One of my protagonists is going to be female, anyone got any tips/tricks they would be willing to share in terms of writing females?
The best thing I picked up in reading this is that being a woman in the eyes of the reader is not about personality, but rather presentation. A woman does woman-y things, at least now and then--like baking cookies, or comforting small children, or whatever. A good example would be Ellen Ripley's relationship with Newt.
I mumble under my breath, but that might well console some of your readers. I also worry that some of that might have come from my bit about my mother and Hilary Clinton, which was not actually intended as advice.
Um, ok ouch. I did read it, thank you very much. I'm not an idiot. But there's still some things I don't yet "get". Interesting, so pretty much a sort of "personality first, gender second" sort of thing? At least that's how I like to think of it, to me a good female character is a character first, and a woman second, it the sense that they aren't defined by their woman-ness. My female character, who is the co-protagonist, doesn't like to think of herself in terms of her woman-hood, you know? In fact that's one of the reasons she left Earth to work on what amounts to a space freighter, specifically to work as an engineer, was because she was sick of her parents telling her she needed to "act more lady-like".
You may need to be more specific about what you don't get. There's a lot of general advice in this thread already, so a general "tips and tricks" question probably isn't going to get you much help. Though I don't know why I'm responding in the first place, because I'm never going to know what to say in these threads other than "write a human being competently".
Well sorry for my poor wording. :/ I'm still new here, so I'm still getting a feel for how things work here. So please excuse me if I ask any "stupid" questions.
No stupid questions, it'd just help if you elucidated what you need help with. I don't mean to sound like an asshole There's just a lot of thoughts and info floating around in this thread as is, so you kinda need to narrow the scope.
You didn't seem assholish to me, and I'm sorry to seem so defensive, and to be so vague. Well, for one thing, what's the best way to have a female character seem "boyish" without coming across as "butch" or a tomboy?
I make sad noises. Edited to add: I mean, I'm not sad that you found it helpful, and I guess that it is a way to make people who disapprove of non-stereotypical women become less defensive in the face of non-stereotypical women, but...I really just want those people to accept non-stereotypical women. Edited to add: To further clarify, I was mocking my mother.
If you eliminate butch or tomboy, what's left of "boyish"? I'm not saying there's nothing left, but you seem to be making some very fine distinctions that call for explanation.
I'm asking what you mean by boyish. Your question is so far unclear, and I should tell you that when you add the smiley after an unclear question, it gives the vibe that you're being deliberately unclear, for purposes of amusement. What is your question? (Edited to add: Am I the only one confused here?)
Nope, I'm not sure what the distinction is either. What part of butch or tomboy do you not want / not include in boyish?
1/ Absolutely...although I'm not at all sure I go with @archer88i 's notion of them occasionally baking cookies - y'know, just to show they're female...WTF's feminine about baking cookies? My male boss does... 2/a) One of my female colleagues is an engineer. She goes on site and tells 'airy-arsed builders what to do. She plays water-polo for fun. (As far as I know, she does NOT bake cookies!) 2/b) My daughter does kung-fu. She gets really cross when the guys take it easy on her, when sparring, because she's a girl. Gender, like age, is just a number. Are you a number one, or a number two? And which is more important? One, because it's first? Or two, because it's a bigger number?
In my cast of characters for a story which is still in the planning stages, I have no gender identities yet for my characters. I first start with the character backstory, personality and figure out what they want, what plots there are with them and then decide on the gender identity (including race/ethnicity, sexual orientation). I don't detail the backstory much though before knowing the character race/ethnicity and sexual orientation because those things matter to a person as an invidual I get the important basics down first. But when it comes to gender identity, I think you will be less likely to write gender stereotypes or flat characters if you create a fully fleshed out character first who you view as a person and later think about what may be the most interesting or fun to write when it comes to the gender identity of the character.
I assure you that my adding a "" was not for the purposes of amusement, but simply to show that I am being nice. Sorry if you took it the wrong way. It's not that I don't want to not include any part it's just that, it's kinda hard to explain, but I don't want her to come across as trying to be boyish just to not be seen as "the girl". I'm sorry if this is confusing, but I'm just really sure how to word this. I have baked cookies... I think I see what you are getting at with the gender/age thing.
Yeah, I disagree agree with... Well, pretty much everyone on this. The idea that a character's sex just makes no difference at all in who they are, to me, simply doesn't hold water. I think most readers know that, too, at least subconsciously--and maybe that excludes the (small, vocal) set of people who think about this kind of thing consciously. But even if it does exclude those, I would feel pretty dishonest trying to write men and women the same way, pretending that the two are interchangeable.
Don't worry about the smiley. It's not a big deal. If her reasoning for being boyish (it might help if you described the things she participates in that make her boyish) is just because she likes it, then you make that clear in her thought process and the way the other characters react to her. I have a female character that loves cars. Loves working on cars, driving fast cars, talking about cars. She's still a girl. She's just a girl who loves cars and knowing how things work.
I don't think the message of the thread was that men and exactly the same, but... carry on. I hope your female warriors enjoy their baking.
