Tags:
  1. archer88i

    archer88i Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2008
    Messages:
    839
    Likes Received:
    432

    Writing women

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by archer88i, Aug 3, 2017.

    The following is a quote from the 1997 film As Good as It Gets.

    Woman: "How do you write women so well?"

    Author: "I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability."​

    (Source)

    Don't click that. If you do, don't say I didn't warn you, and don't come to me all butt hurt--but Jack Nicholson's delivery is pure gold. Anyway, moving on, this quote apparently paraphrases something said by John Updike, winner of two (2) Pulitzers, two (2) National Book Awards, three (3) National Book Critics Circle awards, and a pile of other honors that has now exceeded my patience for listing honors. Asked a similar question, Mr. Updike gave a similar, although apparently less pithy answer.

    My present work in progress features a female protagonist, and so I have found myself coming face to face with a similar question: how should I write women?

    ...This is not voluntary on my part. No; it's just that one of the most common criticisms I get* is something along the lines of, "You're doing it wrong!" Unfortunately, of all the criticism I receive, this is the least well explained. No one ever says what it is that I'm screwing up. It's gotten bad enough that I actually started an essay with the working title, "Damned if you Do, Damned if you Don't," with the thesis that, if you were born a man, there is no acceptable way to write a female character: anything you do is wrong from one perspective or another and will inevitably be criticized as such.

    * I should note that much of this criticism has not originated here. Thank you all for choosing to be more helpful.​

    Anyway, all of this leads into my questions:
    • How do you write women?
    • What pitfalls do you perceive?
    • How do you avoid them?
    Lastly, I will note that these questions apply primarily to men writing women. Women writing women can have some similar concerns (in particular, they often seem to fail the infamous Bechdel test), but those concerns are significantly less pressing. This question does not at all apply to women who write men except as a matter of curiosity; women are not usually criticized for "doing it wrong."

    P.S. I don't want to leave women out in the cold. If you want to help, I invite suggestions on what we should be doing, or what we may be doing wrong. In light of my earlier comment regarding the uncommonly insubstantial nature of such criticism, I would especially appreciate advice with concrete and immediate applicability.

    P.P.S. For anyone I have unintentionally cheesed off, here is a puppy.
     
  2. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2013
    Messages:
    3,406
    Likes Received:
    2,931
    If Kyra Sylvan had been the only female character in my Doctor Who fanfic (in contrast to the number of male characters all being distinct in their own unique ways), then she would have created the impression that all women are sensitive, religious, and obsessed with The Rules.

    If Captain June Harper had been the only female character in my Doctor Who fanfic (in contrast to the number of male characters all being distinct in their own unique ways), then she would've created the impression that all women are hypersexual, bloodthirsty savages who should not be entrusted with positions of authority.

    If Arachne had been the only female character in my Doctor Who fanfic (in contrast to the number of male characters all being distinct in their own unique ways), then she would've created the impression that all women are non-humans at best, objects at worst.

    If Colonel Leeson had been the only female character in my Doctor Who fanfic (in contrast to the number of male characters all being distinct in their own unique ways), then she would've created the impression that all women are obsessed with making other people "better" at the expense of their subjects' own livelihood and well-being (and, as with Harper, should not be given positions of authority).

    If TL-13-Beta "Kathryn" had been the only female character in my Doctor Who fanfic (in contrast to the number of male characters all being distinct in their own unique ways), then she would've created the impression that all women are (as with Arachne) non-humans and that they should all go into blue-collar trades.

    Write a large enough number of female characters that you can portray clear differences between each of them.
     
    ChickenFreak likes this.
  3. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 9, 2010
    Messages:
    15,262
    Likes Received:
    13,084
    Are you willing to offer any of the criticism, even if only as a starting point?
     
  4. archer88i

    archer88i Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2008
    Messages:
    839
    Likes Received:
    432
    I'm willing, yes, but it's not any more substantive than what I just said. Here's one direct quote (the most recent online feedback, so I can copy/paste what the fellow said):

    "Her reactions are not feminine."​

    ...It's all along those lines; it amounts to, "This character does not act the way I believe a woman should act." I will note this criticism usually comes from men, or people with male-sounding names, or male avatars. That could be simply because men are more common in online writing groups. I will also note that my meatspace groups are dominated by women.
     
  5. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 9, 2010
    Messages:
    15,262
    Likes Received:
    13,084
    Hmm. Do you get the vibe that they're really saying that she's unrealistic, or saying that they just don't like her? I see those as two very different issues.
     
    izzybot likes this.
  6. archer88i

    archer88i Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2008
    Messages:
    839
    Likes Received:
    432
    Chicken, it's like I said in the very first post: I don't get a vibe. This is criticism that I have thought about for months now (or years, if you go back to my last novel, which also had a female protagonist), and I still can't figure out any way to act on it. As a result, I'm here asking other people about their experiences and techniques.
     
  7. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 9, 2010
    Messages:
    15,262
    Likes Received:
    13,084
    For some reason, this brings up my mother's voice saying, about Hilary Clinton, "I thought she was kind of horsey until I saw how good she was with children."

    I'm going to produce an assortment of thoughts about ways that in my opinion, women tend, on average, to differ from men, on average.

    - Women tend to put a higher priority on either consensus or the appearance of consensus. They tend to be less comfortable with disagreement.
    - Women tend to be more likely to be indirect speakers than men.
    - Women tend to be more willing to ask for help. (The stereotype of the man who refuses to ask for directions.)

    There are probably countless others, but I'm just trying to get an idea of what the issue is.

    There's also the "male gaze" thing, covered pretty extensively in the "Men, please don't write women this way"

    But it does very much depend on which woman you're writing. I can imagine that a certain combinations of characteristics would make me say, "Um...what?" but I can't think of any single characteristic that I'd say is unrealistic for a woman.

    When I started writing male characters, I did make them less concerned about consensus, less indirect, less likely to ask for help, than my female characters. I don't know if I'm merrily embracing stereotypes or not.
     
    123456789 likes this.
  8. Myrrdoch

    Myrrdoch Active Member

    Joined:
    May 16, 2017
    Messages:
    217
    Likes Received:
    171
    Location:
    Virginia, USA
    Try not to overthink it. Here is the thing: there will always be people that will find something to nitpick, that they don't like, or that they find unrealistic. Write the character. Let some people read them, and see if they have genuine criticism that seems valid and reasonable. Change if you need to change. But it seems to me like you have a handle on what criticism is valid, and what is people just choosing to be angry about something.

    So, to the argument that you can't write a female character because you were born a man... well, I like to apply a little reductio ad absurdum here and point out that by that logic you can only ever use yourself as a character, because you have only experienced the things you have experienced. Obviously, that is absurd. So let's pretend that it's okay to write people with other experiences than your own, even experiences that derive from having a different gender.

    So to answer your questions:
    How do I write females? I just kind of do. They're probably mishmashes of women I've known, tropes, characters in stories... you know, all of the things that we consume to build our pictures of reality. Sometimes their gender isn't even important. Sometimes it is, but not to them. Sometimes it is, even to them. Probably a lot like real life.

    Pitfalls? I guess you could make people really angry. Or something like that. But, to reiterate the point above, people making claims like "you can't write a female because you are a male" are not actually critiquing the work, they are expressing a worldview.

    How to deal with them (the problems, that is)? Write them anyway. Just do it with care and respect. Don't write some incendiary, bigoted stuff (unless that is what you are trying to write, as a matter of sparking discussion or something like that). Make them as real as the men in the work. And hey, by the very nature of writing, some of your female characters are bound to be shallow and one dimensional, because they are throwaway characters. The bartender or traffic cop or reporter or physicist or bodybuilder you need for that one scene is only there for that one scene, and I'm not saying that you ought to take any more care or effort fleshing that lady out than you would with a similarly-situated male character.

    But that is the key. Make sure that, for major female characters (or trans, or gay, or Aboriginal or Indian or First Nation or any other thing that you aren't), you put the time in to make sure that they are as well-realized as your other (read: white male level 13 ranger, or whatever race/class combo you personally happen to be) characters. That is really all you can do.
     
    NoGoodNobu, Laurus, xanadu and 4 others like this.
  9. Commandante Lemming

    Commandante Lemming Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    May 8, 2014
    Messages:
    1,601
    Likes Received:
    1,306
    Location:
    Washington, DC, USA
    As a guy who writes almost exclusively female protagonists, these are my basics.

    1) Have more than one female character and make sure they are different from one another. This prevents any one character from bearing the all the weight of representing women - it gives you the opportunity both to make them more flawed and to parcel out "masculine" traits among them (so that people don't mistake masculine traits purposefully inserted into an individual woman for the author not knowing how to write women.)

    2) Get at least two women (preferrably of differing personalities and not in your family) to read your stuff and give feedback on the portrayal of women. If they both independently say that you're messing up something, you're messing it up. If one of them flags something, ask the other and cross-reference the answers.

    3) Don't take advice on how women think from other men. Seriously. Don't. It never ends well. There are infinite variations on how it doesn't end well (ranging from overdone male feminists on one end to misogynists on the other) but it still never ends well. Now, if you want to talk about TECHNIQUE with another male writer who has experience successfully writing complex women, go for it. Some of that stuff you almost have to get from men who write women because it's about learning how to exist outside your own gender (women who write men also fit here, and can be helpful because they can tell you what was foreign to them about male thinking). However, you should ALWAYS have women readers on-book as quality checks.
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2017
    Fernando.C likes this.
  10. archer88i

    archer88i Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2008
    Messages:
    839
    Likes Received:
    432
    :D

    That's one of the things I talk about in that essay: you can do that kind of thing to make a character feminine, but then you're being sexist. :p (I haven't heard that critique since college, but, then, I haven't written characters like that in awhile.)
     
  11. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    Just write a damn character. Make all your characters internally consistent... you should know why they're doing/thinking/saying what they are, even if you don't explain it to your readers.

    Of course societal attitudes toward people affect how they behave, so factor that into your characterization. Be aware that your female characters have probably been pressured to behave a certain way, but that doesn't mean your characters must give in to the pressure. The same is true of male characters - society pressures them to behave in certain ways, but you can always have your characters resist.
     
    xanadu, GuardianWynn, Seren and 2 others like this.
  12. izzybot

    izzybot (unspecified) Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 3, 2015
    Messages:
    2,419
    Likes Received:
    3,884
    Location:
    SC, USA
    If you like quotes from male authors about how to write female characters, I'm a fan of GRRM's, "You know, I've always considered women to be people."

    Just write people - compelling, realistic people. I wouldn't listen to anyone (especially dudes, but certainly also women) who decides that your female characters aren't feminine enough. Women, fictional or no, don't have to meet a threshold of acceptable femininity before they're plausible / real women, and I personally don't trust anyone who believes that they do to dictate to me how I should write.

    One of my favorite examples is Ellen Ripley. The character was literally written as a male character and changed at the last minute to be a woman, and I haven't heard a ton of people complaining about her reactions not being feminine enough. I'm pretty sure we all think she's a badass and love her.

    Just write a solid character, regardless of gender. I'm not saying don't listen to other people's opinions, but when their opinions are based on vague shit, those might not be opinions that're useful to you.
     
    Laurus, ShannonH, Fernando.C and 5 others like this.
  13. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 9, 2010
    Messages:
    15,262
    Likes Received:
    13,084
    I do get the vibe, from "not feminine," that the critic was criticizing the character as a woman, not as a character.
     
    xanadu, Simpson17866 and izzybot like this.
  14. archer88i

    archer88i Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2008
    Messages:
    839
    Likes Received:
    432
    I'd like to make sure I'm interpreting you correctly: you're saying that if this person met an actual woman who acted that way, you figure this person would have the same complaint? If so, that's something I think about a lot: that when people are criticizing characters, they think they're saying, "this character does not work for me," but what they're actually saying is, "I don't like this person."

    ...Which opens an entirely different can of worms about characters and their relationship with the reader that just isn't relevant here, but still.
     
  15. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 8, 2017
    Messages:
    12,141
    Likes Received:
    19,770
    Location:
    Rhode Island
    I write both of them the same until I need to mention a wiener or a hooha, which isn't that often.
     
    Myrrdoch likes this.
  16. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 9, 2010
    Messages:
    15,262
    Likes Received:
    13,084
    Yep. "Not feminine" is, to me, a value judgement, a judgement about a person, not a judgement about realism. I could absolutely be wrong--I might change my mind if more context were available--but to me, it doesn't mean "this isn't a woman" but instead "this is a malfunctioning woman."
     
    izzybot and Simpson17866 like this.
  17. Trish

    Trish Damned if I do and damned if I don't Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 12, 2011
    Messages:
    3,421
    Likes Received:
    2,083
    Location:
    New York
    I'm with @izzybot and @Myrrdoch - just write people. As long as your character is consistent, it doesn't matter if she comes across as a woman-hating psycho - as long as that's true for her, it is what it is.
     
    Myrrdoch likes this.
  18. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 5, 2016
    Messages:
    2,521
    Likes Received:
    4,054
    I've known many women in my life, and they've all had varying levels of what's traditionally considered to be feminine behavior. And as Bay points out above the same is true with men and stereotypical masculine traits as well. To me it's kind of ludicrous to say that a character (or a real person) isn't masculine or feminine enough based on their gender, because it's such a big spectrum from what I've personally observed.
     
    Fernando.C, Myrrdoch, xanadu and 2 others like this.
  19. izzybot

    izzybot (unspecified) Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 3, 2015
    Messages:
    2,419
    Likes Received:
    3,884
    Location:
    SC, USA
    I think this is a big potential concern when you're talking to people who're readers, not writers, but writers definitely trip into that mindset as well.

    You have to understand the person your feedback is coming from. I semi-recently had a beta tell me that she skimmed over the main character's backstory, which is a pretty critical part of the plot, and that could tell me that it's boring - but the rest of her feedback indicated that she wasn't paying much attention to anything and rushed through in general. Context. Is your reader a critical reader who can actually tell you "This doesn't work," or can they only tell what works for them specifically - in this case, does it confirm their established beliefs about what women are like?
     
    Myrrdoch likes this.
  20. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 9, 2010
    Messages:
    15,262
    Likes Received:
    13,084
    Responding to myself to realize that in all the disclaimers ("tend, on average, blah") should have also included "In the society that I'm sitting in and that society's immediate past."

    So my post isn't about "women" so much as "People who are raised to play the role of 'woman' in one specific society."
     
    Trish and Simpson17866 like this.
  21. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 5, 2016
    Messages:
    2,521
    Likes Received:
    4,054
    I actually had a "hill to die on" moment with my editor during the Under the Knife edits in regards to gender stereotypes.

    I had a very dysfunctional team of three female chefs who failed spectacularly in their challenge and then turned on each other angrily afterwards. My editor Emilia said that she wasn't crazy about it because it bought into the stereotype that women are all catty bitches that just want to tear each other down. I thought about her concern long and hard (she's crazy insightful and I respect her opinion greatly), but in the end kept that part as is. Because while the chefs were all women, I had come up with their personalities before even assigning them gender - the strong, calm chef destined to make it all the way; the clueless chef in over their head who gets eliminate almost immediately, and the abrasive, no-BS chef who's mostly a middle of the road competitor. The fight was true to their personalities no mater if they were men, women or a mix of both.
     
    Fernando.C and Odile_Blud like this.
  22. Commandante Lemming

    Commandante Lemming Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    May 8, 2014
    Messages:
    1,601
    Likes Received:
    1,306
    Location:
    Washington, DC, USA
    This^^^
     
  23. 123456789

    123456789 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2012
    Messages:
    8,102
    Likes Received:
    4,605
    I may have no business saying what makes a female character, but as a male, I can certainly say that I have seen women not write men believably. Yes, there is a wide range of personality types, but I've seen some males in novels behave in ways that I have seen women in real life act but never men.
     
  24. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 9, 2010
    Messages:
    15,262
    Likes Received:
    13,084
    Examples? I'm curious, though I suppose it might be appropriate to create a parallel thread.
     
    123456789 likes this.
  25. Commandante Lemming

    Commandante Lemming Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    May 8, 2014
    Messages:
    1,601
    Likes Received:
    1,306
    Location:
    Washington, DC, USA
    I think the one thing that occasionally throws me about women writing men is when a bad/evil male character spends all of his time thinking explicitly that sexually possessing a woman as a way if exerting power and suppressing her individuality. Like, I obviously don't mind such a person being characterized as an utter (expletive censored) - but I generally get thrown out of a story if he lapses into a totally rational internal monologue about how he wants sex primarily to prove to the woman that he wants power over her. At this point I'm usually thinning two things:

    1) No way in hell is this moron that rational. If this guy were real, he's totally thinking with his (obscene anatomical reference) at this point, and he's probably so high on hormones that that he no longer gives a rip about sociopolitical power and gender dynamics.
    2) "Is this how women think about sex? As a power play? If so, I'm now existentially terrified."

    Sorry for the pseudo-comedic rant but the opening was there :p
     
    Odile_Blud, Fernando.C and Myrrdoch like this.

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice