Writing From a Female Perspective

Well that says volumes about having male characters who need a crutch and an ego boost.

I can't think of too many books I have read as of late that validate the mans manliness.
Vindication of how male authors view women? Wow, you really are grasping at straws.

 

lordy lordy...it's in vogue to make women domineering and men subservient...or haven't you been paying attention. no real lit has been written in the 21st century. you have to go back. "of late"? uh huh.

"This post leaves me thinking you are the one with limited experience of women. When I (and indeed most male writers) include women in their work its because women make up roughly half of the population and with a few exceptions its impossible to be realistic with a male only cast."

I know. I have three ex-wives. I'm now living with a Spaniard/Basque from Bilbao. There's my mom, with whom I correspond. Uh...the two daughters I raised, one a medical doctor/researcher just appointed director to a major institution, the other an educational professional...my big sister the drug dealer "Queen-Pin" from the seventies...two aunts who taught me to drive a tractor and pickup truck when I was 12 - on the tobacco farm...my great grandmother who requested I be at her side on her death bed.

No...(I won't mention a list of teachers, bosses and supervisors, as well as staff members) I have very LIMITED experience dealing with women. How could you detect that in my post. You and the above guy couldn't possibly be one-upping anyone, so I'm guessing it has to be clairvoyance.

 

If it is, it's lame. Of course women can be domineering in a story if you diminish the men. But it's like beating up a strawman. I'd much rather see a woman dominate because she raises the bar men set even higher, not stepping over a low bar due to a quirk of the setting.

 

Honestly, I can't imagine how to write female characters myself. I grew up believing that the female mind was far more advanced than my own and trying to comprehend it was futile, and that I should just trust everything a female says or does because they would never and could never do anything wrong. Yeah, I was raised with radical feminist thinking, though I thought that was normal feminism at the time.

Of course, I no longer believe that females are pure good or that they're better than me, but I still can't really imagine what's going on in the minds of my female characters. Force of habit I guess. And honestly, even now I feel like a misogynist if I make a female character with a single negative trait. Really I'm leaning towards just not even trying since I don't see how I could with my upbringing. And yes, I do have females in my family (I was actually abused by my father). Though I've never had a girlfriend. Yeah, I'm 29 and I still haven't been on a date or had my first kiss yet. Sue me. To me all it really means is I can't have characters with boyfriends/girlfriends just because I can't even imagine what its like to be in a relationship. My own father openly hated my mother btw.

Yeah, I've had a great life. Not that I'm trying to get sympathy, just saying that I don't even want to try because I don't see how I could with my own perception of females being so warped.

 

Ouch.

That's the beautiful thing about research

 

For years, I created male characters from the "outside", while game mastering Call of Cthulhu. I felt that I didn't really understand their innards; I was just acting them out. And my male players always seemed to find them plausible, so I gained confidence in creating male characters. Henry in Coriolis Effect was the first male character that I felt I was playing from the inside.

I almost lost my point. I think that my point is that it may be less an issue of understanding the other gender, and more an issue of developing the confidence that they're not all that mysterious.

 

I think a lot of people have already talked about the character itself, so I'll talk about female specific stuff

Depending on how long this adventure is (a month or more), she might get her period, which would be an interesting conflict in the story. I know it sounds weird, but I've always found it unrealistic how female characters in books never have periods while on these long adventures. Actually, I've only seen it done once in any book and it was sort of cool.

Also, what does she wear on these adventures? Does she wear makeup? Jewelry? Does she shave her body hair? Most girls her age shave and some start wearing makeup. Does she even have the time/place/means to do these things? If she doesn't shave or wear makeup, how is she treated differently by the people she interacts with? (If you don't wear makeup people generally don't give a shit. If you don't shave they might give a weird look but won't say anything). How does she feel about these things? (Most girls feel like they have to shave or cover up the hairy parts, no exceptions. As for makeup it really depends on the person).

Girls these age also start to get cat-called. She might get cat-called more seeing as she's taller (might look older). Mostly honking and "hello, beautiful"s by older men from what I've experienced. Depending on where she lives this could happen almost never or on a day to day basis, so it might not be relevant in the story. If it does happen, how does she react to it (if at all)? How does it make her feel? (Most girls don't say anything and it makes them feel uncomfortable).

Those are the only things that I can think of that are female specific. Most people ignore these things but they are day-to-day realities, and how she reacts/deals with them can say loads about her character. When I was fifteen me and my friends talked about our periods and makeup and body hair all of the time, and we all had cat-calling stories to tell. It all seems pretty normal to me but for some reason authors tend to ignore them entirely; all of their female characters never have periods and magically have no body hair whatsoever. Whenever I watch shows like the Walking Dead I can't help but think, "she has really nice eyebrows for someone who's trying to survive the zombie apocalypse" and "where's all the leg hair at?"

 

I would assume its just inappropriate to talk about one's toilet habits. How many times have you seen a character express the need to go to the bathroom??? And uh, its something females talk about that, a lot? What the hell?

 

I never really understood why it's so hard. asking how to write a woman is just asking how to write stereotypes really... Like what makes you think we really have that different of a perspective? Our perspectives are made from the things we have been through and the way those things have impacted us. How would you make a deep, 3 dimensional male character? And why do those things all of a sudden not apply because the character is female?

 

I actually can think of many films, games and books that have done just this. Most of the time I can't help but groan as a female character's every existence is designed simply to highlight the prowess, 'manliness' and otherwise heroism of the male MC. Just think of those stereotypical stories with the woman who can't really do anything and contributes nothing to the story except as a objective for the MC.

 

What an intolerably smug answer from GRR Martin.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/apr/29/game-of-thrones-racism-sexism-rape

 

Which sucks. I've read the first book and seen none of the episodes: from what I've read about the rest of the story, bits and pieces of it are absolutely fantastic, they're just buried under so much extra garbage that I'm not ready to tell myself that they would be worth it.

 

Even besides that, his answer always rubbed me the wrong way as an artist.

It's like if someone asked how are you so good at painting?

And you go, "I always thought painting takes practice".

Its just a smug, jerk thing to say.

 

I dunno, I was always amused by the response attributed to Michelangelo when asked how he carved his lion so perfectly. He is supposed to have said (paraphrasing) "I just took a block of marble, and chipped away everything that wasn't the lion."

 

@Tebrim I said as of late. That is not to say that I
have not read books with cliche female characters
that you mention.

Though you know nothing of the characters in my
novel, or sequel. Granted it is a Military Sci-fi, and
doesn't really have many female characters that are
weak in that sense, beyond taking orders.

 

@Cave Troll Very true ( about your story ), I suppose I was more pointing out recent things do. Not to accuse you of anything specifically of course haha

 

It was rather smug however I believe that might just be his personality which I personally don't mind. However I feel like the point I'm making is there is a depth of character in both female and male characters in his series. Yes terrible things happen like the link you included states, however at least in my opinion I feel those things, all be them horrible, are used to create a world and motivate / shape the characters in a broad way.

 

My sister claims that the books aren't nearly as explicit as the show. There's only one nude scene, which isn't even a sex scene. Its apparently just two characters having a conversation before sex. And even when they do get to that part, it just switches to another scene. Also, that blonde woman's character (can never remember her name, also note I've never watched the series) wasn't raped in the book, she did have sex with the guy but it was consensual. There's supposedly no rape in the books, which has angered some fans since this means that the show isn't very true to the books they love. Granted, I've never read the books (I did get one as a gift like 10 years ago, but I've never read it and I'm not sure what's become of it), so its possible that all I'm saying is false. All I'm saying is what my sister herself told me.

Mr. Martin claimed himself once he saw nothing wrong with all this since many females are victims of sexual violence so he sees nothing wrong with exploring that theme. To me (and note again, I've never watched the series), the show is still more about (film) exploitation than exploring the consequences of rape. If you seriously want to do that, write a story about ONE woman that is sexually assaulted, then devote the rest of the book to exploring her journey to recovery. You're not accomplishing anything with full-frontal nude scenes that just depict females being assaulted over and over again.

And if anyone cares, I saw a similar question to this on yahoo answers once. Most of the answers were to just depict females as people. So that's not an uncommon suggestion it appears when people look into doing this.

I've seen something similar with comics. A lot of males do try to write female characters realistically, and female writers do think that most of them do a good job at it, but they still feel like some things are missing, which honestly seem rather superfluous to me. Like, one female writer drew a panel with her female character in bed, and showed hair pins on her dresser. She claimed that 'no male would think of that!'. Yeah, I don't think too many males would assume that toiletry habits were a major part of being female. Yeah okay, hair pins aren't exactly toiletry habits. But still, is it really necessary to a character to show their morning routine? I mean, you don't see males putting on deodorant in comics. And characters are never depicted getting dressed in the morning, hell its rare to see them in anything other than their street clothes and their superhero costume.

A very common tip you get when you're learning to write is 'to only mention the relevant details'. As in, the details that matter in the story. Really now, do you think its thematically important to know a person's morning routine, or what they do at home at all, when they're in some big epic battle to save the city?

And on the hair pin thing, would a female really wear hair pins when she's going out to pick a fight? You shouldn't even wear make-up if you're planning on living an active lifestyle like that. If anything I imagine she would just tie her hair back. Though I personally think most female superheros would just cut their hair short for practical reasons.

 

What I find particularly annoying is when the plan is perfect, all the female has to do is "stay here and be quiet" but she can't. She ALWAYS wanders out to "see what's going on" and gets captured, RUINING the plan. If there is a special circle of Hell for these writers, it won't be a lonely place.

 

That's pretty much my thought on the issue of biological functions in general. I mean, blood is extremely relevant to the story, in that it's a source of magical power, but... Yeah, I'm not going to go there. I mean, if it absolutely had to come up I wouldn't shy away from mentioning periods or the need for a bathroom, but that's not the kind of thing that comes up very often.

I originally started worrying about this question when my aunt posed the idea that most books (Even ones ostensibly written from the POV of female characters) where written from a 'Masculine' perspective, (Or at least masculine-tinted perspective,) because that's how traditional authors had been trained to write as default. I'm trying not to make that mistake.

Obviously, women should be written as three dimensional characters, but in the same way that if I were writing a book about a black man living in the American South (Or anywhere, but to a greater degree in the south,) I would feel the need to write their character somewhat differently than a white man because of the experiences that their race would all-but inevitably have led to, (Experiences that I personally have no firsthand knowledge of, and would have to learn about from people who have lived through them), I also can't break away from the feeling that a female character would accrue similarly different experiences, and lead to a personality who is at least marginally different than a man in otherwise similar life circumstances.
Just for a small example, until this topic came up, I never even considered the minor difficulty that would come with having longer hair. Yes, hair isn't a gender-specific trait, but women tend to have long hair while men tend to have it short, and I've never had my hair go down past my eyes, so I didn't even think about what kind of issues that might cause until I sat down and tried to think of things that I hadn't considered before.

(And yes, it's true that since my setting is Fantasy, that it won't be an exact replica of real life, and what might be true in reality won't necessarily be true in this particular work of fiction, that doesn't mean that I can't work with and adapt things to fit better.)


The fact that a whole lot of people apparently think I'm asking 'Hey, should I write women liek real people?! Lol!' is starting to get a little annoying.

Yeah, I've read the books, and... That's not true even a little. Even if we don't include the marital rape scenes in the first book, rape is brought up a LOT, there's a lot of scenes that involve at least some level of coercion or rapey tones, and rape is brought up a lot as having happened off screen. Nudity also shows up fairly often, especially in the earlier books before people started having more important things to do. Now, technically, a lot of these are 'Less explicit' than in the show, but only in the way that books are always less explicit, you're having it described to you rather than just watching what's happening.

That hair pin thing actually isn't a bad example, at least unless I'm misreading your description heavily. Especially for a comic writer, they already had to draw the room, so including bobby pins or other small details makes it feel that much more 'Real'. Some readers might not even notice, but that doesn't mean that the little details don't contribute to the characters feeling more accurate.

I think that advice can be really taken to bad extremes. Yes, you should only mention what's 'Relevant to the story', but what is 'Relevant to the story' is extremely subjective.
For example, in Star Wars, is it specifically relevant to the plot that, say, Luke wanted to go to Toshee to pick up power converters? Not even in the slightest. But it IS relevant to the *character* to know that he longs for adventure to the point that even going on a short trip into town is exciting (And that he's currently living in a situation where he lacks any kind of authority or decision making, and that he's kind of whiney), and it IS relevant to the *setting* to tell the audience alien names and give them a sense of the world.
Or, for another example, is it relevant to the plot that Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden prefers Coke and Burger King? NO, absolutely not. But it DOES give insight to his character (He enjoys simple pleasures, nostalgic food choices that remind him of his childhood, enjoys junk food...), and make the setting of the book feel a little more homey.

It all depends on how much time you want to spend on which details. If Star Wars had gone with the plan to follow Luke into town, where he meets with his friends, buys Power Converters, hangs out at a bar, and generally doesn't do much, it would have been a waste of the audience's time, because they're allocating way too much of the story to showing a character detail that isn't as important as, say, Lightsabers or the Force. But that doesn't mean that the detail should be cut entirely, only that it should be used sparingly for flavor and not given a spotlight of its own.

So should I spend a page describing my character's morning routine? No, I shouldn't. But should I mention that she takes long showers and doesn't take cream in her coffee? Yes, I think I should.

 

(Apologies for the lack of quote trim.)

I agree with the earlier poster that if there's a visual of a scene anyway, it's logical for that visual to include details, and hairpins are as reasonable a detail of a home scene as any other. In a written story I doubt they'd rate a mention, but you're not talking about a written story.

And bobby pins aren't necessarily used for some fancy style--they can be useful for keeping stray bits of hair from escaping when the hair is indeed tied back. I think they'd more often be used in this more casual way, but I'm not sure, because I don't use them.

And don't most "superheroes" have a public identity and a superhero identity? I wouldn't assume that the bobby pins are part of the superhero identity.

 

Yep. I feel that what's included--in this case, an interior home shot--should be detailed. If a character drives a car, it shouldn't just be a car. If they eat, it shouldn't just be "lunch." What they read while reading it shouldn't just be "a magazine." And so on. If the lunch doesn't matter at all, cut it, but if it does, detail it.

 

Well, not that it would be discussed often, but it may on occasion be relevant that one's period is an excretion that is not at all under control. For other excretions, a character can "hold it" until they get to a handy bush or something. Not for this--it's not about going to the bathroom, it's about excreting fluid 24 hours a day for a few days.

It's problematic enough that in various third world locations, girls just don't go to school at that time, because the sanitation problems are essentially unsurmountable with severely limited resources.

 

My...aren't we worldly?