How to Write Strong Female Characters: An Illustrated Guide
1. Give them goals and desires (that don’t involve men.)
As a society, we still have an unfortunate proclivity towards the belief that female interests should and must centralize around others, particularly heterosexual men.
Female interests are viewed as frivolous and childish; past a certain age, they’re viewed as pathetic. Unless, of course, they centralize around pleasing and supporting their husband and family.
Now, I’m a fiercely ambitious person, and you can rip my special interests from my cold dead hands. As such, I make a calculated effort to refute this assumption with my writing, and give female characters something to live for outside of a husband and family.
Here are some interests, activities, and goals you can give your female characters that are independent of men:
Education (such as a college degree, and MFA, a PHD, medical school, et cetera.)
Career – and not just the stereotypical, pantsuit clad career-gal variety, either. Give women dreams and ambitions in any field. Show me women who are aching to succeed in medicine, ballet, fiction writing, teaching, the Arts, et cetera.
Hobbies. Show your women gardening, painting, playing piano, learning Mandarin, horseback riding, and more. Showing the rich inner life of women can go a long way towards showing the reader that they’re autonomous people.
Fandoms. Let your women be passionate fans of things: TV shows, movies, books, video games, singers, comics, and so on. Moreover, show women characters of all ages with passionate interests that they aren’t ashamed of. I couldn’t live without my fandoms and interests, and it’s unfair that women are expected to “grow out” of them.
Relaxation. Let your women loaf in their spare time, and not just in the pretty, sexy way. Let them lay around in PJs watching reality television and procrastinating on the internet.
2. On that note, let women have sexual and romantic desires.
I’ve heard it put, quite succinctly, that women are expected to be sexy, not sexual.
Women masturbating, watching porn, making the first move towards men, or desiring other women is often considered weird or uncomfortable, because it implies that we have our own sexual autonomy outside of being objects for male pursuit.
Let your female character have desires. Let her express sexual attraction and romantic passion. Let her fantasize. Let her masturbate. Let her enjoy sex. It’s been proven that women enjoy all of these things just as much as men do, so let it show.
(A.N: I may make a post for male authors on how to do this, because I know a dude who thought women masturbate by rubbing their tits.)
Similarly, it’s equally as important to present these things as normal, and that you show the female characters as sexual, but not necessarily sexualized.
Eliza from The Shape of Water was a great example of this: within the first five minutes, she’s shown masturbating in her bathtub. This could have been a fetishistic moment, but instead it’s depicted as a normal and natural part of her daily routine, right on par with her boiling eggs for lunch.
It was something I had never seen before, and a pleasant surprise in an already splendid and emotional film about a woman falling in love with a sexy fish.
3. Let them form intimate friendships (with both women and men.)
Intimate female friendships are one of God’s greatest gifts to humanity.
Show your female characters sharing a bed, watching films together, painting each other’s nails, having late night conversations. Show them getting dressed up to do typical date night activities, like seeing movies and going out to dinner.
If you have the sudden impulse to make it gay (which I, for one, frequently do) you already have a baseline of friendship and intimacy to work with. Talk about a twofer!
On the other side of the coin, let your women have casual, platonic intimacy with men without jealousy on the part of their spouses or romantic implications. This also kills two birds with one stone, as it both crushes toxic masculinity and the stereotype that women are “mysterious creatures” who can’t relate to men.
4. Vanquish your fear of Mary Sue.
Mary Sue only exists in one place, and that is a Star Trek fan magazine she originated in.
Today, she’s predominantly thrown around by two kinds of people: dudebros who don’t like it when media reflects that women are people with the same capacity for autonomy and competency as men, and writers who are concerned about accidentally creating a Mary Sue themselves.
Mary Sue was originally intended to mean a character who is blatant wish-fulfillment and projection on the part of the author, which is a valid concern – however, creators of all genders have fallen victim to this. The only difference is that men get paid more to do it.
(Case in point, this dude.)
So vanquish your concerns about Mary Sue. Give your female character a wide range of skills. Give her intelligence. Make her assertive. Let her kick ass without being one-upped by a cocky newcomer. Let her be kind and empathetic.
In other words, don’t be afraid of making her awesome – just make her a well-rounded character on top of it.
5. Know the difference between strong female characters and Strong Female Characters™.
The symptoms for a Strong Female Character™ are as follows:
She punches and kicks things a lot.
Or, alternatively, is referred to as being able to punch or kick things, but never gets the opportunity to do it.
Emotional callousness/lack of sympathetic attributes.
Looks down on traditionally feminine women.
Has approximately three personality traits.
This is not, contrary to popular belief, a strong female character. A strong female character is a well rounded, fully fleshed-out human being with positive and negative attributes, a capacity for mistakes and vulnerability, and the ability to learn and grow.
Strong female characters can be traditionally feminine or butch tomboys. They can be loving and maternal or rough around the edges. They can be effervescent explosions of joy or stony as marble statues.
Strong female characters don’t even necessarily have to good – a complex villain has the same components and motivations that make a complex hero (I talk about that here.)
Keep this in mind when writing female characters. And if you want an example of what to avoid and what to emulate, you can always look at Joss Whedon’s version of the Wonder Woman script versus the final product.
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