Is your protagonist male or female?
I wonder if most of the main characters in novels are the same sex as the author.
There are examples of famous writers have failed when they have based their novel on the opposite sex.
There are also famous authors who have intelligently avoided the pitfall of writing about the opposite sex.
‘The Professor’ by Charlotte Bronte is based upon her experiences in Brussels, where she was a teacher in 1842. Much of the same subject matter of 'The Professor' was reworked from the perspective of a female student into Brontë's later novel Villette, which attracted MUCH HIGHER critical acclaim.
Jane Austen wrote about men in situations she was most familiar with. In her personal encounters with men. In situations when both men and women were present. But she knew little of what men spoke about in the absence of women.
Austen avoided pitfalls by writing about what she knew.
Mine are all female and I find I can't dare to try a man as my MC. Yet. I want to start with a little boy in a short story. Trying a man will be intriguing, though it will have to be a situation that I can relate to. I think we all have male and female characteristics in us, and so can imagine at least a little what it feels like to be the opposite sex.
In my first story, yes. The one I am working on at the moment has two central protagonists: him and a female character from the first novel who takes on a more senior and prominent role alongside him in this one.
On the other hand, I have often in the past written stories with female leads. I can write comfortably with either, but find my male lead easier to write for as a rule. On the other hand, my female lead is much wilder in her approach to life and takes a little more consideration before I write her as she is very easy to slip out of character with.
Joseph, I believe that was an obvious miss-click of the mouse.