The comments I get from men on my writing are often the same—where is her agency? Where is her personality? We see plenty of character in the side cast, but your narrator is dull. Reserved. We want to see more from her, if she’s to bother telling this story.
And I suppose they have a point—she often is quiet, and keeps close to herself, and bites back her words and true feelings, and tries to offer herself in a more palatable sense to her fellow cast members. She often has something that prevents her from taking agency, and this fact is often overlooked. I concede that maybe it is boorish to the reader. We do want to see someone with desires and with urges and with the gumption to make mistakes and bold choices. It offers us a catharsis and an experience we often lack in our own lives.
Or, at least, that’s what I assume.
My leads are not passive—they struggle to express themselves. They struggle to assert themselves. It may be rooted in a trauma, or a social fear, a combination of the two, or something else, but this is an experience I fear we overlook in fiction. Theirs are always a journey of personal growth. She learns to voice her opinion, she learns to trust herself. By the end, while she is not ahead of the crowd nor a part of it, she has become comfortable with her sector of suitable companions, who, sure, may have made more traditional protagonists.
But I am not telling their story. There have been so, so many stories of the confident, the skilled, and the clever. Silver-tongues and quick-wit are wonderful to consume, but I think it’s time for us. The quiet ones in the back, who battle ourselves to get a word in. The ones who aim to please and tiptoe around in trepidation. The ones who can grow to love themselves, instead of simply others. The ones whose stories stay locked in their heads, guarded behind polite smiles that pain us to give.