# Multiple POV story - Lack of female leads



## Jorge LourenÃ§o

Hello, there. 

I'm writing my second book and I'm having serious trouble with it. I finished my script and started writing it in january. It's fantasy science-fiction novel with a multiple POV narrative: three characters. And none of them is a woman. 

Do you think it could be a bit offensive? Or too 'male-centric'? Reading a multiple POV with three men is too much? What would you do? Change the gender of a character? Or do you think that doesn't matter?

In my original script, the story starts with three men as the POV, but somewhere halfway through the story one of them dies and a female lead continues his perspective.  In the end, this female 4th lead becomes probably the most complex character of them all. 

My first book had a relative commercial sucess and most women praised it because of women in the book were strong. It was a single POV with a male lead, but the antagonist was a very strong woman who wasnt exactly a villain. I didn't want to lose that in my second book.


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## T.Allen.Smith

It's difficult to say with a brief understanding.

Your primary concern should be whether or not the story needs three male POVs. If that's what the story demands, so be it.

Secondarily, would changing the gender of a character alter the story in a negative way? Or, would the addition of a female POV be more interesting?

Generally, I try to vary my cast as much as my POVs. However, that's not a steadfast rule. You should be questioning yourself, but stick with story demands. 

As long as you're not lying to yourself, you'll know what the story requires.


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## Gryphos

I would make one of the POV characters a woman if I were you. Obviously you're not obliged to by any set rule. But I think here what's important is a shift in perspective. Don't think "I have to make one of them a woman", think "I get to make one of them a woman". Bottom line, diversity of any kind is far more interesting than uniformity.


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## Svrtnsse

Jorge LourenÃ§o said:


> My first book had a relative commercial sucess and most women praised it because of women in the book were strong. It was a single POV with a male lead, but the antagonist was a very strong woman who wasnt exactly a villain. I didn't want to lose that in my second book.



If you have strong women playing important roles in the book, it may not be necessary to make one of them a PoV character, or make a PoV character into a woman. I believe the main thing is that they're there. They can be strong and have an impact on the story without being a PoV character.


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## stephenspower

Women make every book better, plus, in trying to write from a woman's point of view, you'll have to worker harder than you might writing from a guy's point of view. You won't be able to take things for granted or leave your assumptions unquestioned, which will make your book better. It'll probably force you to revise our guy POVs too.


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## Ireth

stephenspower said:


> Women make every book better, plus, in trying to write from a woman's point of view, you'll have to worker harder than you might writing from a guy's point of view. You won't be able to take things for granted or leave your assumptions unquestioned, which will make your book better. It'll probably force you to revise our guy POVs too.



Why on earth would a woman's POV be harder to write than a man's? We're not aliens. We are no more or less complex than anyone else. Just write women as PEOPLE, as you would with a man.


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## Butterfly

I've asked myself the same question. I have four POVs, all men in book one of my series in progress. Changing one of them to female was tempting, but just wouldn't have worked out for the story. They are running down hunting down wizard murderers and dragging them into prisons. I just couldn't fit a woman in there... (and I'm a woman myself asking the same questions you are).

In book 2 I have a female villain POV and three male POVs. She is becoming an interesting character. But I am a bit concerned how that will be received. 

There will be an extra two female POVs in following books which are still in planning at the moment.

_Do you think it could be a bit offensive? Or too 'male-centric'? _- Depends on the mind set of the characters. How do they view women in you book?

_Reading a multiple POV with three men is too much? _- No. 

_What would you do? Change the gender of a character? Or do you think that doesn't matter? -_ You did say that when one of the males dies a female takes over his perspective. Perhaps you could change gender, and keep her alive unless his death is vital to the plot.


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## Feo Takahari

What sorts of people are these characters? What motivates them?


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## HabeasCorpus

Since when did authors start caring about being offensive?


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## Fyle

Its a non issue. 

You are the author, it is a creative piece of work and thinking you 'should' put in a female feels like outside forces swaying your opinion. 

When a female character comes to you naturally, write about her. Not everything has to be a growing experience or something to broaden your horizons. Write what feels right for you. 

This is why i was so harsh against Tauriel in the Hobbit, its forced and i have no doubt meant to appeal to a broader audience, not because it felt right. 

And how did it turn out？She served no purpose in the end, cause the love story was forced. She was just there cause the big wigs wanted a female marketed and it added nothing to the story. 

IF they made a seperate movie about Tauriel in Middle Earth unconnected to Bilbo i would LOVE it. I would be at the theathe opening day, i do not dislike Tauriel BECAUSE she is female, but because  she is put in the movie BECAUSE they needed a female. Hopefully that is stated well enough to understand.


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## Nimue

The solution to token diversity--which I agree is not a good thing--isn't to remove the diversity entirely.  It's to write diversity _well_.  Tauriel is the perfect example; she wasn't a bad character on paper, but her storyline and character "arc" was terrible.  Saying that you're only going to write male protagonists because you won't give in and be PC is approaching the issue back-assward.

I don't think it's offensive to just not have a female POV protag, except maybe to a select few people.  But the fact of the matter is that for a lot of female readers (myself included), having a female protagonist helps them get into the book.  Generally, broadly, people like to read about characters they can identify with--hence the profusion of bookish everyman protagonists.  Yes, women will read about men more often then the reverse happens, but that's more through necessity than inherent appeal, isn't it?  I do think that the voice of the character should come before tailoring for an audience, but it's something to think about.  Half the planet, there.

But once you've got three or four POV protagonists and none of them are women--hey, got any non-white folks in there either?--you have to ask yourself why.  Human experience is diverse, and that's one of the things that makes it interesting.  Not only are you closing off a bit of reader identification, you're restricting the dynamics of how these characters interact with their world.  Is there a reason why you can't experiment with your characters' gender (and race, and sexuality...)? Or is it just the kind of instinctual attachment that makes it difficult to change a character's name after you've gotten used to it, even if the character's name is Xflorb and you could probably think of a better one already?


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## cupiscent

Great advice from Nimue there.

For me, I generally don't put a book on my to-read list unless a female character is mentioned in the jacket copy. (Exceptions are when I'm hearing a lot of buzz from people I trust that despite the lack of a female character, it's still a really good book.) There are just too many books out there, and I need to whittle the numbers down, and I like reading about diverse experiences so it just makes sense.

So to return to the original question: I probably would not read a book with three male POVs, because they would be all that was mentioned on the cover copy.

Personally, I don't believe there's any such thing as an inherently male or female character. A character has a set of experiences or dynamics with society and other characters that can be workable with any gender, but may be more interesting one way or another. Usually, my biggest problem is that ALL of the options are full of interesting opportunities, and I can't decide what configuration of genders, sexualities and ethnicities makes me most excited. (I think the protag for my next novel is going to be female and bisexual, but she started out male and straight...)

In general, I think we make characters who we think have to be male or female because society tells us certain things are masculine or feminine, without that necessarily being true, or even interesting. And for fiction - especially spec-fic - truth possibly isn't as important as interesting.


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## Fyle

Its up to the author, for me its about freedom to write as you like and force nothing, add no guidelines for yourself. 

Once you let outside opinons change as much as what sex your characters are, you are no longer the pilot, you are shaping your story based on outside forces, cultural pressure and sales/readership speculation. 

You are the co pilot of a vehicle you own. 

Of course, write diverse stories, this is common sense for realism, but dont shape every project on the way people think things should be. 

Shawshank Redemption is pretty damn good, and unfortuately could not have female povs and work as good as it did by nature. Equal and diverse is ideal, but doesnt mean it makes the story 'better' in every case.


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## Nimue

Yeah, but let's be honest--the ideas we have for stories aren't divine inspiration.  They're never perfect in conception.  And we are _always_ being affected by outside forces and cultural pressure!  The other books we read, movies we see, and culture that we take in, even unconsciously, affects what pops up in our brain.  Heck, I'd say it's way better to consciously steer yourself based on a cultural pressure than to think that you're being completely true to yourself while floating along on the current of mainstream culture.

Question this.  When you first think of a character, are they almost always a white straight man?  They're almost always a white straight woman, for me.  Maybe because that's who you are, and character sympathy and all, but also because that represents the overwhelming majority of characters in the media around us.  To tell good stories, we learn from the stories around us.  But we're absorbing things other than plot structure and archetypes.

There can absolutely be things in your story that you are passionate about, and unwilling to compromise for any beta-reader or publisher's marketing scheme.  But if that passion is to write a story with an all-male, all-white cast of protagonists... Well, that's boring, and I hate to break it to you, but it's been done before.

Shawshank Redemption isn't the best example for this discussion... They were stuck in a real-life, historically all-male place that they literally could not set foot out of.  Yes, absolutely, it would've been silly for a token girl to show up.  But this is fantasy fiction!  Unless you're writing one of those highly-researched, historical-but-for-tiny-AU-changes books, you don't have this excuse.


To bring this back around to the original poster, if you have already written this book, I don't know if this is the best time for you to insert a female POV.  Are we talking about a first draft, where you're going to rewrite almost anything anyway?  Then you can definitely change things up.  Or are we talking about a near-final draft where you've polished everything up but have been struck by this lingering doubt?  Maybe just think about it seriously for the next book.  Depending on the setting and the depth to which you've gone into this character's mind, you probably can't just search and replace a male name for a female name.  And whatever you do, don't tack on a love plot and a scene where she gets sexually threatened in an alley to make it realistic.  Pardon me while I go gag.

The best time to experiment with gender, race, and sexuality of your main characters is when you first think about them.  Let it become an authentic part of their identity.  I do this when I'm playing with new story ideas, and it's helped me break out of the feeling that I'm writing the same few characters over again with different hair colors.  Also, general good advice is to seek out books and art by and about women, and people of color.  It'll broaden your horizons in a very good way.

Edit:  Saw that the original poster has just written a script, and hasn't started writing the book yet. Gooooo for it!


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## Gryphos

I always find it curious when people complain about a female or non-white or gay character being added into a story 'just for the sake of it', as if somehow an author needs to justify diversity in their writing.

I don't know if you've noticed, but that's exactly how the real world works. People are female 'just because', people are gay 'just because'. Does it seem 'forced' when the barista at Starbucks is black, or a woman? Diversity is everywhere! It doesn't need to be justified. If anything, it's a lack of diversity that needs to be justified.

And besides, anyone who thinks that the media's tendency to focus on straight, white males almost exclusively hasn't already been 'forced', needs to take their head of the sand.

So when I'm writing and I need to create a character, I don't just stick with the first image that comes into my head. I don't see a white male and go "oh, it's meant to be", I go "Hmm, I already have a straight white male, but I appear to be lacking in gay females. Let's change that." I don't go "All my POVs are male. Ah well, what can I do?" I go "Hold the phone. Why have I just automatically made all three of my POVs male. That's bloody boring. Let's throw a woman in there."


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## Steerpike

I agree with Gryphos. The default to a male, white standard is what is artificial. It's a societal construct, and not representative of the real world. 

I've read good books with all male main characters. I've read good books with all female characters. I've read good books with straight main characters, and other good books with LGBT main characters. It's not like you can't tell a good story by sticking to just one or the other, but there are readers who will be less interested in such a book, and in the vast majority of cases the diversity you could add makes just as much sense as the lack of diversity you may fall into by default. There are exceptions, where the story may demand one thing or another, but on the whole I think those are rare instances.


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## Fyle

It's about the writers freedom to choose and not feel they are making the wrong decision based on popular opinion or theory crafting about how stories are written.

Its also about, are you out to write the story you want it to be written OR are you out to please readers and move as many copies as possible - meaning making changes that work for everyone when that might not be how you want your story to be.

Both are acceptable, its about being honest with yourself and not having your opinion pinholed by "what you should do." 

I am not against diversity, I am against gut feeling being doubted based on outside influence and by society.


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## cupiscent

Fyle, yes, absolutely, it's the writer's choice. But the writer should be aware of the context in which s/he is making that choice - that being the society around him or her, and the media that he or she consumes. For instance, we may believe stoic hero-types should be male because that's what we've always seen, but is that really the most interesting choice?

I just want the writer to think about the choice, not make it without considering all options.


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## Jorge LourenÃ§o

Thank you everybody for all your replies!

First of all, I agree we are free people and we should let our creations roam free and so on, but I also think, as some people pointed, that diversity helps any story. And taking the point of view from the classic white-male hero gives some freshness too. Also, at least in Brazi, the majority of fantasy fiction readers are women and having characters they can identify with helps a lot. I still don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm at the third chapter with something around 12 thousand words in it and the publisher is pressing me a bit, so I don't know if I'll be able to make huge changes due to time contraints. 

But Svrtnsse pointed something I was also thinking about. 



Svrtnsse said:


> If you have strong women playing important roles in the book, it may not be necessary to make one of them a PoV character, or make a PoV character into a woman. I believe the main thing is that they're there. They can be strong and have an impact on the story without being a PoV character.



Even tough there is no female POV, there are many strong women in the book. The apparent "MC", for example, is the leader of a dystopian Sao Paulo favela. He is some sort of communitary leader that lives somehwere in the grey area between social work and crime. In order to help people, sometimes he needs to resort to crime syndicates or take part in criminal activity. His reluctand ally is a woman trying to change things in this enviroment and she is his moral compass sometimes. She thinks they can do well without resorting to the local mafia, prepares young women for leadership roles and taking action when she has to. 

I like her a lot. Eventually, as I mentioned, a female character will become a POV and it's exaclty her. Also, in the other two POVs, there are strong women. But, still, the lack of a female POV worries me. According to data I got from a Brazilian bookreaders social network (and also my general impression on literary events), 70% of my readers are women. 

Not dedicating at least one POV to them... worries me. 



Nimue said:


> I don't think it's offensive to just not have a female POV protag, except maybe to a select few people.  But the fact of the matter is that for a lot of female readers (myself included), having a female protagonist helps them get into the book.  Generally, broadly, people like to read about characters they can identify with--hence the profusion of bookish everyman protagonists.  Yes, women will read about men more often then the reverse happens, but that's more through necessity than inherent appeal, isn't it?  I do think that the voice of the character should come before tailoring for an audience, but it's something to think about.  Half the planet, there.
> 
> But once you've got three or four POV protagonists and none of them are women--hey, got any non-white folks in there either?--you have to ask yourself why.



I strongly agree with you, Nimue. At the moment, my three POV characters are a homossexual white male (the communitary leader mentioned above, who hides his sexuality because of the strong homophobic feelings we have in Brazil), a black male and a straight white male. 

So I think I got a diverse cast, but the lack of a women worries me. I can't add another POV because of lenght issues and changing the gender of any of them worries me because: 

- The communitary leader can be a homossexual pretending to be straight, but it would be very unlikely in Brazil to have a female communitary-sort-of-criminal leader (or even in other countries, I imagine). Yeah, it's my book, I can even put an old lady with a cat named Cookies leading a criminal syndicate. But it would still be weird. 

- The second POV can't be changed. He is the black male and he is the only connection between the first and the second book. He was the small what-if-my-book-succeeds sequel cue. Can't change him. 

- The third has some room for change. His a cop from Sao Paulo and a civil war veteran. But two things worry me: 1) I wouldn't like to create a female grunt and 2) if this character becomes a woman, I would have a homossexual male, a black male and a female as my three POVs. I don't know, but I think it would seem like I was trying too hard to be inclusive


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## Legendary Sidekick

I'm working on an art project now, but four of the characters I'm drawing were meant to be in a story together as POV characters. As it happens, all four are female. (Names are German, Irish, Scandinavian and Japanese.)

There was never a thought in my mind that I need to add a male POV.

So my question is, why would a writer say, "I need a female POV?"



* * *



I should add that I did write a couple shorts with the huntress character, and for the more recent story, I ended up adding some POV scenes involving a male character. My reason for adding him was to show some of what the MC couldn't experience herself, but I thought that information made the story flow better for the reader.

So in that case, I added a male POV I didn't plan to add because I felt it was the better way to tell the story.


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## Steerpike

I think the reason you ask the question when you have an all male cast, and particularly an all white male cast, is that historically, and even to a large extent today, it's a default assumption that isn't necessarily based on a great deal of thought. No harm in a bit of self-reflection and analysis to determine whether a change is in order.


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## Jabrosky

For most situations, I don't think writing a female PoV should be any different from a male PoV. Men and women probably have the same underlying thought processes and emotions most of the time, even if their culture has different social expectations for the sexes. Seamstresses and warriors can both get frustrated and angry when things don't go their way, even if the subjects of their ire are different.

What might be trickier is writing sexual attraction your characters may experience, at least if they have different sexual orientations from yourself. The anatomical traits heterosexual men like on women are obviously different from what heterosexual women like on men, and homosexuals of both sexes might differ from both. As a straight male, I can easily project my own experience of attraction onto a straight male character's viewpoint, but can only guess how straight women might perceive male hotness.

Actually, lately I have started to consider that straight men might indeed experience sexual attraction differently from women. I've been reading a bit on the experiences of female-to-male transgender men who have undergone hormone replacement, and they commonly mention both an increase in sex drive and a change in how that drive worked. Here is one exemplary anecdote:


> When I started testosterone a dozen  years ago, I expected my sex drive to increase. The “horror” stories are  a part of trans man lore, passed down from generation to generation as  we all gear up for male adolescence, no matter how old we are, and take  out a line of credit at the adult toy store.
> 
> And it did increase, within about four  days of my first shot, and I basically squirmed a lot for two years  before I got used to it. But I was planning for that. Here are the  things that took me by surprise:
> 
> 
> * It  became very focused on one thing – the goal, the prize, the end. That  doesn’t mean that I was not able to “make love.” What it does mean is  that there was a madness to my method, because it was goal-oriented.  There was a light at the end of the tunnel. There was a pot of gold at  the end of the rainbow. There was an unguarded hoop just waiting for a  slam dunk – score!
> 
> * It  became very visual. I saw it, I wanted it – whatever it was. This was a  new experience for me, because, in the past, I had not been aroused so  much by pictures and body parts (or pictures of body parts) as I had  been by words – erotic descriptions, stories, and things said to me.
> 
> * It  became very visceral – instinctual – with a need to take care of it. It  had very little to do with romance or even an attraction that made  sense intellectually. You’re hungry, you eat. There was a  matter-of-factness about it, especially when I was by myself. Hmm …  peanut butter sandwich sounds good. Okay, done. Let’s move on.



I may not be transgender, but the way he described his new-found sexuality reminded me uncannily of my own. Maybe we straight dudes do see sex and attraction differently from straight women at least. Not sure whether it would apply to gays of either sex though.


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## Legendary Sidekick

Steerpike said:


> No harm in a bit of self-reflection and analysis to determine whether a change is in order.


I'm not disagreeing with you on this point.

It just seems a bit funny that I'm okay with having all female POVs while having all male POVs leads authors to self-reflection so easily. --even in this case, in which the OP has a homosexual MC and one non-white POV guy, rather than all three being the "default" white, straight male age 18-34.

For my last story, my reason for adding a new POV wasn't gender-based, but story-based. The MC is a fun and interesting woman, and her POV can carry a story. But I felt the reader needed to see the POV of another character so he wouldn't just show up leaving the reader wondering "who's this asshole?"

I think having an interesting woman in the story is great, but rather than ask, "Who can I change to woman?" Why not ask, "Will adding a woman improve my story?" (For me, honestly, gender wouldn't enter the equation. If my story's weak, I ask how to improve it; if it ain't broke, don't fix it.)

The last writer who asked this already had an interesting female character in his story, if I remember correctly. It was just a matter of adding her perspective as a POV character. Personally, I felt he made a good decision there because it sounded like he'd end up with a more fun way to tell the story.

I didn't see The Hobbit, but it seems that Tauriel came off as a "tacked-on love interest." That's an example of how adding a woman didn't improve the story (even if she's a great character).


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## Ireth

Legendary Sidekick said:


> I didn't see The Hobbit, but it seems that Tauriel came off as a "tacked-on love interest." That's an example of how adding a woman didn't improve the story (even if she's a great character).



At the risk of derailing the thread, I half agree with that. I appreciate her as a character, being an expansion of a very minor character in the book (who originally was also male). It was awesome to see a woman being badass, even if it wasn't strictly canon. (As far as canon-woman badassery goes, Galadriel was AWESOME in the third film.) The love story was the tacked-on part.


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## Legendary Sidekick

Now that you've said that, I guess I really DON'T have a problem with a male character being changed to a female character. I don't know why, but for some reason Ireth, when you mentioned Tauriel was a male character (who I forgot about from reading 30 years ago, but I do remember that coming up in an MS discussion) just now, I thought "that's actually pretty cool."

I don't think I'd have been in the anti-Tauriel camp, had her role been what it was but as a woman instead of a man.

I think my problem then (not specifically with Tauriel, but any gender change) is when changing gender leads to a plot change that screams "token female." Like tacking on a love story subplot.

I can't honestly say whether Tauriel would have worked better if the Tauriel-Killi love story fit seamlessly into the main story, or if the love story was never added. Theoretically, I believe this to be the case.




Also worth noting: changing a character (from male to female, from non-POV to POV) WILL change the story, and as a writer, you WILL be compelled to make a change (likely a major one, if not several) that suits the character's new image. I'm not trying to discourage that. I'm saying make a change and make it good, or the change will weaken your story.


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## Nimue

Bringing this back around to the original request:



Jorge LourenÃ§o said:


> Thank you everybody for all your replies!
> 
> First of all, I agree we are free people and we should let our creations roam free and so on, but I also think, as some people pointed, that diversity helps any story. And taking the point of view from the classic white-male hero gives some freshness too. Also, at least in Brazi, the majority of fantasy fiction readers are women and having characters they can identify with helps a lot. I still don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm at the third chapter with something around 12 thousand words in it and the publisher is pressing me a bit, so I don't know if I'll be able to make huge changes due to time constraints


You're clearly approaching this thoughtfully, and on the right track.  However, with the information that you have a good chunk of it written already, and a publisher breathing down your neck, it might not indeed be the best time to make major POV changes.  You can always take this thoughtfulness and apply it to your next project, and really do justice to a female protagonist.

I mean, really, the Tumblr Police aren't going to beat down your door because your book doesn't have a female POV. Particularly if, as Svrtnesse says, you have good, deep female characters that the POV characters interact with frequently.  And it sound like you have that covered:



> Even tough there is no female POV, there are many strong women in the book. The apparent "MC", for example, is the leader of a dystopian Sao Paulo favela. He is some sort of communitary leader that lives somehwere in the grey area between social work and crime. In order to help people, sometimes he needs to resort to crime syndicates or take part in criminal activity. His reluctand ally is a woman trying to change things in this enviroment and she is his moral compass sometimes. She thinks they can do well without resorting to the local mafia, prepares young women for leadership roles and taking action when she has to.
> 
> I like her a lot. Eventually, as I mentioned, a female character will become a POV and it's exaclty her. Also, in the other two POVs, there are strong women. But, still, the lack of a female POV worries me. According to data I got from a Brazilian bookreaders social network (and also my general impression on literary events), 70% of my readers are women.
> 
> Not dedicating at least one POV to them... worries me.


The more you describe this story, the less worried I think you should be.  Is it possible that there would be some women who are less inclined to read your book because of the POV characters? I won't say no.  But if important women show up in your first few chapters and/or your book blurb or something, it'll be clear that this isn't a flat masculine world or anything.



> - The communitary leader can be a homossexual pretending to be straight, but it would be very unlikely in Brazil to have a female communitary-sort-of-criminal leader (or even in other countries, I imagine). Yeah, it's my book, I can even put an old lady with a cat named Cookies leading a criminal syndicate. But it would still be weird.


If you're writing within a real-world society, and there's more realism than fantasy, then yes, the characters should follow real gender roles because that's part of our world.  I would like to point out that having a character be possible and having them be statistically average are two different things, and oddly often confused.  But I know zilch about Brazilian organized crime, so I think you're the expert there.



> - The third has some room for change. His a cop from Sao Paulo and a civil war veteran. But two things worry me: 1) I wouldn't like to create a female grunt and 2) if this character becomes a woman, I would have a homossexual male, a black male and a female as my three POVs. I don't know, but I think it would seem like I was trying too hard to be inclusive


I have a soft spot for female police officers and detectives who don't take bullshit, so if it's workable I'd agree with you that this character would make a good place for change.

As for the over-inclusive argument, some people might definitely read it that way, but um, I don't really consider women to be a square in token diversity bingo... I meant, we're not exactly a minority, are we? And if you don't introduce your book blurb with "the story of a gay guy, a black guy, and a lady cop who only deal with struggles directly related to their underpriviledgedness!" I wouldn't worry about it.

It's really up to you.  If it's too much work to rehaul a major character right now, you can always be thoughtful about the depth and portrayal of the other women in the story.  Maybe take a side plot or a minor character's role and reassign them to the main female character you're talking about, so she gets a little more screen time.  Ramping up her role would also help readers transition to her POV when that happens.  Even if we're not in her head, she can still be central to the story.

Without knowing all the details it's hard to say, but I don't think you have anything to _worry_ about--you just have a lot to think about.  And that's probably how it should be when you're writing.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Jabrosky said:


> What might be trickier is writing sexual attraction your characters may experience, at least if they have different sexual orientations from yourself.


I understand why you might think this, but I don't believe it's the case.    

Consider how varied attraction (sexual or otherwise) is within just the male heterosexual community. Men vary greatly on what they consider attractive. That transcends cultural preferences too. Stereotypes of attraction exist, but they, like any stereotype, do not reflect individual tastes or the group accurately. They're assumptions.

As such, when considering any sexual orientation (as with gender), writers should approach the character as an individual.

I'm fully confident in my ability to write a convincing asian lesbian character though I'm a Caucasian heterosexual male. Why? Because my character will be unique, like any person. Her tastes will be hers alone and not subject to some false social parameters or expectations. Maybe she likes women with strong legs and wide hips. Maybe she likes the same her male competition does, setting up conflict. Maybe she is submissive and likes women with masculine features. Or maybe it's the complete opposite, or even somewhere in between. Could be anything I can dream up. Why limit yourself?

Just write all your characters as unique characters who have their own likes & dislikes, their own opinions & assumptions, their own perceptions and judgments....and so on.....

Once you can step away from narrowing your characters to fit into some social expectation box, you'll be free to make varied characters who feel real. The alternative is to remain trapped in clichÃ©.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

T.Allen.Smith said:


> a convincing asian lesbian character


Honestly, I can't help but comment on this. Some of my wife's former classmates (in Hong Kong) have girlfriends that I would agree are attractive, and they were among the easiest for me to talk to of my wife's friends. Maybe they were more confident in their English as they were more prone to defying cultural norms, and as a result, didn't just stick with people who were "traditional Chinese."

My huntress character is a lesbian, but in my more recent short story, that doesn't come up. I don't care to put any romance scenes into her stories, but simply focus on the hunt. Her being a woman or being attracted to women don't define her, though they can be important details to the story. I see in her world that hunting monsters is a male dominated business, and in my latest story with her, one character refers to her and a male hunting companion as "lovebirds." The most interesting detail related to her being a lesbian is a story I have yet to tell, but it's in my mind. (A clean story, before anyone gets the wrong idea.)

So that's my feelings on gender and sexual preference. Neither should define characters (individuals), but it might affect how the characters (part of a group) are perceived by other characters.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Legendary Sidekick said:


> So that's my feelings on gender and sexual preference. Neither should define characters (individuals), but it might affect how the characters (part of a group) are perceived by other characters.


I couldn't agree more. The impact of that facet of a character's life can have as great or minimal impact as the story needs.

Real people are far too varied to be defined by any single aspect of their lives.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Jabrosky said:
			
		

> What might be trickier is writing sexual attraction your characters may experience, at least if they have different sexual orientations from yourself.


A funny thing is I thought that when I first created the aforementioned warrior women I wanted to write. Only one was written as an MC in serious stories, while the others were RP'd in games on this site.

I've been playing the barbarian woman in Steerpike's game for two years. She is straight, but at 16 joined her young nun friend and sparring partner in taking a vow of chastity–for moral support, but also to force her way out of a political marriage.

None of that is important to the game, but when playing the character, I know how she thinks. I even know which male character she finds attractive, and why him, even though my character will not pursue romance and I don't even find it to be an appropriate pursuit for the purposes of the game. It's just me knowing my character. I really didn't expect to know a female character that well, that I'd know what man she's attracted to when I don't even have an interest in writing that desire for her.

It would be far less surprising had I intended romance for her and created the man who so attracts her.




My lesbian huntress also experiences what may appear (from a reader's perspective) to be "the seeds of romance" as she spends a month in the wilderness with a man. It's a platonic friendship which develops, but remains platonic. However, there is a scene in which she sees the man is attracted to her. She is flattered and she likes the way he looks at her, though she never entertains the thought of being more than friends.

I don't know what it's like to be a lesbian, but I can tell you that my character normally would NOT care for a guy making eyes at her. For some reason, it felt right in this particular scene. Had the two been in the wilderness for a year, just him and her, she'd probably have to give the "just friends" speech. There was never a chance it was going to get any better than that for the man.

Again, I wasn't focused on including anything resembling romance the story. That was just me putting myself in the mind of a character I created and have little in common with, and I wrote what felt right for her.


----------



## Fyle

Legendary Sidekick said:


> I didn't see The Hobbit, but it seems that Tauriel came off as a "tacked-on love interest." That's an example of how adding a woman didn't improve the story (even if she's a great character).



This is right, you don’t even have to see the movie to know she was “tacked-on” not just as a love interest but simply because JRR Tolkien was not known for writing female leads. And, if you watch the trilogy, you find in the end, she adds nothing to the story. It feels very forced, or tacked on, and I would say “sell out,” personally. 

When a female lead / MC works, it should feel intended and natural, not added in just because a female was needed, and for that matter,_ nothing _should be added in simply because it is absent and for no other reason.

A good example of a lead female is Katniss in the Hunger Games (movie and books), unlike Tauriel, the author did not say, “hey, I need a strong female lead in here cause that’s what’s lacking!” Another good example of a strong female character is Trinity in the Matrix or Beatrix Kiddo in KILL BILL (an incredibly kick-ass female character might I add). 

They fit in the story on their own and you can tell there was no throwing them in because they are women. If you cannot make the distinction between the two on some level, I think you have a poor conception of what is original concept and what is meant to be sold to the masses. 

SO, this is why my point to the OP is, if it is not originally intended, or you just aren’t seeing it in that story, don’t force it! Don’t make a change only because you need a female, make a change IF a female makes sense in the story or works in naturally.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Fyle said:


> A good example of a lead female is Katniss in the Hunger Games (movie and books), unlike Tauriel, the author did not say, “hey, I need a strong female lead in here cause that’s what’s lacking!” Another good example of a strong female character is Trinity in the Matrix or Beatrix Kiddo in KILL BILL (an incredibly kick-ass female character might I add).
> 
> They fit in the story on their own and you can tell there was no throwing them in because they are women. If you cannot make the distinction between the two on some level, I think you have a poor conception of what is original concept and what is meant to be sold to the masses.


Unless you're secretly Suzanne Collins, one of the Wachowskis, or Quentin Tarentino, I don't see how you can possibly make that claim.


----------



## Trick

May I harken back to a post of mine, very similar to the OP, that blew up like a plugged shotgun?

http://mythicscribes.com/forums/wri...o-few-female-characters.html?highlight=female

While the discussion raged for some time, I'm so glad I asked the question because it helped me realize that I didn't 'lack female characters.' I was under utilizing a great female character that I already had. 

I thought the OP might gain some insight somewhere in the nearly 40 pages of discussion from that thread.


----------



## Tom

Hoo boy, that one got out of hand. I'm going to refrain from commenting too much in this thread because female characters, and the treatment of said characters, really is an _issue_ with me. 

But I will say, don't put in a female lead just because you feel you need a female lead. It needs to feel natural--not like you tacked it on for "Hey, diversity!" points. Perhaps you have a subplot that could be fleshed out more, and is one that would benefit from a female character at its heart?


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## Gryphos

When did it suddenly become bad to add or alter characters "for diversity's sake"? I'm sorry, but I can't understand what's inherently wrong with that. You're just trying to improve your story by making it more interesting/realistic/relatable to a wider range of readers. So yeah, I change characters just for the sake of diversity, and I think my writing is a lot better for it (otherwise my book would be populated entirely by straight white men, which is boring and dumb).


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## Fyle

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Unless you're secretly Suzanne Collins, one of the Wachowskis, or Quentin Tarentino, I don't see how you can possibly make that claim.



They were all recieved well by fans and so far as i know  none critized like Tauriel was by fans. 

Also, it is left up to the readers and the fans to judge how well they think characters meet expectations. 

Allen, you do not have to be George Lucas to say Jar Jar Binks feels out of place in Star Wars and is deliberately aimed at the under 13 age group. 

These things are not hard to see when being honest. The females i mentioned had personalities, backround stories and dialoge that fit their fictional world well. Meaning, you can tell they were not tacked on, or added for diversity, but deeper characters who were probably created along with the world they inhabit than Tauriel.


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## cupiscent

Adding a character - for whatever reason - is a good way to end up with Trinity Syndrome (to sum up: when a female character is bad-ass, but has no purpose in the story and therefore no actual agency). If you're looking at a story going, "Oh, but I have no/too few women," then my advice would usually be to change the gender of one of the characters. Or conflate a couple of characters into the one female character. Or, like Trick, get more out of your female characters. (And I cheered about that, Trick. So pleased.)


----------



## Gryphos

Fyle said:


> These things are not hard to see when being honest. The females i mentioned had personalities, backround stories and dialoge that fit their fictional world well. Meaning, you can tell they were not tacked on, or added for diversity, but deeper characters who were probably created along with the world they inhabit than Tauriel.



Of course all characters need to have personalities and fit in the world!!! What you're talking about here is an issue of bad writing, not diversity.


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## Legendary Sidekick

@Cupiscent,

I liked the Trinity Syndrome article. Particularly, I liked the "Is She Strong?" check questions. Humorous, but in a way that drove the point.


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## Steerpike

Gryphos said:


> When did it suddenly become bad to add or alter characters "for diversity's sake"? I'm sorry, but I can't understand what's inherently wrong with that. You're just trying to improve your story by making it more interesting/realistic/relatable to a wider range of readers. So yeah, I change characters just for the sake of diversity, and I think my writing is a lot better for it (otherwise my book would be populated entirely by straight white men, which is boring and dumb).



Yes. You make all kinds of conscious decisions that change how you approach a story, with the goal of improving it. But if that decision includes making the story more diverse,  some see it as a no-no. Doesn't make sense, in my view.


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## Steerpike

Fyle said:


> .
> 
> These things are not hard to see when being honest. The females i mentioned had personalities, backround stories and dialoge that fit their fictional world well. Meaning, you can tell they were not tacked on, or added for diversity, but deeper characters who were probably created along with the world they inhabit than Tauriel.



Your claim was to the thought process of the authors or filmmakers in addition to the fan reception, and T.Allen.Smith is correct, you don't know that, you are simply making an assumption. An erroneous one, I suspect, because this sort of thing always has to be a conscious choice at some level. The insinuation that you're able to see things clearly because you're honest and others aren't is conveniently self-serving, but I think it weakens your argument further than it already is on its face, because it demonstrates a closed-minded mentality. In other words, you're operating under a preconceived idea,  and any information that comes to you is taken in or discarded not on its merits,  but on whether or not it reinforces what you already think. Information that is lacking is assumed to conform.  It's not a logical approach to the issue.


----------



## Nimue

If you're adding in a female character after the bulk of story-writing has taken place, and not giving her the same weight of thought and planning that you've given the other characters, then of course she'll be a bad character.

If you're reluctantly, resentfully adding a female character because a producer or publisher requires it to hit demographic quotas, then of course she'll be a bad character.

It's easy to see how that could go wrong, but with what logic does that mean that adding a female character is _always_ going to turn out badly?  Do it thoughtfully, do it with good intentions, and do it not _only_ because you think it will improve your story or sell more, but also because you want to.

It's odd to go around insisting that this always ends badly without really addressing the OP's story or perspective, and using only Hollywood movies, which are aggressively marketed and committee'd, as examples...


----------



## Tom

Fyle said:


> The females i mentioned had personalities, backround stories and dialoge that fit their fictional world well.



A little off-topic, but please don't call them females. They are female humans, so therefore they're referred to as women. I don't know...referring to other human beings as 'males' or 'females' has always bugged me. It sounds like something you'd call an animal.


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## Devor

My issue with these conversations has always been that they create a sense of pressure on authors to do something with their works without acknowledging the many challenges that come with it.  That's why I've come to love Tauriel - she's such a clear example, she always comes up and forces people to talk about those challenges.

I need to write a short story about two characters.  The first is the MC, a male character that I want to write about for a while.  The second is a mentor, who will probably have to die, but I have very little else decided about the character.  My goal for the day is actually to figure this character out.

I'm leaning on making the character a woman.  But we're not talking about a Gandalf-type mentor.  The character would be more of a swashbuckler.  Given that she and the MC would develop a close relationship, and are near-enough in age, making the character a woman means I would have to find some way to address the romantic attraction.  But she'll die horribly, like mentors do, to motivate the male MC.

People who know these conversations probably understand that I have a fridging problem to work out.  And it's genuinely what I'm supposed to be figuring out today.  Any advice?


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## Svrtnsse

Devor said:


> People who know these conversations probably understand that I have a fridging problem to work out.  And it's genuinely what I'm supposed to be figuring out today.  Any advice?



How about shifting some nuances a little. Instead of being just a mentor, she's also the MCs good friend since many years and someone he looks up to and respects. He still has a lot to learn from her, but she also has a lot to learn from him - about other things. 
The romantic tension can be addressed in a few different ways:
 - Either of the two is fresh out of a longer relationship and isn't ready to commit to anything new.
 - As above, but instead of not wanting to commit they're rebounding like crazy and latching on to whoever is available.
 - Either of the characters is gay.
 - They're just friends - like, seriously, actually, just really good friends and not in a "let's just be friends" kind of way.
 - They've already had their relationship. It didn't work out, but they're still on speaking terms.
 - Either of them is just not interested in the other one in that way - "let's just be friends"

I only just recently learned about fridging, but couldn't you bypass it by letting the victim have some other meaningful impact on the story before putting them in the fridge?


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## Devor

Svrtnsse said:


> How about shifting some nuances a little. Instead of being just a mentor, she's also the MCs good friend since many years and someone he looks up to and respects. He still has a lot to learn from her, but she also has a lot to learn from him - about other things.



It's a Jay-and-Kay relationship.  This is the character recruiting him into the organization, so there isn't much room for history between them.




> I only just recently learned about fridging, but couldn't you bypass it by letting the victim have some other meaningful impact on the story before putting them in the fridge?



I've already decided that if I make the character a woman, I'll push her death back to give her a greater role and a chance at agency in the big conflict.  My other option is to make her a traitor.  I'm not sure if either of those solve the problem.




> The romantic tension can be addressed in a few different ways:
> - Either of the two is fresh out of a longer relationship and isn't ready to commit to anything new.
> - As above, but instead of not wanting to commit they're rebounding like crazy and latching on to whoever is available.
> - Either of the characters is gay.
> - They're just friends - like, seriously, actually, just really good friends and not in a "let's just be friends" kind of way.
> - They've already had their relationship. It didn't work out, but they're still on speaking terms.
> - Either of them is just not interested in the other one in that way - "let's just be friends"



This is really what I'm looking at.  I want to figure out their relationship in a way that isn't he-likes-her-but-_whoops_.  But I also have a very tight word count constraint on this story.  I don't have room for some of these.


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## Steerpike

I find the Tauriel argument to be a bad one.

Bad writing is bad writing. Good writers are going to develop characters in such a way as to make them rounded and complex and fit into the story. The idea that a good writer suddenly loses all of those skills because they've decided to add a character based on considerations of race, gender, sex, sexual orientation &c., is a bad argument, and one that has no logic or evidence to support it. 

Fyle bolsters it only by circular reasoning. His argument is basically:

1) constructing characters because of diversity considerations results in bad characters;

2) any characters I think are good can't have been constructed as a result of diversity considerations because see #1.

It's a terrible argument, and one that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. That's why T.Allen.Smith's comments, above, were on point. Fyle doesn't know what considerations went into development of the good characters he mentioned, he just makes the assumption that supports his prejudices.


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## Svrtnsse

Devor said:


> This is really what I'm looking at.  I want to figure out their relationship in a way that isn't he-likes-her-but-_whoops_.  But I also have a very tight word count constraint on this story.  I don't have room for some of these.



If word-count is an issue then I'd say making either of the characters gay would solve the issue quickest. You could fit that into just a few words where either of them mentions a past or current partner and then moves on.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Fyle said:


> lThe females i mentioned had personalities, backround stories and dialoge that fit their fictional world well. Meaning, you can tell they were not tacked on, or added for diversity, but deeper characters who were probably created along with the world they inhabit than Tauriel.


I understand what you're saying. My only point is that's it's impossible for you to say how character creation developed for another author unless they've divulged details.

For all we know, Trinity may have been a character where a decision was made to have a female character be a bad ass. Maybe the crew was too male-dominated and the Wachowskis wanted broader appeal, maybe they desired a love interest after the original draft. Maybe they just thought a female as Neo's fighting partner was just more interesting. You saw a product that went through drafting, revision, editing, & filmmaking. You didn't see the steps along the way.

Who knows when a character choice like gender may have happened, or how? 

The Wachowskis.


----------



## Devor

Svrtnsse said:


> If word-count is an issue then I'd say making either of the characters gay would solve the issue quickest. You could fit that into just a few words where either of them mentions a past or current partner and then moves on.



The MC is kind of set.  I'm not sure if I want to go that way with the mentor.  I think it'd be better to make her damaged or different somehow, so that the question of attraction isn't as presumed to come up.  I'm also second guessing whether she needs to die, or if there's some other way to let the MC rise to her level.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Devor said:


> The MC is kind of set.  I'm not sure if I want to go that way with the mentor.  I think it'd be better to make her damaged or different somehow, so that the question of attraction isn't as presumed to come up.  I'm also second guessing whether she needs to die, or if there's some other way to let the MC rise to her level.



Maybe he really dislikes her and wants to do everything he can to show he's better? Or maybe he really likes her and thinks that by rising to her level he can help her out?


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Devor said:


> My issue with these conversations has always been that they create a sense of pressure on authors to do something with their works *without acknowledging the many challenges that come with it.*


This is where I see adding "diversity" as a potential problem.

Bringing up Tauriel is not (or shouldn't be), "It's been done badly by Peter Jackson; therefore, you'll screw it up."

It's more like, "It's been done badly by Peter Jackson, so consider how female Tauriel could have been done well."



I like to write strong women, and I think I do well with what I limit myself to. I don't write a woman as I would write a man, but I don't trap any character into gender-based generalizations either. As I said earlier, my huntress is definitely perceived a certain way because of her gender. But her gender doesn't define her, nor does it affect her performance in action scenes.

Always created a "Like a Girl" video that best expresses the perception vs. reality. It's interesting because even some women and girls go along with the negative connotation of the phrase "like a girl." The goal of Always, of course, is for the phrase to have a positive connotation and ditch the implication: "unlike a boy, who can do it better."








On a side note, I made a decision last night regarding what 25 characters I'd draw for Roll 20. I was going to go with a Heroine Pack, but then realized I'm ignoring all of the players who want male characters.

(So, ironically, I'm adding males or switching gender to male to increase potential sales. Still, mine will have more female representation than any other character pack on the site.)

So I looked up what game is most popular: Pathfinder, and decided to base the characters I draw on that. I looked up classes. There are 25 of them. Some are described "he" and some "she." So that's how I decided which gender will represent each class, figuring that would result in a fairly even male-female spread.

I ended up with 13 female characters and 12 male characters!


----------



## Jabrosky

Gryphos said:


> When did it suddenly become bad to add or alter characters "for diversity's sake"? I'm sorry, but I can't understand what's inherently wrong with that. You're just trying to improve your story by making it more interesting/realistic/relatable to a wider range of readers. So yeah, I change characters just for the sake of diversity, and I think my writing is a lot better for it (otherwise my book would be populated entirely by straight white men, which is boring and dumb).


I may not care for activists who pester writers and artists to write or draw more characters from this or that under-represented group, but I'm all for writers diversifying their casts if that's what they genuinely want to do themselves. That said, Devor has raised a good point that fiddling with certain characters' identities can send ripple effects through the whole story. If a writer were to make Guinevere from Arthurian legend a Yoruba lady from Nigeria, how are they going to get her within the proximity of Arthur and his Celtic tribesmen? Are they going to have Arthur and his warriors rowing over to Nigeria in search of the Grail, maybe picking up Excalibur from the river goddess Oshun, so he can meet her? It might make for an appealing story in my opinion, but it would have changed so much from the original source material that it might as well be a wholly different, albeit still derivative, story. The original change you had in mind might seem cosmetic at first, but integrating it snugly into the larger story isn't always as easy as you might hope.


----------



## Trick

Devor said:


> The MC is kind of set.  I'm not sure if I want to go that way with the mentor.  I think it'd be better to make her damaged or different somehow, so that the question of attraction isn't as presumed to come up.  I'm also second guessing whether she needs to die, or if there's some other way to let the MC rise to her level.



I honestly think that if you don't address it at all, simply having the characters behave as friends but within the mentor-student hierarchy, you would pull it off well. If I had never read anything you have written, I might not say that but, in your case, I think you could do it. It's about not cheapening her death, or if you decide she lives, giving the MC another reason to rise above being a student. Is there anything else in the story already, other than her death, that would do that?


----------



## Devor

Trick said:


> I honestly think that if you don't address it at all, simply having the characters behave as friends but within the mentor-student hierarchy, you would pull it off well. If I had never read anything you have written, I might not say that but, in your case, I think you could do it. It's about not cheapening her death, or if you decide she lives, giving the MC another reason to rise above being a student. Is there anything else in the story already, other than her death, that would do that?



Thank you for the vote of confidence.  Considering the length, I probably could just ignore it and get away with it.

I think I'm settling in on what I want to do with her, plotwise.  At the moment, she's going to survive, and the MC will have to "rise" as an equal when they split up to accomplish separate tasks.  There's plenty of room for her to contribute with the conflicts, and then the finale would remain about the MC.

It's just the relationship dynamic I still need to figure out.  I think I will take your advice and just ignore it for the first section that I'm working on next and figure it out later.

Sorry to hijack the thread!


----------



## Devor

Legendary Sidekick said:


> So I looked up what game is most popular: Pathfinder, and decided to base the characters I draw on that. I looked up classes. There are 25 of them. Some are described "he" and some "she." So that's how I decided which gender will represent each class, figuring that would result in a fairly even male-female spread.
> 
> I ended up with 13 female characters and 12 male characters!



That's probably a good idea.  Maybe if there's a next batch you could gender swap the classes to get the full set?  But I don't know, I thought there was something unique and fun about your heroine pack.  But I didn't know there had to be 25 of them - that is a lot.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Hmm... now you're making me second guess. Maybe I'll work on female characters first so I can consider this.

But my thought is to just have one pack for the good guys. "Bloodrager" (M) can pass for "Barbarian" (F), and a "Fighter" (M) can wear full armor like a "Paladin" (F). It happens that I get a good spread for the typical archetypes.

(...except pixies. But I can always add a pixie pack later, with mermaids and other such beings.)



EDIT - You know what? You're right. Heroine pack it is. I can sell the male characters another day.


----------



## Fyle

Steerpike said:


> I find the Tauriel argument to be a bad one.
> 
> Bad writing is bad writing. Good writers are going to develop characters in such a way as to make them rounded and complex and fit into the story. The idea that a good writer suddenly loses all of those skills because they've decided to add a character based on considerations of race, gender, sex, sexual orientation &c., is a bad argument, and one that has no logic or evidence to support it.
> 
> Fyle bolsters it only by circular reasoning. His argument is basically:
> 
> 1) constructing characters because of diversity considerations results in bad characters;
> 
> 2) any characters I think are good can't have been constructed as a result of diversity considerations because see #1.
> 
> It's a terrible argument, and one that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. That's why T.Allen.Smith's comments, above, were on point. Fyle doesn't know what considerations went into development of the good characters he mentioned, he just makes the assumption that supports his prejudices.



My first and foremost argument is follow your gut as a writer and do not let outside influences effect you to the point of changing the sex of your character.

You are grossly oversimplifying things, i stated quite a few times I am not against diversity and why on this thread and others. 

My argument about the addition of character is less about male/female and more like I mentioned before about "Jar Jar Binks." 

If you have fans who are familiar (very familiar in the case of LOTR) with a universe you create, and you make a poor addition to that universe, it sticks out like a sore thumb and it is not that hard to recognize. In the same way Star Wars fans can go into the thethre and say "wait a minute? what was Jar Jar Binks doing in that movie?" Hobbit fans / LOTR fans can go in and say "wait a minute? what was Tauriel doing in that movie?"

You cannot walk into the Matrix or any of the other I mentioned and ask the same thing, it makes no sense, they are originally intended for the story.

Its hardly an argument, its just how the industry works. People back projects with money and additions are made to reach a wider audience and sell a certain amount. This, is where Tauriel falls into a category that the other female characters don't.


The truth is this : diversity will usually reach a wider audience and sells more. Diversity is also necessary for telling a story which is more realistic and interesting. Diversity is a good way to challange yourself as a writer, diversity is variety, which is the spice of life.

But...

Diversity is not the key that automatically makes every story great. There is no reason not to play devil's advocate and question whether your story needs it if the story is already strong.


----------



## Fyle

Tom Nimenai said:


> A little off-topic, but please don't call them females. They are female humans, so therefore they're referred to as women. I don't know...referring to other human beings as 'males' or 'females' has always bugged me. It sounds like something you'd call an animal.



So, this below is okay Tom? 

You should agree with me it is not. So, please let Gryphos know as well.




Gryphos said:


> And besides, anyone who thinks that the media's tendency to focus on straight, white males almost exclusively hasn't already been 'forced', needs to take their head of the sand.


----------



## Nimue

False equivalency, dude.  "Females" is used in derogatory ways a lot, lot more than "males" is.  And I really think you know that already.  Nevertheless, I think it's best to refer to "men" and "women" always, if only because separating biological sex and gender is a good idea.


----------



## Fyle

Okay, we are well of the point I was trying to illustrate which was:

The Hobbit added a woman to the movie because JRR Tolkien lacked women in his writing, this is not up for debate, it has been stated by Peter Jackson that JRR Tolkien "was not good" at writing women so he added Tauriel (or that heavily implied the reason he did).   

Did she improve the story ? If so, how? 

Admittedly, this is off track to what the OP is saying, he wants to change a characters gender, not add one into the story... 

But, the nature of the argument at least shows how touchy this issue gets, so a change will cause a reaction. 

The OP does ask: "Do you think it could be offensive?" (meaning 3 men as MCs)

And the answer to that is no. Having three men as the MC in no way shape or form can be "offensive" if the offense is them simply being men. Also, there is a ton of popular offensive work out there if that's the case.


----------



## Tom

Fyle said:


> Okay, we are well of the point I was trying to illustrate which was:
> 
> The Hobbit added a woman to the movie because JRR Tolkien lacked women in his writing, this is not up for debate, it has been stated by Peter Jackson that JRR Tolkien "was not good" at writing women so he added Tauriel (or that heavily implied the reason he did).



-Eowyn 
-Arwen 
-Luthien
-Galadriel (who is a total badass)
-Lady Haleth (also a badass)
-Nerdanel
-Goldberry
-Idril Celebrindal
-Varda
-Yavanna
-Nessa
-Aredhel
-Ioreth
-Celebrian
-Elwing
-Finduilas
-And many more...

Women of Middle Earth


----------



## Nimue

Nobody here thinks male characters are offensive.  Gonna quote myself from earlier, I guess:



> I don't think it's offensive to just not have a female POV protag, except maybe to a select few people. But the fact of the matter is that for a lot of female readers (myself included), having a female protagonist helps them get into the book. Generally, broadly, people like to read about characters they can identify with--hence the profusion of bookish everyman protagonists. Yes, women will read about men more often then the reverse happens, but that's more through necessity than inherent appeal, isn't it? I do think that the voice of the character should come before tailoring for an audience, but it's something to think about. Half the planet, there.


----------



## Fyle

Tom Nimenai said:


> -Eowyn
> -Arwen
> -Luthien
> -Galadriel (who is a total badass)
> -Lady Haleth (also a badass)
> -Nerdanel
> -Goldberry
> -Idril Celebrindal
> -Varda
> -Yavanna
> -Nessa
> -Aredhel
> -Ioreth
> -Celebrian
> -Elwing
> -Finduilas
> -And many more...
> 
> Women of Middle Earth



I didn't say he wasn't good at writing women, Peter Jackson did in an interview.

Now, thank you for the list, which helps my point i tried to make in Chit Chat a while ago, instead of someone who is far less talented as a creator than JRR Tolkien (Peter Jackson and his wife who he claims had a hand in Tauriel's creation), why not take a character from the list above and add her in? Why add your own original creation into someone elses well established world? Respect the original piece of work, don't doddle all over it.

This is why people are less hard on Legolas, because at least he is a character created by Tolkien.

-Galadriel (who is a total badass) YES. So, give Galadriel a bigger part!

Although, I would agrue 90% of the characters on that list are not MC that the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings revolved around. Whether JRR Tolkien was good or not at writing women, is an opinion, what is fact, is they were not included as MCs in the novels.


----------



## Tom

Fyle said:


> -Galadriel (who is a total badass) YES. So, give Galadriel a bigger part!



Actually, I think they did. In Battle of the Five Armies, she banishes the Necromancer from Dol Guldur. 

Galadriel is probably the most amazing woman I've ever read about. Not only is she a badass, she also has complex characterization, conflict, and real flaws. Awesome. We need more female characters like her.


----------



## Ireth

Fyle said:


> I didn't say he wasn't good at writing women, Peter Jackson did in an interview.
> 
> Now, thank you for the list, which helps my point, instead of someone who is far less talented as a creator than JRR Tolkien, why not take a character from the list above and add her in? Why add your own original creation to a well established world? Respect the artowrk, don't doddle all over it.
> 
> This is why people are less hard on Legolas, because at least he is a character created by Tolkien.
> 
> -Galadriel (who is a total badass) YES. So, give Galadriel a bigger part!



Technically PJ did give Galadriel a bigger part than she had in the books. Her badass moment in Dol Guldur and her involvement with the White Council was covered in the appendices of LOTR and possibly Unfinished Tales. The majority of the other women above are either dead (Lady Haleth, Luthien, Idril, Aredhel, Finduilas) or uninvolved in Middle-earth stuff (Nerdanel, Celebrian, Elwing, Varda, Yavanna, Nessa, the rest of the female Valar) at the time of the movies, and the rest are very minor characters who have little to no bearing on the plot at all (Ioreth, Goldberry), and whose parts it wouldn't make sense to expand.


----------



## Tom

Bah. When are they gonna make a Silmarillion movie? I want to see all those badass First Age women in action.


----------



## Fyle

Tom Nimenai said:


> Actually, I think they did. In Battle of the Five Armies, she banishes the Necromancer from Dol Guldur.
> 
> Galadriel is probably the most amazing woman I've ever read about. Not only is she a badass, she also has complex characterization, conflict, and real flaws. Awesome. We need more female characters like her.



_I know. Thats not what I mean._

I mean give her a BIG part to fill in the absence of a MC who is a woman. 

Galadriel had like one scene in Battle of the 5 Armies ? Not what this discussion is about, it is about women in lead roles.


----------



## Velka

> The Hobbit added a woman to the movie because JRR Tolkien lacked women in his writing, this is not up for debate, it has been stated by Peter Jackson that JRR Tolkien "was not good" at writing women so he added Tauriel (or that heavily implied the reason he did).



Tolkien, indeed lacked women in The Hobbit (which has been been the inspiration of many theories, ranging from Tolkien had no grounding for including women in a largely military setting, to Bilbo had therapy-rich issues with mama Belladonna Took, to the idea that the story, being told by Bilbo, who a "confirmed bachelor" and avoids women and sees them as the 'unknown', simply doesn't 'see' them in his world, and therefore omits them from his story). 



> JRR Tolkien lacked women in his writing, this is not up for debate



I will debate your assertion that he lacked women in his writing _as a whole_. It was Peter Jackson who committed a huge crime against one of Tolkien's strongest women characters in The Lord of the Rings: Eowyn.

(Disclaimer: Everything that follows is purely the opinions of the poster, take or leave what you will)

While she was somewhat accurately portrayed in Two Towers (I say somewhat due to the fact that most of the nuance in the book was left out - her wanting to be more than her gender would allow her in her society - how Gandalf made Eomer realize that there was more to his sister than he thought - how when Theoden is cured no one continues to care about what she wants - I could go on), the whole simpering woman falling in love and being a complete and utter fool over Aragon is crap.

In the film, when Aragon tells her she can't come with him on the Paths of the Dead because (basically) she's a woman and her place is at home she gets all gooshy and simpering and argues out of love. In the book, she is fierce:

“All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.” 

She calls him out on his sexist bulls---. She loves him, but she's willing to stand up to him. Do we get this in Jackson's version? No.

(I don't have the wherewithal to get into the fact that Jackson doesn't acknowledge her gender-bending as Dernhelm and being the one who brings Merry along who was also told to stay behind.)

Then, when Eowyn faces the Lord of the Nazgul, what is one of the strongest pieces of her character, (and dare I say, the book) is reduced to a one-liner.

This is a being who is Sauron's lieutenant, he stabbed Frodo, he reduces armies to pants-pissing, and he has just seen her uncle struck down, and Eowyn, what does she do? She pontificates the s--- out of him:

“Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!”

A cold voice answered: ‘Come not between the NazgÃ»l and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shriveled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.”

A sword rang as it was drawn. “Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may.”

“Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!”

Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel.

“But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Ã‰owyn I am, Ã‰omund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.”

She stands in the face of the ruiner of worlds, and Peter Jackson gives her the line" I am no man.".

/facepalm

Then she stabs him in the face. (Yes, yes, Merry helped, but she was the one responsible for Merry being there and she did the face-stabbing, so there.)

Still with me? Good.

Then, Peter Jackson commits an even more heinous crime.

She has just defeated the witch king, and then is then noticed by an orc (who in the corporate ladder of evil is an intern compared to the CEO of evil Nazgul). Why? Oh of course, so she can be rescued! (I know this was a fleeting moment, but cinematically it was totally set up as her reaching for the sword and Aragon (somewhat unwittingly) chopping his arm off to then be dual stabbed by him and Gimli).

Don't even get me started on how the equal partnership her and Faramir share is left out of the movie (although I understand it is slightly expanded on in the extended version).

Were female characters underrepresented in Tolkien's work? Yes. However, (taking in consideration the time he was writing) there were shining example of proto-feminism in his work that should not be discounted.

And to leave this on a light note:


----------



## Fyle

My point here is, whose fictional world is it? Not Peter Jacksons. 

So, this is why I do not like add ins of Peter Jackson's own creation, no matter who they are, what they say or what they do. In the case of Tolkien, who modern fantasy has been influenced by, the source material should be respected. 

Tolkien's work is part of literature's history. It's not just another book on the shelf that say this that and the other thing about characters. 

_She stands in the face of the ruiner of worlds, and Peter Jackson gives her the line" I am no man._

This is just a case of dialogue being dumbed down for the audience who needs to remember for 20 minutes the Witch King said "no man can kill me." Most likely not because they wanted to take away from a woman character.

_We are now way off topic from the OP, and may as well continue my Chit Chat post named "Tauriel."_ This is bickering about details at this point. I guess this gets heat everytime.


----------



## Gryphos

Tauriel aside, as I think this topic relates more to original fiction rather than adaptations, I think it would is essential to draw a big distinction between issues of diversity and dodgy writing. When people complain about a character being shoved in, when that character is badly fleshed out and doesn't affect the plot, thats not because of whatever sex they are, it's because of the authors failure to make a good character, full stop.  

Fyle asserted that an author should always follow their gut with regards to story and not be swayed by outside influences. I'm sorry, but this is a terrible idea. As has been stated, if some people just followed their gut they'd end up with a cast of all white men. I don't know how some people write, but for me, I _think_ about what I'm writing. I don't follow my gut, I follow my brain. My brain tells me that there is a history of marginalising women, and my brain wants me to therefore write a good amount of interesting female characters. So yes, I am most definitely swayed by outside influences when I'm writing, but I would not have it any other way.


----------



## Fyle

Gryphos said:


> Tauriel aside, as I think this topic relates more to original fiction rather than adaptations, I think it would is essential to draw a big distinction between issues of diversity and dodgy writing. When people complain about a character being shoved in, when that character is badly fleshed out and doesn't affect the plot, thats not because of whatever sex they are, it's because of the authors failure to make a good character, full stop.
> 
> Fyle asserted that an author should always follow their gut with regards to story and not be swayed by outside influences. I'm sorry, but this is a terrible idea. As has been stated, if some people just followed their gut they'd end up with a cast of all white men. I don't know how some people write, but for me, I _think_ about what I'm writing. I don't follow my gut, I follow my brain. My brain tells me that there is a history of marginalising women, and my brain wants me to therefore write a good amount of interesting female characters. So yes, I am most definitely swayed by outside influences when I'm writing, but I would not have it any other way.



You follow everything.

There should never come a point in time where writers feel they *should* do something.

Its about your freedom of choice, not that you should feel you have to do something. Because once writers start feeling like they have to do certain things, they lose a sense of freedom in how they write. 

So, this is about women, but after that, the next group will say, hey wait, we arent represented either！And this process repeats until you have such a lose of creative freedom, you feel obligated to insert x, y and z when you might only want z. 

And yes, you use your brain, but the way in which you use it is not the same as solving a math equation where all the pieces have to fit or its flat out wrong. There is not wrong and right in writing in the same way there is for other mediums. 

By the way, the OP claims he has a successful book out already, he only has 2 posts here and he hasnt chimed in on any responses yet. Seems he is more qualified to answering his own question as many of us here... Just saying, figured since we are going back and forth playing hardball here, the OP woulda responded？

By the way, i do not think i said *always*

I cant think of something creative you should *always* do.


----------



## Nimue

Maybe, but you keep on saying "never".

Man, it'd be a terrible world where all kinds of people are represented in fiction!  You might have to pick up the second book you see to find yourself mirrored in the main character.  So tough.

OP has responded, and he's interested in including a female POV but has reservations based on his specific scenario and the story that he's working with has good female representation in other ways... Not sure what you want from him, more debate?

Look, nobody's forcing anyone to write anything!  Writers who don't want to write diversely aren't freaking martyrs.  You are free to write whatever you want.  Other people are free to criticize it.  "Free speech" works both ways.

What you're angling for is the ability to write whatever you want and have nobody object to your choices.  Only praise.  Sorry, but the world doesn't work like that.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

I suspect the reason there's a debate is that we all have different ways to create characters.

@OP, go ahead and change your character to a woman. It's something you want to do, and you'll do it well.

@me, don't do that.

Why not? When I create a character, there's a first step for me that maybe not everyone goes through, or not in the same order. Conception, for me, is a mental picture. My huntress is not a woman. She is a red-haired, green-eyed, freckle-faced woman. Don't ever tell me to make her male, or make her dark-haired, or make her tall and lanky, or make her "hawt." It's not her. If you want a tall, dark and handsome beefcake hunter, that's a totally different person. He doesn't get to speak Addison's words or replace her in her story. He can go find his own story and someone else can write him because I don't give a damn about this guy. His image didn't pop up in my mind, and even now as I describe him, the image is fuzzy. He's a stranger.

Addison came with three other women. The images were clear. I drew them first. I'm glad Devor convinced me to stick with the Heroine Pack for my art project because I want these four characters to finally be in a single work of mine (even if it's not a story, but just illustrations). That actually has meaning for me, to write _them_ or draw _them_. They belong together, and that I've yet to write all four into a story makes me feel as if I've cheated them. That's stupid, I know, but I do feel that.

So given what steps I go through to create characters, it's not as simple as, "Make him female. Your book'll sell better." And to anyone who wants to say "kill your darlings," that's not the answer. I do cut characters from stories when I can see that character isn't working out. (It's the reason Addison hasn't been in a story with her female companions yet.) I can't change the character's gender because it's not the way I create. I can cut one character and add another, but that character will make different choices. There will be a huge rewrite from the moment the new character enters.

I know this for a fact. My most recent short: I made a non-POV character into a POV character. It changed the story considerably--and for the better! I'm glad I did it, but what I did was take a 6000-word story, scrap all but the first 2000 words, and I ended up with a much better 8000-word story. New ending, new antagonists, a different fate for the second POV character, more action, more humor, and more enthusiasm on my part.



So, sorry this went waaay longer than I thought. But unless that^ got TL;DR'd, I hope sharing my creative process explains why "change the gender" is an easy change for some creators and an undesirable change for others. It's not about not wanting to write a woman--not for me, and I suspect not for Fyle either--but about how we go about creating the characters we want in our stories.


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## Gryphos

To be honest, I don't really care how an author creates their characters, so long as the end result is good. So I can't and wont judge people or their inability to genderswap, but I can definitely judge them on the characters they end up with.

Do what works for you, so long as it works.


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## Devor

Legendary Sidekick said:


> I'm glad Devor convinced me to stick with the Heroine Pack for my art project . . .



I mean, it's not like you needed a lot of convincing there.  :wink:


----------



## Devor

Gryphos said:


> Tauriel aside, as I think this topic relates more to original fiction rather than adaptations, I think it would is essential to draw a big distinction between issues of diversity and dodgy writing. When people complain about a character being shoved in, when that character is badly fleshed out and doesn't affect the plot, thats not because of whatever sex they are, it's because of the authors failure to make a good character, full stop.



I just want to chime in briefly here.  The world isn't divided into good writers who get everything right and bad writers who screw everything up.  Most of us can only handle "so much" with our writing.  I don't know about others, but I tend to fill that capacity or even overreach my abilities sometimes.  If you take an author who's working with a story like that, and try to push more into it, such as diversity, it can sometimes lead to problems.

I don't personally think I do all that badly with diversity.  But I can definitely sympathize with someone who wants to resist putting the extra pressure on their work, especially for those of us in a setting like Mythic Scribes, where we're still working on our first stories and struggling in our own ways to figure all this out and put things together.


----------



## Gryphos

Devor said:


> I just want to chime in briefly here.  The world isn't divided into good writers who get everything right and bad writers who screw everything up.  Most of us can only handle "so much" with our writing.  I don't know about others, but I tend to fill that capacity or even overreach my abilities sometimes.  If you take an author who's working with a story like that, and try to push more into it, such as diversity, it can sometimes lead to problems.
> 
> I don't personally think I do all that badly with diversity.  But I can definitely sympathize with someone who wants to resist putting the extra pressure on their work, especially for those of us in a setting like Mythic Scribes, where we're still working on our first stories and struggling in our own ways to figure all this out and put things together.



Fear of failure is no excuse not to try. If a writer doesn't add diversity out of fear of getting it wrong, how are they ever going to improve? And I'll just say, from my experience at least, diversity (in a fantasy setting especially) is easy. All it takes is some imagination, self-awareness, and a little research. And the reward you get from that is a story that will make a whole lot more people a whole lot happier.


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## Devor

Gryphos said:


> And I'll just say, from my experience at least, diversity (in a fantasy setting especially) is easy. All it takes is some imagination, self-awareness, and a little research. And the reward you get from that is a story that will make a whole lot more people a whole lot happier.



In this very thread I just made the mentor in my story concept into a woman and to avoid the pitfalls I had to reconceptualize the entire piece.  It'll be a better story and I'm very glad I did, but easy it was not.  It's going to have ramifications on the entire story.  I don't see how denying that works towards anybody's favor.


----------



## Russ

While I am not sure how hard writing diversity is (never really thought about it) I would agree with the sentiment that an aspiring writer should know their own limits and stay within them most of the time.

Hopefully that person will know when it is time to push their limits and extend their reach.


----------



## Gryphos

Devor said:


> In this very thread I just made the mentor in my story concept into a woman and to avoid the pitfalls I had to reconceptualize the entire piece.  It'll be a better story and I'm very glad I did, but easy it was not.  It's going to have ramifications on the entire story.  I don't see how denying that works towards anybody's favor.



Well, that's understandable. As I said, I can only speak from personal experience. One time I had a fairly major male character who you could say served as a kind of mentor. After I made my plan I decided to change them to a woman, so I did ... and that's it.


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## Devor

Gryphos said:


> After I made my plan I decided to change them to a woman, so I did ... and that's it.



If I have a character generic enough for a change that dramatic to be that easy, then I don't really have a character.  I have a placeholder.  That's how I see it.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Russ said:


> While I am not sure how hard writing diversity is (never really thought about it) I would agree with the sentiment that an aspiring writer should know their own limits and stay within them most of the time.
> 
> Hopefully that person will know when it is time to push their limits and extend their reach.


I used to think this way before I tried diversifying my cast, as much as I could within story parameters. It is an approach which may be more comfortable for a beginner. But yes, stretching yourself after some experience may not be a bad idea.

In my case, what I found was that approaching each character as an individual, and not as a member of "Group X', solved any issues concerning my self-imposed feelings of being limited.

With that approach I have no fear in my ability to write women, different ethnicity characters, gay characters, or whatever.

Yes, there may be occasions where some research can add to the character quality. Take for example transgenderism, or even ethnicity if represented in our reality. If I'm going to write an ethnic character, there may be certain elements which can add realism that I could include. Without research, I may not even know about those aspects of life. Or, with transgender characters, I may not understand the issues they deal with on a daily basis.

Still, I think those elements are largely texture. People are not composed entirely of the issues they deal with, the foods they eat, or the way they speak to one another. So, in the end, it still comes down to treating each like an individual, as distinct from another as you and I.


----------



## Gryphos

Devor said:


> If I have a character generic enough for a change that dramatic to be that easy, then I don't really have a character.  I have a placeholder.  That's how I see it.



In this matter it seems we disagree, then.


----------



## Devor

Gryphos said:


> In this matter it seems we disagree, then.



Even if you think it isn't true for you, the point remains that adding diversity can have challenges and might require the extra effort to get right.  And that effort might be a "bigger ask" for some people than it is for others.


----------



## Gryphos

Devor said:


> Even if you think it isn't true for you, the point remains that adding diversity can have challenges and might require the extra effort to get right.  And that effort might be a "bigger ask" for some people than it is for others.



Perhaps, but I still maintain that is a risk worth taking. For a fledgling writer to take up the challenge of diversity would only allow them to get better at it over time. You won't succeed if you don't try.


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## Nimue

I agree that it takes effort, and that we do have boundaries.  My current WIP is in a medieval-Europe comfort zone, and although there are gay characters and people of color, those issues aren't dealt with in depth.  (Women's issues are, but that's not much of a stretch for me.) I don't think I'll be writing a story that focuses on intense racism or gender dysphoria anytime soon, not only because even with research I'm not sure I could do them justice, but also because there are people whose story that is and they should be the ones to tell it.

(However, would I write a story where a black trans man battles a leviathan and becomes the champion of a fantasy realm? Yes, yes I would.  I think there's a difference between trying to address all the facets of a real-world issue and just including someone in a fantasy world, where you can create your own goddamn society.)

But--I really don't think that any writer should just opt-out of including women or people of color in their stories because they're slightly uncomfortable with it! That's basic writing craft, man, putting yourself in the mind and world of someone who isn't exactly you.  And if it does take work, why is it no problem to put hours into crafting a magic system or plotting elaborate political betrayal, but when it comes to being thoughtful and inclusive with a female character, that's too much to ask?

I don't think it's just about the effort.


I've never tried just swapping out a character gender or ethnicity after the character has been written--I generally do those kind of changes when planning a new story or rebooting an old one, and then I write them with those changes, so I can't speak to that.  Depending upon how the world would treat the character, I could see how that might be possible.


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## Legendary Sidekick

I don't know if anyone in this discussion thinks that a writer who is unable or unwilling to gender-swap is therefore unable or unwilling to gender-balance. For me, those are two entirely different techniques, and being willing or able to swap you characters' gender is not a necessary means to diversity. As I said, I write strong women. I just see those characters as female at the first phase of conception. Same for non-white characters. I never said, "I don't want a white guy, so…" The character just happened to not look white in my mind.



Here's a self-test. 

STEP #1: *Think of a major character from your story.*


Spoiler: STEP #2



*Change this character to a Middle-eastern homosexual man.*




I won't be surprised if there are some here who can follow those two steps without considerably changing the character's choices or how other characters react to the changed character. I am among those who would say this to step #2:


Spoiler: my immediate thought after reading step #2



No.


However, I don't see this as a lack of skill on my part. Just like I don't think I'm better than a good many of you because _*I*_ have my characters vividly visualized from the beginning, whereas some of you might have a more gradual means of building a character.

I don't think it's fair or intellectually honest to assume that because someone's creative approach differs from yours, that person is less skilled overall and will someday reach your level when s/he uses the same techniques that you use. It just means that person's process is different. The different approach does not necessarily result in more diverse characters or less diverse characters. Gender-swapping is not gender balance.


----------



## Ireth

I have a major character in one of my WIPs who's a middle-aged gay Polynesian man, so... close? XD He's not the MC, but one of the mentor characters. The other mentor is also a POC (not sure of his ethnicity yet), thirty-ish, bisexual, and the aforesaid guy's boyfriend. I don't want to change either of them for any reason (even though these are borrowed characters belonging to a friend of mine, and I'm using them with their permission; said friend is a tad bit iffy on mentor #2 being in a story that gets published because they have their own plans for him, but we'll cross that bridge when I get to it), because that would significantly change the story and the overall effect on the MC. I'm not sure what other characters I could come up with who could plausibly replace them in their situation, either.


----------



## Fyle

Gryphos said:


> Perhaps, but I still maintain that is a risk worth taking. For a fledgling writer to take up the challenge of diversity would only allow them to get better at it over time. You won't succeed if you don't try.



Love interests have to change. 

If I have a story where say I have 3 white men like the OP, and there has been a love interest one of more has been involved in, i cant change the gender of a MC without then changing the love interest who may be enbedded in the story. 

Then, if i do that, the story changes because the other MCs would not have fought with the now gender changed character over it. 

Changing is gender similar to the Butterfly Effect where if you make that change it will cause lots of other little changes in the work around it. Keeping it as is, could be the best move due to all the details perhaps backround story/flashbacks/world outlook/dialogue tags that would be a big job to change. A job that a fledgling writer might waste time tackling rather than moving to the next project and starting the diversity from square one. 

Not to mention nuiance changes around the character, what if Brianne of Tarth was a man？Treatment she gets from everyother character around her changes. Characters that ridiculed her for being a woman all would need their dialogue altered and have attitude adjustments to fit the change, big job and could leave mistakes in the writing if it is not all cleaned up. 

I think this is along the lines of what Devor said, since Brienne is not generic, switching her gender would be hard. 

So, for the OP, it might be best to leave it, depending on his characters. It might not, but changing a man to a woman for diversity is not automatically the correct answer.


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## Legendary Sidekick

Devor said:


> I mean, it's not like you needed a lot of convincing there.  :wink:


ME: Instead of doing what I want, I'll do what I don't want.
DEVOR: *metaphorical punch*
ME: Thanks, I needed that.


----------



## Gryphos

Fyle said:


> So, for the OP, it might be best to leave it, depending on his characters. It might not, but changing a man to a woman for diversity is not automatically the correct answer.



Of course not. Gender swapping isn't always the best option, for reasons you've described. As I said at some point earlier, it doesn't matter so much to me _how_ a writer goes about creating diversity. All that matters is the end result.


----------



## Devor

Legendary Sidekick said:


> ME: Instead of doing what I want, I'll do what I don't want.
> DEVOR: *metaphorical punch*
> ME: Thanks, I needed that.





Yeah . . . that's how I remember it, too. Metaphorical punch.  Right in the kisser.


----------



## Fyle

Gryphos said:


> Of course not. Gender swapping isn't always the best option, for reasons you've described. As I said at some point earlier, it doesn't matter so much to me _how_ a writer goes about creating diversity. All that matters is the end result.



Thats all I meant to say. 

Prolly the Tauriel thing pulled it too far off track, movies are different than books... but tell stories so, I dont feel its far off base to use them as examples. 

The OP still has not commented, but I would image after 10 pages of argument, he is more confused than anything.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Devor said:


> Yeah . . . that's how I remember it, too. Metaphorical punch.  Right in the kisser.


The metaphorical kisser.


----------



## Nimue

Don't get too friendly with metaphors, I hear they bite.


----------



## Penpilot

I've been purposefully avoiding this thread. Things like this always get messy. But I'll do a quick drive by posting. 

The author shouldn't feel obligated to do anything. And it's difficult to say yay or nay just based on one single story. IMHO an author should look at their body of work and examine that as a whole before worrying too much about diversity. 

If all their work is monochromatic, well, then I think it's appropriate to stop and do some self evaluation as to why. But if there's a good mixture across ones work, were one story may be all male, but another is all female, and others are a mix etc., then I don't think an author has much to worry about if one story is one thing or another.

I will also echo a bit about background characters. If all of them are monochromatic then I think it's appropriate to stop and think about why. There may be good reasons as to why, but if your setting isn't supposed to be a monoculture, then you would think at your main characters would encounter someone who is different from them at least a few times during the story. It's not even really a diversity argument, it's more of a realism argument. 

I mean how many of us go through a day without seeing someone of the opposite gender or different ethnicity who isn't a close relation or colleague? Where I live, it's next to impossible. But this isn't to say in some places that it isn't likely or common. 

Just my 2cents.


----------



## Fyle

Penpilot said:


> The author shouldn't feel obligated to do anything.




This also what tried to say on the whole, cause it felt like people were saying in so many words he should feel obligated. 

Especially since we are not talking about starting from square one with a new story. If so, my opinion would be different.


----------



## Mythopoet

Legendary Sidekick said:


> I suspect the reason there's a debate is that we all have different ways to create characters.
> 
> @OP, go ahead and change your character to a woman. It's something you want to do, and you'll do it well.
> 
> @me, don't do that.
> 
> Why not? When I create a character, there's a first step for me that maybe not everyone goes through, or not in the same order. Conception, for me, is a mental picture. My huntress is not a woman. She is a red-haired, green-eyed, freckle-faced woman. Don't ever tell me to make her male, or make her dark-haired, or make her tall and lanky, or make her "hawt." It's not her. If you want a tall, dark and handsome beefcake hunter, that's a totally different person. He doesn't get to speak Addison's words or replace her in her story. He can go find his own story and someone else can write him because I don't give a damn about this guy. His image didn't pop up in my mind, and even now as I describe him, the image is fuzzy. He's a stranger.
> 
> Addison came with three other women. The images were clear. I drew them first. I'm glad Devor convinced me to stick with the Heroine Pack for my art project because I want these four characters to finally be in a single work of mine (even if it's not a story, but just illustrations). That actually has meaning for me, to write _them_ or draw _them_. They belong together, and that I've yet to write all four into a story makes me feel as if I've cheated them. That's stupid, I know, but I do feel that.
> 
> So given what steps I go through to create characters, it's not as simple as, "Make him female. Your book'll sell better." And to anyone who wants to say "kill your darlings," that's not the answer. I do cut characters from stories when I can see that character isn't working out. (It's the reason Addison hasn't been in a story with her female companions yet.) I can't change the character's gender because it's not the way I create. I can cut one character and add another, but that character will make different choices. There will be a huge rewrite from the moment the new character enters.
> 
> I know this for a fact. My most recent short: I made a non-POV character into a POV character. It changed the story considerably--and for the better! I'm glad I did it, but what I did was take a 6000-word story, scrap all but the first 2000 words, and I ended up with a much better 8000-word story. New ending, new antagonists, a different fate for the second POV character, more action, more humor, and more enthusiasm on my part.
> 
> 
> 
> So, sorry this went waaay longer than I thought. But unless that^ got TL;DR'd, I hope sharing my creative process explains why "change the gender" is an easy change for some creators and an undesirable change for others. It's not about not wanting to write a woman--not for me, and I suspect not for Fyle either--but about how we go about creating the characters we want in our stories.



I am exactly the same! I suspect this is a big reason for the disagreement on this subject.


----------



## Gryphos

Fyle said:


> This also what tried to say on the whole, cause it felt like people were saying in so many words he should feel obligated.



No author ever _has_ to do anything. There is no quota to follow, no enforcement of special rules or anything like that. Authors can write whatever they want – that's freedom of speech. However, freedom of speech is not freedom from criticism. No one can physically stop a person from writing an un-diverse story, but they damn sure can criticise them for it, just like you can criticise any aspect of a story.


----------



## Jabrosky

Legendary Sidekick said:


> Why not? When I create a character, there's a first step for me that maybe not everyone goes through, or not in the same order. Conception, for me, is a mental picture. My huntress is not a woman. She is a red-haired, green-eyed, freckle-faced woman. Don't ever tell me to make her male, or make her dark-haired, or make her tall and lanky, or make her "hawt." It's not her. If you want a tall, dark and handsome beefcake hunter, that's a totally different person. He doesn't get to speak Addison's words or replace her in her story. He can go find his own story and someone else can write him because I don't give a damn about this guy. His image didn't pop up in my mind, and even now as I describe him, the image is fuzzy. He's a stranger.


This process is actually very similar to my own. I always start out with a clear visual image of a character and their appearance before getting down to personality and back-story. In fact, very often these characters begin as drawings before I attach a story to them.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Mythopoet said:


> I am exactly the same! I suspect this is a big reason for the disagreement on this subject.


I'm curious about how others create their characters. I think to someone with a totally different process, it may seem silly to not be able (or willing) to change the gender of an existing character.


----------



## Ireth

For me, it comes more easily with some characters than others. I realized having a male love interest for the female MC of one of my WIPs wasn't working out, mainly due to the relationship of both people with the villain. Changing the love interest to a woman and making the MC bisexual rather than straight solved a lot of problems, and it was as simple as changing "Vincent" into "Valerie". I doubt I could so easily do the same with another character, though.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Do I need to redraw Vincent now?


----------



## Ireth

Nope, leave him as he is! I just reused the names Vincent and Diana for another story, a fantasy retelling of "Hunchback of Notre Dame" with werewolves instead of Roma. But due to the above genderswap, the latter Vincent is now a she, named Valerie Richards. Flat Earth Vincent is still the same guy.


----------



## Gryphos

Legendary Sidekick said:


> I'm curious about how others create their characters. I think to someone with a totally different process, it may seem silly to not be able (or willing) to change the gender of an existing character.



For me usually I think of the character's purpose in the story first of all. I'll use an example from my current WIP.

I needed a henchman for the main villain. That was the first thing I knew about that character, that they would be an agent of the villain. I had no idea what they would look like. So I thought more about them. I gave them a name first: 'Sigfarne'. Don't know why I settled on that – I just thought it sounded cool. I decided they were male, for no particular reason. The only time I really decided what he should look like was when writing the scene he first appears. The details of his appearance literally came to me as I was writing his description. His dark brown skin, his long, braided hair, his intricately designed suit with golden dragon patterns embroidered along the hem and around the collar, his top hat.

That's usually how it goes for me. I decide basic details of a character in planning, such as name and sex. But their actual appearance itself I only really decide upon in the moment. Because of this, I find it a lot easier to change details such as gender than some others might, because unless I've written a scene with them, I don't have any mental picture built up of them. I'm not saying my method is better or anything, just that it makes me less cautious about gender-swapping.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Legendary Sidekick said:


> I'm curious about how others create their characters. I think to someone with a totally different process, it may seem silly to not be able (or willing) to change the gender of an existing character.



I think I may be sort of similar to you. I start with a concept or idea and then build from there. This concept usually comes with a very clear visual image of the character - including their gender.

I've struggled with a related issue for quite a while regarding one of my characters. Her name's Toivo and she's a paladin. The issue is that Toivo is a common male name in Finland (and I've got Finnish friends who will read the story). I could come up with some reason for her to have a man's name - but I'd still be sort of uncomfortable with it myself.
There's no way I'm going to change her into a man, just to suit the name, but it's also been really difficult to make up my mind about a new name for the character.

I'm likely settling on Toini though. It's similar enough, and it also has a fitting symbolic meaning to it that I like.
Still, just changing the name on the character has been a struggle of sorts.


----------



## Mythopoet

When I was younger, I wrote a lot more often from a female viewpoint. For some reason, in recent years I've been more inclined to write from a male viewpoint. There's nothing premeditated about it, it's just that most of the viewpoint characters I come up with tend to be male. I'm not sure why. 

Right now I'm writing a collection of stories about a group of 16 characters. 9 of them are male, 5 are female. In this case it's partially because the characters are based on mythological figures. But I did go out of my way to to include more female characters than the story I'm inspired by did. I suppose I could have made more of them female, but the ratio of 9 males to 5 females felt right to me. 

In my experience females in general are less inclined to take on the sort of roles that men natural take. For sure there are women who are adventurous and inclined to leadership and whatnot. And maybe it's just the type of women that I tend to be familiar with, but I know far more women who want to be stay at home moms than that want to dedicate themselves to busy careers. I myself would rather be a stay at home mom than take on any sort of career. So I do think it's more natural for men to take on traditionally heroic roles, especially roles that involve leadership or combat. It seems more natural to me for their to be more male than female characters in those kinds of roles in stories.


----------



## Chessie

I think writing from the male POV is much simpler. Straightforward, less emotional, just simpler. (its ok I'm a woman ha)


----------



## Mythopoet

Chesterama said:


> I think writing from the male POV is much simpler. Straightforward, less emotional, just simpler. (its ok I'm a woman ha)



lol Me too. And I am also a woman. To be honest, I don't relate well to most of the other women I know.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Funny, I went the opposite route—writing mostly male MCs, and now mostly female.

I have three daughters, so part of it is I want them to be able to relate to my characters. (When they're old enough to read my work.)


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Chesterama said:


> I think writing from the male POV is much simpler. Straightforward, less emotional, just simpler. (its ok I'm a woman ha)


Ah, so it's okay for you to say men are simpler beings. Like the hero stuff is because we're like animals, relying on instinct to fulfill the hunter-warrior ro—_*squirrel!*_


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Chesterama said:


> I think writing from the male POV is much simpler. Straightforward, less emotional, just simpler. (its ok I'm a woman ha)


Keep in mind though, this is the other half of that coin. Though they're not the standard, I have met overly emotional men. 

Often, it's the characters outside the norm who make for the best reading. That high-powered female politician or soldier, or maybe the mild-mannered man who runs an orphanage. 

I know the main focus of the thread is on under-represented women in fantasy, but writing characters as unique individuals applies to all.


----------



## Mythopoet

Legendary Sidekick said:


> Ah, so it's okay for you to say men are simpler beings. Like the hero stuff is because we're like animals, relying on instinct to fulfill the hunter-warrior ro—_*squirrel!*_



You know, it's funny because of my 4 older kids, the two girls are much more likely to get distracted than the two boys. The boys tend to get super focused. I can't get my oldest daughter to focus on anything except Naruto to save her life. lol


----------



## Svrtnsse

On the matter of male vs female portrayal of women I'd like to point to something I stumbled across recently. It's an article about women who painted pin-ups. The main article is here: Pin-Up Queens: Three Female Artists Who Shaped the American Dream Girl | Collectors Weekly (it has some images that would have probably been considered raunchy at the time, but they're not worse than what you'd see in a regular music video these days).

The quote that stood out to me was:


> “If you really get into it, you begin to see that women have a different way of portraying women than men do, even when they’re all trying to do something sexy for a pin-up calendar or a magazine,” Meisel says.



Now, what this tells me is that men and women view men and women differently, even if the differences may just be subtle little things. Optionally, it tells me that this persons thought they could see a difference, but since it sort of aligns with my belief on the matter I'll go with the first option.

I quite firmly believe that the world in general treats women and men differently - even in societies generally considered reasonably equal. As such, men and women growing up in the same societies would have slightly different experiences of life and I believe this shapes who they are in different ways.

How much does this matter in the general case then? Perhaps it's not such a big deal. Perhaps it just comes through in the subtler details if you study them hard enough. I think the best you can do is acknowledge that there may be differences and that depending on what you're trying to do, they may or may not need paying attention to.


----------



## Helen

Jorge LourenÃ§o said:


> Or too 'male-centric'? Reading a multiple POV with three men is too much?



If I remember, the early draft episodes of _Seinfeld_ were just about the guys, and then they felt they needed a woman in there, hence Elaine's character was written in. As a woman, I think this is a good thing.

If you look at the Oscar nominees this year, they're all about a male central character - something is out of kilter.


----------



## Fyle

Helen said:


> If you look at the Oscar nominees this year, they're all about a male central character - something is out of kilter.



Something about the Oscars is always out of kilter. 

We all know Moulin Rouge was better than Lord of the Rings, right? Who came to that descision ? Talk about out of kilter.


----------



## Xitra_Blud

The most important thing is to tell a good story. I personally am a bit annoyed by this "strong female character" thing. Not everything has to "empower women". Not every story has to have a strong female character. Not every story has to have a female. The film "the Thing" did not have a single female character in it yet it is, in my opinion, one of the best horror films I've seen. Tell the story the best way that you can tell it (females or not).  You can't keep people from being offended whether you have a female or not. Someone will always find something offensive regardless of what you do. 'That's not to say that when you _do_ have female characters to make them one dimensional but I'm saying to write your story the way you see it in your vision. If that does not involve females that is perfectly fine. I have found that many stories, in my opinion, that try to have strong female characters tend to fail at it. They often focus so much on making a strong female character that the characters just comes out as a "man wanna-be" who has to constantly remind people that she is female but is as tough as the boys. That isn't all the time, but that's a lot of the time. Don't focus on the gender of the characters. Focus on writing a good story.

I'm a female and I don't need a female character to be in a story in order for me to get into it. What I look for is a good story and good characters (regardless of gender).


----------



## Mythopoet

Xitra_Blud said:


> I personally am a bit annoyed by this "strong female character" thing. Not everything has to "empower women". Not every story has to have a strong female character. Not every story has to have a female. The film "the Thing" did not have a single female character in it yet it is, in my opinion, one of the best horror films I've seen.



Likewise with Lawrence of Arabia. I love that movie. Not a single female character. It's just not a story about female characters. And personally, as a woman, I don't see any problem with telling a story that's not about female characters or telling a story that's not about male characters, if that's the story you want to tell.


----------



## Fyle

Xitra_Blud said:


> I personally am a bit annoyed by this "strong female character" thing. Not everything has to "empower women". Not every story has to have a strong female character. Not every story has to have a female.



If I had said this, I would have been reported and had every poster here jump on calling me who knows what... 

Since the thread is 100+ posts in and the OP has not even given feedback based on our heated discussion (at least I don't think he has), can I ask you what you think of Tauriel in the Hobbit movies? 

She is an example similar to what the OP was talking about, his question was different, but along the lines of adding a woman to a story without one because he needed one and didn't have one (maybe you read the OP).


----------



## Mythopoet

Fyle said:


> If I had said this, I would have been reported and had every poster here jump on calling me who knows what...



I don't see why that would be. This has never struck me as the kind of community where that would happen. 

Let me ask a question, if someone wrote a story that had a main cast of all female characters with only male characters in side roles or perhaps no male characters at all, and someone else suggested that one of those main female characters should be swapped out for a male characters, how do you think the community would react? And not just this community, but the general internet community interested in books and writing. I don't think it would go over well. I think that suggestion would likely be called sexist and misogynistic. 

And that's why I get tired of the whole literary feminist bandwagon. Because it tends to be very hypocritical.


----------



## Nimue

_Seriously?_ You can't understand why that might be? Maybe because good female representation is much scarcer on the ground? Perhaps because a guy seeking a reflection would only have to look to literally the next book or franchise over to find a male hero who's powerful and central to his world?

I saw Xitra's post and firmly disagree with it, but I didn't think this thread needed to be revived to repeat things that have already been said. But that's the great thing about the revolving-door arguments on the internet--you can keep asking people to defend the same basic points about gender equality over and over until they get sick of it.  Then you stand uncontested with the last word! Enjoy the feeling, because I really have better things to do with my time.


----------



## Russ

Nimue said:


> _Seriously?_ You can't understand why that might be? Maybe because good female representation is much scarcer on the ground? Perhaps because a guy seeking a reflection would only have to look to literally the next book or franchise over to find a male hero who's powerful and central to his world?



Bingo.

People seem to forget that the whole point of feminism in general, is a recognition that females, as a group, have been discriminated against and disempowered in many complex ways and steps need to be taken to eliminate that discrimination and assist the disempowered community.

The reason people promote diversity and ask questions about if they should add it to their story or not, is because people  think diversity can add value and strength.


----------



## Mythopoet

Nimue said:


> _Seriously?_ You can't understand why that might be? Maybe because good female representation is much scarcer on the ground? Perhaps because a guy seeking a reflection would only have to look to literally the next book or franchise over to find a male hero who's powerful and central to his world?



I didn't say I didn't understand it. But I don't agree with it. And personally I don't care if female representation is scarcer at the moment. The only way to gain true equality going forward is to treat both genders as equal going forward. You can't even the scales of what has come before. You have to focus on the future. Treating female representation as more important than male representation is NOT the way to achieve equality.


----------



## Fyle

Russ said:


> Bingo.
> 
> People seem to forget that the whole point of feminism in general, is a recognition that females, as a group, have been discriminated against and disempowered in many complex ways and steps need to be taken to eliminate that discrimination and assist the disempowered community.




And...

It is not the job of a creative writer to save women from being disempowered. This is a political issue which has little to do with the topic of actual creative process. Plus, it's just a fact of life that men and women have differences and play different roles in society. 

Its obvious to any intelligent person who follows market trends and popular entertainment that for years female representation has been more scarce than male in the past, and _ that has changed over the last 10-20 years quite a bit._ 

I have to argue that this fact is becoming out dated. There are a TON of female leads in movies, books and TV shows these days. Because the playing field is leveling out I take the liberty to argue in favor of writing what you want. Are things 50/50, probably not. But its getting to the point where women have roles as MC or important characters in most major released movies (as far as books, there are just too many for me to say, but I would guess publishers like diversity for the sake of selling to wider audiences in a similar way movie companies do). So, you are fighting a battle which is already won to a large extent.

Again, off topic. This thread is about _changing existing characters to female because you have all males_.


----------



## cupiscent

To be honest, I've been ignoring this thread because it wasn't going anywhere useful. But ho hum, once more around the buoy.

Women are 50% of the population. Until they are 50% of the significant characters in literature, I don't see how there can possibly be an argument against including more.



Fyle said:


> There are a TON of female leads in movies, books and TV shows these days.



Are there? An all-female version of a beloved all-male franchise is announced, and scant months after that announcement, an _all-male version_ is also announced, because apparently having two movies to one in the male:female ratio is just not enough. Not to mention the list of genuine female-led movies is perilously short, especially in a speculative-fiction space. Off the top of my head, in recent years it's Hunger Games, and Jupiter Ascending (which everyone is having fun reviling, so how many more of those do you think are going to be made?).



Fyle said:


> It is not the job of a creative writer to save women from being disempowered. This is a political issue which has little to do with the topic of actual creative process. Plus, it's just a fact of life that men and women have differences and play different roles in society.



I think it's the job of a creative writer to write a society that shows, considers or discusses something about our own. And nothing about the ostensible different roles of the genders in society (which is a societal construct and not the same in all societies) stops you from telling stories involving a variety of genders. Even if you didn't have any characters breaking the expectations on them - and how boring would that be? - that are still a lot of stories and characters to be explored.


----------



## Jabrosky

cupiscent said:


> Are there? An all-female version of a beloved all-male franchise is announced, and scant months after that announcement, an _all-male version_ is also announced, because apparently having two movies to one in the male:female ratio is just not enough. Not to mention the list of genuine female-led movies is perilously short, especially in a speculative-fiction space. Off the top of my head, in recent years it's Hunger Games, and Jupiter Ascending (which everyone is having fun reviling, so how many more of those do you think are going to be made?).


You forgot _Divergent_ and its new sequel.

Whatever may be said of movies, I am pretty sure there are whole shelves stuffed with fiction written by and for women, especially in certain genres. If you think about it, the whole "paranormal romance" subgenre is simply romance (itself a female-dominated genre) married to spec. fiction. Of course the male:female ratio may reverse for more action-packed, militaristic fantasy (e.g. Conan or LotR), but only because we've narrowed our parameters of fantasy to fixate on themes more stereotypically targeted at male readers (and even then, lots of male-targeted media still have Red Sonja or Lara Croft-type heroines). You might as well claim sexism in video games without counting any video game that isn't _Call of Duty_ or _God of War_.


----------



## Gryphos

Fyle said:
			
		

> It is not the job of a creative writer to save women from being disempowered.



Again, it is not the job of a writer to do anything other than write. No writer _has_ to do anything — that's freedom of speech. However, freedom of speech is not freedom from criticism. A writer can write an all male or all female cast if they want, or a story which perpetuates gender roles and stereotypes, but I _will_ criticise them for it.



			
				Fyle said:
			
		

> Plus, it's just a fact of life that men and women have differences and play different roles in society.



Don't you dare get me started on this.

Any differences that exist between men and women exist only in statistical averages over large populations, and almost all are due to social conditioning from being raised different and having different societal experiences. I could point you to several studies which have shown how the very mechanisms of the brain are influenced by our environment. As to 'different roles in society' that's just flat out sexist to men and women. If anyone tries to defend the idea of restrictive gender roles, they are sexist, it's as simple as that.



			
				Jabrosky said:
			
		

> You might as well claim sexism in video games without counting any video game that isn't Call of Duty or God of War.



Sexism is a major issue in the video game industry , as is racism and homophobia. Anyone who disagrees, I will gladly argue against.


----------



## Fyle

Gryphos said:


> Don't you dare get me started on this.
> 
> Any differences that exist between men and women exist only in statistical averages over large populations, and almost all are due to social conditioning from being raised different and having different societal experiences. I could point you to several studies which have shown how the very mechanisms of the brain are influenced by our environment. As to 'different roles in society' that's just flat out sexist to men and women. If anyone tries to defend the idea of restrictive gender roles, they are sexist, it's as simple as that.




Your heart is in the right place, but I for one think its impossible to say men and women are exactly alike and fill the same exact roles. I have thought about this for a long time, and look at things from a non-bias point of view concerning the long run of life. Sad as it is, everything is a number in the end. Numbers say there is a difference, it's more simple than conditioning of the brain.
Is there a BIG difference, no. But there are subtle differences both physical and mental that are undeniable. 

That conversation is impossible to carry on and respect the subject matter of this forum. 

...and please quote my thoughts in a less fragmented fashion. You skipped over a_ very _important point I was getting at about how the times are changing. 

@ On video games real quick, my guess is due to the fact that guys play video games more than girls (or admit and show interest in them), most marketing has been geared to what guys like. 

A lot of this is about money, just like Tauriel was about money, not sticking to the classic tale that helped built the foundation for fantasy writing, but money to sell the maximum amount of ticket stubs and do scribble in crayon on it's pages. The excuse is "oh, there weren't eonugh women in Tolkien's writing. *$*o let's add in a hot elf!" I mean, lets keep some thing sacred. Works on a scale this grand are part of history...


----------



## Russ

> And...
> 
> It is not the job of a creative writer to save women from being disempowered. This is a political issue which has little to do with the topic of actual creative process. Plus, it's just a fact of life that men and women have differences and play different roles in society.



So your argument is that the creative writer is above basic social responsibility?  And good work does not reflect on society and its problems?  Let's extend your logic to the business owner.  It is not the job of the business owner to...and so on.  That means that discrimination just carries on because it is no one's job to confront it.  The idea that the creative writer has less or no social responsibility or gets exempted from social responsibility is kind of facile isn't it?




> Its obvious to any intelligent person who follows market trends and popular entertainment that for years female representation has been more scarce than male in the past, and _ that has changed over the last 10-20 years quite a bit._



Try reading some studies and seeing how many lead roles women get, how many speaking roles women get etc.   There is plenty of data out there and it contradicts your idea.  While there has been progress, if we have moved from women having 10% of the speaking roles to 28%, it is not time to put up our feet and call it a day.



> I have to argue that this fact is becoming out dated. There are a TON of female leads in movies, books and TV shows these days. Because the playing field is leveling out I take the liberty to argue in favor of writing what you want. Are things 50/50, probably not. But its getting to the point where women have roles as MC or important characters in most major released movies (as far as books, there are just too many for me to say, but I would guess publishers like diversity for the sake of selling to wider audiences in a similar way movie companies do). So, you are fighting a battle which is already won to a large extent.



Well that TON is about 12% of protagonists for women in movies.  And that number has been trending down over the last decade:

Women in Hollywood: Study Finds Fewer Lead Roles for Females | Variety


So it simply appears that your opinion is not based on fact.  So if women being grossly underrepresented in lead and speaking roles and being ignored as they age, and portrayed simple as sex objects means the battle is over...I think you missed the whole point of the battle.

I thought the original question was a good one.  How does diversity fit into the writing process.

One is perfectly entitled to put their head in the sand and ignore real social issues when one writes.  I don't think it makes for good or relevant writing though.


----------



## Mythopoet

Russ said:


> So your argument is that the creative writer is above basic social responsibility?



If "social responsibility" equates to "conforming to other people's viewpoint on gender" then yes.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

This debate always heads down this same road because participants forget or ignore two main points:

1) No one is telling any other what they _must_ do in their writing.

The OP questioned whether they should add a female, which shows a level of concern on a societal issue. If that concern exists, it's certainly worth consideration. That's all I've seen from proponents of inclusion, in this thread. 

2) Gender stereotypes, like any other, deal with assumptions about the whole. They're never accurate, especially when applied to individuals.

In this case, the individual is a hypothetical character. Anyone can point to gender differences, like strength & physical endurance, across a whole. Yet, that may not apply to individuals.

I'm quite certain Rhonda Rousey could crack the ribs of most of the male members of Mythic Scribes. She's likely stronger, faster, & certainly more skilled in fighting than any of us. She is not the norm, and therefore she is interesting. She's an individual.    

Whenever you generalize the individual, you do a disservice to the whole. It's a flawed argument.


----------



## Russ

Mythopoet said:


> If "social responsibility" equates to "conforming to other people's viewpoint on gender" then yes.



They don't.  

Same way I don't think social responsibility means you have to conform to other people's view on race.

You are more than welcome to believe that society treats women and men equally, or believe that society treats members of different racial groups equally.

But that does not make your belief a reality, nor does it abrogate either society's or the individual's responsibility to help solve such problems.


----------



## ascanius

I've been lurking around this topic for a while, maybe I should have kept lurking.  We should just create a dedicated subforum for this topic so people can argue without changing anyones opinion.  

Has anyone else noticed that people want diversity in writing but they are the same people who claim that men and women are the same with no pysical or psychological differences.  Doesn't seem diverse to simply pay lip service to vocabulary.  Wouldn't arguing for diversity mean by default that men and women are different?  I mean if we take what some belive to be true that men and women are pretty much exactly the same with trivial small differences and should be written the same, I don't see how adding another women makes it more 'diverse' or gives 'strong female characters.'  The whole idea seems counter productive.  

Just a thought.


----------



## Jabrosky

Mythopoet said:


> If "social responsibility" equates to "conforming to other people's viewpoint on gender" then yes.


The fact of the matter is that no matter what anyone chooses to write, _someone_ out there is going to take offense to it. This is doubly true if your story's theme represents a belief of your own that not everyone out there agrees with---and considering the amazing variety of beliefs people can think up, _any_ stance you take on _anything_ is going to step on someone's mine no matter how maneuverable you think you are.

And it's not just "politically correct" liberals who can take offense at themes in certain books. Any time you have an interracial couple in a story, it will offend racial separatists. Likewise, gay couples will offend homophobes, strong female characters will offend misogynists, and so on. Racism, sexism, and homophobia are still widespread points of view in the larger world even if most people here don't endorse them, and people subscribing to them can take just as much umbrage to contrary opinions as we do to theirs.

Mind you, I am _not_ saying readers don't have the right to dislike your work, or even declare their dislike on an Internet review for all the world to see. Free speech flows both ways. On the other hand, that very same principle of free speech means you don't have to appease or apologize your critics if you don't agree with their criticism. If you earnestly don't believe that your action heroine's skimpy outfit is necessarily "objectifying", or that likening her svelte figure's color to dark cocoa is necessarily racist, then let the trolls whine isolated within their little echo chamber and carry on writing.


----------



## Nimue

God, I can't imagine why anyone would object to comparing a black character's skin to an edible commodity linked to centuries of slavery in a stereotype so common that it's become cliche.  The women of color who are so sick of it that they're written essays about that specific phrase must be trolls, of course.

No, go on drawing exclusively sexualized black women in leopard-skin bikinis making out with white men. You're _earnest_ about it, so it can't be fetishizing.

Don't worry, guys, ethics and social responsibility are optional.  If you're feeling threatened, take a look at the real world.  People get away with all kinds of stuff!


----------



## Jabrosky

Nimue said:


> God, I can't imagine why anyone would object to comparing a black character's skin to an edible commodity linked to centuries of slavery in a stereotype so common that it's become cliche.  The women of color who are so sick of it that they're written essays about that specific phrase must be trolls, of course.
> 
> No, go on drawing exclusively sexualized black women in leopard-skin bikinis making out with white men. You're _earnest_ about it, so it can't be fetishizing.
> 
> Don't worry, guys, ethics and social responsibility are optional.  If you're feeling threatened, take a look at the real world.  People get away with all kinds of stuff!


The thing is, I've seen plenty of black writers describe their own characters as "cocoa" and "cinnamon", and not just the "sexualized" female ones either. I've even seen black women use "swirling" (in reference to chocolate/vanilla swirl ice cream) for interracial dating. Just because a few bloggers on tumblr say food metaphors are taboo for color descriptors doesn't mean their specific opinions represent the "black consensus" (if such even exists) any more than Robert Mugabe or the Nation of Islam. Non-Europeans can have diverse opinions after all.

Though to be fair, "cocoa" references a foodstuff originally from Central America rather than Africa, and I'm all for employing non-cliched descriptors anyway. But then the problem is more overuse than inherent offensiveness.


----------



## Tom

Did you not read the page that Nimue linked to? It is not offensive when PoC writers describe their PoC characters that way because they're PoC themselves. _You're not._


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

ascanius said:


> Has anyone else noticed that people want diversity in writing but they are the same people who claim that men and women are the same with no pysical or psychological differences....Wouldn't arguing for diversity mean by default that men and women are different?



I understand your logic, but I think you're missing the point.   

You write the character as an individual person with unique traits, abilities, ideas, and so on. Does gender have an effect on that character's make-up. Yes, of course it does. However, it's one aspect of many that make a person an individual. Are you totally defined by your gender? I hope not.  

Diversity doesn't always mean 50% women & 50% men. It means writing a varied cast where each character is a distinct individual with motives and agency of their own.  That doesn't mean you have to include a female POV, or gay, or ethnic, or any other. It simply means that you don't limit your cast to narrow stereotypes and acknowledge that the reality of the world is diverse. If you choose to write a story with similar diversity (or any diversity) you should approach your characters as individuals, not characters confined to certain roles because of their genitalia or sexual preference.   

To many readers, living stories through characters different from themselves, in fantastic settings, under momentous events is the lure of fiction. Diversity offers interesting opportunities to expand on just that.   

You the artist, doesn't _have_ to do anything. But, if you're considering a varied cast, write the individual, not the mundane, uninteresting stereotype.   

The are only two things a writer must do: 
1) Be clear 
2) Be interesting  

Diversity in your character cast can be a tool to achieve #2.


----------



## Gryphos

ascanius said:


> I've been lurking around this topic for a while, maybe I should have kept lurking.  We should just create a dedicated subforum for this topic so people can argue without changing anyones opinion.
> 
> Has anyone else noticed that people want diversity in writing but they are the same people who claim that men and women are the same with no pysical or psychological differences.  Doesn't seem diverse to simply pay lip service to vocabulary.  Wouldn't arguing for diversity mean by default that men and women are different?  I mean if we take what some belive to be true that men and women are pretty much exactly the same with trivial small differences and should be written the same, I don't see how adding another women makes it more 'diverse' or gives 'strong female characters.'  The whole idea seems counter productive.
> 
> Just a thought.



From the standpoint I take that psychological differences between men and women are negligible or the result of social conditioning rather than genetics, diversity is still massively important, and I'll explain why.

It's all about social conditioning and subliminal influence. Imagine a young black girl, who grows up being exposed to fiction and media filled with white dudes. White dudes are always the hero who saves the day, white dudes are always the strong one who can fight the forces of evil, white dudes are always important people. This _will_ have an effect on her. She'll grow up thinking, even just subconsciously, that she's not meant to be the hero, that she's not meant to be strong and powerful, that she's not important, all because of her sex and the colour of her skin. That is why diversity is important, to make people feel as though they actually matter in the world, because they do!


----------



## Mythopoet

Russ said:


> They don't.
> 
> Same way I don't think social responsibility means you have to conform to other people's view on race.
> 
> You are more than welcome to believe that society treats women and men equally, or believe that society treats members of different racial groups equally.
> 
> But that does not make your belief a reality, nor does it abrogate either society's or the individual's responsibility to help solve such problems.



First, I never said I think men and women are treated equally at this time. I don't think anyone has. So don't put beliefs in people's mouths.

Second, every single time this topic comes up there are numerous posters who argue vehemently against other posters on the basis that there is disagreement between them when it comes to opinions and beliefs about gender. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Certain individuals cannot tolerate that other individuals see things differently. No matter what the original subject of the thread was about it devolves into a verbal brawl about the posters' personal beliefs, some attacking and some defending. And no good ever comes of it. 

These threads really need to stop getting so out of hand. Some people around here need to just sit back, calm down and accept that some other people don't have the same opinions as them. The last time I checked we were all free to believe that we believe and think what we think and write what we write without being attacked by an angry mob seemingly determined to hammer us over the head with our wrongness. 

This subject is never going to be resolved here, it goes too deep. It's too political for nice conversation. I suggest that threads that veer off into discussions about gender that do not have anything to do specifically with how to deal with it in an actual piece of writing should be closed.


----------



## Gryphos

Mythopoet said:
			
		

> The last time I checked we were all free to believe that we believe and think what we think and write what we write without being attacked by an angry mob seemingly determined to hammer us over the head with our wrongness.



It's called criticism, and nothing and no one is exempt from it, and they cannot use the word 'opinion' as some kind of all-purpose shield. Opinions can be questioned and criticised, and anyone who cannot defend their opinion should wonder why they have that opinion in the first place.


----------



## Russ

Mythopoet said:


> First, I never said I think men and women are treated equally at this time. I don't think anyone has. So don't put beliefs in people's mouths.
> 
> Second, every single time this topic comes up there are numerous posters who argue vehemently against other posters on the basis that there is disagreement between them when it comes to opinions and beliefs about gender. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Certain individuals cannot tolerate that other individuals see things differently. No matter what the original subject of the thread was about it devolves into a verbal brawl about the posters' personal beliefs, some attacking and some defending. And no good ever comes of it.
> 
> These threads really need to stop getting so out of hand. Some people around here need to just sit back, calm down and accept that some other people don't have the same opinions as them. The last time I checked we were all free to believe that we believe and think what we think and write what we write without being attacked by an angry mob seemingly determined to hammer us over the head with our wrongness.
> 
> This subject is never going to be resolved here, it goes too deep. It's too political for nice conversation. I suggest that threads that veer off into discussions about gender that do not have anything to do specifically with how to deal with it in an actual piece of writing should be closed.



I am surprised to see that you suggest we cannot discuss this topic in a writing context considering just how vehemently you post on the issue yourself.


----------



## Jabrosky

Mythopoet said:


> This subject is never going to be resolved here, it goes too deep. It's too political for nice conversation. I suggest that threads that veer off into discussions about gender that do not have anything to do specifically with how to deal with it in an actual piece of writing should be closed.


I'd be lying if I said I was never one of the first to rush into diversity threads like this, but today even I'm getting tired of beating such a fossilized horse. Furthermore, since I've already too many temporary bans on this website, I understand I don't have much more heat to take before I lash out and end up earning a permanent exile from our community. And now that at least one poster has thrown a not-so-subtle barb at my specific character and passions, my heat-proof armor is wearing even thinner.

So yeah, a moratorium on rambling diversity threads would be all right with me.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Mythopoet said:


> This subject is never going to be resolved here, it goes too deep. It's too political for nice conversation. I suggest that threads that veer off into discussions about gender that do not have anything to do specifically with how to deal with it in an actual piece of writing should be closed.


Here's the thing.... The issue doesn't have to be resolved. The discussion can persuade, or not, or  develop different thinking over time through exposure to differences.

If you look back a couple of years into similar threads, you will notice a shift in the way I used to think about this very topic.

I've learned a lot from this community BECAUSE of the differences amongst our members. Over time, I've changed opinions on some issues like diversity inclusion, while others remain the same. The exposure I've been presented with here has made me a better writer. I'm thankful.

Societal issues like gender do have a place in writing discussion. As long as members do not personally attack or offend, there's no problem with discussion, even passionate ones.

The key is to keep an open mind. 

If we can't at least consider the other side of the argument (both sides) then why are we in the argument at all? It also not very persuasive if we're not ourselves willing to be persuaded, or at least, attempt to understand.


----------



## Devor

Gryphos said:


> It's called criticism, and nothing and no one is exempt from it, and they cannot use the word 'opinion' as some kind of all-purpose shield. Opinions can be questioned and criticised, and anyone who cannot defend their opinion should wonder why they have that opinion in the first place.



I'm fairly sure that a community which compels people to "defend" their positions at every turn cannot be called anything but hostile.


----------



## Tom

Jabrosky said:


> And now that at least one poster has thrown a not-so-subtle barb at my specific character and passions, my heat-proof armor is wearing even thinner.
> 
> So yeah, a moratorium on rambling diversity threads would be all right with me.



Firstly, perhaps the "barb" might clue you in that you're doing something wrong? Instead of complaining about criticism, you might want to take a step back and evaluate what you're being criticized for. It may be a revelation.

Secondly, if we never talk about something, never confront it head-on, how is that going to help us in the long run? Discussing diversity (even if the conversations do get a bit snarly here and there) is how diversity is promoted. The best way to kill something is to ignore it, after all.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

This is veering near personal attack, Scribes, which is not condoned.   

If you want to discuss issues like the sexualization of minority women, please do so in a way that isn't pointed toward specific members.


----------



## Gryphos

Devor said:


> I'm fairly sure that a community which compels people to "defend" their positions at every turn cannot be called anything but hostile.



As opposed to what, people never having their opinions questioned and thus nothing ever being learned? If hostility is asking someone why they think something, and then explaining why you disagree, then by all means call me hostile.


----------



## Mythopoet

Gryphos said:


> If hostility is asking someone why they think something, and then explaining why you disagree, then by all means call me hostile.



This is not even close to what goes down in these threads. It may start out as a calm rational discussion, but that doesn't last long. People always end up getting very, very angry and using very harsh language. I'm not claiming that I'm exempt. I know I have a tendency to get heated when I'm passionate about a subject. A lot of people do become hostile in these threads. They do use very barbed language. They do judge each other. I've participated in it and watched it happen. 

If these discussions could stall calm and rational I would be all for them. But it appears to me that sooner rather than later they just end up making the participants angry.


----------



## ArenRax

At my library, when I look for a fantasy novel or just fiction, there are lots of female leads. 

idk about fantasy though.


----------



## Devor

Gryphos said:


> *If hostility is asking* someone why they think something, and then explaining why you disagree, then by all means call me hostile.



Are people interested in _asking_?  I don't get the impression that's what's happening here.


----------



## Mindfire

Mythopoet said:


> This is not even close to what goes down in these threads. It may start out as a calm rational discussion, but that doesn't last long. People always end up getting very, very angry and using very harsh language.


If you think people here get hostile, please stay away from the rest of the internet.  For your own safety. Passions may flare occasionally here, but Mythic Scribes is a veritable bastion of civility, a paragon even.


----------



## Devor

Mindfire said:


> If you think people here get hostile, please stay away from the rest of the internet.  For your own safety. Passions may flare occasionally here, but Mythic Scribes is a veritable bastion of civility, a paragon even.



That is quite true - and I apologize if my last two posts made it look that I thought otherwise.  That's not where I wanted to take my remarks.

I'm just a little leery of seeing anybody singled out while they're mostly behaving.  That seems to venture into hostility, which we don't want here, whatever the opinions in question might be.


----------



## Russ

Part of the problem is that people like to speak from impressions which are coloured from their worldview that turn out to be factually wrong, and don't like being told that they are factually wrong.

But the issue is being discussed in many places right now.  That would include such tiny little places like the Atlantic, or the New Statesman.  

It's Frustratingly Rare to Find a Novel About Women That's Not About Love Ã¢â‚¬” The Atlantic

I hate Strong Female Characters

Or even on the Tor.com website.

Writing Women Characters as Human Beings | Tor.com

Oh No, She DidnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t: The Strong Female Character, Deconstructed | Tor.com

Historically Authentic Sexism in Fantasy. LetÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Unpack That. | Tor.com

You know like *Tor*.


Mark Laurence took some time to address it as well and make some very interesting points:

http://mark---lawrence.blogspot.ca/2014/12/the-big-three-oh-oh-oh-oh.html

As do his detractors:

http://feministfiction.com/2015/01/05/yet-more-on-female-characters-in-fantasy/

Surely if the topic is of interest and value to the wider publishing/writing/reading world, it can be dealt with here?


----------



## Tom

Thank you for all those resources.


----------



## Velka

Many parts of this thread remind me of Joss Whedon's _Equality Now_ speech, which is basically summed up by:

"So, why do you write these strong female characters?"

"Because you’re still asking me that question."


----------



## Tom

Ha, I love that. One of my friends actually asked me that question once. I replied, "Because women can be complex characters too."


----------



## Fyle

Russ said:


> Part of the problem is that people like to speak from impressions which are coloured from their worldview that turn out to be factually wrong, and don't like being told that they are factually wrong.
> 
> But the issue is being discussed in many places right now.  That would include such tiny little places like the Atlantic, or the New Statesman.



There is nothing to be factually wrong about here. The thread at heart is about changing an exsisting male character to a female. 

It is factual correct that men and women do have differences - even if the only place we agree is physically, that still makes us different. Plus, physical differences factually come along with side effects that alter mood.

This thread is not about representation of female characters in fantasy. It is about giving and exsisting character a sex change. What you get at Russ, is for Chit Chat.


----------



## cupiscent

Jabrosky said:


> Whatever may be said of movies, I am pretty sure there are whole shelves stuffed with fiction written by and for women, especially in certain genres.



It's not just important for women to have stories about women. It's important for everyone to have stories about women. That's how we know they're people too.


----------



## Jabrosky

Mindfire said:


> If you think people here get hostile, please stay away from the rest of the internet.  For your own safety. Passions may flare occasionally here, but Mythic Scribes is a veritable bastion of civility, a paragon even.


Not to mention the differences in opinion aren't even that stark here relative to other forums. Even our resident "conservatives", like Legendary Sidekick or Mythopoet, would seem positively progressive compared with the likes of Stormfront, Return of Kings, or Free Republic. And while I might come across as the insensitive Straight White Male here on MS, on many other message boards I'm one of the resident anti-racist liberals fighting against the white supremacists white nationalists valiant scholars of "human biodiversity" crusading against the Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white race PC multiculturalism. I've even been accused of espousing black supremacism through "turning ancient figures into n*ggas".

Point is, >90% of us here at Mythic Scribes agree that racism, sexism, homophobia, and other anti-egalitarian ideologies are morally reprehensible. The disagreements between us amount to little more than hair-splitting over precisely what is or isn't offensive (or "problematic" to use current jargon), or maybe perceptions of who is and isn't privileged and how to deal with it. The abundance of wacko that pervades the rest of the Internet is in short supply here, presumably because we fantasy writers have more imagination and intelligence than most Internet wackos.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Jabrosky said:


> our resident "conservatives", like Legendary Sidekick


And here I thought I earned all that feminist author creed with my Huntress MC.

Say… what's that in the sky? Is that a valkyrie in non-revealing armor?

[Escapes in pick up truck with NOBAMA sticker.]


----------



## Jabrosky

Legendary Sidekick said:


> And here I thought I earned all that feminist author creed with my Huntress MC.
> 
> Say… what's that in the sky? Is that a valkyrie in non-revealing armor?
> 
> [Escapes in pick up truck with NOBAMA sticker.]


Sorry, I was merely recalling things you've said in another MS thread from a few years back.


----------



## ascanius

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I understand your logic, but I think you're missing the point.
> 
> You write the character as an individual person with unique traits, abilities, ideas, and so on. Does gender have an effect on that character's make-up. Yes, of course it does. However, it's one aspect of many that make a person an individual. Are you totally defined by your gender? I hope not.



I got the point, I was simply commenting on the conflicting logic.  What you call diverse T.Allen.Smith, I call good writing and that I uderstand.  



Gryphos said:


> From the standpoint I take that psychological differences between men and women are negligible or the result of social conditioning rather than genetics, diversity is still massively important, and I'll explain why.



This is what I was getting at.  How can you have diversity without first acknowledging that men and women are different, think differently, act differently, and are biologically different.  If a female character is written with the belief that male and female are not different how can it be diverse, it seems more like a skin game for marketing purposes.  There are hundreds of things that make men and women different that make great things to write about.  



Gryphos said:


> It's all about social conditioning and subliminal influence. Imagine a young black girl, who grows up being exposed to fiction and media filled with white dudes. White dudes are always the hero who saves the day, white dudes are always the strong one who can fight the forces of evil, white dudes are always important people. This _will_ have an effect on her. She'll grow up thinking, even just subconsciously, that she's not meant to be the hero, that she's not meant to be strong and powerful, that she's not important, all because of her sex and the colour of her skin. That is why diversity is important, to make people feel as though they actually matter in the world, because they do!



So I was going to ask my little sister (who is a young black girl in a rascist small town highschool) this very question after I read this post but no one is answereing the phone.  I'll let you know what she says when I get ahold of her.  Though I think I have a pretty good idea and I don't think she is going to agree with you.  I'm also certain that when i ask her about adding so called 'diversity' for the sake of political correctness, or sales, or because it's not diverse enough she will tell me 'that's dumb.'




Russ said:


> Part of the problem is that people like to speak from impressions which are coloured from their worldview that turn out to be factually wrong, and don't like being told that they are factually wrong.



I totally agree with this statment, sorta.  I would like to add, the biggest problem about these converstations are how internet blog posts, essays, and op-eds are substituted for scientific empirical evidence.  I'm not going to link to the great swaths of neurological and psychological research that support my points. Whats the point no one ever reads them or they link to a blog post as counter evidence.  Thats the problem. Very few are willing to take empirical evidence, evaluate it and judge it on it's merrits with the belief that maybe, just maybe they don't know everything and someone else is right.  In the end it's these mostly devolve to I'm right your wrong simply because I say so, like simply averring makes one right.

All that being said.  I do know my sister would like more black female characters who are dealing with the things a young black girl is dealing with.  I also know she would rather read about such characters who the author felt passionate about including into the story, not because they felt obligated too.  Or characters who have enough depth that you cannot simply switch them from male to female by changing a few pronouns.  Heck I would read those books even if I'm not a big fan of historical fiction, I'm still trying to convert her.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

You're not wrong, and I'm not offended. Maybe a little flattered, especially given that I don't make political comments.

If anything concerned me, it was in my response. I was worried my sticker joke might backfire and there'd be a heated political discussion.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

ascanius said:


> I also know she would rather read about such characters who the author felt passionate about including into the story


This^ comment makes up for that sad moment of embarrassment I felt when my little comment was ninja'd by your big one.

Yes, this is why I write female MCs. It's not because they're female or because the world needs or wants female characters. It's because I enjoy these particular characters I came up with, and I want to draw them and write them!


----------



## Devor

Legendary Sidekick said:


> You're not wrong, and I'm not offended. Maybe a little flattered, especially given that I don't make political comments.



I was trying to decide if I should feel offended for _not_ making the list.


----------



## Mythopoet

I'm not offended as long as you don't mean "conservative" in the political sense. I dislike all political groups and don't associate myself with any of them. No, I'm not really offended. I'm too much of a loud mouth about my beliefs and opinions to have any right to be offended.


----------



## cupiscent

Legendary Sidekick said:


> Yes, this is why I write female MCs. It's not because they're female or because the world needs or wants female characters. It's because I enjoy these particular characters I came up with, and I want to draw them and write them!



Yes. So when I see people saying things like, "I just don't think of female characters", it's hard not to read that as "because women aren't interesting (to me)". Which is hard not to take personally.


----------



## Devor

cupiscent said:


> Yes. So when I see people saying things like, "I just don't think of female characters", it's hard not to read that as "because women aren't interesting (to me)". Which is hard not to take personally.



Out of curiosity, has anybody said that here, or is that from another community?


----------



## Mythopoet

cupiscent said:


> Yes. So when I see people saying things like, "I just don't think of female characters", it's hard not to read that as "because women aren't interesting (to me)". Which is hard not to take personally.



So you impute your own assumed meaning onto something someone else says and then you take offense to it? That's pretty messed up.


----------



## cupiscent

Devor said:


> Out of curiosity, has anybody said that here, or is that from another community?



There have been comments in this thread and other discussions of this nature in this community where arguments are made that the characters "just show up" a certain way, and also that authors should follow their instincts and inclinations in making characters (and not change the genders to female, by which one assumes the characters are male to start with).



Mythopoet said:


> So you impute your own assumed meaning onto something someone else says and then you take offense to it? That's pretty messed up.



A) I laid out my logic, and it seems relatively straightforward to me. I am very open to hearing alternative explanations.
B) The question has been asked as to why people take this sort of issue personally, so I am explaining.
C) I am simply saying that this is how I feel. It's more dispiriting than offensive, to be honest.


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## Tom

Mythopoet said:


> So you impute your own assumed meaning onto something someone else says and then you take offense to it? That's pretty messed up.



That is not messed up, it's how we as thinking beings form opinions and associations with other ideas. That "messed up" idea is a big part of psychology. Inserting ideas--whether your own or implied by the speaker or writer themselves--into others' words is also called reading subtext. 

This "messed up" psychological response can also be the result of social conditioning--"not thinking of female characters" translates to "not interested in female characters" because a lifetime of social interactions have reinforced the mentality behind it. 

Mythopoet, honestly, if you're going to take personal offense at everything anyone says, why do you join these discussions?


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## Devor

cupiscent said:


> There have been comments in this thread and other discussions of this nature in this community where arguments are made that the characters "just show up" a certain way, and also that authors should follow their instincts and inclinations in making characters (and not change the genders to female, by which one assumes the characters are male to start with).
> 
> 
> 
> A) I laid out my logic, and it seems relatively straightforward to me. I am very open to hearing alternative explanations.
> B) The question has been asked as to why people take this sort of issue personally, so I am explaining.
> C) I am simply saying that this is how I feel. It's more dispiriting than offensive, to be honest.



This seems very disingenuous to me.  For instance, I know LS said that characters pop into his head fully formed, but he also writes with a lot of female characters and talks about it often.  I'm not sure if I've said something close or not - I don't remember anymore - but I include a number of female characters.

If somebody says "This is how I make characters, they come to me straight away and I don't want to change them" and you're jumping to "I don't think of writing women" and still further to "I don't find women interesting," and then getting disgusted by that, then I think you have to really consider whether you're being fair to the real people you're talking to here.


((edit))  I haven't slept in two days and somehow read "dispiriting" as "disgusting."  I'm not sure how else that mistake on my part may have played into this post.  I apologize for that.


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## Devor

Tom Nimenai said:


> That is not messed up, it's how we as thinking beings form opinions and associations with other ideas. That "messed up" idea is a big part of psychology. Inserting ideas--whether your own or implied by the speaker or writer themselves--into others' words is also called reading subtext.



Err . . . . most evidence suggests that we're actually really, really bad at reading subtext, and that it's one of the ways that most of our biases - including stereotypes - come out in our behavior.

Case in point:



> This "messed up" psychological response can also be the result of social conditioning--"not thinking of female characters" translates to "not interested in female characters" because a lifetime of social interactions have reinforced the mentality behind it.



You think she's responding that way because she's been socially conditioned?  What?

((edit)) 

Where does it stop?  Now we're projecting social conditioning onto people who didn't even say the supposed remark?  The layers of "subtext" are getting ever deeper and murkier here.  

Geesh, I should maybe call it a night already.




> Mythopoet, honestly, if you're going to take personal offense at everything anyone says, why do you join these discussions?



Why do you feel compelled to push people who disagree with you _out_​ of the conversation?


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## Legendary Sidekick

cupiscent said:


> There have been comments in this thread and other discussions of this nature in this community where arguments are made that the characters "just show up" a certain way, and also that authors should follow their instincts and inclinations in making characters (and not change the genders to female, by which one assumes the characters are male to start with).


The greatest misunderstanding on this thread is that the message on either side of the argument was to marginalize female characters, though it's understandable it may have come off that way.

I was originally of the mindset that gender-swapping isn't a good approach, and part of my reasoning was that one doing that is basically thinking of a male character and changing the pronoun as part of an afterthought.

But that was a misunderstanding too…

As I stated earlier, I think the difference of opinion there stems from the creative process. For some of us (like me), characters are dreamed up as vivid images, making it not impossible but certainly undesirable to change the gender. That's how I create characters, so to change the gender would be silly for me because of my process. My female characters are never male-turned-female; they're just female.

For one who creates a character another way, such as coming up with a role to be filled, "Sir Knight" could become "Lady Knight" or "Queen Ironfist" could become "King Ironfist." To someone who creates that way, it must seem very silly that others _can't_ or _won't_ change a character's gender.


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## ascanius

cupiscent said:


> There have been comments in this thread and other discussions of this nature in this community where arguments are made that the characters "just show up" a certain way, and also that authors should follow their instincts and inclinations in making characters (and not change the genders to female, by which one assumes the characters are male to start with).
> 
> 
> 
> A) I laid out my logic, and it seems relatively straightforward to me. I am very open to hearing alternative explanations.


Yeah but your logic is a straight forward personal apeal to 'your' emotion.  Your acting like others have an obligation to cater to your insecurities.  We cannot control how you precieve what others say, thats all on you.  


cupiscent said:


> B) The question has been asked as to why people take this sort of issue personally, so I am explaining.


Yeah but your also taking it way out of context, so they didn't include a female character it doesn't mean they automatically think "women are not important' your making assumptions based off your, heck I don't know what, but it is not logic



cupiscent said:


> C) I am simply saying that this is how I feel. It's more dispiriting than offensive, to be honest.



Ok but we don't have any control over how you feel, and expecting others to simply know and cater to how you feel is offensive.  It's one thing to explain why, and ask questions it's another to simply extrapolate and be upset at the results.



Tom Nimenai said:


> That is not messed up, it's how we as thinking beings form opinions and associations with other ideas. That "messed up" idea is a big part of psychology. Inserting ideas--whether your own or implied by the speaker or writer themselves--into others' words is also called reading subtext.



Yeah it is messed up.  How is inserting your extrapolations based off your emotional state and being upset by the implications not messed up.  That talks more about serious psychological trust issues than anything else. I get the impression i'm walking into a trap by responding to this. 



Tom Nimenai said:


> This "messed up" psychological response can also be the result of social conditioning--"not thinking of female characters" translates to "not interested in female characters" because a lifetime of social interactions have reinforced the mentality behind it.



thats not social conditioning thats...  So does that mean if your friend doesn't call they don't like you or they are mad at you?  Thats the logic being used, take a statment, extrapolate to have adverse affects on you and you are unappy with the implications.




Tom Nimenai said:


> Mythopoet, honestly, if you're going to take personal offense at everything anyone says, why do you join these discussions?



I'll be honest sometimes I can't tell if your joking or not.  Mythopoet didn't take Personal offense to it. you two did.


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## Mindfire

Jabrosky said:


> Not to mention the differences in opinion aren't even that stark here relative to other forums. Even our resident "conservatives", like Legendary Sidekick or Mythopoet, would seem positively progressive compared with the likes of-



Oh for heaven's sake, why did you bring them up? Now this site is going to show up in Google searches for those keywords. And worse, you've given them free publicity! Do you understand the horror and madness you have unleashed by typing those demonic names? DO YOU?


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## cupiscent

I am not offended. I am not disgusted. I have never claimed to be either. I outlined a breed of remarks that I have some personal difficulty with, but I have never suggested anyone should stop making such remarks, cater to my insecurities (thank you), act or write in a particular way. How I feel is how I feel. How you feel about it is how you feel about it. Neither one invalidates the other one.

All I have ever suggested, in this or any other discussion of this nature, is that it would be great if people thought a little more about the decisions they were possibly unconsciously making in the creation of their characters. And all I really want to know is why there aren't equal numbers of significant male and female characters in media, specifically spec-fic media.


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## ascanius

cupiscent said:


> I am not offended. I am not disgusted. I have never claimed to be either. I outlined a breed of remarks that I have some personal difficulty with, but I have never suggested anyone should stop making such remarks, cater to my insecurities (thank you), act or write in a particular way. How I feel is how I feel. How you feel about it is how you feel about it. Neither one invalidates the other one.
> 
> All I have ever suggested, in this or any other discussion of this nature, is that it would be great if people thought a little more about the decisions they were possibly unconsciously making in the creation of their characters. And all I really want to know is why there aren't equal numbers of significant male and female characters in media, specifically spec-fic media.



Some of us do think a good long bit, we each have are own ways of doing things.  I've had characters pop into my head with no trouble, they are usually the ones I love, it's the ones I really have to think about that never feel right/ never get the good depth the others do.  As to the other question, I don't have an answer.e


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## Tom

ascanius said:


> Yeah it is messed up.  How is inserting your extrapolations based off your emotional state and being upset by the implications not messed up.  That talks more about serious psychological trust issues than anything else. I get the impression i'm walking into a trap by responding to this.
> 
> thats not social conditioning thats...  So does that mean if your friend doesn't call they don't like you or they are mad at you?  Thats the logic being used, take a statment, extrapolate to have adverse affects on you and you are unappy with the implications.
> 
> I'll be honest sometimes I can't tell if your joking or not.  Mythopoet didn't take Personal offense to it. you two did.



1st paragraph: It's what you, and many people who have responded to this thread (including me), did when we read the posts. Like it or not, we humans do not have a crystal-clear view of the world. Everything we take in is filtered through our own thoughts and sensations. We have emotional responses for a reason--because certain words and phrases will trigger that emotion. 

2nd paragraph: Jesus, how on earth did you get that comparison? Do you even know what social conditioning _is?_ The comparison you're using has nothing to do with social conditioning. It has more to do with codependency issues, which is a completely unrelated topic.

I brought up social conditioning because in a society like ours, women are under-represented in a lot of media. So it's a logical psychological response to think that "I don't think about female characters" means "female characters aren't interesting"--simply because that's the climate of the society you live in. 

3rd paragraph: How do you interpret personal offense? Because calling another person's opinion "messed up" seems to fit the bill pretty nicely to me.


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## Legendary Sidekick

I think this thread's been exhausted at this stage. A lot of good points have been made, but there's also passion which is turning into heated argument. How about we quit while we're ahead?


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