I'm curious about how to write a good (quality) female protagonist?

[D4isuke]

My genre on my fiction "Optabilis Mundo: Shroud of Black Resort" has mature, smut, adult, and ecchi with isekai that generally talks about "desire" and lots of tragic situations such as human slavery, sexual humiliation, social discrimination (sort of social status comparing), drug trafficking, political corruption, torturing for fun, and anything that is quite indecent (not encouraging these acts though).

And I'm pretty curious if it's alright for a female protagonist to be mostly act like a male protagonist usually do (very much tomboyish) because the personality of my protagonist is not tomboyish but charismatic, beautiful, sexually cautious (mostly because of her background before the story begins"Oh by the way, she already got her cherry popped to begin with... In other words, non-virgin"), and last but not at least, bisexual (it'll happen in particular future chapters). I considered her as "Anti-hero protagonist" because even though she has quite optimistic background, she can also have flawed characteristics like urging to kill a certain priest during the Chapter 7 of my work , dumping on men, fuckgirl, and anything that is considered some sort of "badass" style in female version.

I'm wondering if she can be sexually cultivated since she can be cautious, but only in limited time if it's necessary to do so like "Honey Trap mission", "Commitment", or anything "Consensual". I also understand that women tend to sympathize more than men does, so how do I avoid any cliche scenario that might ruin the mood? And how do I realistically relate to a woman herself who has quite a self-struggle that will much handle themselves in both positive and negative way?

 

[GDLiZy]

Good characters are good not because of their gender, but because of their personality and depth.

You seemed to be writing wish-fulfilment (with a hint of edginess) so I have no advice for you, as I despise the genre and generally avoided it.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

A) There is nothing wrong with wish-fulfillment. Someone else out there has similar wishes and wants to read your story.
B) Yes, it's perfectly fine for a female protagonist to act like a male protagonist. Sometimes we even burp and fart louder than our husbands.
C) Bisexual women exist. I've had threesomes with them. Personally, I identify as heteroflexible because I don't enjoy one-on-one intimacy with women. However, I'll do it to entertain men for special occasions. I treat men as I would like to be treated, and they reciprocate by indulging me in threesomes with additional men, even if they aren't bisexual themselves.

 

[Moctemma]

This video will help you.

 

[ChubbyLiv]

I don't need a relatable mc, for me, she needs to have a goal, a purpose.

 

[D4isuke]

I don't need a relatable mc, for me, she needs to have a goal, a purpose.

Her main goal has introduced at Chapter 9 of my fiction, and there will be tons of objectives in regards to proceed with that particular goal (whether it may be succeed or not). Yet her purpose is still unknown for her as she had no clue what to do right now other than the goal has revealed, but she'll need some overlook of the setting around the world in my particular work.

This video will help you.

Thanks for the video, it helps a lot to understand

 

[Jemini]

1. Be a male writer. I find that the best characters are written by a writer who is opposite that character's gender.
2. The reason you are making your character opposite your gender is to give yourself a step of removal from them, making it a safety precaution to avoid the subconscious urge to make your protagonist a self-insert.
3. Once those first 2 things are in place, just make them a good character.

 

[AliceShiki]

The way to write a good character is always the same... Make them well-developed and make their actions sensible.

 

[gaylolis]

depends what you think is a great female protagonist? probably the kind of women you admire and look up to?

as for me, i don't care about making a great character. there are many standards out there for great, and you can't please everyone. i just focus on making myself care enough to write about them, and that's it.

 

[Vaerama]

And how do I realistically relate to a woman herself who has quite a self-struggle that will much handle themselves in both positive and negative way?

‘Relating’ is an easy enough thing to do: imagine yourself into the identical situation, and consider how it affects you, then look at how it affects someone else and it’s almost inevitable that you’ll see at least a few similarities... as even if only your senses tell you the same thing as theirs: you’ve got something to work with in perspective. Demystifying another’s perspective so that you can better understand them is all ‘relating’ is about.

It’s relating comprehensively to a character entirely different from you that is hard. But you can do it if take the basic core character traits of the character you’ve written (pick like, 4-5 core traits, ignore the rest) (this is assuming you built them, and therefore know ‘what makes them tick’, so that you can remove the character themself from the equation), and artificially take them upon yourself ‘if I were aggressive/sexually open/attractive/patriotic: how can I imagine x situation affecting me? What would I be inclined to do in it?’

That helps to first establish a basis for a character for me anyhow: everything arising from a few input points and becoming more complex as a result of time/situations experienced. (for example, one character of mine started with ‘missionary’, ‘love-wanting’, ‘Ancient’, and ‘empathetic’, then I expanded from there by giving them loneliness for an extreme length of time, and I ended up with a character who’s rather apart from the other ones). I don’t have to ‘identify’ with the character to ‘relate’ to them or to ‘anticipate their actions’ simply because they might share one trait with me to some extent, as the three+ others they do not share with me force me to use their (rather simpler) headspace to process a situation from what I can establish would be ‘their perspective’.

Ultimately, if you’re having such a hard time understanding how a character ‘ticks’: give them one trait of yours temporarily to get you started with the exercise, and then you should be able to feel out the same situation but absent that trait :)

All the better if you’ve got a good grasp on the character anyways, and can simply emulate them. None of your characters are going to be as complex as the most average real human being, because real humans don’t live through mere words on a page, while your characters can only come alive *through* you :D

Writing’s all hypotheticals anyway. Once you can believe that the character you’ve set up has performed as you expect them to given their personality: you’ve got yourself a character, and it’s all progressively easier from there.

It’s like playing pretend as a child, except with superior adult faculties and a goal in mind when you’re doing it. WWJD? and all that kinda thing, yknow? :)

There’s also the good-enough principle to keep in mind. Sure, I may not be able to fully understand what’s going through the head of someone facing an Old One/Deep One/Crawling Chaos.... but I do have the ability to recognize that it is *unpleasant*, and that’s ‘good enough’ to understanding them.

 

[Mejiro]

There's nothing magical or special about women - they're still people, with the same wants and needs and stuff. Whatever society you're writing in may have particular female virtues she accepts or rebels against (is it socially accepted/normal for her to be sexually experienced? How is female bisexuality viewed? etc. etc.) but she's still going to be moving through it trying to get what she wants and getting into conflict and whatever. The techniques to make her interesting are the same as for a man - have her be interesting, engaging and active in interesting, engaging stuff.