Multiple POV story - Lack of female leads

[Jorge Lourenço]

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.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[Svrtnsse]

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.

 

[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.

 

[Ireth]

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.

 

[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.

 

[Feo Takahari]

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

 

[HabeasCorpus]

Since when did authors start caring about being offensive?

 

[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.

 

[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?

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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!

 

[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."

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[Jorge Lourenço]

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.

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.

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

 

[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.