Female Characters

[Bramblethorn]

When I was a kid, one of the coolest scenes in the Empire Strikes Back is when you saw Vader, for that brief moment, without his helmet on in his meditation chamber. You saw all the scars and it was at that moment where it sunk in that he'd been through some shit.

It's a cool scene. But he was already famous before that film came out.

The character arc and backstory may well have been inserted later, but that's kind of the point: the Anakin/Vader arc in the prequels is ONE HELL of a character arc. That's why the prequels have aged so well these 15 years or so

This is not an assessment that I share. I tend not to have strong feelings about Star Wars - for me it's a way to while away a few hours, not a cultural identity - so I neither love nor hate SW films as much as some, but I can't say that I found the prequels terribly strong either at the time or in hindsight.

(FWIW, I'm not a great fan of Chosen One storylines. It generally feels like a bit of a lazy trope to me, and "because midichlorians" didn't strike me as one of the better executions of that trope.)

, the Clone Wars cartoon show helped, but as the years have gone by, people have appreciated just how good Anakin's arc was in the prequels. A young boy, who was a slave until he was 9 years old, and who some absolutely terrible things happen to him and those close to him growing up. That childhood made him extremely possessive of those closest to him, and if you mess with someone he cares about, he will bring holy hell on you. A jedi order that was too inflexible and too busy with it's own problems to properly help him. A wise mentor figure who could have changed the entire thing, tragically killed before he had the chance to really help. A young jedi, in over his head, with no idea how to train an apprentice, taking on the kid. An older man, the villain of the story, who knew exactly how to play upon a young man's quest for security and the safety of those he cares about, and knew exactly how to frame the Jedi as the enemy that was preventing him from accomplishing his goals, and the confirmation bias of the Jedi's actual actions not helping things. His own strength increasing, leading to arrogance and pride, and complete overconfidence in his own abilities. The entire thing creating a toxic cocktail of ambition, greed, power, love, and misunderstandings.

I'll note here that, having just remarked on how "the only truly awful thing" that happens to Jin is dying - AFAICT, discounting a shitton of childhood trauma because it doesn't come in the form of physical injury? - you're now focussing on the "absolutely terrible" things that happen to Anakin as a child even though none of those involved physical injury to him.

Anyway, this but illustrates my point - there's so much interesting stuff you can do with a character before getting to the point of lopping off limbs. All of that stuff could equally well be done with a female character, except that a large subset of SW fandom might be less willing to accept "because midichlorians" for a female protag.

By the time Anakin begins his battle with Obi-Wan, he's already lost everything that mattered to him. He's already become a tragic villain. If the series had been made in chronological order, there'd have been no need for his mutilation at this point. It's not the push over the edge that makes him a villain - he went over that edge long ago. Indeed, it's awkward writing because it requires Obi-Wan to make a very weird choice; he could have been justified either in killing Anakin or in trying to save him, but leaving him there to suffer an agonizing death or be rescued to become a powerful nemesis? Even by the low bar of Jedi decision-making, that's an exceptionally cruel and bone-headed choice. No, the only reason it's necessary at that point is because of the need to join the dots to stuff that had been established in Episodes 4-6.

You are right: women are often brutalized but not for stories about those women, which was my point: if you brutalize a woman, the audience feels hatred for the person doing the brutalizing, making it easy to figure out who the villain is and who the protagonist is. If you brutalize a woman for her own story, that seems to land differently, and it's generally not done. Heck, we pretty much agree that fridging is extremely deplorable, ought not to be done, and is just lazy writing. However, if you fridge a woman, it elicits a reaction from the audience, the reason fridging men isn't a thing is because if you do it, the audience doesn't care enough to make it worthwhile.

I am really not sold on this "audiences will accept brutalisation of a woman for somebody else's story, but not her own" argument. Is it really because it can't be done? Or is it just that so many writers prefer to focus on male leads?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Anyway. Enough derailing. Can we focus on writing tips please? This bickering is really unproductive.

Sorry!

One thing I often find useful is to ask: how do this character's choices affect the course of the story? What is she doing other than simply reacting to what the male characters do?

 

[SimonDoom]

The character arc and backstory may well have been inserted later, but that's kind of the point: the Anakin/Vader arc in the prequels is ONE HELL of a character arc.

I could not disagree with this more strongly. I thought the prequels were terrible. I thought the Anakin story arc was awful and completely unbelievable. Yes, it added an explanation to how Darth Vader got where he was by episode 4. And I found it to be totally unsatisfactory in every way. In my opinion, Star Wars would have been better if that story arc had never been provided. I personally thought the prequels were some of the worst movie-making of all time. Dreadful in every way. And up to that point, I was a big Star Wars fan, having been enthralled by the first movie when it came out when I was a young teenager.

Sometimes, it's better NOT to know the backstory of a character--to leave it to the viewer's imagination. To say nothing.

My own view about Star Wars is that with the exception of Rogue One, which I thought was pretty good and stood on its own well, every movie since the original trilogy has dragged the franchise down, because it was never meant to be that serious, and there's been an overweening need in the subsequent movies to lend weight and significance to the Star Wars mythology when it would have been better never to have done so. It's not that important. It was better when it was just fun.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

As for how much it matters to write a decent female character in erotica, I'd say, unless it's a fetish, a flat character is a flat character. She doesn't magically become interesting as a person just because you think she's hot. If you don't want to flesh her out that's a perfectly valid choice on your part. The people who give a shit about this issue probably aren't your target demographic. Which is totally fine and dandy.

And yet at the same time, many people WANT to read erotic stories based on flat, stereotyped characters, because that's what turns them on.

And that's totally understandable. I merely aim to encourage brainstorming and compile tips for the people that do feel they struggle to write female characters. Because even as a woman I struggle to write my own gender.

And it's tips for a reason. They're not meant to be rules. Simply a list of strategies to pull from hat the next time I or anyone else is stumping as to why a character feels flat in their own writing.

By no means is the point of this thread to insinuate anyone is doing it wrong. As I quoted myself above, a flat character is a flat character unless it's a fetish. In which case it's fine and this thread isn't going to help you.

 

[AlinaX]

~ (starts composing a defence of Rey and a rant about the final film's betrayal of her) ~

Oh. Right. No derailment.

A few years ago, someone (female, I think) in the Forum expressed a desire for more lesbian bimbo stories, so I took that as a challenge. I enjoy the transformative aspects, but not so much the reduction to brainlessness so often employed in bimbo stories.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I think the basic rules you've laid out are a good starting point, but I also think there must be more to it. I'm not great at writing female characters, but could easily answer yes to the test for most of my stories. For exampe

Even if she’s not the main character, her actions should have some impact on the plot

Most my stories involve one man and one woman getting together and so tend to be 'M does this, so F does that, so M does the other...' until such time as they're both in bed (or wherever). For a lot of male fantasy, her consent, and how we arrive at it, is the plot.

If she could be replaced by another female character without any change to the plot then she's probably a bit flat

But what does this mean in terms of erotic literature, where there are an infinite spectrum of possible characters with innumerable possible characterists, some of which would influence the plot and some of which wouldn't. I recently wrote a story about a Japanese homestay student in the UK getting involved with her host 'mothers' sex partners. The characteristics that were essential to the plot were that she was determined not to have a relationship while abroad, (leading to sexual frustration), she was studious, and she got on well with her host mother, and, at a stretch, had good hearing. Anything else are details that wouldn't derail the basic structure. Her nationality was a basic flavour and lense for the story, but it could have changed, even becoming an American with a puritan background, as long as I altered some names and some minor stuff about her language issues or cultural behaviour. Theoretically I could even have changed her to a middle-aged next-door neighbour who, instead of living in the same house, was always popping round - as long as the houses shared a wall thin enough for sex to be heard, it could still have worked, although the way each scene was set-up would have to have been altered. Obviously a story in the 'First Time' catagory isn't going to work if the character is replaced by a non-virgin, but that hardly means that all the characters in this catagory are well written.

Imply she has a life outside of the sexual encounter

Again, possibly because I'm not writing stroke stories, and there is a build-up to the sexual encounter, this doesn't seem too hard to imply, but again, it's all a question of degree. If you're writing a story about a sexual encounter, most of the information transmitted in the story is going to be related to the encounter. Obviously, including details that imply what people were doing just before the encounter or detals of their usual life is good writing, but to what extent do you need to include details that might be character-building, but not plot-essential. For example, another one of my stories, in the BDSM category, had a female estate agent seducing a former mature colleague in a house that had it's own dungeon. Her occupation is obviously plot essential, but I skipped over some other details - is she good at her job? Does she like it? I had her mention attending a work do the previous night, but maybe she plays raquetball on Thursday? On the other hand, a lot of her character is expressed by her actions during the sexual encounter - she's engineered it, but wants him to be in control. She doesn't have body image issues, but worries she's too young and immature for him and so on.

..., a husband dead from cancer or car crash...

I've used cancer (or death through unspecified incurable illness) before for both the wives and husbands of a love-interest. When writing short stories, it's often a convenient trope for mature characters. It quickly reassures the reader that the character is wonderful, faithful and blameless in the ending of the previous relationship, but now clearly back on the market for the MC - though they may have to work extra hard to catch their interest. On the otherhand, if you mention a divorcee, the natural question is always going to be 'well, who was to blame?' which can be useful if you want the reader looking out for clues that the love-interest isn't necessarily as perfect as they first seem. (Assuming you're not bringing the ex back into the plot.) Obviously, in real life, assholes get cancer as well and people get divorced for all kinds of reasons, but you may not want to add these complications.

Most episodes of the Simpsons involve Homer doing a bunch of stupid and sometimes selfish things, and ultimately escaping all consequences of his actions.

She doesn’t need to break the mold if the writer frames her respectfully. Acknowledging that being a stay-at-home parent, dedicating herself to taking care of a child and keeping the house in order is a full-time job, even if it doesn’t pay the mortgage. Her staying home is quite possibly what’s allowing the breadwinner to pick up those extra hours and put in the work necessary to earn a raise. By asserting that the role in life she has chosen is important to the health of the household...

These quotes, put side by side, kind of demonstrate some of the issues that are being touched on here. Firstly, I'd argue that most of the good, popular early seasons of the Simpson are inevitably built around a solid morality tale. When that tale involves Homer, it often starts with him acting stupidly or selfishly, reaches a point where he can see what the consequences of his actions will be and the story resolved with him acting as a better man and averting the consequences. I've often thought it would be an interesting experiment to do a reverse version of the Simpsons, where Marge has all the bad characteristics of Homer - irresponsbile, drunk, forgetful and lazy (but still as a house-wife) and Homer is a saintly father who puts up with his wayward wife's foibles because he truly loves her. Obviously, I'm not up to the job of writing anything as good as peak Simpsons, but I wonder how easy it would be even for world-class writing teams. 'Clueless mother' is a lot less easy to get viewers to like than 'clueless father' - we're a lot more uncomfortable with the idea of children not being looked after properly than we are with the idea of the nuclear power plant not being looked after.

The nearest we get to this is the UK series, Outnumbered (which I recommend) - so called because the two parent have three children of various ages, where a lot of the comic set-up is from the wife's paranoia regarding their children ("Did his jacket smell funny to you? Perhaps he's smoking weed?"), the husband replying that she's worrying unncessarily, and everythings fine (which it normally is), but then being forced to into some escalating farcial plan. But even then the mother is a perfectly fine, only slightly overprotective.

So it kind of depends on what you mean by respectfully? Does Matt Groening respect Homer Simpson? He probably has great fondness for the character and sees a lot of himself in him, but does it count as respect for the character? Stay-at-home parenting is indeed difficult especially with young children, but it gets easier and it's not always the case that every character will be working flat out for the health of the household, just as not every nuclear safety inspector is actually highly comptent. Nor is it necessarily the case that they will have had a clear choice in taking on whichever job. Just because in an ideal world everyone should be empowered, doesn't mean that all characters in fiction need to be empowered.

You can argue that the early seasons of the Simpson's do respect Homer, in the sense that a lot of the episodes are based around his desire to be a good father, even though he's struggled to live up to even being average. The common complain is that the show went downhill once the show lost this focus and had regular 'jerk Homer' episodes.

 

[stickygirl]

I hope this turns into a useful thread, but as a side note, using Star Wars as examples of good story telling and characterisations is questionable unless you're intending to pastiche popcorn-plots for a giggle. Admittedly, SW does present pre-packed heroes and villains but we can do so much better in writing.

I find my inspirations in literature, whether it's Jane Austen or John Green. I love literature that shares the emotional journey of our characters - what they are thinking, how they feel, how an object seen in a cafe suddenly reminds them of an incident years ago and why that is significant to them now. In short the authors allows the reader to know the most intimate secrets of a person's character that we are seldom permitted to share in real life.

I've recently taken to red-penning passages in books that make me sometimes exclaim out loud ( and so baffling my partner ). I read stories where my exclamation is 'You thought that too?!' Those stories make us feel less isolated and maybe make us feel sympathy for a person who IRL we would have ignored or dismissed. I can later refer to those passages to learn how the author set up a scene, how they described it and why I reached for my red pen.

If we think more about what's inside another person's head then, if you must write violent endings, readers can at least understand why it happened and who knows, maybe apply it in our dealings with people IRL? We are all watching the horror unfold in Ukraine and there are a plethora of YouTubes describing how a Javelin missile works but the ones that have an impact on me are the little human stories - the trivial that becomes significant because of the circumstance.

Hopefully contributors in this thread are here because they recognise the importance of representing female characters well. I'd suggest male and female characters are immeasurably improved if we scratch below the surface to ask 'how does this make me feel?' before 'he held her arms and thrust hard, making her scream in ecstasy' *yawn...

 

[Kumquatqueen]

It's a cliché that to get good female characters you take a script and change a male character, but doing that and then looking at what seems unrealistic and amending if necessary is an interesting experiment. And sometimes the effects aren't what people think - when the female Ghostbusters film came out, I and many other women loved it. But what I wasn't expecting was my children's generation thinking it was better than the original, mainly because it was less dated but also because the blatant sexism and perviness of the original characters was so alien to them.

There are differences in behaviour - I have a story where our female protagonist is assumed to be a man by the gas station guy, because she only stops there at midnight or later to pick up snacks and magazines. Cue plot. He later admits that he's never seen a woman on his late shifts, or at least not one out of a car.

The murder/torture/abuse of family as motivation for Our Characters can go in a million ways, from the mere mention of it having happened ("My name is Indigo Montoya. You kill my father. Prepare to die.") to long drawn-out descriptions in both writing or screen, which can be interesting or just a fetish. But when the wife/sister/mother being killed results less in how she experienced anything and how that influenced remaining living characters, but rather in the camera zooming in to show her body on a slab, but only once naked, and make sure you get the tits in shot - or written equivalent, that's where I object to fridging.

I'm less bothered about characterisation in porn than in mainstream media - readers (hopefully) know what is a fantasy, but if a story or show is purporting to be realistic in its characters, then it matters.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Imply she has a life outside of the sexual encounter

In stories that jump right into the sex this may be difficult, but it’s not impossible. You can tell a lot about a person's plans based on what they're wearing. So maybe have her dressed like it’s laundry day, or maybe wearing an article of clothing that tells you where she was immediately before an encounter. Maybe she enters the scene in khakis and a blue polo, implying that she works at a bust buy. If she’s a prostitute, she could mention putting the money earned towards a new car. Just about anything counts.

One aspect of this that sometimes gets overlooked: how does she relate to other women? Does she have female friends in her life who aren't just there to round out the numbers for a group scene?

In a short story with a tight focus, there might not be room to explore that. Fair enough. But if you're writing a long story with a major female character whose only significant personal relationships are with men, maybe think about why that is.

 

[MelissaBaby]

This is still fridging, though. It's brutalising a female character for reasons that have more to do with a male character's story arc than with her own.



Stop me if you've heard this punchline before: "Nothing, you've already told her twice."

I grew up hearing "jokes" about domestic violence against women all the time. I'm old enough to remember when it was a legal principle that a man couldn't be found guilty of raping his wife, because as husband he had a right to her body. Pop culture has plenty of stories like Carmen that romanticise the idea of a man murdering a woman for saying no to him. Throughout most of history there's been plenty of cultural tolerance for violence against women (especially certain kinds of violence, and certain kinds of women). We could argue about whether there's more tolerance for one than for the other, but there's plenty of tolerance for both.



Allow me to introduce one of the most popular fictional characters of the 20th and 21st centuries:

View attachment 2135970

Most episodes of the Simpsons involve Homer doing a bunch of stupid and sometimes selfish things, and ultimately escaping all consequences of his actions.




Barbara Gordon. Harley Quinn. Imperator Furiosa.

The most common trope in horror films is the endangerment and brutalization of women. In particularly, sexually active women, to the extent that it has become a frequently mocked cliche (See The Cabin In The Woods): The promiscuous girl is usually the first character killed in slasher films, the virgin girl is often the only survivor.

 

[SimonDoom]

And that's totally understandable. I merely aim to encourage brainstorming and compile tips for the people that do feel they struggle to write female characters. Because even as a woman I struggle to write my own gender.

And it's tips for a reason. They're not meant to be rules. Simply a list of strategies to pull from hat the next time I or anyone else is stumping as to why a character feels flat in their own writing.

By no means is the point of this thread to insinuate anyone is doing it wrong. As I quoted myself above, a flat character is a flat character unless it's a fetish. In which case it's fine and this thread isn't going to help you.

Here's a tip. Give a character two motivations, an A motivation, and a B motivation. Have just enough backstory, and no more, to explain the motivations (these are mostly short stories, after all).

This is a very common method in movies, and it gives the story and the character depth and makes us like the character better. Usually, this tactic is used with male heroes, but not always.

For example: the movie Aliens, the sequel to Alien.

James Cameron, the male director, had a tough job: how in the world to follow up on Alien?

He did two things. One, he made a completely different sort of movie, so you don't have to compare them. Alien was a taut, spooky, but somewhat quiet jump-scare movie. Aliens was a roller coaster from start to finish, like his Terminator movies. The other thing he did was giving Ripley an extra dimension by adding the character of the little girl Newt, toward whom Ripley developed a maternal attachment. It adds a whole extra dimension and level of depth to the movie, and gives Ripley an extra level of motivation.

Ripley's A motivation is to survive the aliens. Her B motivation is to save Newt, who is a daughter figure. The two motivations work together and give the movie, and Ripley's character, a depth it wouldn't have otherwise.


Cameron's movies can be juvenile in some ways, but I think he deserves a lot of credit for the way he handles female characters.

In the context of an erotic story, your female character's A motivation could be an erotic experience: first sex, first time visiting a dungeon, group sex, whatever. And the B motivation concerns a relationship with another person, where in the end she achieves a satisfying resolution of whatever issue exists in that relationship. The "satisfaction" could involve either a happy ending or a breakup that is self-affirming.

 

[Jogoctopus]

My female protagonists are always Indian. This isn’t because I’m obsessed with Indian women but rather because my Indian wife requested it.
She considers most of the Indian erotica here to be poorly written or badly characterised, so when I showed her my first story in draft form she suggested I change it to make the heroine Indian. She felt there were too few characters with whom she could relate on an ethnic level in the stories she had read here.
For me this was a challenge; not because of cultural misappropriation or anything, but because I was largely unaware of the specific expectations around sexuality in the Indian context; my wife is UK born and very western in her outlook.
It has led to some really interesting conversations though! Sometimes if I ask her about a character’s likely response to a situation she’ll tell me, “She’d react the way any other woman would,” but other times she’ll explain why my planned response would be inconsistent with an Indian woman’s thinking or likely experience.
I do still feel a bit of a fraud sometimes being a white British guy, but at least my wife’s quality assurance gives my characterisation some validity. And hey, there wouldn’t be much interracial or heterosexual erotica if we could only write about our own race or gender!

 

[MelissaBaby]

And that's totally understandable. I merely aim to encourage brainstorming and compile tips for the people that do feel they struggle to write female characters. Because even as a woman I struggle to write my own gender.

And it's tips for a reason. They're not meant to be rules. Simply a list of strategies to pull from hat the next time I or anyone else is stumping as to why a character feels flat in their own writing.

By no means is the point of this thread to insinuate anyone is doing it wrong. As I quoted myself above, a flat character is a flat character unless it's a fetish. In which case it's fine and this thread isn't going to help you.

You said at the outset that you were discussing tips, it's not on you if anyone gets defensive and thinks you are trying to issue rules for them to follow.

Sometimes I read threads like this and I want to be THAT bitch, and say, "You know what? Just fucking write better." But that's not fair. I assume everyone here presents their best efforts. But we don't all have the same aims.

If your intent is to provide the most surefire fapping material, then you don't need much characterization. "She likes it up the ass" is probably personality enough.

But if you are trying to write realistic stories with more complex plots, that's another ballgame.

Sticky said:

I hope this turns into a useful thread, but as a side note, using Star Wars as examples of good story telling and characterisations is questionable unless you're intending to pastiche popcorn-plots for a giggle. Admittedly, SW does present pre-packed heroes and villains but we can do so much better in writing.

And I am with her on that 100%. But she also said,

I find my inspirations in literature, whether it's Jane Austen or John Green. I love literature that shares the emotional journey of our characters - what they are thinking, how they feel, how an object seen in a cafe suddenly reminds them of an incident years ago and why that is significant to them now. In short the authors allows the reader to know the most intimate secrets of a person's character that we are seldom permitted to share in real life.

And I have to respectfully take a little bit of an issue with that. I absolutely think we can learn a lot from the great writers, and can often find that their insights lead us to our own. But that only goes so far.

Don't get me wrong, I think I am a better writer now than I was when I started, and that is in part because I listened to writers here, (Simon, NotWise and EB for example) and I would go look at their writing to see how their advice translated into actual writing. It was enormously helpful, but mostly I learned technique. (I don't think there is a single semi-colon in my first series, because I didn't know what they were for) But I did not use their characters as templates for my own.

I have a friend who is a very gifted artist. His dream in life has always been to draw Marvel Comics. He spent years, from the time he was a kid, studying the Marvel artists, and learning their techniques. If you asked him for a drawing in the style of a particular artist, he'd zip one out for you.

Eventually, he went to a comic book convention and showed his portfolio to an editor from Marvel. The editor looked through his work, praised he draftsmanship, then told him, "You learned to draw from comic books. Take some time learning to draw from life, then come back and see me again."

This doesn't just apply to men writing women, it applies more broadly. In my Mary and Alvin series, I told the story of a relationship from beginning to end, a narrative over the course of about sixty years. I did not seek insight into my characterization of the couple as old people from other author's characters, I picked my grandmother's brain. In White Castle Christmas, a major part of the plot revolves around Roxanne, a white woman, being nervous spending Christmas dinner with her Black boyfriend's family. When they discussed Christmas dinner, and talked about Mac and cheese and sweet potato pie and putting Jimmy Dean sausage in the stuffing, I was not using some set of rote stereotypes, I was desiring the actual Christmas dinners I have had at my Black mother-in-laws house.

You want to write better women characters? Talk to more women. Pay attention to them. Actually listen to them. Learn from life.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

I'd say at least fifty percent of my characters are women. I'd never claim to be an expert on writing them, but thankfully I've never had anyone comment or castigate me about writing them poorly.

I try to make them real, or at least relatable. Many of them are deeply flawed, making bad choices despite good intentions. Some have anxieties and self-confidence issues. Some are prone to spiteful moments and keen revenge. Some are petty and jealous on occasion. Some are utter idiots. I do have paragon characters who often provide a contrast to the flawed people, but I've been told that makes the flawed characters more enjoyable.

Jeanie is a dolt. She's got a heart of gold, but she has two brain cells, and they're fighting for third place. I use it for comic relief, and nobody condemns her for it. She is aware she'd dumb as a rock, and gets upset when she can't keep up. All she's good at is sex, and it troubles her, because people use her. But the people who love her defend her savagely as a result, even if they tease her once in a great while. She knows they have her best interests at heart, and gives her life to them willingly.

Lisa is short, neurotic, and has the self-confidence of a 4-F recruitment reject in the boxing ring with Mike Tyson. She thinks she's lucky she has her friends, or she'd be too afraid to try and do almost anything. She's a Jewish, lesbian social justice activist, and she'll fight fiercely for anyone except herself. If you attack her, she collapses. She's just turning 50 now, and she still thinks boys are 'icky', but she doesn't hate men, and she doesn't resent the Hell out of the gender as a whole. She's proud of being objective about the world and life, even if she's a firebrand Trotskyite.

Which makes her decades-long and devoted friendship with Karen the regal heiress all the weirder.

Freja is Jeanie's wife, and in many ways the exact opposite of her. She's a genius when it comes to fields of mechanical engineering. She also has the morals of an alley cat. She thinks nothing of having sex with whomever she likes, male or female, a trait she shares with Jeanie, and they very often do together. This lack of discretion can very often backfire on them (it nearly got Jeanie murdered by an incel), but they refuse to learn the lesson. Freja has a bit of a chip on her shoulder, constantly daring the universe to disappoint her, usually because of her own actions, and she's been that way since she was a child. She'll get into a fistfight even more readily than a debate, which is just as well, because her English is terrible. She's better at fighting in any event.

Becky from Time Rider, I think her flaws are more comical than anything. She's a high school physics teacher, and despite being a hot blonde, she's sexually frustrated. She deals with this drought by releasing her pent-up sexual energy through Krav Maga, and she's not afraid to use it when people (usually men) piss her off. Despite her intellect, like Freja, most of her problems tend to get solved with immense amounts of violence.

Nanu is a special case. She's an Egyptian slave, recently released from bondage, and her life has been incredibly difficult. As a result, she has a very opportunistic and mercenary view of the world, taking what she can, even if it's at the expense of others. (let's hope she never learns English well enough to read Ayn Rand). She's devoted to Mark and Becky, who saved her from her life as a slave, but this new world terrifies her as well. Her survival instincts kick in regularly, leading to awkward moments and lots of inconvenient questions that Becky must answer. Nanu's observations about how stupid the modern world is can be very amusing.

I don't have any currently published stories where women are broken or are just plain awful people. Maybe one of Boldbator's wives in The Great Khan, but that's 12th century Mongolian, so rather circumstantial. Characters like that, man or woman, can be toxic enough for other characters that they need to be dealt with, quickly. I'm not good at psychological anguish, at least on a prolonged scale. And if I have angry or hateful people, they tend to seem like sociopaths, which isn't always fair. I've got an upcoming character in the Alexaverse who will fit the 'awful' bill, and I guess there's Karen's cousin Roddy, but he's an insufferable prat.

I don't know, really. I've got 'realistic' characters who orbit around paragon characters. It balances out for how I write, but maybe the paragons keep the flawed people in check. As I said initially, before I began blathering, I haven't been told my women are terrible to read about, so clearly I'm not failing at it.

 

[stickygirl]

Sticky said:

And I have to respectfully take a little bit of an issue with that. I absolutely think we can learn a lot from the great writers, and can often find that their insights lead us to our own. But that only goes so far.

Don't get me wrong, I think I am a better writer now than I was when I started, and that is in part because I listened to writers here, (Simon, NotWise and EB for example) and I would go look at their writing to see how their advice translated into actual writing. It was enormously helpful, but mostly I learned technique. (I don't think there is a single semi-colon in my first series, because I didn't know what they were for) But I did not use their characters as templates for my own.

I have a friend who is a very gifted artist. His dream in life has always been to draw Marvel Comics. He spent years, from the time he was a kid, studying the Marvel artists, and learning their techniques. If you asked him for a drawing in the style of a particular artist, he'd zip one out for you.

Eventually, he went to a comic book convention and showed his portfolio to an editor from Marvel. The editor looked through his work, praised he draftsmanship, then told him, "You learned to draw from comic books. Take some time learning to draw from life, then come back and see me again."

This doesn't just apply to men writing women, it applies more broadly. In my Mary and Alvin series, I told the story of a relationship from beginning to end, a narrative over the course of about sixty years. I did not seek insight into my characterization of the couple as old people from other author's characters, I picked my grandmother's brain. In White Castle Christmas, a major part of the plot revolves around Roxanne, a white woman, being nervous spending Christmas dinner with her Black boyfriend's family. When they discussed Christmas dinner, and talked about Mac and cheese and sweet potato pie and putting Jimmy Dean sausage in the stuffing, I was not using some set of rote stereotypes, I was desiring the actual Christmas dinners I have had at my Black mother-in-laws house.

You want to write better women characters? Talk to more women. Pay attention to them. Actually listen to them. Learn from life.

I guess it depends what one finds in other authors. I often myself saying 'Oh, so I can say that?' or 'It is okay to include small details like ... in my stories?' - the take away being I find I need 'permission' to do so. To explain that odd rigidity in my thinking, I should mention that I'm on the spectrum, so many of my social skills I've had to learn rather than them being intuitive. 95% of the time I'm fine, but details sometimes escape me or rather, I need to have another writer provide examples for me and have a lightbulb moment.

I'm sure EB won't mind my mentioning that when we decided to co-author a story and he suggested we each write 1000 words and then hand it over. So I wrote exactly 1000 words and then stopped, because err... that's what he'd said to do. When he pointed out how aspie that was, I had to laugh, and I still laugh now thinking about. ffs my brain!

So in Carol (Patricia Highsmith) Therese visits the elderly Mrs Robichek, there is a long passage where she wants to run away from her apartment and all its reminders and horrors of being old, but she is obliged to stay out of politeness. There's one paragraph 'Therese studied the surprisingly tranquil mouth, whose modelling she could see distinctly, though she wore no more lipstick than she might if someone had kissed her. She wished she could kiss the person in the mirror and make her come to life, yet she stood perfectly still, like a painted portrait.'... it's difficult to provide a specific illustration but, jeez, I know exactly how that moment felt but I would never have realised I could include such moments... and now I do!

I'm fortunate that my autism does not overly impede my life, but having been diagnosed, the joy of discovering new ideas and being inspired, is liberating and a thrill. Being transgender is only secondary in my life - I'm a woman, but that was never a A-Ha thing for me, any more than another person knowing they are left-handed.

So... after this outpouring of navel contemplation (sorry) I'll again say that authors to me are my mentors as much as some of the lovely people here who have made suggestions, edited and who continue to encourage my writing. I'm still learning and I love the journey.

Back to the thread topic.... Often advice is offered to male writers on how to portray a woman and the go-to is always 'but how does she feel?' and I'd agree with that, but it's how we then show how she feels without a big arrow saying 'she felt betrayed because blah blah'. In the Highsmith paragraph, she doesn't have to explain directly to the reader, she gives us a hint and invites us to fill in the blanks because, that weird feeling of looking at a mirror and feeling that we don't recognise the reflection is surely a common one and elicits memories loaded with emotive ghosts.

Sorry I'm blethering TLDR and I've probably talked to much about me me me, which feels embarrassing. I'm still working on stuff. Please carry on, nothing to see here. ( no suitable embarrassed emoji )

 

[MelissaBaby]

Sorry I'm blethering TLDR and I've probably talked to much about me me me, which feels embarrassing. I'm still working on stuff. Please carry on, nothing to see here. ( no suitable embarrassed emoji )

Blether on, dear heart. You have written a wonderful example of how a writer can touch our souls with inspiration.

My point was that it is then up to you, to channel that inspiration into words of your own.

Also, I am sending you a PM (or whatever the hell we call them now.)

 

[yowser]

So... after this outpouring of navel contemplation (sorry) I'll again say that authors to me are my mentors as much as some of the lovely people here who have made suggestions, edited and who continue to encourage my writing. I'm still learning and I love the journey.

Back to the thread topic.... Often advice is offered to male writers on how to portray a woman and the go-to is always 'but how does she feel?' and I'd agree with that, but it's how we then show how she feels without a big arrow saying 'she felt betrayed because blah blah'.

Sweetly said. Authors (here and out there in the real world) provide so much: permission, as you have said, other examples of how to portray people and life, explorations of every description, and the realisation that there is no one right way to do things.

Your second paragraph is spot on, avoid the Arrows! Resisting the authorly intent to Explain Everything is a vital skill for good writing. Hints and illuminating detail go a long way.

 

[stickygirl]

Blether on, dear heart. You have written a wonderful example of how a writer can touch our souls with inspiration.

My point was that it is then up to you, to channel that inspiration into words of your own.

Also, I am sending you a PM (or whatever the hell we call them now.)

I was sitting in the bath thinking I'd PM you too great minds think in the bath x

 

[Bramblethorn]

Ripley's A motivation is to survive the aliens. Her B motivation is to save Newt, who is a daughter figure. The two motivations work together and give the movie, and Ripley's character, a depth it wouldn't have otherwise.

Mostly agree but I'd argue that Ripley has three major motivations - "save everybody else" being the other one, cf. her rescue mission with the APC and agreeing to go in the first place. Her own survival always take a back seat to those other two when there are choices to be made.

Side point: Alien was written gender-neutral, with all the characters open to male or female casting. Ripley could easily have been cast as a man, and I guess the story would have worked much the same (assuming they'd found an actor as good as Sigourney!)

But with Aliens, obviously Ripley was established as female before writing started, and that does colour the storytelling. Not that one couldn't have made that story with a male Ripley, but "Ripley loses one child and adopts another" and "Ripley faces off against a mother protecting her own children" would have had different baggage.

Side-side point: the opening of Aliens establishes that Joan Lambert, one of the crew who died in Alien, had been reassigned MtF at birth. I'm not sure whether that was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the original unisex writing, or something else.

 

[lovecraft68]

I've written a lot from a female POV, and its hit or miss depending on the genre, my lesbian stories sound like a guy writing a lesbian story, I've pulled off female POV well in a couple of darker incest tales, and I've done better with female leads in my erotic horror novels.

Electricblue mentioned that its not about gender, but writing good characters, I agree to a good extent, but there are differences in each gender that need to show up even in subtle nuance.

That leads into why when I'm writing more lighthearted or lusty tales I don't think I hit the mark on being convincing as a female, in the dark incest tales I hit it because I understand broken fucked up people and situations so I capture it. In the EH novels its also having an affinity for broken and disturbed people, but also its about rage, my female leads are violent, batshit crazy and hell hath no fury at their best.

So to me its more about capturing elements specific to the character that can help you be convincing when writing from the POV of the opposite gender.

 

[stickygirl]

Side-side point: the opening of Aliens establishes that Joan Lambert, one of the crew who died in Alien, had been reassigned MtF at birth. I'm not sure whether that was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the original unisex writing, or something else.

No shit!

 

[SimonDoom]

Side point: Alien was written gender-neutral, with all the characters open to male or female casting. Ripley could easily have been cast as a man, and I guess the story would have worked much the same (assuming they'd found an actor as good as Sigourney!)

But with Aliens, obviously Ripley was established as female before writing started, and that does colour the storytelling. Not that one couldn't have made that story with a male Ripley, but "Ripley loses one child and adopts another" and "Ripley faces off against a mother protecting her own children" would have had different baggage.

Side-side point: the opening of Aliens establishes that Joan Lambert, one of the crew who died in Alien, had been reassigned MtF at birth. I'm not sure whether that was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the original unisex writing, or something else.

I don't recall the Joan Lambert MtF bit. Where was that in Aliens?

I think it made a huge difference that Ripley was female. I've read the original screenplay by O'Bannon, and the Ripley character was a male named Roby. Ridley knew exactly what he was doing recasting the character.

He lucked out because Weaver was so good. Nobody could have expected that.

It gives the movie a unique tension/frisson/whatever, because on the one hand, it's a horror movie, and in horror movies women are supposed to be more vulnerable, but on the other hand, she's the most kick-ass member of the crew, although in a subdued way.

 

[stickygirl]

I don't recall the Joan Lambert MtF bit. Where was that in Aliens?

I linked from my post over the page

 

[SimonDoom]

I linked from my post over the page

I'm fascinated by this. Where does it show up in the film?

 

[MelissaBaby]

I'm fascinated by this. Where does it show up in the film?

There is a scene where they show the crew dossier. Scroll down to Lambert

http://platypuscomix.com/hollywood/nostromodossier.html