Writing from the Female POV

[Feo Takahari]

No, I'm saying that it's literally a survival skill to be able to understand men enough to be able to predict a stranger's behaviour. Is this unknown man in the train carriage with you likely to attack you now the other passengers have got off? (In which case relocating to a different carriage might be a good thing.) Are those youths the happy drunk types or the 'lets have some fun with this lone woman' types? (In which case the benefits of taking the long way home to avoid them outweigh the risks of taking longer to get home.) Is this drunk guy going to back down or is he going to glass me? This situation is getting hairy, is it time to back down myself in order to defuse it?

At work and at home, you can get to know individuals well enough to adjust your understanding of how they behave to take in their individual personalities. With strangers you don't have that degree of fine calibration.

A bit off-topic, but I think to some degree, women are (or at least were) taught the wrong survival techniques. There was a time when we had a lot of media attention focused on the idea of evil strangers who wanted to rape women, and barely any focused on rape by friends and acquaintances (which is vastly more common.) That's starting to change now, but we're still getting all sorts of weird messages I'm not sure are backed up (e.g. "Dressing slutty is asking for trouble", even though I've never even heard of a study of how clothing affects the likelihood of rape.) I'm not entirely sure these messages can be used to create or develop male characters without just furthering more misguided ideas.

(To be fair, I'm male, and I've never been in a situation where someone might suspect that I was going to get raped. However, I did once pick up a hitchhiker who was a tall, dreadlocked, informally dressed black man who turned out to be an ex-marijuana dealer. He was harmless, and I enjoyed his company.)

 

[Ophiucha]

I agree with the political aspect of Alex's post, but I'm going to focus on the literary point because I empathize quite heavily with that. It took me years to learn how to write female characters because I just hadn't read enough work written with female protagonists who got a lot of characterization. Yes, yes, write what you know, women are people, blah blah, etc., etc.. That's an excellent approach in theory but it's hard to deny how much of an influence what we read has on our writing, and - as somebody who reads primarily fantasy literature - I just hadn't read enough female characters to really get how to write them. It wasn't until I started seeking out, actively, female protagonists that I really got a grasp on it; and I don't necessarily think my female characters are much like the ones in the books I've read, they are generally more homely and romantic than the badass lady warriors of most lady-headed fantasy novels, but it was like there was a gap in my abilities that I just couldn't fill until I'd sought out those works.

I had the same problem with gay romance despite being bisexual. And I think reading more work with protagonists of colour has helped me write those characters better as well, though I am white so I wouldn't like to judge. For what it's worth, this applies to everything - not just social issues. I had difficulty writing science fiction until I sat down and started reading a lot of hard science fiction and getting myself immersed in the genre. While women and men (and every other group of potentially divided people) are inherently the same, the omnipresence of the white, straight, cisgender male protagonist kind of... normalizes the human experience as something designed for that character, and when most of what I read only had non-white, non-male, non-cis/het characters serving some token role, no amount of conscious recognition of the difference really helped me get over that sort of learned stereotyping. It took a lot of excellent literature and a bit of fighting on my part to really overcome some of these things.

 

[Alex Beecroft]

Alex, even looking at it from a survival standpoint, you're still only working with a likelihood of what a male might do. Not all males act the same in any given circumstance, so you base your actions on risk or likelihood and the potential harm that can result. It makes sense, when dealing with unknowns.

But your characters are not unknowns, nor at they statistical likelihoods. They're individuals. Writing a male or female based on how you think it is likely a male or female reacts means you have an underdeveloped character. Develop her further and you can base her reactions on what she would do as a person, not on some over-broad statistical generalization of how women are supposed to think and behave.

Oh, God, yes. I've never been saying, at all, that you should write your character to some kind of stereotype of what 'a man' or 'a woman' is, because frankly I've never met any individual who fitted the stereotypes, and I suspect I wouldn't like them if I did. I don't actually believe there's much if any difference between men and women except from what comes from the different expectations set on them by society. If I'm writing a male or a female character, I do exactly the same thing - I figure out what they want, give them a family & backstory, decide where they fall on the Myers-Briggs personality type, give them a problem to solve, let them go and find out what happens next.

 

[Alex Beecroft]

A bit off-topic, but I think to some degree, women are (or at least were) taught the wrong survival techniques. There was a time when we had a lot of media attention focused on the idea of evil strangers who wanted to rape women, and barely any focused on rape by friends and acquaintances (which is vastly more common.) That's starting to change now, but we're still getting all sorts of weird messages I'm not sure are backed up (e.g. "Dressing slutty is asking for trouble", even though I've never even heard of a study of how clothing affects the likelihood of rape.) I'm not entirely sure these messages can be used to create or develop male characters without just furthering more misguided ideas.

(To be fair, I'm male, and I've never been in a situation where someone might suspect that I was going to get raped. However, I did once pick up a hitchhiker who was a tall, dreadlocked, informally dressed black man who turned out to be an ex-marijuana dealer. He was harmless, and I enjoyed his company.)

But you looked at that guy and you immediately performed a character evaluation on him before you picked him up (even though you may not have been doing it consciously.) You looked at him and had to decide whether or not he was going to be dangerous. Because I'm not really talking just about rape here. He could have been mad/drunk/coked up and intent on taking your money and car at gun point. You had to make the snap decision that no, he looks like a perfectly decent guy who's just trying to get somewhere. That's what I mean about the ability to predict men's behaviour. Not that you do it via stereotype, but that you do it via a process of fine judgement you're probably not even aware of, which you have honed over a lifetime of being in potentially unsafe situations.

Are you telling me you've never been in a bar when some guy kicked off and you had to decide whether you could intervene or you should call the police? Or you've never had some bloke get in your face because you looked at him funny? The ability to get out of such situations with your life/your teeth intact as opposed to saying exactly the wrong thing depends on good judgement of what kind of a man he is, what kind of an approach will be successful/conciliatory, how drunk he is, how many friends he has with him and what they seem to think of his behaviour... etc.

All of which amounts to an understanding of the way men behave in tense social situations, depending on the power balance of the situation, their apparent character, the presence or absence of intoxicants, the presence or absence of a crowd and so forth.

Again, I'm not talking stereotypes. I'm talking about an ability to read social situations in a way that doesn't get you beaten up. It's a learned skill, and it's a very useful skill for a writer to have if they want to write fight scenes at all believably. Why didn't so and so back down? What was the trigger that pushed this situation into violence?

Look at the movie Thor, for example. Everyone knows that when the Jotun calls Thor 'princess' all chance of peaceful negotiations are over. But why does everyone know that? It's because we know he's the kind of man who could not walk away from that kind of insult. How do we know that? Because we're good judges of what will cause men to become violent. Why are we good judges of that? Because it's something we (and by 'we' I mean all humans) need to know to avoid getting our heads kicked in.

 

[Mindfire]

Because obviously it could never be to anyone's strategic advantage to know what makes a woman angry. Amirite?

 

[glutton]

Because obviously it could never be to anyone's strategic advantage to know what makes a woman angry. Amirite?

No, because women are never any sort of physical threat whatsoever.

*In case it isn't clear, that was SARCASM, folks.

 

[Mindfire]

Yeah. And it's not like knowing these things is helpful in relationships or anything.

(more sarcasm)

 

[Chilari]

Let's move this away from the snark and unpleasantness, please. It's not condusive to rational debate, it's a tactic to discredit an oppositing position without having to put your own experiences and opinions in the line of fire.

I'll mirror what Ophiucha said about learning to write female characters: I struggled for a long time, because I'd never read many female protagonists. They were always the princess who needed rescuing, the sexual reward for the hero's victory, or, occasionally, the villain. Never the protagonist. Never the platonic best friend. Never someone whose perspective was important. I thought for a long while I could not write female characters. Even now I draw more heavily on myself and the women I know than I do on female characters I've read.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Are you telling me you've never been in a bar when some guy kicked off and you had to decide whether you could intervene or you should call the police? Or you've never had some bloke get in your face because you looked at him funny? The ability to get out of such situations with your life/your teeth intact as opposed to saying exactly the wrong thing depends on good judgement of what kind of a man he is, what kind of an approach will be successful/conciliatory, how drunk he is, how many friends he has with him and what they seem to think of his behaviour... etc.

Maybe this is a matter of different social groups. I have never in my life been attacked, been seriously threatened with attack, or even seen someone attack someone else outside of TV and video games. People have tried to intimidate me a few times, but I've never had reason to take them seriously, or to expect that their attacking me would not have social and legal repercussions.

To be fair, what you are saying is indeed useful in writing a "hardscrabble" sort of character.

P.S. For what it's worth, all but one person who's ever threatened me with physical violence has been female.

 

[glutton]

I'll mirror what Ophiucha said about learning to write female characters: I struggled for a long time, because I'd never read many female protagonists. They were always the princess who needed rescuing, the sexual reward for the hero's victory, or, occasionally, the villain. Never the protagonist. Never the platonic best friend. Never someone whose perspective was important. I thought for a long while I could not write female characters. Even now I draw more heavily on myself and the women I know than I do on female characters I've read.

This seems a little surprising, aren't there tons of fantasy books out there with female lead characters? Or are they not in the type of stories you guys want to read?

 

[Feo Takahari]

This seems a little odd, aren't there tons of fantasy books out there with female lead characters? Or are they not in the type of stories you guys want to read?

Challenge: name a fantasy story that isn't in a contemporary setting, isn't either "feminist fantasy" or "fantasy romance", is well-written, and has a female character as the primary protagonist (not the sidekick or love interest.)

Hard mode: name one not by Tamora Pierce. (Anne McCaffrey doesn't count, since her stuff's closer to sci-fi. Andre Norton or Mercedes Lackey might, if you're willing to call them good writers. Piers Anthony probably doesn't.)

(To be fair, you can easily remove condition one or two while fulfilling the other three.)

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Best Served Cold - Joe Abercrombie

Primary Character: Monzarro "Monza" Murcatto

Didn't really even have to think about it...(okay I read it a couple months ago but still...).

 

[Mindfire]

Define "primary protagonist". In Furies of Calderon, the first book of the Codex Alera, the first character we meet is Amara, a female cursor (imperial spy) in training, and she is arguably the books main character, or at least one of the most important characters, although Tavi becomes the obvious Main Character as the series progresses.

But if Amara doesn't count, Brian Jacques's Redwall books have had several females who are indisputably the primary protagonist. Heck, some of them have their names in the title!

Mariel of Redwall- Mariel Gullwhacker
The Bellmaker- Mariel Gullwhaker
The Pearls of Lutra- Grath Longfletch (Don't let the name fool you. Grath is female.)
Marlfox- Songbreeze Swifteye
Triss- Triss
High Rhulain- Tiria Wildlough

Now it's been a while since I've read these, so I'm not sure about Bellmaker and Marlfox, but I'm positive that the others have the female characters I just mentioned as primaries.

 

[Mindfire]

Also, the Enchanted Forest Chronicles books, by Patricia C. Wrede. And Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett. And also Dragon and Phoenix by Joanne Bertin.

 

[glutton]

isn't either "feminist fantasy"

Doesn't seem like it should disqualify a story and is nebulous...

is well-written

Completely subjective...

The Book of Ash by Mary Gentle and Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon would certainly qualify off the top of my head, as would Allan Cole's The Warrior's Tale and The Warrior Returns, or Matthew Stover's Iron Dawn and Jericho Moon, and these are just 'my' specific type of preferred female leads, I'm sure you can find many more with non-warrior ie. spellcaster etc. type leads that I'm not as into; also shouldn't books with a group of main POV characters count when one of the POVs is female?

Also my self-promo urges are acting up lol.

 

[glutton]

but I've never had reason to take them seriously, or to expect that their attacking me would not have social and legal repercussions.

You've been lucky then since people who are prone to real violence often don't let the possibility of 'future' social and legal repercussions deter them. Since this thread is about gender females can certainly be this way too, a little while back there was a young woman in the UK who killed a man with a punch (he hit his head on the ground after being dropped) after he tried to chase her friend who had robbed him, although statistically I'm sure such behavior is more common among men... but in any case, people who are actually willing to throw fists (or use weapons) will often do it in spite of such physically flimsy barriers as laws. I've had people try to mug me several times without me ever looking for a fight.

And I imagine in many fantasy settings there will be more openly brutish people walking around than in our society.

 

[Steerpike]

Yeah the Paksenarrion books are great. Actually, there are tons of mainstream fantasies with female MCs (and not set in modern times). You're right about that.

 

[glutton]

Yeah the Paksenarrion books are great. Actually, there are tons of mainstream fantasies with female MCs (and not set in modern times). You're right about that.

I'm always surprised when people still say these days that they have trouble finding female-led fantasy - are they only looking at Tolkien-style epic fantasy (I don't go for that kind of stuff so I couldn't say if that still had a shortage of female leads)?

 

[Chilari]

Best Served Cold - Joe Abercrombie

Primary Character: Monzarro "Monza" Murcatto

Didn't really even have to think about it...(okay I read it a couple months ago but still...).

Publication date 2010. For me, looking for something with a female protagonist when I was in secondary school from 1999 to 2006, that doesn't help.

In my school's library, there were three Tamora Pierce books (the second and fourth of one series, the third of another) and no other fantasy books with female protagonists. This in a girls' school in the early 2000s. Sure, there were the Redwall books, but I don't remember any of those having a female protagonist (maybe some of them did, maybe my school didn't have them, maybe I forgot, but still most had male protagonists). Since the school library was my primary method of finding new stuff to read at that time, and my pocket money amounted to £1.30 a week when I was 13, £1.40 when I was 14 and so on, I didn't have a huge amount to spend on books (I managed to save up for a Pratchett at £7.99 every few months; the rest went on sweets).

There is, quite simply, much less on offer featuring female leads than male leads. There's a lot more in the last few years than there was when I was growing up, but it's still a massive imbalance.

And for the record, I read every single fantasy book my school library had. Every single one. Many of them twice. Literally hundreds of books. When I ran out in about 2004 (by which time the pocket money situation had changed), I started spending all my pocket money on books and I read a fair chunk of my local library's fantasy offerings too. The only female-led books I read were a few Tamora Pierce books, a couple of Pratchetts, and potentially a couple of the Redwall books. 1 or 2% of everything I read.

 

[glutton]

Since the school library was my primary method of finding new stuff to read at that time

This is a specific situation and different from saying there is a lack of female led fantasy available in general though... I'm sure if you looked on Amazon you could find enough female led fantasy to only read it and nothing else.