In case you’ve spent any period of time in on-line studying or writing circles, you’ve in all probability come throughout posts like this titled ‘X Instances Males Didn’t Know Find out how to Write Feminine Characters,’ every that includes screenshots of tragically sexist prose. Or possibly you, like me, have been cast within the unforgiving fires of 2012-era Tumblr and have seen a great deal of posts like this or this.
My level is, it’s not precisely information that badly-written girls are an unlucky characteristic in our media. Whereas males usually write essentially the most egregiously poorly-written girls, it’s not simply males at fault right here—individuals throughout the gender spectrum appear to wrestle with writing compelling, three-dimensional girls.
In case you don’t need your novel to finish up screenshotted and added to the subsequent article compiling grave, mildly-to-severely sexist authorial errors for the aim of public shaming (which I do, in case it’s unclear, assist), you’ll need to discover ways to write girls properly. And fortunately for you, that’s what we’re right here to do as we speak.
On this article, we’ll discuss learn how to write compelling girls, we’ll check out some widespread errors authors make when writing girls, and we’ll have a look at some examples of well-written and not-so-well written girls in motion pictures, T.V., and books.
Find out how to write compelling girls
First issues first, let’s discuss learn how to write feminine characters properly.
1. Girls are individuals
I’m going to get into element about particular issues I see, however the backside line and principal takeaway is that this: girls are individuals, and feminine characters are characters. Writing a great feminine character means writing a great character.
Feminine characters needs to be simply as deep, fascinating, and sophisticated as male characters, they usually shouldn’t be outlined solely by being a girl (a lot in the best way you wouldn’t outline a male character by their identification as male).
2. Give them complicated motives
What does your feminine character need, and why?
You need to keep away from ‘as a result of she’s a girl, and girls need that/behave like that/anticipate that’ as a solution.
Think about their upbringing and perspective. If this can be a fantasy world, think about whether or not sexism performs a task in the best way they work together with the world and the way that character offers with it. How does this character see issues? After you have a strong thought of this, you may extra precisely get at what this character needs and the way they, as an individual, will react to any given state of affairs.
3. Flesh out their pursuits and hobbies
What’s your feminine character’s favourite film, and why? What sort of meals does she like? The place does she work, and does she like her job? Let her be an actual particular person, and let her be a little bit bizarre. She ought to have anxieties, fears, goals, and pursuits, and they need to not all should do with what males consider them.
4. Truthfully think about their relationships to different characters
When writing relationships between any two characters, you’re character A by means of the eyes of character B (and vice versa). You’re the creator, so that you already know what’s going to occur, and typically this makes it difficult to essentially piece out what info is actually there, within the textual content, and what you’ve acquired in your head.
In case you flesh out your feminine character like we talked about earlier, that is simpler to do. You possibly can inform, primarily based on what sort of particular person she is, how she’s going to answer different individuals. For instance, if most individuals are at work, they gained’t be flattered by strangers approaching them and hitting on them—they’ll really feel uncomfortable, possibly even frightened.
5. If the anatomy isn’t your individual, analysis it
This isn’t recommendation for feminine characters, strictly talking, nevertheless it does usually give you particularly cis males writing cis girls. In case you’re writing about an anatomy that isn’t your individual, analysis it a bit. It’ll be very foolish in case your ebook comes out and also you let the entire world know that you haven’t any thought what a tampon is or the way it works—Google may have saved you.
6. If the expertise isn’t your individual, get a second opinion
Equally, for those who’re writing a perspective that isn’t your individual, get a second opinion from that perspective. In case you’re writing a trans girl, you’ll need to have trans girls beta learn your story and critique it so you may ensure that you’re providing a sensible, applicable illustration of a personality in that demographic.
Widespread errors when writing girls
So, what are some issues to keep away from whenever you’re writing girls? I’ve compiled a listing of ideas, in addition to some tropes to look out for as indicators that you just would possibly have to rehash your strategy to feminine characters.
1. The lamp trope
In case you may substitute the lady (or girls) in your story with a lamp or sack of jewels with out the story altering a lot, this implies that the lady serves no objective besides to be rescued by the protagonist. That is objectification, and this girl might be exceedingly one-dimensional.
2. One-dimensional girls
Writing girls as vapid, useless harpies who care solely about males and who hate each different girl is fairly overdone and usually insulting. Some girls are useless, similar to some males are useless, and a few girls are overly fixated on the opinions of males, simply as males can fixate on the opinions of girls, however as a personality kind, it’s usually shallow, imply, and does extra to level to the creator’s inside sexism than to that particular character’s flaws.
3. Fridging
‘Fridging’ is when a feminine character is launched solely to function a tragic backstory for the male protagonist. It’s normally his spouse, and he or she virtually at all times dies in some horribly brutal means which fuels his want for revenge. We get no sense of what the spouse was like as an individual, or she’s simply vaguely completely female and beautiful.
Sure, individuals’s wives do die, and certain, I get that you really want your male protagonist to have a compelling purpose to be so brooding and hard. However inventing a girl to brutalize solely to reinforce a male character’s Edge Issue isn’t the best way to do it.
4. Pointless sexualization
When males are described, we not often get passages about how their denims stretch over their butts or how their nipples present by means of their shirts. The aim of introducing them isn’t to inform us how sizzling they’re—it’s to inform us what they seem like. Nevertheless, it’s very normalized to introduce girls in a means that clearly intends to point out off how horny the creator needs us to suppose she is.
Typically individuals argue that that is finished as a result of the male protagonist sees her that means. However the factor is, if the male protagonist is seeing her primarily as a intercourse object, that’s a severe character flaw which must be addressed, challenged, or in any other case explored except you need your readers to suppose he’s deeply sexist. And it by no means is addressed! Bizarre.
Examples of nice (and never so nice) girls in fiction
The Good
1. Katniss Everdeen from The Starvation Video games by Suzanne Collins
Katniss is a splendidly written teenager, at the least in my view. Her relationships along with her household are massively essential, her position as her household’s supplier is instrumental to her character, and her motives are robust, complicated, and under no circumstances male-centric—she volunteers for the Starvation Video games within the first place to save lots of her sister, Prue.
In terms of romance, at the least within the books, we by no means shake the lens of the Capitol. That is extraordinarily deliberate, and it implies that Katniss isn’t only a lovestruck teenager helplessly torn between two boys. She’s a child preventing for her life whereas additionally being pressured to carry out love for her household’s survival. Her emotions are being messed with, and that is extremely compelling as a battle.
2. Shiv from Succession
Girls would not have to be good individuals to be good characters! Shiv from Succession is a strong instance. She’s significantly abusive to her associate, Tom, she’s extremely calculating, and he or she’s keen to throw anybody and something beneath the bus within the title of getting in her father’s good graces.
However this doesn’t come from her womanhood—it comes from her upbringing. All the Roy siblings are impacted by their father’s abuse in their very own means, and whereas hers is unquestionably influenced by her womanhood and by navigating the extreme sexism of an ultra-conservative setting, they’re not simply ‘as a result of she’s a woman.’
3. Amy from Gone Lady by Gillian Flynn
Even for those who haven’t learn Gone Lady, you’ve in all probability heard of the ‘Cool Lady’ monologue. In Gone Lady, Amy’s taking part in with everybody’s expectations of who she is due to her womanhood—she’s in a position to deceive her husband, for instance, as a result of she is aware of how he perceives her primarily based on his sexism and he or she is aware of learn how to use that in opposition to him. This makes her extremely difficult as a personality, and her manipulation provides a ton of nuance to her very robust selections.
Once more, not a excellent character—she’s not the head of feminism or divine femininity or something. However she’s a girl written holistically, and that makes her fascinating.
The Not-So-Nice
1. Mikaela Banes in Transformers (dir. Michael Bay)
That is possibly a drained instance, however Mikaela Banes as performed by Megan Fox is an instance of the ‘Cool Lady’ best Amy rails in opposition to in Gone Lady. Mikaela’s versed in mechanics, a male-approved ability, however she owes all of her information to her father. Due to a person, she is aware of about boy stuff. And she or he isn’t precisely introduced by the digicam as a revered auto mechanics knowledgeable—as an alternative, we get leering pictures of her bent over the hood of a automotive, encouraging the viewers to stare at her physique as an alternative of hearken to what she’s saying. She’s a personality with the potential to be fascinating—the bones are there—however the writing isn’t taken with exploring her character past how she serves as a love curiosity for our male protagonist.
2. Anastasia Steele from Fifty Shades of Gray by E.L. James
Anastasia Steele is the protagonist of Fifty Shades, and he or she’s written by a girl, however neither reality makes her a well-written feminine character. She’s extremely naive—even by the top of the Fifty Shades trilogy, after she’s been uncovered to tons of kink-related stuff (badly represented and defined kink, however nonetheless), she reacts like she’s by no means heard of intercourse earlier than. It’s not an issue that she begins the collection insecure, cloying, and naive, nevertheless it is an issue that she by no means grows, develops, or good points any company in her relationship with Christian Gray.
3. Christina from The E book of Henry
In his essay “The Artwork of Storytelling and the E book of Henry,” Dan Olson explains how Christina features for instance of the lamp trope. Christina is the step-daughter of the police commissioner Glenn, they usually’re neighbors to the movie’s protagonist, Henry. Henry sees Christina being abused by Glenn, and that is the impetus for his plan (and the movie’s central plot) to kill Glenn. Olson explains that the movie is, in idea, a few plan to save lots of Christina, however in actual fact, Christina is absolutely simply an excuse—as a result of the movie isn’t with Christina as a personality, she’s only a flat, one-dimensional excuse for Henry to make a plan to kill Glenn.
