Writing Strong Female Characters

[Ian P. Johnson]

How do you do it? When does it work well?

For me, I find that the way to write a good female character is relatively simple: create a fully-realized, three-dimensional character who just happens to be female. (Of course, creating a good character is an art in its own right, and hard to do at the best of times…)

[HeroineOfCanton]

The key to writing any good character is reading good characters. And since there is something of a dearth of good female characters in SFF, I think writers of SFF who want to write good women need to read outside the genre. The fantasy series I'm writing my husband, frankly, owes as much to Jane Austen as it does to Tolkien. Although I think it's interesting, since I've mentioned Tolkien, that Eowyn is one of the best female characters in the genre. Why have writers for decades been copying Tolkien (often quite badly, I'll grant you) by writing dwarves and elves and the like, but not attempting to recapture what I love him most for, and that's creating Eowyn.

However, I should confess now that I actually haven't read/watched a lot of SFF. I was so turned off by what I did run across most of my life *cough* Xena *cough* that I didn't want to waste my time with the genre. Then my husband turned me into a Tolkien geek, and it's rather spiraled from there. But when we started discussing writing a novel together, the first thing I said was that I was perfectly happy writing a quest with wizards and dragons, but it had to have a female protagonist who actually behaved like a woman. She couldn't run around with a broadsword, kicking the sh!t out of men twice her size, etc. We even created a matriarchal culture where women rule and fight, but guess what they are best known for? It's not their great infantry where they march into battle with broadswords that the majority of women don't have the upper body strength to wield. Instead, they're great archers and are famed for their navy, because there's no good reason a woman can't shoot a bow as well as a man or hoist a sail with the aid of her sisters.

[SkylarkThibedeau]

I must say that no matter what the form whether the page, the Jackson movie, or even the Rankin Bass Cartoon, a shiver goes up my spine when Eowyn tells the Lord of the Nazgul, "I AM NO MAN!".

[HeroineOfCanton]

I must say that no matter what the form whether the page, the Jackson movie, or even the Rankin Bass Cartoon, a shiver goes up my spine when Eowyn tells the Lord of the Nazgul, "I AM NO MAN!".

Right?! She's so the gold standard for me.

[NYCPW]

Just write a solid, human, three dimensional character with experiences and a personality...her gender might factor in to some aspects more than others, but the important thing is that she be well humanized. It's not that hard; the trick is to remember that men and women belong to the same species

[gibson99]

Just write a solid, human, three dimensional character with experiences and a personality...her gender might factor in to some aspects more than others, but the important thing is that she be well humanized. It's not that hard; the trick is to remember that men and women belong to the same species

That is my philosophy about it. I don't know how well I apply it, but that's a whole other story.

For characters in general, I think looking around at real people has helped me more than any reading I've done.

[Ian P. Johnson]

On the subject of female archers…

I've noticed a lot of young women (aged about 10 to 15) taking up archery because of Katniss Everdeen. I approve wholeheartedly with this– not only because it's badass and empowering, but also because I consider archery to be a martial art, and I feel that all women should learn the basics of at least one martial art, maybe even several.

And on the subject of women wielding broadswords– I studied European Broadsword for three years, and I can tell you that some of the most skilled fighters I knew were young women about my own age. They had to adopt a slightly different technique because they simply weren't as big as some of the guys, but quite a lot of them could take me down three times out of four. (Broadswords aren't as heavy as most people think they are. Usually, they're around three to four pounds. The heaviest ones can be five or six pounds, but they're rarities, and not commonly used.)

[HeroineOfCanton]

On the subject of female archers…
And on the subject of women wielding broadswords– I studied European Broadsword for three years, and I can tell you that some of the most skilled fighters I knew were young women about my own age. They had to adopt a slightly different technique because they simply weren't as big as some of the guys, but quite a lot of them could take me down three times out of four. (Broadswords aren't as heavy as most people think they are. Usually, they're around three to four pounds. The heaviest ones can be five or six pounds, but they're rarities, and not commonly used.)

I'll take your word on this, but I think the hubby and I will stick with the thinner, lighter, single-edged blade we've come up with for our chick warriors.

But more about women. I think one thing a lot of authors miss is that women can kick butt and still be interested in, say, shoes. The character isn't suddenly less badass because she wants to look good when the occasion calls for it. Does anyone think James Bond is less of a spy because he knows how to wear a tux?

[Ian P. Johnson]

HeroineOfCanton: That is true. It's a pretty common phenomenon (especially among male authors) to assume that femininity is a weakness.

It's not. Having a gender role is NOT a weakness. What is a weakness is when characters– whether male or female– take their gender characteristics to an extreme, and become either MassivelyMuscularSuperGrimIncrediblyStraightManlyM an™, or ShoeObsessedDamselInDistressPrincessPeachGirlyWoma n®. Either one of those clichés annoys the hell out of me.

Skylark: When I was a teenager, I named one of our baby chicks Éowyn.

Today, she is seven years old, has a body as tough and hardened as old leather, has been at the top of the pecking order for her entire life, and is the survivor of multiple animal attacks, including raccoons, bobcats, coyotes, and once even a young mountain lion.

I don't know whether it's a case of Éowyn the chicken rising to the warrior pedigree of her name, or whether I saw some toughness in a three-year-old chick that led me to pick the name for her.

It may be a little bit of both.

[tnh]

If you're trying to think up a short backstory for a female character, just to make her a bit more three-dimensional, I don't recommend putting a rape in her history. Too many writers have used that as an unintegrated, practically standalone detail on an otherwise unexamined character, thus creating the unfortunate impression that being raped was either the only significant event they could imagine happening to a woman, or the only one they considered important. Whatever the etiology, the fact is that many readers (male and female) have gotten cynical about that assertion. Their eyes glaze over the moment they see it.