“There was once a girl who lived in a small village by the sea. She was in many ways like all the other girls in the village, except for her desire to fly. One day, when she was sitting on the cliffs watching the stars and the lights in the sky, her imagination filled in the details of a vast space battle taking place above her.”

When you see a paragraph like the one above, devoid of author, absent any context, you know that a story is being told. If the spell of the narrative is cast correctly, then the questions furthest from the reader’s mind are what the gender of either the author or the narrator. However, what you are absolutely aware of are two facts: not only is she different, but that she is a she. Does the fact that I wrote it change it any, even after you have read it?