Making good female characters

Hi! There was a bit of a buzz on the internet I noticed lately of people arguing what it means to be a good female character, as opposed to just a good character. Obviously speaking, one can understand that it's harder to write for a group you are not a part of, but most writers do have faith that while it's harder it's certainly not un-doable, after all writers don't just write themselves all the time, they have to write people different to them in all sorts of ways; age, philosophy, lifestyle, economic background etc. Gender doesn't seem to be any more differentiating then any of those.

So this is my advice to male writers on how to write female characters in 3 steps.

1: Balancing Femininity
This step is the longest to explain but the shortest to actually do and honestly if your characters air kind of on the simpler side, it's probably all you need in my opinion.

If you look up guides on how to write female characters you'll find two diametrically opposed bits of advice all the time. The reason why it seems to me is when you're writing female characters their is two things that can go drastically wrong, two opposite problems, and each of these bits of advice are meant to help stop one of the two big problems, whichever extreme the person in question seems to think is a bigger problem. What are these two big problems?

A: Female Caricature:
This is especially prevalent in series where there is only 1 female major character, but this is when the character's personality is basically just "girl". She acts in girly ways 100% of the time. Worse-still this character is often annoying, a negative caricature of femininity that is vapid and annoying to the male cast and male audience.

Obviously if your character's personality is just "girl" then that is not just unrealistic, it's contradictory since there are stereotypes about women that are completely opposite (we are supposedly more materialistic then boys, caring about appearances, fashion, jewelry etc.) while also being wiser and less prone to materialism. No singular woman can be expected to fit every feminine stereotype.

Series made for women will occasionally have this problem, having a male character whose whole personality is just "boy", though I find often there is less of this problem.

B: The "Man with Boobs"
The other problem is the opposite extreme, where the character could be exchanged with a male and there would be absolutely nothing different, the character has no connection to their femininity at all.

Men and women do statically have some different traits on average, though obviously there are exceptions and it's only notable on a massive scale. In addition most women feel some connection to being a woman and will generally enjoy it, in the same way I imagine most men enjoy the feeling of being masculine.

If I'm honest, I personally dislike this problem more then the above. I greatly enjoy female signifiers, and a series trying to make a female character strong by making her more masculine (let alone the very limited version of masculinity often presented where being strong is just violence and a confrontational nature) seems a denigration of femininity which to me is more of an insult then a character who is just a stereotype of females.



So both of these problems are bad, and if I'm honest I think the solution to solving them is pretty simple. If you're making a female character, think of traits you stereotypically associate with being feminine. Then have the character possess 2-3 "feminine" traits and subvert 1-2 "feminine" traits. Depending on how major a character this is, you can change the number of traits if you like but I find a general proportion between 3-1 to 2-2 (1-1) is generally a good proportion. This is generally how you get a female character that feels real. Maybe the girl reads romance novels all the time and is very romantic but also watches sports. Maybe she likes to go shopping a lot and is a complete sucker for chocolates but is also a pragmatic down to earth person whose not very emotional. Maybe she loves cute animals and has a strong maternal vibe to her, but is studying to be a scientist or another STEM field.

If I may use myself as an example. I get very emotional and am fairly sensitive. I love pretty things and cute things. I love chocolate and sweet foods. I love romance, and would consider myself very romantic in temperament. I am a domestic girl that likes to keep things clean and neat. My friends consider me very maternal due to my nurturing personality. That said I have some boyish interests (like superhero series for instance), I can be rather direct and to the point, not liking small talk. Despite not liking conflict, I can be kind of confrontational. I am not very much a detail person and I am terrible at makeup (I always get makeup in my eye, it really stings).

My point is, if you want to avoid both extremes, it's really as simple as giving your character some traits that make her feel like a woman, but not trying to make the exact embodiment of everything woman ever.

This could be all you need really, but in case you wanna go deeper...

Step 2: The Feminine Ideal
Let's say you want a "deep" character who is also female, and you want these two things to intersect. No problem!

Every person has what we might call a "human ideal", a belief on what humans should do and should be. This is generally influenced by upbringing, philosophy, and life experiences. Along with these people generally have "masculine ideals" for what men should be like and "feminine ideals" for what women should be like. A masculine ideal might be a complete gentleman who holds doors for ladies, who stands when they enter the room etc. or it could be a pick-up artist whose primary goal is to get women to sleep with him. It depends on the individual what they think a man or woman should do and should be.

It's important to recognize that these ideals are often not fully conscious, they can be partially or fully subconscious. They can also be irrational or something the individual doesn't rationally agree with but can't shake.

If you look at most "deep" female characters who femininity relates to their female nature, their deepness seems to generally come from the relation between how they are and their feminine ideal. Let's say you have a character whose feminine ideal is pure and proper. Good girls don't do any of that naughty business with the boys until marriage and even then for the sole purpose of procreation. If an individual with said feminine ideal had sex with a man for fun, she would feel massive guilt for not living up to her own feminine ideal. Or if she saw other women doing that, she might judge them internally and think less of them. On the other hand, if a woman's feminine ideal is sexually confident and very unrestrained, and she is a shy mess around hot guys, she might internally loath herself for not being able to take charge of her sexuality. Imagine putting those two in a room together, instant "deep" conflict.

Every woman has a feminine ideal and compares herself to it often, and not just that judges other women generally by the same metric. While I can't say for certain, I suspect men are similar in that they probably judge themselves compared to their masculine ideal, as well as other men. If a man attacked a woman for no reason, a lot of men would find this act even more despicable then if a man attacked another man for no reason, since many men have as part of their masculine ideal that men should be protective of women.

"Deep" feminine characters are generally characters who have some kind of conflict between their feminine ideal and their actual self, and this conflict drives them in some way.

To create a feminine ideal is trickier then the former step, because there's no universally agreed source for where we get our conceptions of what person should do and be. In general, it would be good to show social pressures, oftentimes from parents or colleagues to showcase it's forming.

Step 3: When in doubt, look to reality
If you're still in doubt, a good way to help is to loosely base your character off someone you've known and ask yourself "what would she do in this situation? What would she say in this situation?". Believe it or not, most women are realistic depictions of women ;)

You can also do this in a different way. If you're wondering what a female character would do or say, you can think of what a lot of women you've known might do or say in that situation and get a sort of general average, an aggregate answer. It's even better if you do that with men you've known and compare the two so you can see the difference.




You can go even deeper if you want, looking into mythology and folklore for general feminine archetypes and such to cement your study in the world of Jungian archetypes and such, delving more into the psyche. That said I think this works as a general advice guide on how to write a good female character.