They should kick ass but have other talents; they shouldn’t necessarily kick ass because that’s been done to death; they should have agency; they should move the plot forward; they should be assertive but not obnoxious; they should hold positions of power; they shouldn’t be raped or die to give the hero incentive for his quest.
There’s been a lot of talk lately in the science fiction and fantasy community about “strong” female characters, with various authors weighing in about how to write them, what they are, and why the term is flawed in the first place. There are discussions of deadly tropes and how to avoid them. This is all fine, and I agree with the points made for the most part; the last thing we need is a rehash of eyerollingly blatant male fantasies. But with all the focus on writing techniques on the one hand, and political imperatives on the other, I wonder if we’re not losing sight of the big picture.
Just as I don’t imagine most women want to be thought of as “female writers,” the idea of “female characters” as a category for discussion seems problematic. That this category continues to thrive, and to spawn essays and blog posts—including this one!—points directly to the underlying problem: we are issuing prescriptive Do’s and Don’ts about the depiction of women as if they are a separate, exotic species. There is of course good reason for this—frequently in fiction, and in genre fiction in particular, women are depicted as alien beings, even when it’s with the best of intentions. The “kickass” female character who is in fact a sexual fantasy was brilliantly satirized by Mallory Ortberg of The Toast, and we all recognize this character—whether she’s kicking ass with her perfect legs on Alias or the Matrix. (Or even sitting her perfect tiny body down to write some code as in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Yes, I went there.)
There is an uncomfortable feeling in online discussions about how to write “female characters” that some are squinting hard in their attempt to see women as people, while others are approaching the subject with the dutiful submission we bring to a meal of thrice-washed organic kale. One subset wants writing tips on how to take on the otherworldly she-goddess; another wants to make sure we are doing feminism properly. The first reminds me of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, where through innumerable books and sexual experiences, the male characters never cease to lament their inability to understand women. As to the second, well, I think feminism is complex, and what constitutes a feminist character should be part of an ongoing dialogue, not a set of precepts sealed in blood. It is also individual: Lisbeth Salander annoyed the hell out of me, but for others she was empowering…and I’m not out to argue someone out of their empowerment. At twenty-one I found Joss Whedon’s Buffy empowering, and I know that is not for everyone.
What I think is missing from some of these discussions is: writing a fully realized character of any gender requires one trait above all others, and that is empathy. When a female character goes off the rails, it is often because the author experienced a failure of imagination; while he could imagine all the emotions a man might feel in a similar situation—and in the case of literary fiction written by men, this is often recounted in great detail—he has neglected to understand his female characters in the same way. Instead there is a hyperawareness of her beauty and sexiness even from her own perspective, such as in Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot; an inability to grasp how the character might experience life from the inside. I think when male authors make this mistake it’s because they forget we don’t see ourselves the way they see us. I don’t want to go so far as to call this a lack of empathy, but it is certainly a failure of imagination.
How about this: if writing a female character is difficult for you, try forgetting the character is a woman unless the fact is somehow relevant to the story. Heck, even if it is relevant, forget they’re a woman—or perhaps it’s more accurate to say, forget what you think you know about women. What has gone into the shaping of this person—what is their past, what are their skills, do they have a sense of humor? Do they chafe at societal restrictions or embrace them? If it’s the former, that can lead to dramatic inner conflicts if your book’s setting is restrictive to women—conflicts that can make for wonderful fiction, like River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay. There the female protagonist, Lin Shan, is a poet and intellectual in a culture that suppresses women’s freedoms. She doesn’t have the power to act as often as the male protagonist, but in my view her character is all the more compelling for that reason. Oppression can beget inner conflicts and these are a writer’s playground, offering endless character development opportunities. But not if the writer defines the character as a “female character” with a set of supposedly innate and fixed feminine qualities.
In a similar vein, I enjoy writing men because I get to ask questions—different questions for each character, of course, as there is no one trait or circumstance that is true for all men. How does it shape your perspective on the world when you are always the tallest and strongest person in the room? (I have a few friends like this, and can only imagine.) What is it like to have the quiet confidence of knowing—without any doubt—that your work is valued? In a culture that elevates men as natural leaders, what is it like to have to conform to the expectations which accompany that role? We see George R. R. Martin deal with this last question with the character of Jaime Lannister, who begins at the top in every way in his society, but later is bereft of the martial prowess which gave him value. Meanwhile we love Tyrion because he faces challenges similar to those of a female character—he is physically smaller and weaker than most men, despised, and treated as a pawn by his father—and responds to these challenges with wit and pathos.
I guess what I want to say is…go crazy! Have fun with it. Get into your character’s head. Forget about her body unless another character is looking at it. Forget any assumptions about what women are like. Let her surprise you. That ends up being a double win—for the reader and for you.
Ilana C. Myer has written about books for the Globe and Mail, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Huffington Post, and Salon. Her first novel, Last Song Before Night, an epic fantasy about poets and dark enchantments, is forthcoming from Tor in September 2015.
Thanks, Ilana.
This is, although a certain segment of the SF fandom hated it, is why I liked Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword so much…the working with pronouns and assumed genders of characters divorced readers from necessarily and easily putting characters into gender boxes with the preconceptions of what those characters should be like, or shouldn’t be able to do.
I hadn’t thought about Dragon Tattoo in the way in your link to your article indicates, but…yeah. Now I see it.
Really good. Thanks!
I think this is a good point about trying to get inside a woman’s head and see her how she sees herself, rather than making her “cool” by giving her more stereotypically male traits (and making her fit into the male fantasies at the same time).
I like your exercise in imagining what it’s like to be the tallest or strongest in the room for male characters. But I think these two sentences contradict each other: “What is it like to have the quiet confidence of knowing—without any doubt—that your work is valued? In a culture that elevates men as natural leaders, what is it like to have to conform to the expectations which accompany that role?”
Men don’t have confidence “without any doubt” that their work will be accepted or has value. While our society has a bias towards men that will value the work of men over the exact same work of women, that does not mean that a man’s contributions are always valued, or that men always feel their efforts will be valued–whether they actually will be or not. Think of the character of George McFly, who is afraid to show anyone his stories because of a fear that it’s no good–although we see in the alternate timeline that he is obviously able to get published. I think there are a lot of men who have doubt about their work or contributions being accepted.
On the other hand, there also seem to be a good deal of men who think whatever they do is the awesomest thing in the world even when it’s not…
This is hardly something that’s only begun to be discussed ‘lately’. See Sophia McDougall’s essay ‘I hate Strong Female Characters’ from what, two years ago?
When I think of a strong character, I think of the character’s ability to affect the outcome of the story. A paraplegic person could be a strong character if he or she tracks down the villian’s hideout through the Internet. A bodybuilder would be a weak character if his sole function is to guard a door that nobody tries to enter. There are many more character traits beside physical strength.
You make a very good point. When I wrote novels for school I usually had a male main character much because of the same thought experiments you mention. It was a way to explore these scenarios. I see it as more daunting to write about a woman, because here my knowledge is naturally more certain. And that prevents me from exploring in the same way. After reading this I asked myself what is a good female character and which do I like? Tough question! I wondered if you have read Graceling, Fire and Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore? Any thoughts on the female characters in these?
I’m a male writer who prides himself in his ability to write fleshed-out, believable women, and I think I manage that by setting aside the character’s gender and just writing a person. However, I believe there is one subtle, key difference between men and women–and this is just speaking in general, plenty from both sides can break the rule–but women tend to be a bit more calculating than men. Men are tacticians, women are strategists. Aside from that, there’s no difference between writing men and women. They both require the same things–backstory to provide motivation, emotional and psyhological consistency on their responces to stimuli, and of course personal growth in their journeys.
Good read!
I think this could also apply to writing minority characters as well. Instead of fixating on “inclusion” and “diversity” we should be writing three-dimensional characters, and if race or gender have an impact, then it should be something that directly affects the story.
It’s something we talk about a lot on our podcast: story, story, story. Good stories revolve around good characters. Don’t make a character a woman or black or Asian or whatever just because. It has to matter, or it doesn’t matter. Focus should be on telling a good, compelling story.
“What is it like to have the quiet confidence of knowing—without any doubt—that your work is valued?”
I strongly object to this. I get where its coming from, but plenty of men are afflicted with self doubt about their work or contribution to society, and plenty of women have self confidence. Now, again, I understand the point you are trying to make, that society as we live it is programmed to place a higher value on male work, but umbrella statements are exactly what you are writing in opposition to, so I feel like a little more nuance would be appropriate in this piece.
“What is it like to have the quiet confidence of knowing—without any doubt—that your work is valued?”
Even fter 40 years of life as a male, I wonder what that’d be like too.
Just read you article about TGWTDT in the link provided. Didn’t really understand the vitriol you seem to have for it.
You dismiss the authors descriptions of a young woman who is naturally thin, despite an unhealthy diet, as a male fantasy.
Are you serious? Some women are exactly like this. Men too, I can assure you.
Your criticism in this instance seems to be overly sensitive nonsense. You must have a limited understanding of human biology to never have come across the concept of metabolism, and to interpret a quite common physical trait as a fantasy on the authors part.
I also feel that sometimes people feel all this pressure to write a woman ‘perfectly’ because of a fear that it will seem like they are saying something about all women if their female character isn’t kick ass in every way. But (and I’m kind of piggy backing off another thread here) – part of the issue is that the ratio of female characters is so low in the first place, that when there is a prominent female character, she almost can’t just be a character, she has to be some kind of representation that says all sorts of things that perhaps the author doesn’t even intend.
I can understand a bit the ‘what must it be like to know your work is valued’ feeling, or at least what I think the author meant by it – although ironically, I have always had that feeling (aside from the times I have struggled with depression), as I have been blessed my entire life with supportive parents, teachers, professors, coworkers, etc.
I can also understand why some people are taking umbrage to the generalizaton – just because, on the whole, men are taken more seriously in certain contexts, and they don’t have to worry about their gender being (either subconsicously or consciously) influencing other peoples’ evaluation of them, it doesn’t mean every individual man is experiencing that. Especially if they don’t tend to meet all the socially acceptable manly man criteria.
@@@@@ 8,
Not sure what you mean by “Good stories revolve around good characters. Don’t make a character a woman or black or Asian or whatever just because. It has to matter, or it doesn’t matter. Focus should be on telling a good, compelling story.”
Why not make a character a woman or black or Asian just because? Why does it have to matter? People who aren’t straight white men exist in the world without needing a reason for it. Why do we need a reason to change the default in fiction?
Overall, well written, but I wouldn’t assume that men never question whether their work is valued.
Apologies for my unclear phrasing–of course many men are not supremely confident that their work has value (just as many men are not tall and strong!). My intent was to list situations that are more likely to occur in men than in women. We can of course differ (frequently!) about what these are, but that’s another essay.
Ilana
@@@@@ 8
It’s something we talk about a lot on our podcast: story, story, story. Good stories revolve around good characters. Don’t make a character a woman or black or Asian or whatever just because. It has to matter, or it doesn’t matter. Focus should be on telling a good, compelling story.
You can write a character any way you like and make him/her/it/your favorite pronoun any gender or ethnicity you like. Things don’t have to mean anything and not every character must say something about the struggle facing a minority group in 21st century USA. This might surprise some, but black people, female people, trans people, mormon people, are just basically people/human beings first, then their adjective second.
On a side note, in Wheel of Time, the female characters equally lament their inability to understand men as well. And what I liked about that is that I think in real life we often hear men and women say that about one another.
@Jason Hunt, when you say “Don’t make a character a woman or black or Asian or whatever just because” you are missing the point and not treating female, black or asian characters as plain characters. Basically you are defaulting to white male characters unless there’s a very good reason for them to be anything else. News flash, women are people as much as men are and you need a good reason to NOT populate your novel with them.
@ilana, that’s why we’re still having conversations specifically about female characters. Not everyone gets it.
@15: To be clear, yes, it was the phrasing that I felt was a little problematic. I certainly understand where the statement comes from. But the interjection of “without a doubt” made it seem like an especially absolute statement, even though in the next sentence you acknowledge that men might have trouble living up to the standards that society sets for them.
I think it’s more along the lines of men lack the inconfidence of having something being not accepted because of gender, as women might feel, which doesn’t necessarily imply a confidence of having something be accepted. But then we get into some semantic problems and double negatives and such.
Oh, and is this your first article on Tor? If so, welcome aboard and congratulations!
I think some of the trouble comes from the fact that having a “culture that suppresses women’s freedoms” is so often the unexamined default setting for an entirely fictional world. When you start with that much baggage, it takes a lot of conscious work to steer your characters (male and female, but mostly female) away from familiar two-dimensional constructs, including “the one special girl who has the courage to rebel”.
Re: The conversation about that quote: “What is it like to have the quiet confidence of knowing—without any doubt—that your work is valued?”
Because I don’t think the phrasing was unclear or even poor, and I think we might be losing the forest for the trees a bit by ignoring the larger context of the quote:
“In a similar vein, I enjoy writing men because I get to ask questions—different questions for each character, of course, as there is no one trait or circumstance that is true for all men. How does it shape your perspective on the world when you are always the tallest and strongest person in the room? (I have a few friends like this, and can only imagine.) What is it like to have the quiet confidence of knowing—without any doubt—that your work is valued?”
I think that Ilana clearly makes the distinction here between Men as a collective unit and men as individual people. I often say that individuals have an incredible ability to transgress social norms, but social units really don’t. So, a man can transgress standard patriarchal in fascinating and innumerable ways, but men — the social cismale collective unit — is remarkably inflexible about the same.
Ilana never contradicts this. She enjoys writing Men in general, she says, and the way she has to approach it changes for every individual man within that sphere. There’s no absolutism, and no blanketism to my eye.
More generally, I’ve learned to look at this question in a very similar way that Ilana does, and here’s my way of verbalising that: A lot of people get a good start by sticking to the rule that you don’t write a woman/minority/homosexual/etc., you write a person. That can get you away from stereotyping, but it replaces it with erasure. One step forward, one step back. The best way to succeed is to write a person whose actions and reactions are informed by their experience as a woman/person of color/queer person/etc.
Because the culture feeds us different experiences, and those experiences train us to react VERY differently to seemingly innocuous things. So don’t understand women. Understand how the culture treats women, and then write a person whose actions and reactions are informed by that.
And give her desires. And on top of THOSE desires you just gave her, give her other desires, ones that are independent of other people. Because she wants things for herself, too.
In some other life were I have more time, I want to write the illustration version of this artcile.
‘Forget your character is a woman’ is great advice… it’s also a lot of fun. I’ve written two stories with a character whose gender I still don’t know, even though s/he was the love interest in one of the stories. It’s so freeing to write a character without any gender constraints, who simply doesn’t give a fap about any of it.
There’s the classic example of Ripley from the movie Alien. The character was originally written with a man in mind. Just happened to have a woman cast in the role. And it just happened to be a brilliant decision.
@@@@@ Irene: I would love to read that!
I agree with #22 that the article’s phrasing is fine, but if those who don’t want the quote to more closely match individuals rather than the amorphous group try changing “What is it like to have the quiet confidence of knowing—without any doubt—that your work is valued?” to “What is it like to have the quiet confidence of knowing—without any doubt—that your work will not be dismissed/devalued because of your gender?” There are very few occasions when those of us men who are, or can be, crippled by self-doubt will fear the dismissal of our work purely on the grounds that we are men.
@22 I think what you said about reactions formed by their experience is very well stated. Recently a Magic the Gathering story was published featuring a trans character; and from among the positive responses on Tumblr, some people really liked it because for the character her gender was a big deal to her. (also it was a really well written story). (I hope my sentances make sense)
I’ve seen where some male authors, like Mark Lawerance for example, have been critized for not having strong female characters -which I disagree, he does have some strong female characters, they just don’t get as much face time.
I think it’s pretty much bull$#!+, that any author should be obligated to have any character type in his or her books. It’s blows my mind when an author can write of an opposite gender, sexual preferance, or maybe even a different race then what he or she is themselves. I’d be scared to death if I had to write from the female’s point-of-veiw. I can only imagine the back lash for getting it wrong.
@29 so just make sure that the book has as many female characters as possible. Even if you get them all “wrong”, you should at least get points for a diversity of errors.
Part of the solution is: more female characters! And more diverse characters in all other respects to address this same issue with their tropes. I read laments by writers/filmmakers that they get stuck in a box of writing a perfect kickass woman so that women don’t complain about a weak character. But that’s because if you only have one active female character in your work, there is a LOT of representation riding on her shoulders. If you have multiple women, you can have diverse appearances and personalities just like your cast of a dozen guys.
Somebody already mentioned my fave kickass movie lady, Ellen Ripley. She was smart and resourceful but also plain lucky. She had PTSD in the second movie but forged ahead anyway. She was a mother fighting another mother. Oh epic mom vs. mom fight!! But we also had a contrast with Lambert in ‘Alien’ and Vasquez in ‘Aliens.’ Not a ton of variety, but Ripley wasn’t the sole embodiment of scifi woman.
I feel like Ripley kicked off action women, but it somehow funelled down into a really specific trying-to-please-everyone, sexy-emotionless-buttkicker trope that she never actually embodied. Instead of recapturing the magic of Ripley, the book/movie industries (and urban fantasy subgenre in particular) took the personality of Vasquez and stuck her in stiletto boots and called it a day.
As someone who is moving into a fantasy series after writing two books that featured young women runners, this post is fasinating, as are all the great comments.
@noblehunter- that really wasn’t my point. What if author, or reader for that matter, of the story doesn’t particularly want a strong female character? Are we now going to start demanding it?
Like Mark Lawerance, for example since I already mentioned him. He’s gotten some strong criticism for not having enough strong females in his books. (I disagree unless they mean as main characters.) So what should he have done? Re-write male characters as female? I don’t think we need to get the point of having token characters of any kind.
I don’t really care so much about ‘strong’ female characters in the sense where strong means ‘action-girl’, but just female characters that are well developed and have believable reactions/motivations/dimensions.
But I actually find it almost as irritating when the few female characters in a work default to sassy action girl since it’s not a type of character I relate to.
@@@@@ 34 kid_greg
You seem to be missing the point that there are very few characters in any story that have to be male. You would not have to re-write male characters as female, just decide that your scientists, your engineers, your dragon fliers can be female rather than assuming they are all male.
The “kickass female character” is often a sort of female James Bond. Unbeatable, multi-talented, unfailingly cool and confident, able to seduce any member of the opposite gender (and more importantly, able to discard them after the seduction), and lacking any deep emotions.
There is nothing necessarily wrong with that as a form of unpretentious wish-fulfilment, but it’s annoying when everybody is expected to write women in this way and we have to take it seriously. James Bond himself was not supposed to be taken seriously.
Anyway, I agree with Ilana that the key to belieavable female characters is empathy. Unfortunately, our world is such a mess because most people, writers or not, don’t have a large supply of empathy. Also, culturally, people in the top rungs of any social ladder are not really encouraged to empathy. Women are more encouraged to understand men than vice-versa.
And even when you are a sensitive and empathetic person, there are blind spots. It took my wife to show me how lots of fiction is prejudiced in how it’s more acceptable for male characters to have all kinds of body types and ages, while main females are almost universally beautiful and younger than 40.
I happen to be reading the Wheel of Time series for the first time right now. And I just wanted to question/point out that the female characters often lament that the male characters are completely incomprehensible and/or idiots. Nynaeve in particular.
I agree that the entire concept of the “female character” is flawed. Characters are either well written or they’re not. But since men have failed often, historically to create well written female characters the label is probably necessary in order to describe the problem if it’s to be addressed.
Right on the money, I think–bravo, Ilana. Characters are ALL opportunities for exploring the human race. Different aspects of different characters enable (and/or preclude) different explorations (and that can, of course lead to stereotyping, if one gets overly lazy or conventional with the assumptions that can arise therefrom). But just as any fiction wants to be fresh, to explore something different and/or in a different way, if that same metric and objective is applied to women (or any character, for that matter), we cannot *help* but write real persons with real concerns that will be distinctive based on their attributes…whatever those attributes might be. The more “Other” a character is, the more carefully or concertedly we might have to work our feet carefully into their shoes to walk that empathy-stimulating mile. But I do not think that task is beyond any reasonably accomplished writer–and indeed, should be one of the exercises that the growing writer imposes on self: to write characters that are a stretch, that break new ground, and chart new reaches of our understanding of each other. This is true in a deeply thoughtful psychodrama or an action romp; believability and immersivity ultimately derives from the finely nuanced rendering of the specific circumstances of each character (regardless of how large or small) within the dramatic framework of the story’s action.Thank you for an excellent post.
@38 The Wheel of Time has a lot of very interesting female characters, from different cultures and races, but the constant braid pulling, skirt smoothing, and folding of arms beneath breasts does gets tiresome after the first two or three books.
Anyone here a fan of Brandon Sanderson’s work. I could be wrong but I think he gets it.
I think of a strong character (in real life or in fiction) as someone who knows who they are and doesn’t let other peoples’ opinions unduly affect their sense of self. Like Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Or pretty much every character on the Muppets, including Miss Piggy.
I can’t decide how I feel about Juliet on Grimm. I think the writers try really hard to keep her out of the hero’s girlfriend box and give her real motivations, but they’re a bit self conscious about it.
@42
I think Juliette falls into the two-dimensional box, partly because Nick is in that box already. It’s because of the format of the series. When you’re expected to be the hero over and over, episode after episode, you tend to become quite flat as a character. There isn’t much to Nick, more than “a cop-Grimm with a conscience”.
We know more about Monroe’s hobbies and weird quirks, than we know about Nick’s or Juliette’s. And their desires? Their goals? But it’s hard to create a believable hero, because people usually aren’t heroes. And so it’s difficult to picture a hero’s girlfriend too. What would somebody be like when put through all that?
In some ways, I think Sean Renard is the most well-written character. He’s a cop, he’s a wesen, he’s a royal bastard. He keeps the Grimm because he’s of value for now, but who knows what he will do if that changes? There are so many different factors, so many loyalties and affiliations, so many ways he could react to each situation, depending on what part of him has the upper hand.
Regarding the original topic, however:
Thanks for a brilliant post, Ilana. It put words to a lot of thoughts and vague feelings I’ve had while trying to create a gender neutral society setting. It’s harder than I thought it would be.
Turns out that the method someone mentioned here is the one I’ve found to be best too: First I write the character, then I just randomly decide what gender it is. Sometimes I even change one character’s gender in a later stage, because some scenes or relations feel skewed one way or another.
Thanks for this. A really good article. :)
Great advice, Ilana. Thank you!
I try not to overthink this in my own fiction, but I occasionally get tied up in knots. I’m sure I’ve blown it in the past with supporting female characters. With female protagonists, I sometimes wonder if readers will misinterpret the faults I give them as my view on all women everywhere.
Thank you for putting in words the issues I have with many typical “kickass heroines”!
@45
Speaking as a reader, it’s easy to think that an author is channeling his views on the whole gender if all of his female characters are similar or if every other character express the same opinion about her/them. So here, I think, variety is the key: making sure that different female protagonists and the supporting female cast have different sets of faults. And, of course, showing that a character is more than a sum of his/her faults.
“What is it like to have the quiet confidence of knowing—without any doubt—that your work is valued?” It isn’t like this for men. There are implicit hierarchies within any male social group. Have a furtive listen to conversations between men; theres no value given to each others work, it’s much more about jockeying for position putting the other guys down, albeit through humour. And in work environments it’s a lot more aggressive than this. I think women always assume men don’t have to fight for what they have because they don’t complain about it. But we do.
Just want to say I really appreciate the warm welcome I’ve received here, and all the responses. Much food for thought, perhaps for more essays down the line.
Ilana
@47
I think a more accurate way of putting it is that men never have their work devalued on account of their gender alone, except perhaps in very specific contexts (for instance, male nannies).
The way to do this is first before your write the story create her backstroy and a psychological profile. Pre suppose her childhood hurts, secrets, inner demons. Spend time learning or constructing what makes her tick before putting her in plot situations. Know what she hates and what she loves, her quarks and perspectives on life. Knowing this, the real person will come out as you have her face plot stressors.