall make sure I remember to be careful to let the reader know when the characters are southpaws.

It depends for me, and honestly, I never really put much thought into it. I'm left-handed but I can only do certain actions with my right hand instead of my left (i.e. throwing something, kicking, ect.) Some of my characters are ambidextrous, so for example, I can have them switch their weapon between both hands (like I do in tennis) whether they are predominately right or left handed.

~Calen

That makes sense, there are some things I do better right-handed because I was taught by a right handed person ( )...anyway though, some of the more elite races/people groups/warriors in my fantasy world will be ambidextrous, able to use their weapon in either hand (or have one in each!), so I guess I just need to show somehow that in that culture a lot of people are left-handed/ambidextrous if they aren't right-handed like normal. Thanks!

I don't write detailed fight scenes, so I don't usually have a problem with this. Janin is left handed, though, so I'm slightly familiar with it. I got the idea from reading "The Three Musketeers." When D'Artangen gets challenged to a duel by Athos he tries to back out by refusing to duel a wounded man. Athos had his right arm in a sling. Athos says he can fight just as well with his left hand as with his right, and it is young D'Artagnon who will be at a disadvantage, for it can be very confusing to duel a left handed man.

I thought it would be cool to have an expert swordsman be left handed, and play on the advantages that would give him when dueling right handed opponents.

Yes! That's what I was thinking, perfect for an elite group of fighters...similar to those in the old testament.

You mean, my characters have to be one or the other.

Just kidding. I actually have never thought about this... I suppose, for my trilogy, it is one of those details I don't need.

Actually, the occasional character could be at least somewhat ambidextrous... I'm not sure how common that is. I know I seem to be more ambidextrous than most people, but there's still an obvious difference.

Yeah.... I can see how you would need to know this for some characters. I just haven't ran into it yet for my book. It is good food for thought, though.

I've never thought about that. *is bewildered* I don't even know if I would be able to write a left-handed character. It would throw me off. I don't even understand how you write comfortably -it's always seemed terribly annoying to me (and yes, I have tried. I had a great interest in being ambidexterous when I was younger).
I always think of my characters as being righties. I wonder if it was specified in a book that they were left-handed, if I would remember that. *wanders off, contemplating the confusion of having two hands*

There is something I want to tell you...

I'm not left-handed either.

I honestly don't think much about handedness. I'm right handed but otherwise left-sided in what I do. Generally I imagine everyone right handed but, in the case of the railing, I tend to use terms like free hand. I only make the distinction if there is something to look at on that specific hand. I also haven't thought much about lefties battling righties but I haven't watched the sword fight in Princess Bride for some time.

Well, the very reason I want to write my characters left handed as much as I can get away with is because I think left handed and would have a horrible time writing right handed characters (of course I'm going to do it anyway in a lot of cases, it's just not my preference). I in fact have a hard time reading books about right-handed characters in some cases-it's a lot easier to use a photo program to invert an image than to do it in your head with your mental image, trust me.

About ambidexterity, there are some factions of humans in Vadra that are pretty much all ambidextrous, they are brought up doing things that teach it to them as if they were born to it.

Yeah, it's interesting how little that issue is, and yet how powerfully it can effect the story, how you set up a scene, how your character fights, etc.

I suppose I have cheated and escaped all this confusion by rarely ever mentioning which hand it is the people are using. I just say 'the other hand', if it even needs to be specified.

Yeah, and I think that often works, but I've been really thrown for a loop when the author suddenly makes the mistake of describing something in the scene and then showing it in relation to the character, implying that the character is using the hand I hadn't counted on him using, or something like that.

I can imagine...I will definitely attempt to avoid doing that to people in my writings.

Good. Me too.

I had never, ever thought about this at all, but I'm ambidextrous and now that I think about it, I've made pretty much all my characters that way too.

This must be fixed...I don't think ambidexterity is that common, is it?

It might be kind of interesting in the case of a scribe. Once his right hand gets tired, he just switches to his left, and when that gets tired, his right hand is ready again! hehe...

Good idea.

Yeah that's cool! Yeah...you probably want to remedy that.