Writing Female characters

Just Jack said:

And could you point out some common mistakes that male authors make when writing women?

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They write them flawless - brave, loyal, idealistic, skilled and beautiful. They hand them prestige and victories, rather than letting these women fail or work their way up to their accomplishments. They give them love interests who are basically there to prop up the women or to be a reward for their efforts, rather than being three-dimensional characters in their own rights.

I'm sure there are other mistakes, but these have struck me in stories posted here for critiques.

Write a woman like she is a person first, a woman second. She is an individual person with her own hopes, aspirations, and importantly, flaws, and not just some member of a club called "women".

Just don't make all your female characters alike. I really dislike it when all the female characters in an author's universe are sassy, or self-conscious, or neat freaks, or what-have-you.

Izunya

Yep. We're not all alike. Some of us detest pink, wash dishes once or twice a week, shave our heads, and prefer to write male characters.

Toothpaste said:

Write a woman like she is a person first, a woman second. She is an individual person with her own hopes, aspirations, and importantly, flaws, and not just some member of a club called "women".

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I second this. The second you start to make generalizations of what a specific gender is like as a group you end up writing stereotypes instead of characters that read like real people. At least I'm hoping that this is the way it works. I'm a woman and my current novel has a male protagonist. I don't sit down and think "oh, I'm writing about a man." I sit down and think "Now, what would Alex do?" It's not a man I'm writing about. It's a specific man. You shouldn't be trying to write about a woman. You should be trying to write about a specific woman, a specific person. I think it's hard to give someone advice on how to write a character when all you know about that character is their gender. People are so different. You can line up four women and find that they have hardly anything in common other than the fact that they are women.

Stay away from stereotypes or who you THINK women are like. Write them as people first. And for cryin' out loud, never make your character giggle or blush more than a couple times throughout the entire ms. Possibly never.

Toothpaste said:

Write a woman like she is a person first, a woman second. She is an individual person with her own hopes, aspirations, and importantly, flaws, and not just some member of a club called "women".

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There's a club called 'women'? I wonder why I wasn't invited. ^_~
Seriously, thanks for that.

I agree with everyone else. ^_^ Write your character as a person. My current protag is a male character, and he is a lot easier to write if I focus on 'him' not a 'male character'.

Two of my three main characters in my WIP are females. I just wrote them as people, mainly. I was concerned that my women would come across as men with breasts, but they didn't. One of my questions to my betas (especially female betas) was, "do my female characters seem like real female people. They all said yes. So it seems that just writing people works pretty well.

A lot of male authors either write the "men with breasts" thing, or write over the top feminine characters that come across as props. A lot of female authors that I've read write men as over the top masculine props or overly feminine pantywaists. When they make this mistake, it seems to me that they are just trying too hard to squeeze someone into a gender. So my view: write an indevidual person, not a gender--just like a lot of other people here said.

Matera the Mad said:

Yep. We're not all alike. Some of us detest pink, wash dishes once or twice a week, shave our heads, and prefer to write male characters.

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AMEN! I DETEST pink! I would rather everything I wear be white than to have a jot of pink in wardrobe or make up, etc!

I also HATE washing dishes...this includes loading the dishwasher...so I have a rule -- I cook, someone else cleans.

Queen of Swords said:

They write them flawless - brave, loyal, idealistic, skilled and beautiful. They hand them prestige and victories, rather than letting these women fail or work their way up to their accomplishments. They give them love interests who are basically there to prop up the women or to be a reward for their efforts, rather than being three-dimensional characters in their own rights.

I'm sure there are other mistakes, but these have struck me in stories posted here for critiques.

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Another mistake is to idealise them in a different way - they are weak, simple creatures who NEED a man to complete them, to protect them and get them through the big bad world. The 50's woman - June Cleaver (Leave It To Beaver), Donna Reed (The Donna Reed Show), Jennie (I Dream of Jennie) and Samantha (Bewitched) rolled into one (yeah, I am an old telly buff...lol).

Both of these characterisations (mine and Queens) are maddening! and unfair.

I write both male and female characters, and have never been told either are unrealistic. I agree, make her human first -- human emotions, human failings, human triumphs, human desires -- then add the female touch. Think of women you admire and women you desire, and why-- what is it that makes you admire them, or desire them (the physical and beyond -- how they think, interact with you and others, etc.)

If you have a scenario and you want to know how a woman would handle it and you just cant imagine it -- ask!

KrishnaJewel said:

Another mistake is to idealise them in a different way - they are weak, simple creatures who NEED a man to complete them, to protect them and get them through the big bad world.

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I know what you mean, though the pendulum seems to have swung in the opposite direction and now we have hyper-idealized females who can take on said big bad world with both hands tied behind their backs. IMO, not much of an improvement.

Further things to watch out for :

1. If you do create such a kickass heroine, allow her to have "feminine" moments if these seem within her character. She can be tough and strong while making sure her makeup is properly applied.

2. A woman doesn't always have to believe in True Love, or go into every encounter thinking that this is the person she's going to spend the rest of her life with. Star Trek was especially guilty of this. Even when the women were given roles other than switchboard operator/healer/nurturer, if they fell in love with some alien-of-the-week, they made plans to leave their ships and their friends and settle down with that person. Could you see Kirk or Picard doing that? No, I don't think so.

3. Women can be irrational, vindictive and unfair. They can walk past beggars without feeling any need to feed or help them. You see the opposite of this in romance novels a lot, where the wealthy upper-class heroine runs an institution for orphans or ex-prostitutes. I don't want to read about saints.

4. When a woman behaves badly or screws up, it's acceptable for another character, or even her love interest, to criticize her or correct her. The other character does not become wrong for doing so.

That's all I can think of for now.

Granted, this one turns up in thrillers sometimes ... they write the women like they're guys, giving them guy motivations. I ran across one book where a woman character would kill to be promoted, and the way the author wrote it, all I kept thinking was "This was the way a guy would react." You could have changed the character's name to George, and no one would have noticed.

Don't make them helpless victims. Time and time again, I see a heroine--and often a main character--who is smart and intelligent and then when the end of the story comes and she's in trouble, she has to wait for a guy character to help her. She doesn't do anything to help herself. If a guy character got into a similiar situation, you can bet he would be thinking of ways to escape and trying everything he could. She doesn't have to be successful in her efforts (because sometimes the guy has to rescue her for the type of story it is), but she should at least try instead of sitting around waiting for help.

Just Jack said:

Im pretty sure I can write a believable female character, it shouldnt be too much of a challenge.

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There's your first mistake, right there.

But I am a man

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There's the reason for your first mistake, right there.


It is challenging. You will never be in a woman's skin. You have to make women who read your work believe that you were in a woman's skin. You have to sell it. That is a challenge. Same way it would be a challenge to write your story from a horse's perspective (only no horse is going to read it and prove you wrong).

You have one thing in common with women... you are of the same species. Start from there. And research. Put yourself into the life of women... mingle. Watch. Listen to conversations. Write them real. Don't watch sitcoms and dramas to try to figure out women... if I was a woman I'd be pissed about the way they are often portrayed on TV. Watch them in real life.


Make them formidable.

Women are humans too.

The individual differences between women are much greater than the general difference between women and men.

Due to the wide variety in the group called "women", if you have women characters that acts "unwomanly", nobody will notice. They'll just think they're highly unique women.

Pardon the humor, but I believe this was asked of Jack in "As Good As It Gets." The female fan asked, "How do you write women so well?" Jack's answer was mean, but hysterical and priceless: "I think of a man, and then take away reason and accountability."

ToddWBush said:

Pardon the humor, but I believe this was asked of Jack in "As Good As It Gets." The female fan asked, "How do you write women so well?" Jack's answer was mean, but hysterical and priceless: "I think of a man, and then take away reason and accountability."

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Love that movie. Love that line. Love that Jack.

Just Jack said:

Could you ladies give me some helpful hints please?

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Same way you write guys, only with less dangly bits.

Write a person, not a sex.

This is a question that always puzzles me. I never stopped to think, Hm, now I'm writing a male character -- what should I do? Male or female is just one of the hundreds of decisions you make when creating a character. What about: Age, race, religion if any, sexual orientation, height, weight, hair color, eye color, body type, shoe size, favorite color, dog person or cat person or both, vegetarian or not, morning newspaper, radio stations hot-keyed in the car, type of car, shaves all the way up or just to the knee or not at all (could apply to guys nowadays), phobias, philias, fetishes, ice cream out of the carton or in a bowl, would know Kant from Kent (Clark), allergies, tongue-roller or no, dialect, habitual tone of voice, habitual state of mind, habitual habits...

Phaeal said:

This is a question that always puzzles me. I never stopped to think, Hm, now I'm writing a male character -- what should I do? Male or female is just one of the hundreds of decisions you make when creating a character. What about: Age, race, religion if any, sexual orientation, height, weight, hair color, eye color, body type, shoe size, favorite color, dog person or cat person or both, vegetarian or not, morning newspaper, radio stations hot-keyed in the car, type of car, shaves all the way up or just to the knee or not at all (could apply to guys nowadays), phobias, philias, fetishes, ice cream out of the carton or in a bowl, would know Kant from Kent (Clark), allergies, tongue-roller or no, dialect, habitual tone of voice, habitual state of mind, habitual habits...

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I'd cross almost everything out except maybe things like phobias, etc. -- anything to do with psychology will have more impact on the character than physical attributes such as eye color or even how he drives. Plus, they have absolutely no bearing on whether it's a he or she. What, you think just because it's a female that she can't be 35, Asian, gay, 6'2", and drives a Ferrari?

Besides, who really cares if she has black hair, is 6'2" and drives a Ferrari if that information doesn't factor in to the story?

The best characterization comes from experiences. What kind of experiences this character has had? What kind of childhood, adolescence and adulthood? What is his or her psychological make up? I think that's the most important thing to identify and define your character and everything else comes from that. Yes, even personality. So have your straight Catholic man enjoy a peach yogurt in the morning, take up yoga in the afternoon, and go shopping in the evening, if that fits his experiences and personality as a person.

That's why I always let the characters come to me first, instead of me trying to fit them into certain cutouts and assigning them attributes as I, the author, see fit. That tends to lead to rather boring, stereotypical (or unrealistically quirky), two-dimensional characters.

It occurs to me that perhaps you should worry less about the gender and more about the character?

*shrug*

If your characters are believable, well-developed individuals you shouldn't have to be concerned with the credibility of their respective genders. They should live, breathe, talk, weep--and CONVINCE--on their own. The only exception to this MIGHT be first person POV, but I still think you'd really have to come way out of left field before the sex of your protagonist would jeopardise her believability.

Women usually pee sitting down, and usually have better lower-body strength than upper-body strength. They usually have XX chromosomes and usually menstruate from somewhere after age 10 until somewhere before age 60. They usually have female reproductive organs and secondary sexual characteristics.

And there are exceptions to even these tendencies.

i think this is a very legitimate question.

i have yet to feel brave enough to write a story
from a male's perspective. i did do it in part in my
novel--but it was an older man (a father). i found
this easier than a younger man, who i found i couldn't
relate to in any way.

it's true!

you can say all you want about it being the person
that matters, but gender is a huge box we check in
life. in fact, it's the first thing a person asks when
a new baby is born. girl or boy?

from personal experience, my male crit friend
always wrote too politely when it came to his
femme characters. you esp see it in the dialogue.
there was a group of friends chatting and teasing
and the heroine responded "ladies..."

much too polite.

but it's like secret speak.
how DO guys talk when they are all
by themselves? and can i even mimic
it or guess?

of course, it depends on genre and
setting, but yes, it's something to think about.

addendum : for me, it's not about making a hero
an interesting and complex character--it's about
really getting into his head and catching his voice.
that is hard for me.

Just Jack said:

But I am a man, so I lack that perfect perspective of how women work.

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When you find out you'll make a fortune.

I think that some male authors make the mistake of writing women the way they would like them to be, not the way that they actually are. This is not your opportunity to fulfil your own fantasy life.

Talk to women, observe the way they talk to you and to each other. Notice the things that seem important to them and the things they don't seem to care much about at all. Don't draw conclusions based on TV or film portrayals of women. Do read great women writers and use them to help you get an insight into a woman's perspective on life.