Concerning female characters

[Renegade-pizza]

I know this topic has been done to death, but please hear me out:

A quick bio: I've been a gamer for years and I'm an aspiring writer. I've read quite a few books on the subject of writing(novels), but I've noticed something.
When discussing characters and their characteristics, there was never any focus on gender. No "good female character" or the like. So, here's my point:

Is the key to good female characters simply good characters?

I know that gender is a defining trait, but I feel that too many people think of it as THE defining trait. In certain settings it can be an important attribute(i.e. medieval settings where women aren't allowed to become solders), but other times, while still important, isn't a defining trait.

Take Wrex from Mass Effect. I immediately identify him as male and alien, but he is a complete badass who want's to help his people. Eve, is also a Krogan and female, but her gender plays a critical role in the plot.

TL;DR: I think we should try to simply write good characters and not focus on creating a certain type of good character.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

There's a Catch-22 somewhere in there. If gender doesn't matter, how and why do you decide who's female and who isn't; and if you decide to deliberately make a character female, why do you do that if gender doesn't matter? Or is this just a diversity quota?

 

[Renegade-pizza]

There's a Catch-22 somewhere in there. If gender doesn't matter, how and why do you decide who's female and who isn't; and if you decide to deliberately make a character female, why do you do that if gender doesn't matter? Or is this just a diversity quota?

It's not that it doesn't matter, its more a case of: This character's second x-chromosome must be her most important quality and the tag that will be used while judging

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Rhianna Pratchett spoke well (as she generally does about everything, I reckon) about helping to craft the new Lara Croft. She addressed this very problem; she didn't want to just write a guy-with-tits, i.e. a Marcus Fenix or Master Chef Chief who happened to be female - she didn't want to define Lara through her gender, but also didn't want to simply ignore it because she felt it was important to the character narrative (and that there's a lack of relatable young female characters). Some of that comes through her dialogue, perhaps, but also through her body language with Sam; it's a more tactile, empathetic relationship than you'd normally see between a male lead and his buddy character.

So it depends on the game, the story being told, and the character. Sometimes gender matters, sometimes it really doesn't.

(oh, here [http://killscreendaily.com/articles/interviews/tomb-raider-writer-rhianna-pratchett-creating-men-boobs-and-writing-vulnerable-lara-croft/] are the links [http://killscreendaily.com/articles/interviews/tomb-raider-writer-rhianna-pratchett-why-every-kill-cant-be-first-and-why-she-wanted-make-lara-croft-gay/] to the Kill Screen interviews with Pratchett. it's about Lara, TR, female characters, and so on)

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

There's a Catch-22 somewhere in there. If gender doesn't matter, how and why do you decide who's female and who isn't; and if you decide to deliberately make a character female, why do you do that if gender doesn't matter? Or is this just a diversity quota?

I instead took this as statements that just seemed to contradict each other and the whole thing seems convoluted and has left me confused.

OP: I genuinely don't understand what your question is. What are you asking?

You seem to suggest that gender shouldn't be the defining characteristic of someone, but also say that we can't ignore that it can have significance. This seems more like a statement than a question.

Surely, obviously we would want more characters that have depth and are not one-dimensional, like "hey, this is the ethnic guy", "hey, this is the gay guy" and "hey, this is the female guy", so people defined by one trait of theirs and it is all there is to them.

Seems pretty self-evident that we'd naturally want more depth, no?

 

[Korenith]

I think part of writing a good character is about working out what makes them who they are and gender is going to be part of that. It doesn't mean they have to have their entire character arcs mapped out on maternity and fighting patriarchal oppression but gender should be a factor if you want a character to feel real. Like Darth Rosenberg (riffing on Rhianna Pratchett) said, certain behaviours are more likely in certain genders. For example I wouldn't expect a woman to go around punching her mates on the arm but guys that's fairly standard so if a female character does it that says something very different to when a male one does.

Basically, it should always be a factor, but one amongst tons of other factors.

 

[Fox12]

I never understood why some people can't write female characters. Even great writers, like Cormac Mccarthy, have said that they avoid doing it.

I always found it simple. If you understand humans on a very basic level then you can build up and write any kind of character. You just have to look at needs and wants. We all NEED food, water, shelter, love, and human interaction. From there build upon what your character WANTS, and how they intend to get what they want. It just requires empathy on the part of the writer. All you have to do is know what your characters motivation is, and how they intend to achieve their goals. Men and women aren't that different. If you can write basic characters, you should be able to write anyone. There's not some great gender binary, you just have to understand people, and how they respond to the stimuli in their lives.

I don't sit down and decide how many female vs. male characters there are in my stories. The characters enter my head of their own free will, and interact with one another. Sometimes there's gender disparity towards one side or the other, but they usually remain about equal in number. Not because I actively try to make it that way, but because that's how the story turns out. That's the proper way to write.

The only time the "gender issue" becomes an issue is when people treat one gender with disrespect. All people want to be treated with respect, so treat other people the way you would treat yourself. Walk around in their shoes and imagine how you would feel.

 

[senordesol]

It's one of those topics that demonstrates that for all the thousands of years of human philosophical development, we've still so much to learn.

Here's my take on it: Gender will be a big part of your character's identity, whether you realize it or not. Does your male protagonist have a love interest? Does he make, laugh at, or react to a dirty joke? Are his actions in line with what's expected of a male in his culture? Is he treated with deference by other males where he might otherwise have to prove himself if he happened to be female?

See, the trap that we run into here is that male (specifically: white, hetero, male) is considered 'normal', and other characters tend to be deviations of that norm. However, WHM is an identity all its own (just one that's really easy to convey in predominantly WHM society). We writers tend to identify with them without even thinking about it.

When it comes to female characters; to deny their femininity is to deny a piece (a BIG piece) of who they are. This isn't to say all female characters have to be written a certain way, but narrative considerations as to how they were brought up in whatever particular culture they were born into are important. A female being attracted to males isn't 'dis-empowering', nor does it negate her validity as a character. Being more vulnerable or physically weaker than male counterparts isn't damning either.

I think a 'good character' is defined by two things: Agency and Relatability. Their actions, regardless of gender, need to have an effect on the plot and the audience, regardless of gender, needs to understand and sympathize with why the character does what she does, says what she says, and believes what she believes. As a writer, you can choose to focus more or less on the character's gender; but it's always a bad idea to ignore it completely.

 

[DevilWithaHalo]

There's a Catch-22 somewhere in there. If gender doesn't matter, how and why do you decide who's female and who isn't; and if you decide to deliberately make a character female, why do you do that if gender doesn't matter? Or is this just a diversity quota?

Have a cookie, you deserve it.

Writing characters can be done a number of ways. You can start with a trope and expand, or identify plot needs and write in characters for filler, or write characters to expand the character of another character. You can also write characters that identify with you on a personal level, or a character you aspire to be, or a character you'd like to see/read. You can write a character and decide on a gender later, or you can decide on gender first to influence how you write said character. The story line and/or setting can also influence what gender a character may or may not have/need/should be if you want to go for accuracy, or fantasy or a trope flip.

The part of the discussion I find the most curious, is the arbitrary notion of "good female character". What exactly makes one character better than another? Better writing? More dialogue? A moral center? Social influence? From my perceptions of the discussions surrounding this particular topic, *most* of the time, it revolves around positive traits. As much as I'd like to say it has more to do with well written characteristic, or even explanations behind character decisions, that simply isn't the case. Especially when we consider the external interpretations of characters from an audience perspective.

Take for example Gandalf. He's a wise old powerful wizard. Did his gender ever influence any of his decisions? No. Did his gender ever influence any of his character? No. Did his character have anything to do with gender? No. Would he have worked just as well if he were female? Yes. Any arguments against this indicates an external bias; people would be working off the assumption that his character would be different if he were female. But why? Nothing Gandalf did would have changed if he were female, nor would it magically created a differing story line with some cockeyed love triangle.

Would this have influenced external perceptions though? Maybe. People would probably still be arguing whether or not he was actually all that smart, considering all the mistakes he made, and that he was still just as powerful regardless. The only difference would be the pronoun use in said discussions.

That being said, are we arguing for female characters merely because we want slightly different discussions? Are we justifying informing character creation based on how the public will receive them? Doesn't that merely stifle creativity? What if that's entirely why they were made the way they were; to incite discussion?

Characters serve a purpose within a story. Whether that is to inform the audience, move the plot along, or influence another character, etc. A *good character*, is one that serves said purpose. A *well written character*, is one that does so flawlessly without notice. And it doesn't matter whether or not your character earned a PHD in Astrophysics or had a sex change it the character only exists to open a door for your primary character. If that stuff does, than it's central to the development of your primary character or to influence the perceptions of the reader. In which case, the character served the purpose that was intended by the author.

So by all means, define what you think a *good character* is.

 

[rorychief]

I say write your characters as whoever you need them to be for the story, it's paralyzing to focus on avoiding writing certain types of people. If you have enough variety and consistency then it won't matter if you have a ditzy blonde or a camp gay thrown in the mix, add subtlety and nuance and find context for shifts in their behavior or competence once the was the basic plot already laid out. Then you can switch them around and hone characters away from the broad archtype once you know where each person is headed and what they accomplish. It sounds like a very sterile way of writing but I find it easier to write what people are literally doing and then making a list of everything personal the reader learns about that character to be expanded upon after the fact. Like I said it's paralyzing if you feel like you can't have a woman make a mistake or a gay man fail something physical because that wouldn't challenge preconceptions. If it makes you uncomfortable or you suddenly recognize some unfortunate implications in what you've written then change whose responsibility the failure is, dump it on undercover sabotage guy (a rather useful character if you can't have the good guys be incompetent).
Don't let fear of coming under fire from social justice types stop you from beginning to write. Everybody learns by doing, you won't know if you can naturally write good female characters who come together as the story does or whether you need to begin with a gender neutral plot movers approach until you try yourself, because the truth is there is no right way to write a good character of any type, there's just different paths to maximize what your strengths are.

 

[Riverwolf]

Good female characters are absolutely just good characters. How major a character's gender plays in his or her identity depends largely on the world. After all, virtually all of us are the way we are because we're reacting to the society we live in (whether that being accepting of it, actively rebelling against it, or something in between). In a largely egalitarian society, gender would probably play a relatively small role in a character's development (think of how little Shepherd's gender mattered in the grand scheme of things in Mass Effect); in a patriarchal or matriarchal society, a character's gender would be far more important (think of the largely patriarchal world of Game of Thrones, where female characters would be in VERY different places if they were men .... and for the record I'm still near the beginning of the third book).

Bad female characters are also just bad characters, created to fit a stereotype rather than an actual person. (Even the "strong independent woman" stereotype is as bad in terms of character as the "passive submissive woman" one if that's a character's only defining trait.)

 

[deathbydeath]

Is the key to good female characters simply good characters?

I'm leaning more towards using the Mako Mori Test:

For a work to pass the Mako Mori Test:
a): It must have at least one female character
b): That female character gets her own narrative arc
c): Her story arc is not about supporting a man?s story.

Admittedly this test is more about judging holistic works rather than individual characters, but conditions two and three can still work.

 

[DementedSheep]

Why do people take "gender (or race and sexuality for that matter) doesn't have to be a defining trait of the character" as "everyone should be a male" or "you shouldn't care about the lack of good female characters". Gender may not be a defining trait of the character but having diversity in the cast that aren't god awful stereotypes is still important.

 

[Yuuki]

Is the key to good female characters simply good characters?

I'm leaning more towards using the Mako Mori Test:

For a work to pass the Mako Mori Test:
a): It must have at least one female character
b): That female character gets her own narrative arc
c): Her story arc is not about supporting a man?s story.

Admittedly this test is more about judging holistic works rather than individual characters, but conditions two and three can still work.

Then I think Mako herself fails that test because...the whole reason Mako is alive is thanks to Pentecost saving her when she was little. Her main role in the movie is to be a replacement for Yancy. The fact she's female gave an easy excuse to make her an arbitrary love interest, which is exactly what happens. The stick-fighting test made no sense, she's so slim/small while Raleigh is built like He-Man...that whole scene was just not believable/convincing that they are "evenly matched" lol. Knowing martial arts only goes so far.
During training Mako accidentally almost kills everyone in the hangar. When Chuck vocally points that out to her (rightly so), Raleigh responds by beating the shit out of him while Mako stands on the side. At the end she basically gets a free ride in the escape pod while Raleigh risks his life to finish the job. She's absolutely a support, nothing more.

I don't get how Mako is a good example of a strong independent female character in any sense, and making something like a "Mako Mori Test" is almost insulting to far better female characters. You know, putting aside that she wasn't even a good actor. It was painfully obvious that she didn't have a full grip on her english lines and wasn't feeling them out, reminds me of when Jet Li tries to speak english (but at least he kicks ass).

 

[Divine Miss Bee]

my issue with this argument is that it's usually tossed out there as a catch-all when the writer doesn't have a good enough understanding of women, minorities, the mentally ill, etc., to write diverse and believable characters. i'm not saying that's where the OP is coming from with this, but that's where i see the argument made most.

gender is only as important to the individual as their society puts pressure on certain gender identities to behave a certain way. the key to writing good characters, male or female, is knowing how their world reacts to them doing what you want them to do. are they coming from a position of privilege, or are they an oppressed minority? the same words are going to sound different in the mouths of characters who are in different societal positions whether it's because of gender, race, sexual orientation, ability, class, and a million et-ceteras. so maybe you don't need to fill "diversity quotas," maybe you can focus on writing your character as a collection of attributes rather than a person, but that is not going to be a strong character. whatever is important to you while writing is going to shape how your reader perceives your characters, so you need to get inside their heads. and for me, my gender is in there shaping everything i do, so it pays off if you can get it right.

 

[LordLundar]

Writing the character needs to be about writing a good character that happens to be female instead of writing a good female character. Replace "female" in that line with any trait you want.

There's a Catch-22 somewhere in there. If gender doesn't matter, how and why do you decide who's female and who isn't; and if you decide to deliberately make a character female, why do you do that if gender doesn't matter? Or is this just a diversity quota?

Truthfully, it doesn't matter. Not much at any rate. You could replace any character in almost any game with the opposite gender and it wouldn't matter much. You could even keep everything else the same for some really interesting results. But over all, the answer to that just plainly needs to be "because why not?"

There is another issue and that is with supporting characters. These are characters that aren't the big badass in the game not because of gender or similar stereotypes, but because to do so overshadows the main character that the player is operating. This result is a disenchantment with the game and lack of willingness to continue. The problem is that (especially as of late) when it's a female in that role, it's called out that they're in it because of their gender and not because they're a support role. Even when they get the times to be just as, if not more capable than the protagonist they're criticized because it's "just pandering." It's honestly a no win situation and that needs to be remedied first.

 

[DevilWithaHalo]

my issue with this argument is that it's usually tossed out there as a catch-all when the writer doesn't have a good enough understanding of women, minorities, the mentally ill, etc., to write diverse and believable characters. i'm not saying that's where the OP is coming from with this, but that's where i see the argument made most.

I sort of agree with you, regarding the argument, not so much the understanding.

What tickles me especially, is this part...

write diverse and believable characters

...because in a world with 7+ billion people in it, there are going to be real people as dry, as useless and as unbelievable as some of the characters authors write.

I'm not sure if it's merely a personal connection they're after, or their staunch refusal to accept negativity existing within a framework they are familiar with. But there's plenty of asshole cripples, stripper philosophers, A-sexual alpha males, in addition to all the stereotypical archetypes we are commonly familiar with.

Perhaps it's both, because the reader doesn't empathize or agree with the character's choices, so infers a misunderstanding of the character type by the author. With of course the notion that the author may not have done a little bit of research first, or is basing the character off someone they know who does understand said experiences to begin with.

Given the likes of Jerry Springer and reality TV in today's age, how are we still finding fictional characters "unbelievable"?

I have trouble accepting the diversity angle merely because market forces dictate what the public consumes, so any argument against it is rather self defeating. Mind you I'm not supporting it one way or another, but I can't ignore where the money is going.

 

[Divine Miss Bee]

my issue with this argument is that it's usually tossed out there as a catch-all when the writer doesn't have a good enough understanding of women, minorities, the mentally ill, etc., to write diverse and believable characters. i'm not saying that's where the OP is coming from with this, but that's where i see the argument made most.

I sort of agree with you, regarding the argument, not so much the understanding.

What tickles me especially, is this part...

write diverse and believable characters

...because in a world with 7+ billion people in it, there are going to be real people as dry, as useless and as unbelievable as some of the characters authors write.

I'm not sure if it's merely a personal connection they're after, or their staunch refusal to accept negativity existing within a framework they are familiar with. But there's plenty of asshole cripples, stripper philosophers, A-sexual alpha males, in addition to all the stereotypical archetypes we are commonly familiar with.

Perhaps it's both, because the reader doesn't empathize or agree with the character's choices, so infers a misunderstanding of the character type by the author. With of course the notion that the author may not have done a little bit of research first, or is basing the character off someone they know who does understand said experiences to begin with.

Given the likes of Jerry Springer and reality TV in today's age, how are we still finding fictional characters "unbelievable"?

I have trouble accepting the diversity angle merely because market forces dictate what the public consumes, so any argument against it is rather self defeating. Mind you I'm not supporting it one way or another, but I can't ignore where the money is going.

i agree with you-by "believable caharacters," i mean those that are NOT stereotypes. the world is a lot stranger than all that. i find fictional characters unbelievable when the author, given the huge range of the human imagination, writes another stoic male protagonist and his damsel-in-distress female love interest as "compelling."

 

[Vegosiux]

I don't think you can write a "good female character" without, from the very start, taking into consideration that you're writing a female character. Writing a character and at the end choosing it's gender is just not the way to go.

It works sometimes when the gender doesn't really matter. I.e. if you don't want to stuff another pointless romance or family drama sub-arc into your story.

I've gender-flipped several of my characters after they were already written simply because I thought "Say, why can't that nurse be a guy, actually, just for a little surprise?" or "Hm, that rebel leader might as well be a lady, and I couldn't think of a good male name, but I do have a good female name!"