A woman you can believe in

[Steerpike]

I want to go back to the original topic though. I think writing women doesn't have to be much different than writing men. I don't really treat it much differently myself. If the only thing a reader is thinking about a woman character is "she's not believable" then she must not be a very interesting character. Cool characters are cool characters, regardless of their gender.

This is my approach as well.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I've seen it observed (most clearly by Jesu Otaku in her review of Paradise Kiss) that even if your character's base personality doesn't change, you should keep in mind what social pressures your character reacts to. Maybe she doesn't like to act feminine, but if she's encouraged to act feminine, in what ways does she accept or reject this?

 

[The Dark One]

While I don't support banning certain topics, I do hope people will employ more tact. It was odd that one poster mentioned a bad experience. The next poster essentially disagrees with the entire post, says sometimes rape is funny, and then goes on to talk about the importance of context of all things.

For a start, the context of literature as opposed to the context of real life.

 

[rhd]

Peter Griffin after getting buggered in prison: 'Now all my farts sound like the wind.'

Meg after getting captured by home invaders: 'Are you going to have your way with me now? ...I won't scream or anything.'
Robber: 'No, oh god no.'

Rape can be funny. As anything can, given the right context. No need to bite poor old Dark One's head off for saying as much.
.

I once met a rape victim who cracked three rape-jokes in a row. I din't know she had been raped at the time, but I think she was either testing my reaction, or it was her way of dealing with it, like someone with cancer who might crack a joke about it, Victims/survivors are allowed to do that, it's their way of dealing with it. Underneath all that was a great deal of anger that came out and I got a bit of a tongue lashing when we were discussing a related topic and I let my ignorance surface. If a character in your story is a insensitive, that's probably okay, because it's your character that's speaking, if you're making a funny in your writing with rape as a tool, you're in danger of dispensing any consideration for a person with past who might reading your book/story. Telling the person who is insulted by it to chill out still isn't okay. George Carlin's 'rape CAN be funny' standup routine makes a few points, plays on the classic 'she asked for it' excuse, though I think it went a bit downhill from there. If you're* some some sort of master of irony and I think there are very few who can pull that off, good, you're making a point. I'd suggest that if it's a rape-gag that can be dispensed with, dispense with it. Like I would never write a rape scene from the point of view of rapist, there's already plenty of eroticized rape imagery out there and I'd just be adding to it. You don't know what you're going to trigger in a person who has been raped. I don't want to be responsible for that, so while I would include it in my writing, I'd step on my tippy-toes about it.

(*and I mean 'you're' as a general address, not the Din in particular)

 

[ascanius]

Guys can we just get on to the original post. If someone wants to start a thread on rape we can all join it and discuss the different ways of writing about it along with important points, what should and should not be done, considerations etc. I'll even post and give advice and help any way I can. Unless someone wants to do that can we just drop this, it serves no purpose. And frankly I'm getting annoyed by it.

PS.
Guys= you's all. The English language really need a second person plural. How about that for some local dialect, we have but you don't.

 

[Kelise]

And on that point, there are several threads already on the topic of rape - a site search will bring them up.

Anyhow, back on topic... there's not much different to writing a woman you can believe in, than to writing a man you can believe in. In my humble opinion.

Do we think it's easier to allow a male character to act unbelievably than a female?

 

[The Dark One]

And on that point, there are several threads already on the topic of rape - a site search will bring them up.

Anyhow, back on topic... there's not much different to writing a woman you can believe in, than to writing a man you can believe in. In my humble opinion.

Do we think it's easier to allow a male character to act unbelievably than a female?

Good question.

How many eccentric female characters can you think of starring in novels?

And how many male?

 

[Aidan of the tavern]

I suppose my original question was wondering merely how best to bridge the gap between male author and female character. I'm still new to this writing thing you see.

 

[rhd]

I suppose my original question was wondering merely how best to bridge the gap between male author and female character. I'm still new to this writing thing you see.

I'd suggest breaking it down. How would you consider a male character with certain ambitions, are they unorthodox? Now consider your environment and the society he lives in, are they typically patriarchal? What are the obstacles he would face in such a situation, how extreme are they? Would people laugh at him, stop him, or try to kill him? How would this effect him as a person? Now think of the character as a female, what are the obstacles a female would face if her desires and ambitions were unorthodox? What will she do within her power to overcome them? Would people try to stop her, imprison her? Obviously it would have to work within the constraints in the world you've created. I don't go by weak or strong, I go by depth, the more you can strip away at a human being, the more interesting it gets for the reader, male or female.

 

[The Dark One]

I suppose my original question was wondering merely how best to bridge the gap between male author and female character. I'm still new to this writing thing you see.

There is only one way to answer this question. You have experienced women throughout your life (I presume), write the female characters from the guts of your experience and don't intellectualise too much. If you do, I guarantee you'll create either a one dimensional cipher or, even worse, a conceptual frankenstein with a bunch of political themes and tropes all cobbled together in an unconvincing turgid mish mash.

Write women from the heart, not the head, is my advice.

That's not to say the characters themselves can't be intellectual - just the quality of being female can't be intellectualised (IMHO).

In fact, the difference between men and women is a profoundly important subtheme in my recently published novel. I'm sure most of the contributors to this thread would love it.

 

[Ophiucha]

As nearly everyone else said, thinking of them first as a human being will generally go a long way. Many writers who write women write them in such a way that there is nothing more to them than the fact that they are a woman. Though in most fantasy societies, the fact that they are a woman will play an important role in their character, they have to have traits that aren't directly tied to their gender. For instance, a warrior woman will have to face - presuming your society is sexist, which most generic fantasy settings are - trials and prejudice from men who think she isn't good enough. That's just a fact. That should be part of her character. But nearly every fantasy writer makes that everything about her place as a warrior. She took up the sword because she never had a mother or any sisters. She took it up to escape from an arranged marriage. She took it up to seek revenge on her rapist (and oh boy, that's a big one; when men have tragic pasts, their lovers, parents, or siblings died; when women do, they get raped). She never takes it up because, hey, she lived next door to a blacksmith and her parents let her take up a hobby on weekends.

I guess the point is that, as a woman, society's views on who we are and what we can be are always there, and sometimes it hurts or keeps us down. But sometimes we do things because we're human beings. I don't want to get a job while my husband is unemployed because it's a "radical reformation" of the stereotypical American couple, with a housewife and a working husband. I want to get a job because the expansion pack for Civilization V isn't going to pay for itself.

 

[Steerpike]

Yes, I think in general one should simply write believable 'people.' Do that, and you've accomplished the goal for the vast majority of purposes, and there's no reason you should expect to have an unrealistic female character because of it.

If part of your goal in writing the novel is to explored the nuances or differences between males and females, then you might take a different approach. But in most cases that is not what is being done.

 

[Hans]

Might not completely fit into the current discussion, but on the topic of female characters I found a little article with flowchart.
The Female Character Flowchart | Overthinking It