Questions to Ask When Writing Female Characters
Posted on August 26, 2020
In light of our upcoming literary magazine HerWords, we want to share with you some questions to ask yourself regarding your female characters. Writers (both male and female) sometimes approach female characters with the hopes of educating, shining light on the experiences of women, and crafting “strong” female characters. However, internalized misogyny and decades of weak female characters in popular fiction can make this a difficult feat to accomplish. Here’s a few questions to ask yourself (from a woman who writes women) to confirm whether or not you’re falling into stereotypes.
Does your character have motivations? Are they independent from any motivations male characters may have?
Your female characters should not exist to help the male characters. Make sure that they have their own goals, and that those goals are separate from whatever relationship they may have with men in your story. These goals don’t have to be ambitious; while it can be something like solving a murder mystery or beating a life-threatening illness, it could also involve getting a promotion, retiring, moving, or anything that is personal to them. Once your character has a motivation, you are one step closer to making them three-dimensional.
Are all your female characters conventionally attractive? Are they all young?
I see this most often in contemporary fiction by men. Ensure that your female characters have the same level of diversity as your male characters. If you have unattractive male characters, then logic dictates you have a few female characters that don’t fall into conventional beauty standards. Along the same lines, if you have plenty of older male characters, then not all of your female characters should be young. As a side note, I would suggest looking at the race and sexuality of these characters as well. Are all of them straight? Are all of them white?
Are you giving your strong female characters masculine traits? Are your most likable female characters “one of the guys”?
Strength in female characters does not mean masculinity. If you wish for your female characters to be strong, make them leaders, hard workers, or working students. Give them lots of difficult challenges to overcome like financial issues, parenthood, divorce, or perhaps mental/physical illnesses. Strong characters are enduring. It doesn’t mean stripping them of their femininity. The developed female characters you intend for your audience to like don’t have to be “not like other girls.” There’s nothing wrong with being feminine, and your lovable female characters should know this. Another suggestion: mother figures are not the only strong female characters who hold onto their femininity. If you find that the only character in your story that fits this category is a mother, pay closer attention to your treatment of unmarried women. And, on another note, women who are bosses and leaders can also be likable. Don’t make them all villains.
If your female character is a victim, does a male character save them? If they can’t be saved, is their death merely a tool to develop male characters?
Themes of addiction and domestic abuse are common in contemporary fiction. Many of these stories go two ways: either the woman is rescued by a male character who “fixes” them, or they die. If events like this are present in your story, consider finding a different narrative that gives your female character agency. Allow her to seek help on her own, separate from the male character. Let her get out of the situation on her own, and find the male character once she’s in a better place. If she is destined to die in your story, ensure her legacy goes beyond making a male character sad or giving him a wake-up call. She leaves behind more than a mourning male character. She had a family, maybe siblings, maybe best friends. Focus on the other women in the story.
Does your story pass the Bechdel-Wallace Test?
If you have never heard of this test, it was made by Alison Bechdel as a way of examining female characters’ roles in film, but it is equally useful and relevant in literature. The test is this: Does the work of fiction have at least two female characters (who have names) who have a conversation about something other than a man? It sounds simple enough, but you would be surprised how many books fail this test (The Shining, The Great Gatsby), including books written by women with female leads like Fifty Shades of Gray and The Time Traveler’s Wife. If your story fails this test and your justification is that there aren’t enough female characters, I would suggest adding a few more. Even historical war stories have nurses and doctors, civilians, and family members at home.
Any more questions or suggestions for writing female characters? Leave a comment! And be sure to buy a copy of HerWords this quarter.