What makes a female protagonist "strong"?

I understand that a STRONG character doesn't have to be bogged down by whatever gender they have. I'm not trying to be sexist by asking specifically for female examples. I'm talking about a female character because I'm writing a female character and I was hoping to get some novel ideas to look into for an example of one who is considering "strong" in character and morals or personality or whatever without having to resort to her ability to kick the ass of her enemies.

Katniss Everdeen is a strong female character. If we're going to look at a STRONG character who fits what I'm interested in, I'd be better off looking at PEETA for an example. He may be MALE but he isn't STRONG in the way that Katniss is. Where she can fight and Gale can fight, Peeta is much more peace oriented and its his personality that causes Katniss to grow a great deal of respect for him.

 

I think strength is composed of two parts: ability to feel adversity, and the capacity to overcome it. A character might look strong if they charge headlong against a hundred men on the battlefield, but what if they believe they're impervious to wounds due to a voodoo charm? They're just reckless, or deluded. It's alright to shrug off pain (most Hollywood 'badasses'), but that just means you have a high pain threshold - not that you can actually manage, mitigate, and deal with it as a strong character (Lara Croft in her new video game where she pulls a helicopter part out of her leg) would.

In showing strength I think you need to be careful in displaying it as the facing down of one's weakness, rather than the inherent ability to ignore all damage like a psychopathic anemone.

 

By the interaction of people around her and the reactions that come from that. Sex of the person is really irrelevant really.

 

I don't think it's necessarily a woman's personality that makes her strong, but rather her motivation to keep moving forward and how she goes about trying to achieve her goals. Also, what that goal is also plays a part in it.

The same could be said about a man, I know, but (in fiction) men are less likely to rely on the opposite sex to fulfil their goals for them - and that's often what makes a strong female character fall. Writers always pair them off with a strong, protective man who 'breaks their wall' and offers a quick fix solution to their problems. With that, the strong image they've built up over the course of the story just crumbles away.

 

"Doing what must be done," even when it's very difficult, and then acting like it was just business as usual is a way for a person to display strength. Neither physical strength nor intelligence is required. Strength is about strength of character. There are many inspirational examples of people who appear weak but when it really matters they are not.

 

By the way, I agree wholeheartedly with everyone who has said that what makes a strong character is not specific to either gender.

 

Read Octavia Butler's book Kindred for a great example. The protagonist time travels to her ancestor's body in the antebellum South.

 

Could also look what makes the other characters weaker.

 

Weakness.

No character, male or female, can be strong without weakness. Otherwise you have Superman. Find where she's at her weakest and most vulnerable and then think how she can overcome that to find strength; should be nice and cathartic for the reader (and you!).

 

I think what makes any character strong is for them to still have weaknesses, which are either pointed out to them, or that they noticed themselves. A strong character should have good morals, but may some struggle to know what the right thing to do is? In creating a strong female protagonist, there is always a danger of your character becoming a Mary Sue. I think the key is to try and keep the character's traits realistic and balanced.

 

Unless you want a Mary Sue. The problem comes when you stumble into it inadvertently.

 

There are a lot of good answers here, so I'm not sure if there is much that I can add. Obviously, the values of a character are important, as well as relatable weaknesses. But I think another important thing is to have her make uneasy choices that others are not strong enough, or willing to make. Strength in character comes by the actions the character takes and ultimately the choices that she makes during calamities. It's not enough to be considered brave, one must show that virtue by making brave choices in the face of adversity.

So in essence, strength of character is revealed through the strength of his/her conviction and virtue through adversity. The greater the adversity, the greater this conviction and virtue.

You can have a badass who fights, but what's her beliefs, virtues, and how strong is her conviction. Maybe she's a warrior who is loyal, compassionate, protective of those who are quick, and is against the idea of slavery while others accept it, but the difficult process is how do you challenge these beliefs and virtues to make them apparent.

For example; lets say she's put into slavery, kills off a few Ork slave masters, but since she's too strong to make her obedient, they decide to kill off some of the other slaves and put the responsibility on her; attempting to turn the other slaves against her as well. She then plays along with the masters because she's loyal, protective, and compassionate towards the other slaves. She endures much abuse for it, but behind the masters backs she works hard to gain the trust of the other slaves and teaches them how to fight so that they can revolt because she doesn't believe anyone should be a slave and believes that they should fight against the Ork slave masters.

That's a terrible example, I know. But I guess the point is that even though you have a character that is a badass fighter, she's much stronger than that because of her conviction and virtues despite adversity; she makes choices that are hard for her but sticks to what she believes is right in the end.

So to me, important things for a strong hero character are
-strong virtues (brave, intelligent, etc)
-strong conviction
-makes choices in line with virtues and convictions despite great adversity
-character flaws, and weaknesses


I hope I was somewhat helpful. Cheers and good luck.

 

I suppose the only other thing to add is that not being a quote-unquote 'strong' character doesn't necessarily make her a bad character. If anyone's ever seen Amelie, the film (my favourite!) she's a perfect example of a fantastic character who we love for her weaknesses; her introversion, her lack of self-confidence, her initial apathy. What's amazing is that I don't necessarily think she becomes a 'strong' character by the end but realises how much she's loved for all those weaknesses and vulnerabilities that she has and finds happiness in them. It's really beautiful, actually, go and see it if you haven't already guys, it's well worth it!

 

Whatever you do, don't fall into the same trap as so many writers, showing the strength of a female character by making all the males around her weak, incompetent pushovers. You see this constantly, and it's just horrible. The example that always comes to mind is this old comic called MAXX, where the female lead was supposed to be super empowered and all that. However, rather than show her exhibiting any kind of strength, they just wrote all the male characters as bumbling idiots who were too weak to do anything without her help. The only strong male character in the whole thing was the serial rapist bad guy.

My advice for making a strong character, especially a strong woman, is that you have to hurt her. Hurt her and hurt her and hurt her. Physically, too, not just emotional hurt. You don't get to be a legitimate tough character until you've pulled yourself back to your feet after you should have stayed down. The internal monologue is key here. Show her vacillating, give her moments of doubt where she thinks how much easier it would be if she really did just lay there and take it. Have her wonder why she's still going. And for crying out loud, don't have anyone try to rape her unless it's really part of the story. That's the first place that a lot of writers go when they look to traumatize a female character, and you don't want to be a cliche.

 

Well, I can think up of plenty of traits that would make a strong character, but a strong female character? That's a tough cookie. Any character that is determined and strong willed can come across as strong, but I feel some traits that you see in females (as opposed to characters in general) that would make them stand out are:

1. Wisdom
2. Control (of situations or people)
3. Rationality

These traits can also be found in their male counterparts of course, but I feel that they're more emphasized when written into a female character. Control is especially important if the character does not have any physical skill or physical prowess to defend herself. As for rationality, it ties in closely with control - she just can't make decisions based on her gut. Oh you can make it seem like she's doing so to the reader, but it really underlines her skill when the cold logic of each action is revealed one by one. It's also much more scary that way: you can never tell what she's really doing. You don't have to be strong to be badass y'know.

Oh and on a side note, making a strong character doesn't mean you'll never see them cry: let them cry, relieve their emotional stress, then get up and find a way to make sure it never happens again.