Female Characters

[WinterTimeCrime]

 

[Jocelyn_Uasal]

Funnily enough, he avoided both accountability and reason by going into the elevator without explaining himself lmfao

 

[Deleted member 41774]

I love the people that cited As Good As It Gets in this thread.

 

[DarkDuck09]

Step one: Write a character
Step two: Say they're female
Step three: Mention boobs at every chance, especially when they're acting boobily
Step four: Ignore step three but keep step one and step two.

 

[ScarletWeeb]

I’m seeking advice, especially from women, on how to create authentic female characters. I’d appreciate a list of character traits and reactions that might be unfamiliar to me as a man. I’m currently working on a novel called Rieze: Legacy of War, which features women in intense and pivotal roles—ranging from defending a medieval keep to leading a nation as a queen. Specifically, I’m looking for guidance on how to portray a pregnant character or one experiencing menstruation. I want these characters to be fully developed and nuanced, not one-dimensional. Thank you for your insights.

Take a character who you think fits the archetype of your character the best, and start from there.

For example, If a female character is supposed to be strong, confident yet naughty and playful, you can take inspiration from a character like Yoruichi from BLEACH. Or, if a female character is supposed to be going through trauma, and is introverted yet a strong and loud leader, try Nephis from Shadow Slave.

Think about female characters who left a mark on you, and not for the horny reason.

 

[Morning_Glory]

Tbh, the important part is that female characters need their agenda, too. It's honestly a trait of good writing overall to not have characters be so flat that they don't even have their wants. But for some reason, writers can have male characters that have their deep motives and logic yet at the same time they add female characters for the sake of the "plot" or to be a love interest and nothing beyond that. I would also look out that you don't make everyone's agendas to be related to men. These would be female characters doing a task to honor their late father, learning sword-fighting because they admired their older brothers, or going on a journey because of their crush on a male love interest.

Making the female characters also as proactive as your male characters is important. It doesn't help if the female character is in a high position when they don't get to make important story decisions with that power. For example, a queen might've been hyped by other characters to be a ruthless leader who makes cruel decisions, but then it turns out the queen is nice and the one making the horrible choices behind her back is a male advisor. It's different if you can still make the queen retain her agenda and proactive nature, but often these kinds of characters become only props for the main character to save or then they disappear into the background. To be fair, this would be bad even if both characters were men or women or the gender roles were reversed. If you can replace your female (or any) character with an object and not much would change, then you know that character needs to be rewritten.

I do agree that the overall thing answering everything is "write women as you would write men". Still, this can have its pitfalls since a very common writing cliche is to take the masculine and testosterone-filled male character and just switch their gender to make a "badass female character". Imo the worst thing is to regard femininity as something inherently weak. Being nurturing, healing and kind doesn't make the female characters inherently weak. On the other hand, it can be a very arduous task to work with people dying around you and it needs a lot of strength to not succumb to the despair. Being kind to others is a strength in itself when that kindness can be taken advantage of.

That is to say, everything is very case-to-case situation and you just need to either get a sensitivity reader or then research the experiences of women and teach yourself to be aware of possible pitfalls and stereotypes. I don't think you need to worry too much about how you would "write women differently" if you don't delve into gender struggles. Just write them with an agenda and make them make proactive decisions.

When it comes to the stereotypical anatomy of a woman and how to write things like menstrual and pregnancy: I would recommend just looking around on the internet for whatever you need. No two women are the same and there's no set way with how they react. Some women don't bleed at all and have barely any mood swings, some pass out from the sheer pain they experience and need to take strong painkillers. Some have irregular cycles and some have always 25 days long cycle. Unless you want to dedicate the reader's time to the intricate parts of pregnancy and menstrual or have women discuss the topics in the story, I don't think you need to pay so much attention. Write first how you want the menstrual/pregnancy to be related to the plot/character arc and then figure out the nitty-gritty of how they work. I have to be honest, with the kind of story you have, you will most likely alienate both male and female readers if these topics are brought up impromptu and bear no meaning.

Hopefully this helped even a bit!

 

[TroubleFait]

Ripley from Alien is one of the most important female characters in cinema. And contrary to what some might think, she is a feminist icon, or at least an inherently female character. Not just a good character who happens to be a woman.

She's someone who's intelligent, perceptive, but the rest of her crew belittle her and don't treat her seriously, which mean no matter her qualities the alien still kills everyone. It's frustrating to her, and she ends up alone against her problems (the alien).

Important note: Ripley as a person is not defined by being a woman. Ripley is Ripley first and foremost. Being a woman happens to her, it's the plot, her external circumstances. So, as a character, not as a person. Female characters defined entirely by being women always feel incredibly shallow to me. Like the Captain Marvel movie.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

It doesn't really matter what you do, but make them vampires.

 

[2wordsperminute]

I would also look out that you don't make everyone's agendas to be related to men. These would be female characters doing a task to honor their late father, learning sword-fighting because they admired their older brothers, or going on a journey because of their crush on a male love interest.

But there are so many male characters that have agendas deeply tied to women? Even the more "manly" ones, like zoro from one piece. Why entirely ban a good source of motivation for only one gender?

 

[Morning_Glory]

But there are so many male characters that have agendas deeply tied to women? Even the more "manly" ones, like zoro from one piece. Why entirely ban a good source of motivation for only one gender?

I would also look out that you don't make everyone's agendas to be related to men.

There's nothing inherently wrong with making a character's motifs tied to the character of another gender. It becomes a problem when everyone or most of the cast is like this and it becomes more of an exception when their motifs aren't tied to someone of the opposite gender. This is also very common with action movies where the token female character of the group is only part of it because i.e. they are looking for their missing father. They also don't do anything meaningful in the story other than have a romance plotline with the male main character which just makes the issue even more noticeable that their whole life revolves around men.

This applies to both genders but I think it is less common with male characters (unless you consume reverse harem stories regularly). Usually, when a male character has an agenda connected to a female character, they have personality and opinions beyond that female character. Commonly badly written female characters often speak of nothing but this male character and regurgitate the man's opinions to everyone ("My father used to like these berries") and don't have anything to show of their personality other than how they admire this male character.

I also have characters that I like yet a big part of their agenda revolves around a male character. I just believe that if OP wants to write a more realistic and varied cast of female characters, they should keep this common pitfall in mind since it's easy to overlook.

 

[Rezcore]

Take a character who you think fits the archetype of your character the best, and start from there.

For example, If a female character is supposed to be strong, confident yet naughty and playful, you can take inspiration from a character like Yoruichi from BLEACH. Or, if a female character is supposed to be going through trauma, and is introverted yet a strong and loud leader, try Nephis from Shadow Slave.

Think about female characters who left a mark on you, and not for the horny reason.

I guess the best example would be Maj. Sam from SG-1. But thanks for actually answering, I was starting to despair ever getting any advice