# Writing Women



## Ralph Rotten

The other day on twitter, another writer posted this:

*How men write women characters: She was gorgeous beyond imagination, jaw-dropping, and still, she didn't know it. Her legs were long, her height a cool 5'10, yet she barely grazed 105 pounds. Unlike other girls, she never complained, not once. Her top was perfect; non-existent.*


Of course that started a discussion on how men write women.
I thought it was a good topic for a conversation in the forum, since I had indeed seen a few men write exactly this way.

*Okay, some ground rules;*
*1)* Yes, women can contribute to this thread. In fact it would be very helpful if some of the ladies would help us idiot-men write better women.

*2)* You are encouraged to contribute by showing your work. yes, comments are welcome, but you'll get more respect if you show us how YOU write women. Don't just talk the talk...

*3)* This thread in no way makes any claims that I am an expert on writing women.


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## Ralph Rotten

Okay, I'll prime the pump here.
First off, I try desperately to avoid defining women by their looks.
Doing this is a quick way to lose 50% of your readers.

I also try to not define them by their sexual drive...unless they happen to be a nympho.
Really, until there is a love scene I just pretend like they're all Ken dolls down there.

I also try to avoid shrinking women. You know, the women who scream and shrink away when the monster appears. 

So what does that leave you?
Here is an intro I did for Jenna, the FBI agent assigned to track down Jamie & Jackie Sparks.


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## Ralph Rotten

Okay, now even though I just said I try to not define women by their looks, this is a rare case where it is necessary. This is Maria, and her looks are sort of integral to her character.


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## Ralph Rotten

For those interested, this is the original discussion on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/EffyNightingale/status/1270039542288928768


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## ironpony

Ralph Rotten said:


> The other day on twitter, another writer posted this:
> 
> *How men write women charactersShe was gorgeous beyond imagination, jaw-dropping, and still, she didn't know it. Her legs were long, her height a cool 5'10, yet she barely grazed 105 pounds. Unlike other girls, she never complained, not once. Her top was perfect; non-existent.*
> 
> 
> Of course that started a discussion on how men write women.
> I thought it was a good topic for a conversation in the forum, since I had indeed seen a few men write exactly this way.
> 
> *Okay, some ground rules;*
> *1)* Yes, women can contribute to this thread. In fact it would be very helpful if some of the ladies would help us idiot-men write better women.
> 
> *2)* You are encouraged to contribute by showing your work. yes, comments are welcome, but you'll get more respect if you show us how YOU write women. Don't just talk the talk...
> 
> *3)* This thread in no way makes any claims that I am an expert on writing women.



Wow I would never give that much description to a character's looks unless she was a seductress and it played heavily into the plot.


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## ironpony

Ralph Rotten said:


> The other day on twitter, another writer posted this:
> 
> *How men write women charactersShe was gorgeous beyond imagination, jaw-dropping, and still, she didn't know it. Her legs were long, her height a cool 5'10, yet she barely grazed 105 pounds. Unlike other girls, she never complained, not once. Her top was perfect; non-existent.*



Wow I would never give that much description to a character's looks unless she was a seductress and it played heavily into the plot.


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## luckyscars

I think this is quite a bit more complicated than men being bad at writing women. For one thing, a lot of women are really bad at writing men, and for similar reasons: The male character has a tendency to become some kind of romantic/sexual ideal. Also, must be said, a lot of writers, male and female, are just bad generally. 

That being said, I do think male writers tend toward certain...mistakes (let's be generous) when writing women/female characters. I find this especially true when writing from the POV of a woman, but its often pretty rampant throughout. Some of the things I tend to notice are:

- *Making the woman more casually aware of her own body parts than most women are.* This is where 'she breasted boobily down the staircase' comes in. I'm not a woman, but I find it hard to believe women think about their breasts at all often in an average day-to-day context, and certainly probably never _for no reason at all. _Most women _I imagine _strap on a bra (or not) in the morning and literally don't think about them again for the rest of the day. And yet, I cannot think of a single male-authored-female-POV book when the 'character' doesn't mention her tits during some kind of monologue or 'looking in the mirror' moment or whatever. 

Male characters don't mention their balls much, do they? Not even when it's clearly a hot day at Hogwarts. You won't find a single mention of poor Harry's sweaty scrotum sticking to his thigh in the middle of Potions...and that's most definitely a thing that happens frequently. So it's _weird _how nobody ever mentions that. It's almost like it's...not necessary for the story to work or something.

- *Describing the woman's physical assets more than is necessary and within a very limited range: *Sort of a third-person version of the last point, but also it's own thing. I notice male authors typically _love _describing women's physical appearance. That's fine, and women authors do it of male characters too, but the difference is that generally male authors tend to fixate more on a really narrow range of physical characteristics (pretty much: hair, face, boobs, hips, legs, ass). You don't get many descriptions of posture. Why not? Posture is far more important in revealing character than the shape of eyes or the size of breasts. The fact something so useful is often so absent betrays the writer's priorities.

- *Unsavory references : *This is the kind of thing I find rampant and its plain obnoxious when it's out of context: All too often male authors like to describe female characters in relation to things that are just plain creepy. The number of times I've read shit like 'her budding breasts' and it's in relation to a twelve year old girl. Why is that necessary? It isn't, more often than not, and you won't convince me it is. I mean, I have yet to read a book by a woman where her character (male or female) chose to observe the bulge in the pants of a little boy playing softball. It's not just the pedophilic aspects, either. It's the fucking incestuous ones. It's the ones with old women, fat women, thin women, any women as long as it is A Woman that the writer could possibly find sexually viable in some distorted fashion:

Here's Stephen King, you know, that *great* author to demonstrate, from The Stand. Doesn't seem too terrible, until you realize the (male) character is talking about his mother:

View attachment 25834

I find women authors don't usually do this.

Here's another example from Uncle Stephen (The Jaunt). Ask yourself if the reference to a nine year old's breasts was _really necessary_ here, and keep in mind there are hundreds of examples of this kind of thing:

View attachment 25836

And again -- The Institute:

View attachment 25838

Sixteen year old breasts in Carrie, with a bonus of coffee colored nipples. Because the color of her nipples matters, I guess:

View attachment 25839

- *Bad anatomy: *Male authors frequently seem to misunderstand basic female anatomy. That's fine, I mean, I don't understand it particularly well either, but _come on guyz_. For instance, how many times do we need to establish that probably most women's nipples do not generally 'get hard' at the drop of a hat in real life? Again, and I feel bad picking on him at this point but it's too easy, here's Steve King, writing about exactly that...over a female character...being afraid...of antisemitism in 'It'.

View attachment 25837

If it's not hard nipples, it's aching wombs at the thought of babies. If it's not aching wombs at the thought of babies, it's vaginas expanding with lust. You can always appeal to context with all these things, of course, and you should, but there's no doubt there's a lot of gratuitous objectification stuff that a lot of male authors indulge in. 

A lot of the time it seems the argument is that this kind of writing makes the characters seem real within their contexts. And okay, that's fine, but at the same time, I don't see too many lurid descriptions of skid marks or body odor or boogers or bad breath. Why not? When a character is getting dressed in the morning isn't she at least as likely to notice how smelly she is as the color of her nipples? So much time spent in the shower running hands over breasts, so little time spent on the toilet squeezing out a really big and brutal-smelling turd. Why is this?

So yes, there is a _tendency_ toward using female characters as a means to satisfy some repressed sexualization, I think, and that's what we (as male authors) need to be wary off. Even if it just comes down to perception, the world has changed on that score. 




Biro said:


> we always describe men and women with a slight or full sexual element.  Unless we are describing a person who may be the opposite for whatever reason.



One of my characters is based on my grandmother, who was a woman, and I promise there was no 'sexual element'.


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## ironpony

Okay, this might be a dumb question, but are these excerpts from erotic literature?


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## luckyscars

Scanned through my WIP draft for a contributory own work example. 

I think this was the only part where I directly describe the female character and do the 'men writing women' thing. No boobs, sadly, but I did do the face:

_In the unflattering light of the single, pull-cord bulb, the face was not one she easily recognized. The skin was cracked, like the dome of some over-sized mushroom. The older bruises – from David – now formed a kind of masque of creamy yellow and black; something like the yolk of an over-boiled egg. The scratches from where his fingernails had scoured were as deep as before but no longer bleeding, the result a kind of runic pattern of violet. One that looked, but thankfully did not yet feel, infected. 

She could see where Zepherine had hit her. A bright, sore area of inflammation. It looked like a smear of smudged blusher, a misshapen patch that stretched from near her left ear down to the jawline, tapering off near the corner of the mouth in the vague outline of a small fist. On its own, it would have been unremarkable, the kind of injury Jess was something of an expert on. But in combination with that yellowish, diseased-looking skin, the greasy rats’ nest of graying hair and the sagging pockets of skin and winkles that were the gift of advancing years, perhaps the only thing on earth indisputably crueler than David. In combination with all those things, she found it monstrous. Perhaps because she understood that the face was hers, her entire life written within . In a sense, that face was its own punishment. In a sense, it was a kind of death row._


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## Dluuni

No, they're Stephen King. Grocery store bestselling horror. Erotica gets much more hideous cringe.
Sometimes somebody posts a snippet of "Men write women". 
I remember one that came down the pipe where a murder victim "had a small purse, just big enough for a credit card and drivers license, tucked in her vagina". The immediate response in the book was to ask where she was going. 
_W-whaaaaat?!?_ This was in a Big 5 published book! Did not a single woman's eye cross that sentence?

Learn some of the things we have to put up with. Ask, listen, and don't argue, because I swear just about every time I have to talk about this stuff to a cis man, they start an argument with me to the point where I don't even like being asked anymore. You wanted to know, don't get angry at me for answering, I don't want to get punched again.


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## Sir-KP

Heh, I'm getting the vibe that the person who wrote that is the type who would get offended when someone generalized women the way she did.

Anyway, personally I've never done that and not planning to so far. I avoid describing looks by the beauty/quality, because it's subjective material - and awkward to read. Unless it's taking a form of opinion spoken by a character, third-person or first-person. Just like your example there, if it bears some sort of necessity to the character or story, then why not?

Regarding this part...



> *She was gorgeous beyond imagination, jaw-dropping, and still, she didn't know it. Unlike other girls, she never complained, not once. Her top was perfect; non-existent.*



IMO this is lame. I've seen something similar to this somewhere else (and not just to female character, but also the males). *However *I must say, if I created a female character that is well liked by the people around her, doesn't complain, and is oblivious to her beauty, then that's her character as I intended to be in my fiction. End of story. My job, as the writer, is to make the rational reason why she has that character as a person. And this is the same if I want to write a female character who has a potty mouth and likes being in conflict.

That said, humbly speaking as an amateur, I don't have 'how to write women' in my dictionary, because I believe that will only lead to stereotypes which everyone hates again. We have to learn the differences about women and men on a healthy dose and be aware everyone of us has backgrounds that shaped us who we are today. Combine those ideas and we write humans. That, from my perspective, is how we suppose to write our characters.


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## CyberWar

I think there's no "right" or "wrong" way to write women, there's merely different men of different cultures, education, intelligence, talent, etc. doing the writing for different audiences. What might pass for vulgar objectification to some will strike right at home for others, and vice-versa, not everyone will be capable of appreciating eloquent and sophisticated descriptions of female characters.

Personally I prefer it somewhere mid-way. If a female character is implied to be attractive, then there better be some mention of curves and boobs at some point, but the language used to describe them ought to show some celebration and appreciation of those qualities rather than look like straight off an inventory list or carry borderline-pornographic suggestions.


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## Annoying kid

Poor male writers. If these dudes with the sexualized descriptions have to write alot (and they do if they want to get good) and work to sustain themselves in this economy, then what time do they have for a partner? For a marriage? Or a family? Writing is quite insular and solitary, so social skills can easily degrade. They have sex drives like any other man, so they put it into the only place they know how, or can: Their writing. So I get why those descriptions are there. But if one is going to put their sexuality into their writing, one has to find a smarter, more subtle and less egregious way of doing so. Perhaps thats the next step - for these writers to test out ways to explore their own sexualities without being so reductive as to bring it down to body parts. Because its not the womans sexuality when she stares at her own body parts, its the male gaze. This removes alot of her sexual agency. So mayb drop all pretense, make the main character a dude like you, and write some wish fulfilment erotica with you as the lead. That way everything can be from his subjective PoV.


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## Ralph Rotten

Biro said:


> Don't understand this Ralph.
> 
> A man describes a woman how the man sees her.  Usually to fit the part of the story or the part of the mans imagination of the type of women he wants to portray.
> 
> How is a woman going to do the same?
> 
> A womans view of another woman would be totally different to a mans even if she was gay, as we always describe men and women with a slight or full sexual element.  Unless we are describing a person who may be the opposite for whatever reason.



We should clarify that there is a difference between how a woman may be described in 1st person perspective versus 3rd person omnipotent.

A quick way to lose women readers is to have the *narrator *describe them as if it were soft-porn. 

But it is feasible to have a *character *think in those terms, so long as you isolate it to that character's thoughts or speech. That's just basic character development. Some characters are pervs.


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## Ralph Rotten

One of the reasons that I bring up this topic is that I have seen many book reviews where the reader specifically said "This author needs to learn to write women."

A statement like this can poison the well. Other women (and woke men) will see that and move on to another book. Unless you can pile a few more reviews on top of it, it will sit there at the top of your stack, driving away more readers.*

Also, writing like that first sample I posted (the one from twitter) is just bad writing. It creates shallow characters and costs you readers.





*You can click on the USEFUL link at the bottom of each review to move good reviews up, and bad reviews down the list. There seems to be no limit to how many times you can click on this link.


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## Ralph Rotten

Writing women is a 2-part exercise.
Up till now we have been posting examples of how to describe a woman.
The 2nd part of the process comes when the women actually speak, or we get to hear their thoughts. 

Scars was right when he said that your characters should not focus on their own anatomy (unless it is specifically germane to the situation.) Real women do not go around thinking "My what wonderful big breasts I have..."

Here is an excerpt from Maggie May's journal. The DD13 virus has killed everyone in the state, and billions worldwide. Finding herself immune to DD13, she now has to figure out how to find groceries.


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## Ralph Rotten

In that last sample, Maggie is specifically written to be almost manlike.
In Pockyclypse I tried to flip the gender roles.
The male hero cooks and cleans and is the soft, educated type.
But Maggie is a drill sergeant, with combat ribbons. She is no nonsense.


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## Annoying kid

What really annoyed me when reading it, was when Christopher Paolini called Arya "Beautiful beyond compare". Cos what does that even mean? I can't conceive of a beauty that cannot be compared unless that beauty is based on features that are completely different to everybody else. For example you wouldn't compare the beauty of a Blue Whale to a dog. Its too different. So instead of conceiving of conventional beauty, the mind goes toward the mutated, and the disfigured. Who can have their own kind of unique beauty. 

Also I've seen the word "perfection" used in fiction to describe a particular type of woman. Careful you must be when using that word. If you use perfection to describe a young blonde skinny white woman for example, you are strongly implying that all other kinds of women are *imperfect aka inherently flawed* by comparison. This carries unfortunate racial implications.


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## EmmaSohan

My beta reader told me she wanted the male lead to be older and better looking.

The male is usually portrayed as being so hopelessly in love that he will wait forever, and tolerate endless rejection, and still be there for the MC when she finally realizes he is right for her.

We live in a world where not only men can report business news, but young beautiful women can too.

So, having male and female characters who are attractive to the other sex is a winning strategy. I don't like that. I try to chip away at it, but not suicidally fight it.

And the impossibly beautiful woman that he falls in love with at first sight? I should hate her, I suppose, though it's not her fault. I just tolerate it. It happens. It's just not the world I wished I lived in.



> He's kind of cute, ignoring the dirt and body odor. He's the first person ever to mention my [bad] leg without making me angry.



Two reasons to like him.


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## Cephus

Honestly, I just had a talk with another writer about the Bechdel test for books and I really don't see how it ought to be a concern for most good writers. All of the women I write are strong, competent, capable characters. Why? Because all of the characters I write are that way. They are all human. I don't have to sit down and think "this is a woman, how am I going to make her strong?" Their gender isn't even a concern. Their part in the story is. All characters have strengths and all characters have weaknesses and it isn't a competition based on what genitalia you have between your legs. It doesn't matter and the second I bring that up, all I get are gasps from other writers, especially young writers, because they can't imagine writing anything without pushing a particular political agenda. They've been told that all writing is inherently sexist and the only way to combat it is to go overboard making women into Mary Sues with no flaws, because flaws make characters weak. They have to make men look like buffoons, constantly losing to women, because otherwise the women aren't stunning and brave. And in so doing, I point out, they are just being sexist themselves.

Funny how that always works.


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## Cephus

Dluuni said:


> No, they're Stephen King. Grocery store bestselling horror. Erotica gets much more hideous cringe.
> Sometimes somebody posts a snippet of "Men write women".
> I remember one that came down the pipe where a murder victim "had a small purse, just big enough for a credit card and drivers license, tucked in her vagina". The immediate response in the book was to ask where she was going.
> _W-whaaaaat?!?_ This was in a Big 5 published book! Did not a single woman's eye cross that sentence?



Sure, that's bad, but the question has to be, what's the intended audience? Because we  can look at women's lit, romance, even a lot of cozy mysteries that are written specifically for women, and even a particular subset of women, and find them to be every bit as cringey. Nobody points those out, do they? You're not allowed to have the half-dressed sex bunny on the cover of a book written for men, but the half-dressed hunk on the cover of a book written for women, that's just fine. Ultimately, it's just bald hypocrisy. But you're not allowed to point out that a lot of female authors write men very badly because they're not writing for a male audience, whereas men, who are not writing for a female audience, don't get the same excuse. I wish everyone wrote good characters across the board, but the reality is, they don't. It is hypocritical to point it out only when men do it, but not when women do it too.


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## Annoying kid

Cephus said:


> Sure, that's bad, but the question has to be, what's the intended audience? Because we  can look at women's lit, romance, even a lot of cozy mysteries that are written specifically for women, and even a particular subset of women, and find them to be every bit as cringey. Nobody points those out, do they? You're not allowed to have the half-dressed sex bunny on the cover of a book written for men, but the half-dressed hunk on the cover of a book written for women, that's just fine. Ultimately, it's just bald hypocrisy. But you're not allowed to point out that a lot of female authors write men very badly because they're not writing for a male audience, whereas men, who are not writing for a female audience, don't get the same excuse. I wish everyone wrote good characters across the board, but the reality is, they don't. It is hypocritical to point it out only when men do it, but not when women do it too.



Yeah but rates of sexual assault of men on women blow the reverse out of the water. So it would make sense to be somewhat more cautious when sexualizing women to a male audience.


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## indianroads

I think it takes a greater effort to write the opposite sex (Female writing a male POV or a male writing a female POV). I've seen this horribly butchered by both. 

We have to set aside our assumptions (or fantasies) and do our best to write the truth. As a male, I read women authors writing female characters as part of my research. How are things described? What takes precedence in their lives? I also ask questions - my partner fields most of these, and warns me that her answers won't fit with every woman out there. I observe and listen to speech patterns, and try to get a handle on how women see themselves. Then I have my partner, then a female beta reader, and finally my editor (female) read through everything. I then learn and go back and make changes. Do I get it right? Probably not, but at least I've made the effort.


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## Kyle R

While there are some high-profile examples of male authors poorly writing female characters, I honestly think it's more of an exception, rather the norm.

If you look at the whole of literature, the amount of badly written female characters (from male authors) is probably on the lower end.

Those examples exist, sure! Just as badly written male characters, from female authors, exist too. But for the majority of authors, I imagine writing the opposite sex well isn't much of a problem.

(Or maybe I'm just being too optimistic.)


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## Annoying kid

I think its harder to write a female character in general tbh. Because the threshold for criticism is alot lower. Shes more prone to being called a Mary Sue, more open to being called problematic in one form or another. Either called SJW propaganda on one side or anti feminist on the other. Look at Rey - Anakin as a small child got away with doing more without being called a Sue after his first film than a grown woman did. The people criticizing are usually grown men who think a well written female character hasn't been done since the 80's and early nineties, as they _always _cite Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley.  Who are essentially the same freaking characters in the same genre (Sci fi horror)  written by the same man. 

Look at this:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Criticism


> Smith interviewed a panel of female authors who say they do not include female characters in their stories at all. She quoted one as saying "Every time I've tried to put a woman in any story I've ever written, everyone immediately says, this is a Mary Sue." Smith also pointed out that "Participants in a panel discussion in January 1990 noted with growing dismay that any female character created within the community is damned with the term Mary Sue.



So no one can tell me the threshold for satisfying an audience is the same across identities. If you write a lesbian autistic trans woman of colour as your lead, you better be damn good, as an intersection of multiple prejudices will come into the criticism in addition to any storytelling mistakes you make.


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## indianroads

Kyle R said:


> While there are some high-profile examples of male authors poorly writing female characters, I honestly think it's more of an exception, rather the norm.
> 
> If you look at the whole of literature, the amount of badly written female characters (from male authors) is probably on the lower end.
> 
> Those examples exist, sure! Just as badly written male characters, from female authors, exist too. But for the majority of authors, I imagine writing the opposite sex well isn't much of a problem.
> 
> (Or maybe I'm just being too optimistic.)



Because I've run across too many female authors that write terribly inaccurate male characters, I tend to be overzealous in my efforts.


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## Dluuni

"Mary Sue" is a pure sexist attack.

"Julia is a well traveled swordswoman with.."
_"Ugh, unrealistic Mary Sue character!"_

"Jack Irons is a master spy who is a renowned hacker, master of eight styles of martial arts, a multimillionaire, and a necromancer. He dates a porn star who is also a half-angel ninja, and..."
_"Wow, such a realistic character with so much depth!"_

Literally, all a "Mary Sue" is is a capable character with breasts. Because that's 'uppity'. Ignore the label, it's meaningless.


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## Foxee

A *Mary Sue* or *Gary Stu* is a character considered too perfect to be believable. The terms have nothing whatever to do with sexism. 

-----

Back to the OP, I've been interested in answering this but I wanted to think about it some more. For now, I'll say that as I'm reading about a character or writing one I'm interested in WHO they are more than WHAT they are.

Since I'm a female I feel less likely to mess up writing a female. I like writing males and I feel like I understand how to (mostly) but for that I am a lot more comfortable getting a few beta-readers to go over what I've written to make sure the POV feels sound. I'll try and rustle up a better answer when I can spend a little more time here at the keyboard. Interesting discussion!

Carry on.


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## Annoying kid

Foxee said:


> A *Mary Sue* or *Gary Stu* is a character considered too perfect to be believable. The terms have nothing whatever to do with sexism.



Its not about the term. It's about the inequality by which the term is applied. Something can be fine in theory, but sexist in practice due to hypocritical application.


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## luckyscars

The main point, I think, is that cultural evolution is kind of like a wave on a rising tide. The wave itself goes backwards and forwards from moment to moment but the motion of the sea as a whole moves one direction. 

To drag it screaming back to the topic, I see the issues with how women are depicted in fiction to be kind of a smaller version of that same energy. Writing about women is generally getting better, and as part of it getting better we find ourselves noticing when it's done poorly more often and having a stronger reaction to it. I don't read so many books with unnecessary descriptions of teenage girls nipples so much these days. When I do, it's usually either old men like Stephen King or young men who read too many books by old men like Stephen King and not nearly enough books by people who actually were teenage girls. 

 I find that when genuinely misogynistic writing happens in fiction, it's usually in the fringe genres. So yeah, I reckon a lot of the errors are really just about people's writing habits not quite keeping up with present attitudes. Stephen King is essentially a 1970's writer and will probably write women the way he does forever -- because why wouldn't he -- and echoes of that kind of thing will probably stick around for a long time as a result. 

But that's okay. So long as it gets better and we male writers keep reading and embracing the work of women and LGBTQ authors and their voices, hopefully we can learn something.


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## luckyscars

Biro said:


> So how do you want a women to be written about?  Give us an example LS and lets see if we agree with it.



I already did, it's on page one.


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## bdcharles

Biro said:


> No they arent there is an agenda.  Its not about statues of people who were involved in bad things which arent acceptable today.  Its about erasing anything but their desires to have the world 'they' want.
> 
> Their beliefs are paramount and can only be acceptable.  All else is wrong.



I disagree. You merely believe there to be an agenda. There's desire, there's anger, sure. There are points forcibly made, because right now that is often the only way to be heard. These things might feel like an agenda but honestly, it is only pushback. It won't bite.

BUT - yes, anyway, as luckyscars says, let's drag it back on topic. Men writing women. Hmm. RJ Barker does it pretty well in _The Bone Ships_ and while he quite overtly nods to the fact that this is what he is emphasising, he characterises without resorting to ghastly cliche.

EDIT: Oh! Oh my God! What am I saying? I, a male writer, write women! POVs, second/third characters, villainesses, you name it. Want to know how it goes? Then buy my book/beta-read for me/etc.


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## Matchu

_Make her strong without much depth: Strong Female Character.
Give her the "wrong" kind of depth: Get driven off of Twitter https://www.digitaltrends.com/social...n-off-twitter/
Make her too "masculine": Man with Boobs.
Make her too weak: Damsel in distress/Faux Action girl.
Make her loved and hyper competent : Mary Sue.
Make her hated : Pity Sue.
Make her sexy : Sex object. or "Fighting fuck toy"
Make her not sexy : Starts getting called mannish (See critcism of new She Ra, new Lara Croft)
Make her a marginalized identity : SJW propaganda. Forced diversity.

_pINHEAD.  i thought this was a writer forum?  Pick up your dollies, go do some drawing.  NOW.


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## indianroads

luckyscars said:


> I'm not sure what Gone With the Wind and Dumbo has to do with writing women. Are there even any women in Dumbo? Dumbo's mom, I guess?
> [...]
> Nobody said anything vaguely related to the points you are currently making, they aren't 'relevant' to the thread topic, and nobody is likely to change their minds based on hot takes regarding racist crows in Dumbo. So, let's park that stuff.



Kinda seems like this thread has gone off the rails. 

Writing the opposite gender does IMO take more work. Lazy writers create women as men with boobs, and make men of women with beards. So, this could be a good thread - but... as I said, off the rails.


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord

Annoying kid said:


> Poor male writers. If these dudes with the sexualized descriptions have to write alot (and they do if they want to get good) and work to sustain themselves in this economy, then what time do they have for a partner? For a marriage? Or a family? Writing is quite insular and solitary, so social skills can easily degrade. They have sex drives like any other man, so they put it into the only place they know how, or can: Their writing.
> ....So mayb drop all pretense, make the main character a dude like you, and write some wish fulfilment erotica with you as the lead. That way everything can be from his subjective PoV.



Nope, nope, nope. You yourself have acknowledged the link between porn and sexual assault, so pls don't write any more porn. BURN IT ALL.

BUT to get the thread back on track:

A very good example of a well-written female character, written by a man, is Orual from Til We Have Faces (C. S. Lewis). I later learned that his wife Joy helped him write that particular novel. So maybe the lesson is, get some female friends to look over writing. Or have a lot of sisters! 

I also would say, don't avoid traditional femininity like it's the plague or something. Some of us love skirts and pretty dresses. Most of us love kids. Being rescued by a man is not degrading or disempowering. And even if we're a crazy-powerful super-soldier or something, that doesn't mean we can't cry or at least show emotion sometimes (I'm looking at, you Marvel movies. Do you just tell your female actors never to change their facial expression?). 

A "strong female character" doesn't have to be stoic or childless or even good at fighting. I always thought Greta from The Snow Queen (Hans Christian Anderson) was one of the strongest female characters I've ever read. Yeah, she's small, gentle, sensitive, and demure, but she literally travels across all Lapland, in winter,_ with no boots or gloves_, to confront a demonic ice queen with nothing but her faith. That's strength.


----------



## BornForBurning

> At the very least there appears to be alot of restrictions. To the point where I and many others don't even pay attention any more. We just do our thing knowing its going to get slammed whatever.


Restrictions imposed by who? Slammed by who? Some person on the internet? Like no offense; good on you for not paying attention anymore. But I'm shocked anyone would pay any attention at all. I don't know why people go on these websites. I don't know why people trawl the internet for bizarre opinions and then get all mad about what they find. Everyone's got a bizarre opinion, man. Daisy Ridley can get upset in an interview all she likes; she still doesn't have to expose herself to this nonsense. And she shouldn't. It's pointless to take fire for a script someone else wrote for you, regardless of its merits. Your list of 'donts' are a bunch of things I haven't heard about in years. I've never heard a reader (of my work) complain about them, and certainly, no gatekeeper or editor bothers mentioning them. So if the readers don't care, and the editors don't care, why on earth should _I _care?  

Writing women is hard because writing people is hard. Go figure. If a woman asked me, 'how do you write a man?' I wouldn't know where to start. Probably something about the joys of cheap beer and fixing your car in bad weather. And that feeling you get when a cute girl smiles at you.


----------



## luckyscars

ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord said:


> A very good example of a well-written female character, written by a man, is Orual from Til We Have Faces (C. S. Lewis). I later learned that his wife Joy helped him write that particular novel.



Maybe a good exercise here would be to identify some well-known examples of women being written well, particularly those by male authors. 

Totally subjective of course, especially if you're a male reader. I thought Neil Gaiman's _Coraline _did a pretty good job. Sure, it's an eleven year old and being a kids book obviously helped, but even then I don't remember any creepiness. The character is eleven but I would have still expected it. And, more importantly, the character feels both sufficiently real and defined.

Ira Levin, a male author, for some reason seems really comfortable writing from the perspective of a woman, sufficient for his books to be part of the feminist canon -- Stepford Wives, most famously. The writing's kind of dated these days, but I don't remember any cringe stuff.

I think George RR Martin is actually pretty good at writing women, on the whole. I'm kind of in two minds because there's unquestionably a lot of misogyny in his novels, but there's also some pretty strong reaction to that misogyny on the part of at least a couple of his female characters and those characters, particularly, are really fascinating.


----------



## PiP

*THIS THREAD HAS WANDERED SO FAR OFF-TOPIC I WILL REMIND YOU OF THE OPENING POST TO GET IT BACK ON TRACK:*


Ralph Rotten said:


> The other day on twitter, another writer posted this:
> 
> *How men write women charactersShe  was gorgeous beyond imagination, jaw-dropping, and still, she didn't  know it. Her legs were long, her height a cool 5'10, yet she barely  grazed 105 pounds. Unlike other girls, she never complained, not once.  Her top was perfect; non-existent.*
> 
> 
> Of course that started a discussion on how men write women.
> I thought it was a good topic for a conversation in the forum, since I had indeed seen a few men write exactly this way.
> 
> *Okay, some ground rules;*
> *1)* Yes, women can contribute to this thread. In fact it  would be very helpful if some of the ladies would help us idiot-men  write better women.
> 
> *2)* You are encouraged to contribute by showing your  work. yes, comments are welcome, but you'll get more respect if you show  us how YOU write women. Don't just talk the talk...
> 
> *3)* This thread in no way makes any claims that I am an expert on writing women.



ETA: I've since moved off-topic discussions to a new thread
https://www.writingforums.com/threads/188437-Writing-Women-OFF-TOPIC-DISCUSSIONS


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## Ralph Rotten

*---Redacted---







Offending content has been moved to this thread:
*https://www.writingforums.com/threads/188437-Writing-Women-OFF-TOPIC-DISCUSSIONS


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## Ralph Rotten

Here is a short excerpt from the opening of The *Tattoist of Auschweitz*
The protagonist is a young lady who is one of the last survivors when the Russian army liberates them.
Although it is written from an omnipotent (and rather stiff) 3rd person narrative, the author is careful to put you in Cilka's perspective.

Any reference to her physical form are to illustrate her or the scene around her (she is emaciated from starvation.)
We see what she sees.
When she sees a man, she does not immediately evaluate how cute he is or any of that Teen-Tiger BS.
She notices things like; he is not starving, not a Nazi, not there to boot-stomp her to death.
We also get a sense that she is largely stunned by the event.


----------



## Ralph Rotten

When I write men vs women, I have a philosophy:
*Men are dogs, and women are cats.*

Y'see, you can pet a dog, anytime, day or night, and the dog will be happy to be pet.
But a cat wants to be pet when a cat wants to be pet.

Think of this as a reference to sexuality.
Sure, most men will welcome sex at anytime. You can wake a man up in the middle of the night and he'll be happy to get laid.*
But women are much more selective about sex or romance, and there are hurdles to be overcome. Women want to be loved when they want to be loved.

So as Scars pointed out, Nymphos are very rare in society. It would be a mistake to make every female character a lustful, drooling nympho.
A woman is more than just a man with no penis. They are complicated. Millions of years of being left holding the diaper bag has evolved them in many ways.
A man looks at sex as a short-term gratification. A woman looks at sex as something that could result in her getting pregnant and being stuck with a child for 18 years.
Men are driven to sex like a zombie starving for brains **
Women's vision is not so clouded.

*Essentially, your outlook is different when you are the one who will bear the hardships of the outcome.*




*Yes, men are really THAT simple.
**Again; yes, men are that simple.


----------



## Ralph Rotten

Here is a short excerpt from the Lost in Amber series by my friend Esther Rabbit.
Notice that she works very hard to put you in Zoey's shoes.
Although she mentions yoga pants, there is no mention of juddering breasts* or firm buttocks.
Also take note of the fact that her primary focus is on how tired she is. This differs from a man's perspective because a man, even dead-tired, would still be checking out the hot chicks as he boarded the plane.**








*Juddering breasts was a term used frequently to describe Job's girlfriend in The Book of Job by RA Heinlein.
**The only time a man doesn't check out the hotties is if he is dead. Even men with erectile dysfunction check out hotties. _Yes, we are really that simple_.


----------



## ironpony

Annoying kid said:


> I think its harder to write a female character in general tbh. Because the threshold for criticism is alot lower. Shes more prone to being called a Mary Sue, more open to being called problematic in one form or another. Either called SJW propaganda on one side or anti feminist on the other. Look at Rey - Anakin as a small child got away with doing more without being called a Sue after his first film than a grown woman did. The people criticizing are usually grown men who think a well written female character hasn't been done since the 80's and early nineties, as they _always _cite Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley.  Who are essentially the same freaking characters in the same genre (Sci fi horror)  written by the same man.
> 
> Look at this:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Criticism
> 
> 
> So no one can tell me the threshold for satisfying an audience is the same across identities. If you write a lesbian autistic trans woman of colour as your lead, you better be damn good, as an intersection of multiple prejudices will come into the criticism in addition to any storytelling mistakes you make.



Well one thing I've noticed when it comes to female characters, are audiences more offended when women characters behave more stupidly compared to male ones?  For example, I watched the movie Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion with a female friend of mine she thought it was offensive how the two female characters are portrayed as stupid.  But this is done out of comedy.  If you have a comedy with main characters that are women, if they don't act stupid, then it's not funny is it?

Also, she likes Dumb and Dumber, which has male characters acting dumb, so is it really offensive to show female characters being dumb then?  So is it true then, that perhaps audiences judge women characters more harshly than men for being dumb in comedies?


----------



## Jacqui Jay

luckyscars said:


> Scanned through my WIP draft for a contributory own work example.
> 
> I think this was the only part where I directly describe the female character and do the 'men writing women' thing. No boobs, sadly, but I did do the face:
> 
> _In the unflattering light of the single, pull-cord bulb, the face was not one she easily recognized. The skin was cracked, like the dome of some over-sized mushroom. The older bruises – from David – now formed a kind of masque of creamy yellow and black; something like the yolk of an over-boiled egg. The scratches from where his fingernails had scoured were as deep as before but no longer bleeding, the result a kind of runic pattern of violet. One that looked, but thankfully did not yet feel, infected.
> 
> She could see where Zepherine had hit her. A bright, sore area of inflammation. It looked like a smear of smudged blusher, a misshapen patch that stretched from near her left ear down to the jawline, tapering off near the corner of the mouth in the vague outline of a small fist. On its own, it would have been unremarkable, the kind of injury Jess was something of an expert on. But in combination with that yellowish, diseased-looking skin, the greasy rats’ nest of graying hair and the sagging pockets of skin and winkles that were the gift of advancing years, perhaps the only thing on earth indisputably crueler than David. In combination with all those things, she found it monstrous. Perhaps because she understood that the face was hers, her entire life written within . In a sense, that face was its own punishment. In a sense, it was a kind of death row._




From a woman's point of view, that is really hard to read, practically pornographic and way beyond gratuitous. You've reduced a person to a brutalised object, every phrase carefully crafted to strip her of all humanity. I wish I could forget I read it.


----------



## Annoying kid

ironpony said:


> Well one thing I've noticed when it comes to female characters, are audiences more offended when women characters behave more stupidly compared to male ones?  For example, I watched the movie Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion with a female friend of mine she thought it was offensive how the two female characters are portrayed as stupid.  But this is done out of comedy.  If you have a comedy with main characters that are women, if they don't act stupid, then it's not funny is it?



Thats why its difficult to write sucessful comedies with women/politically marginalized identities, because you can't be as low brow, and there's an expectation of empowerment in terms of theme. Very few writers these days are willing to have a woman be the dumbest person in the room because it is more easily construed as a political statement. Meaning for every dumb woman, you need a very smart one to balance it out and reassure audiences you aren't saying anything nefarious. 

Though discussing this is probably off topic for some reason ironpony, (I don't even know anymore) so lets leave the OP to whatever it is he wants to talk about.


----------



## luckyscars

Jacqui Jay said:


> From a woman's point of view, that is really hard to read, practically pornographic and way beyond gratuitous. You've reduced a person to a brutalised object, every phrase carefully crafted to strip her of all humanity. I wish I could forget I read it.



Thanks for the feedback!

The scene is supposed to capture the feelings of the character who is looking at herself as 'a brutalized object'. It's about 2/3rds of the way through the manuscript and one of only, I think, two scenes in which her physical state is described. It's a survivor in a traumatized situation having just committed a crime herself, so I think mostly your point of view is in line with exactly what is needed? I suppose the 'I wish I could forget I read it' is maybe a good thing in the context of horror writing?

I would take some umbridge with the word 'pornographic', as that is something I generally make a concerted effort to avoid. What about it is practically pornographic?


----------



## Xander416

Ralph Rotten said:


> *Yes, men are really THAT simple.
> **Again; yes, men are that simple.


We really, _really_ are. Seriously, ladies, you keep seeing us as a Rubix cube when we're basically just a hammer.


----------



## Kyle R

Writing a different gender character doesn't have to be difficult—just put yourself (figuratively) into their shoes. Get to know them, inside and out.

What do they love? What do they fear? Do they have regrets? Goals? Do they love being in a crowd? Do they hate being around people?

What pulls them out of bed in the mornings? What keeps them awake at night?

Instead of thinking of a character as their sex, think of them as an individual. This way, you'll build a character around their distinct personality, rather than building them around gender-specific stereotypes.


----------



## luckyscars

Kyle R said:


> Writing a different gender character doesn't have to be difficult—just put yourself (figuratively) into their shoes. Get to know them, inside and out.
> 
> What do they love? What do they fear? Do they have regrets? Goals? Do they love being in a crowd? Do they hate being around people?
> 
> What pulls them out of bed in the mornings? What keeps them awake at night?
> 
> Instead of thinking of a character as their sex, think of them as an individual. This way, you'll build a character around their distinct personality, rather than building them around gender-specific stereotypes.



I don't think that's really the issue, though.

You can 'put yourself in the character's shoes' all you want, _and you should_, but if your fundamental understanding of basic differences is so flawed it becomes a distraction.

I mean, I don't see how any amount of putting myself in a female character's shoes would ensure a good written outcome if I was still of the opinion that women's nipples turn to bullets whenever they see an attractive man. 

Sure, I know, the hard nipples aren't important. But this kind of basic goof can throw you out of the story so that the important stuff gets lost, especially when it happens all the time. It's likely a contributing factor to why Stephen King's readership skews male even though his protagonists are fairly equal in terms of gender balance.

Secondly, I don't think most male writers struggle with the love/fear/goals/regrets part of writing a female character (so long as they are competent generally). Not because those are easy things, but because they tend to be pretty unrelated to gender. The concept of 'wanting to live in a nice house' is a goal that men and women can both understand. 

On the other hand, bodily differences are difficult. Sexual functions, likewise. Political views, parenting choices. But the _really_ hard part, I think, lies in depicting an authentic life experience. How is it different being a woman in a job interview versus a man? How is it different walking down the street in the dark? How is dating different? How is marriage different? These are important things that are, presumably, very different depending on gender. I don't think you can disregard gender/sex with those things.


----------



## Ralph Rotten

Xander416 said:


> We really, _really_ are. Seriously, ladies, you keep seeing us as a Rubix cube when we're basically just a hammer.




I have always found this graphic to be entirely accurate.


----------



## Kyle R

luckyscars said:


> You can 'put yourself in the character's shoes' all you want, _and you should_, but if your fundamental understanding of basic differences is so flawed it becomes a distraction.
> 
> I mean, I don't see how any amount of putting myself in a female character's shoes would ensure a good written outcome if I was still of the opinion that women's nipples turn to bullets whenever they see an attractive man.



That's a fair point. Though it does leave me wondering: is this writer describing bullet-hard nipples (lol) because they're thinking, "If I were this character, my nipples would be rock-hard!"

Or are they thinking, "Rock-hard nipples! That's what happens to women when they're turned on, right?"

Because those are two entirely different mindsets. And (I can only assume) a lot of that kind of writing likely happens because of the latter approach, rather than the former.



			
				luckyscars said:
			
		

> But this kind of basic goof can throw you out of the story so that the important stuff gets lost, especially when it happens all the time. It's likely a contributing factor to why Stephen King's readership skews male even though his protagonists are fairly equal in terms of gender balance.


Quite possible!



			
				luckyscars said:
			
		

> On the other hand, bodily differences are difficult. Sexual functions, likewise. Political views, parenting choices. But the _really_ hard part, I think, lies in depicting an authentic life experience. How is it different being a woman in a job interview versus a man? How is it different walking down the street in the dark? How is dating different? How is marriage different? These are important things that are, presumably, very different depending on gender. I don't think you can disregard gender/sex with those things.


I agree that one shouldn't completely disregard gender/sex. There are a lot of gender-specific experiences that, as you point out, likely require some decent research (and/or vetting from actual members of said gender) to write convincingly. No arguments here.

My main concern is with writers who take the "Rebecca walks down a dark road at night" scene and, instead of thinking, "Okay. I'm Rebecca here. What's going through my head right now?", they choose, rather, to think: "Okay. Here's a woman, alone at night. What would a woman be thinking here? What do I know about women . . . ?"

That second way of thinking is, in my opinion, the cause of a lot of the weird writing that we keep seeing, where authors are relying upon generalized, stereotypical notions to try to craft a character on the page. Like, "Women are scared of bugs, right? Okay. I'll make her see a bug here and scream, because that's what a woman would do . . ." :cower:


----------



## luckyscars

Kyle R said:


> I agree that one shouldn't completely disregard gender/sex. There are a lot of gender-specific experiences that, as you point out, likely require some decent research (and/or vetting from actual members of said gender) to write convincingly. No arguments here.
> 
> My main concern is with writers who take the "Rebecca walks down a dark road at night" scene and, instead of thinking, "Okay. I'm Rebecca here. What's going through my head right now?", they choose, rather, to think: "Okay. Here's a woman, alone at night. What would a woman be thinking here? What do I know about women . . . ?"
> 
> That second way of thinking is, in my opinion, the cause of a lot of the weird writing that we keep seeing, where male authors are relying upon generalized, stereotypical notions to try to craft a character on the page. Like, "Women are scared of bugs, right? Okay. I'll make her see a bug here and scream, because that's what a woman would do . . ." :cower:



I feel like the biggest argument for the 'treat every character as an individual' position comes down to intersectionality. I think that may be what you're speaking of?

Intersectionality is a really complicated problem with thinking in terms of any sort of identity because it invariably leads to an infinite regress as far as 'types'. We can all agree that women and men are not the same in every respect, but then we have a problem that not all women's experiences are the same either. The 'walking down the street' example is super difficult because we don't know what street it is. We don't know where it is, what time period, and if that might make a difference. We don't know if the woman in question is black/white/asian and if that might make a difference, if she is young or old and if that might make a difference and there's basically endless variables that make it impossible to answer a question like "What is it like being a woman walking down a street at night?" precisely. 

Hell, I bet _some_ women maybe do experience hard nipples randomly. Others may spend _hours _examining their nipples in the shower. 

I guess what I would come back to, is that the writer doesn't get to dictate meaning by themselves, the readers do: If I write a horror novel but the majority of my readers find it more funny than scary, it's no longer a horror novel. It doesn't matter than I wrote as a horror novel or that I was intending x, y or z. So, really, this comes down to a super broad 'about how many people think this works?' type discussion, nothing more and nothing less. 

And...I think that's still a valid discussion, at least in terms of something fairly harmless like writing. We can talk in generalities about women's experience (and mens, and black/white peoples, etc) and intersectionality does not need to be a problem so long as we all understand there will always be exceptions and room for disagreement. 

So that's where I sort of think that thinking of Judith's character arc in terms of 'what I think a white middle class suburban woman in her 50's would do' is helpful and I don't want to consider them entirely as an individual. At the same time, I would want to make sure I look for ways to circle out of stereotypes in ways that are effective while still using them where it makes sense.


----------



## Kyle R

luckyscars said:
			
		

> I feel like the biggest argument for the 'treat every character as an individual' position comes down to intersectionality. I think that may be what you're speaking of?



I'm not familiar with intersectionality, so I can't really comment on it. Though it does sound interesting.



luckyscars said:


> So that's where I sort of think that thinking of Judith's character arc in terms of 'what I think a white middle class suburban woman in her 50's would do' is helpful and I don't want to consider them entirely as an individual. At the same time, I would want to make sure I look for ways to circle out of stereotypes in ways that are effective while still using them where it makes sense.



This comment has me a bit confused. Why would you _not_ want to consider Judith as an individual? (I'm assuming she's a main/POV character, and not just a side character?)

I mean, sure, thinking of her as an amalgam of traits (white middle-class suburban woman in her fifties) is certainly doable. But it's still worse (in my opinion) than thinking of her as, well . . . _Judith_.

The first approach is definitely a great way to build an initial framework for the character, when we're still figuring out who we're going to write. But as the writer gets to know the character better, all those traits and descriptors will (should?) eventually be tossed aside, as they'll no longer define the character to any useful degree.

And if, at that point, the writer is still thinking of the character in terms of their surface traits, then it's probably going to show in the writing. Especially if it's a male author who's trying to contort his character to fit the mold of a "generalized female", rather than writing the individual that they actually are. (<— Which is what I imagine many authors are guilty of, when they pen the kinds of passages that female readers find inauthentic.)


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## Xander416

Ralph Rotten said:


> I have always found this graphic to be entirely accurate.


It most definitely is. :lol:


----------



## luckyscars

Kyle R said:


> This comment has me a bit confused. Why would you _not_ want to consider Judith as an individual? (I'm assuming she's a main/POV character, and not just a side character?)
> 
> I mean, sure, thinking of her as an amalgam of traits (white middle-class suburban woman in her fifties) is certainly doable. But it's still worse (in my opinion) than thinking of her as, well . . . _Judith_.
> 
> The first approach is definitely a great way to build an initial framework for the character, when we're still figuring out who we're going to write. But as the writer gets to know the character better, all those traits and descriptors will (should?) eventually be tossed aside, as they'll no longer define the character to any useful degree.
> 
> And if, at that point, the writer is still thinking of the character in terms of their surface traits, then it's probably going to show in the writing. Especially if it's a male author who's trying to contort his character to fit the mold of a "generalized female", rather than writing the individual that they actually are. (<— Which is what I imagine many authors are guilty of, when they pen the kinds of passages that female readers find inauthentic.)



Because 'Judith' isn't a real person and therefore as no innate individuality. Her individuality has to be created by the writer (who, unless it is autobiographical, is not Judith) and will therefore be some variety of amalgam regardless. 

I think this might need some clarification, though. It's not really as nitpicky as it might sound.

If I am tasked with designing a new flag for a state or province or nation and the directive is 'we want something that is original and distinctive' the easiest way for me to fulfill the brief would be to put a picture of a cheeseburger on the flag. It's original (in heraldry). It's distinctive. It's an individualistic type of design. But, of course, when we design anything which we want to resonate with a large group of people...we have to think about what that large group of people would expect and want as well as just 'this is new, see?'.

 I see a similar thought process in designing flags as in designing characters, in the sense you have two forces to contend with: You need the thing to be simultaneously both entirely different ('this flag cannot be like any other!') and entirely predictable ('this flag should represent the people and land!'). Those forces can be a real problem creatively. 

So, Judith: I certainly can't see Judith as being the green-skinned and three feet tall living in a suburb where the mystery story is set  -- that kind of originality would be ineffective. But also, beyond that, I actually can't see Judith as being a regular middle-aged white woman in the suburbs who then prances around Walmart in a miniskirt with no underwear -- that is, _unless there's a really good explanation for it. _Because I don't believe ordinary women do that, and certainly not 'that type of woman' and I think the result would be not 'wow this character is super original' but more 'the writer is a moron, wtf is this?'

So, that is why I say that to think of a character completely as an individual, removed from what is expected, can backfire.

I'm not really disagreeing with you, I don't think. I do agree that stereotypes are a problem and especially gender ones are really pernicious. What I'm trying to do is fine tune your advice because I think it could be open to being misinterpreted. I guess I am also somewhat wanting to defend the premise of the thread. I think 'Writing Women' is a really big issue in contemporary fiction (regardless of whether or not it should and I think it gets screwed up a lot.


----------



## luckyscars

Biro said:


> I don't understand why a character, woman or man can't be written by the author how they like.   If their description doesn't suit some people, then so what?
> 
> Why in this case does the description of a female have to conform to what others think is right or wrong, politically correct or not, pervy in the eyes of some but not in others?
> 
> If a person writes as he sees or thinks.  Then why do they have to be judged by other writers?  If they are to be judged by anyone then surely it is the purchaser of their product and not someone who makes similar.  Sales would tell the real story of how it is going to be received.
> 
> Do we get Ferrari going around to other car manufacturers saying ..... Tut tut.....you can't do that mate.   You better not make it different than what we do.



You're being obtuse again.

Nobody is saying you can't write a character how you like. We're discussing what _tends to work. _That is the point of this thread, arguably of all threads.

You're right that the purchaser of the product is the arbiter of 'what works' but since there isn't a forum for 'future readers of our books' we have to rely on what other writers might say to have a conversation. Obviously, we should bear in mind that other writers are also readers -- or should be.

As far as 'write what you want and don't worry about what people think'....fine, if you want. But it runs contradictory to my life experience so I will beg to differ. The work I have sold has always occupied a happy midway between original and predictable. There's a reason why tropes exist. It's about balance.


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## bdcharles

Biro said:


> Do we get Ferrari going around to other car manufacturers saying ..... Tut tut.....you can't do that mate.   You better not make it different than what we do.



Flinging faeces at the wall and calling it art: who's to say it isn't?


----------



## PiP

OKAY, back on topic, please. The OP has made his feelings quite clear regarding off-topic discussions. We are discussing writing women not abstract art.


----------



## Kyle R

luckyscars said:


> I'm not really disagreeing with you, I don't think. I do agree that stereotypes are a problem and especially gender ones are really pernicious. What I'm trying to do is fine tune your advice because I think it could be open to being misinterpreted. I guess I am also somewhat wanting to defend the premise of the thread. I think 'Writing Women' is a really big issue in contemporary fiction (regardless of whether or not it should and I think it gets screwed up a lot.



Okay, I see what you mean. I suppose stereotypes can be helpful in the way you described (as a sort of "reality check" against one's imagination). I've never thought of them in that way before, but there's certainly some logic to it. :encouragement:

Ultimately, I think the best way to sidestep most of the instances of "writing women badly" is for male authors to run their work past the eyes of some actual women, and to give careful consideration to their feedback. (And vice versa, for female authors writing about men.)

I'm only wondering out loud here, but perhaps the issue with some big-name authors, who still manage to write women in awkward ways, is that . . . maybe their success has made them feel that such feedback is no longer needed.

There was a big discussion on Twitter about Haruki Murakami, for example, and his handling of female characters, especially with their frequent (and unusual) preoccupation with breasts (noticing their own breasts, thinking about breasts in general, wondering about the breasts of other women in moments when such thoughts seem out of place . . .).

I'm not totally familiar with Murakami, but if true, I imagine this is an instance where some reader feedback from females could've avoided such issues in the writing. Though I also imagine that, once an author hits Murakami's level of success, the author likely begins to feel above the need for such feedback.


----------



## Terry D

I haven't scoured this entire thread, but I have read through most of it (skipping much of the pseudo-deep, blah-blah-blah) and one perspective I haven't seen is that of POV. Most of the posts seem to be written assuming the language and attitudes expressed are those of the author. That's rarely the case with professional writers. For instance, in the Stephen King excerpts posted early on those descriptions were written from a third-person limited POV, or possibly from a first-person POV. When writing from either of those POVs the 'attitude', and word choices should be reflective of the POV character and are not, necessarily, representative of the author's attitudes toward women. Here's a brief section from one of my stories by way of illustration:

Back in the day, Tony and me and T’shid and BJ practically owned this old neighborhood. Even when the assholes came in and started gentrifyin’ everything, we were still the ones in charge on the streets. And everyone knew it too. Those that didn’t learned pretty fuckin’ quick – like her. But it seems the lesson might not’a taken with that bitch.
I can fix that.
[FONT=-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Oxygen, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, Helvetica Neue, Open Sans, Arial, sans-serif]Maybe that’s what she wants? Maybe she wants me to take her down that alley in back’a Kosta’s Deli again? BJ said she liked it, but I didn’t think so. Nobody begs an’ screams that much, in spite’a gettin’ beat, and actually likes it. But you never know. Maybe.[/FONT]

That's certainly not my attitude toward women, but it is the character's.
I don't spend much time on physical description, preferring instead to let my readers create their own image of characters, particularly main characters. This next excerpt, from my current WIP (unedited) is somewhat of an exception to that. Sorry for the length, but I prefer to sprinkle in description rather than deliver it in blocks.

Sitting across the small round table from him, the woman was nibbling at an over-priced salad and sipping at a glass of white wine. She had just asked him if he would accept her case and was waiting for his answer. Sips were out pacing nibbles two-to-one. Kreider was purposely letting the wait drag out. He wanted to watch her body language; to see how she handled the stress. Sometimes the most productive moments in an interview, or interrogation, were the long silences. She watched him steadily, her gray-blue eyes seldom leaving his face. They were intelligent eyes. They didn’t just watch, they probed. She’d said she was a freelance journalist and he thought that her eyes were the eyes of someone who was accustomed to looking for truth; and to spotting bullshit.

Her hands, however, betrayed her nervousness. They never stopped moving. From salad fork to wine glass to napkin and back again. In the brief moments between sips and nibbles the little finger of her right hand rubbed against the wide platinum band encircling the ring finger. A braided vine pattern adorned the surface of the ring and her incessant rubbing rotated the metal making the vine seem to crawl around her finger. I’d love to play poker with this one, Noah thought as he took another bite of his sandwich. That’s one hell of a tell.

“So,” she said. “How do we get started?” Apparently she was tired of waiting.

“I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to take your case,” Noah said.

“Bullshit, Mr. Kreider.” She downed the last inch of wine in her glass and then refilled it from the carafe, saying, “I may not have spent fourteen years in the FBI, but I’ve sat in enough interviews with drug dealers, movie stars, and politicians, to know how to spot a lie as well as you can.

“If you were going to turn me down, you’d be halfway back to your little place in Prairie City by now.” Another drink, then she continued, “I don’t think that sandwich is good enough to keep you here if you’d decided not to help me.”

The spindly chair creaked a warning as Noah settled himself against its contoured back. “Ms. Hunter…”

“Ellen. Call me Ellen. I’m not interested in that PC bullshit.”

“Okay. Ellen. You know this isn’t the sort of case…” Noah paused for a moment. As a private investigator he wanted to start calling them ‘jobs’ now. Seldom did his work result in anyone going to court these days; mostly it was tracking down runaways and finding dead-beat dads trying to skip out on support payments. But old habits die hard and as much as his head wanted to say ‘job’ his tongue always seemed to say ‘case’.

“This isn’t the sort of work I do now.”

“You find people, right?” Those eyes kept watching him. Little wrinkles sprayed from their corners. Wrinkles which would dance when she smiled, but Noah didn’t think she smiled much.

“I do.”

“Then I don’t see a problem.”

“I find people who are missing, for whatever reason. I’m usually working for their families.” Kreider slid his nearly empty plate to one side and folded his hands together on top of the linen table cloth. “What you want me to do is a job for the police.”

“I told you I tried that. They think I’m a crazy old woman.”

She wasn’t old. Maybe seven or eight years older than Noah which would put her in her mid-forties. She looked both older and younger than that. There were streaks of gray in her brown hair, and her face was lined with wrinkles not just at the corners of her eyes but across her forehead and dropping from the corners of her mouth. Her lips had the tiny crinkles of a long-time smoker. Similarly, her hands looked weathered and worn. The fingers were long, with close trimmed, well maintained nails, and knuckles that looked like knots in a rope.

There was an energy about her, however, that belied the appearance of age. She moved with grace and ease, and her attitude was the bold confidence of youth.

Kreider liked her.

I don't find it difficult to write women, or from a woman's POV. I simply ask what this character would do, or say in any given situation. I try to understand my main characters based on the sum of their experiences coming into my story. For women, or people of color, or someone from a different culture that means trying to understand -- to the best of my ability -- how that difference would affect their reactions. I don't ask myself, "What would a woman do?" I ask, "What would Ellen Hunter do?" That doesn't mean I ignore her gender, it simply means I look at her gender as one component of her experience.


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## luckyscars

Terry D said:


> I haven't scoured this entire thread, but I have read through most of it (skipping much of the pseudo-deep, blah-blah-blah) and one perspective I haven't seen is that of POV. Most of the posts seem to be written assuming the language and attitudes expressed are those of the author. That's rarely the case with professional writers. For instance, in the Stephen King excerpts posted early on those descriptions were written from a third-person limited POV, or possibly from a first-person POV. When writing from either of those POVs the 'attitude', and word choices should be reflective of the POV character and are not, necessarily, representative of the author's attitudes toward women.



Agreed, context is everything. However, if the King examples were explained by POV, it means that King believes that achieving an authentic POV of a loving father (i.e Mark Oates from The Jaunt) requires portraying the character gawking at his nine year old daughter's breasts...


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## Terry D

luckyscars said:


> Agreed, context is everything. However, if the King examples were explained by POV, it means that King believes that achieving an authentic POV of a loving father (i.e Mark Oates from The Jaunt) requires portraying the character gawking at his nine year old daughter's breasts...



"Gawking" says more about your interpretation of the passage than it does about how King wrote it. As written, it shows a father thinking about the passage of time and how that will effect his children. Both will be well into the transition from child to young adult when the family returns. King chose to use the word puberty when referring to the boy and to use one of the most noticeable physical manifestations of growing up female when talking about the girl. The passage is not in any way sexual, or intended to be titillating. It's been my experience that women can talk at great length about when, and how fast, their breasts developed and that it is a very significant time in their lives. Perhaps King simply chose to make the father incisive enough to understand that.


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## luckyscars

Terry D said:


> "Gawking" says more about your interpretation of the passage than it does about how King wrote it. As written, it shows a father thinking about the passage of time and how that will effect his children. Both will be well into the transition from child to young adult when the family returns. King chose to use the word puberty when referring to the boy and to use one of the most noticeable physical manifestations of growing up female when talking about the girl. The passage is not in any way sexual, or intended to be titillating. It's been my experience that women can talk at great length about when, and how fast, their breasts developed and that it is a very significant time in their lives. Perhaps King simply chose to make the father incisive enough to understand that.



King indicates this is a recurring observation/obsession of the father's: "He told himself again that Ricky would be deep in the swamp of puberty and his daughter would likely be developing breasts...and again found it difficult to believe." Gawking, or at least fixating, would be the correct terminology to use for prolonged or repeated interest in something visual, so I reject that it is some leap to get there.

FTR I don't think King is including this is to be titillating and did not say as such. I think King is writing it because his natural instinct is to write in a manner that courts controversy. It's ultimately more striking to describe puberty in terms of breasts than, say, of height change, pimples or any of the 1001 different changes because, well, they are breasts. King's early career was propelled by his willingness to 'go there' in his stories and push controversy, which I understand and appreciate, which is presumably why a bestselling author can have things like Shit Weasels and preteen orgies and naked ghost women in bathtubs. 

I get it and, to some extent, I enjoy it. But let's not kid ourselves this can all be explained away under the banner of POV or that it isn't open to some pretty bad calls.


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## Amnesiac

When I write women, and even occasionally write from a woman's POV, I avoid describing them beyond what description I would also give when describing a male character. Even if I'm writing romance, or an erotic scene, I still shy away from bodily description. Nothing is going to throw a reader out of a story faster than being overtly spoon-fed the physical description of a character, especially if it's sexual. Bodice-ripping, heaving bosoms, rippling abs..... Come on. /smh


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## Foxee

luckyscars said:


> King indicates this is a recurring observation/obsession of the father's: "He told himself *again *that Ricky would be deep in the swamp of puberty and his daughter would likely be developing breasts...and *again *found it difficult to believe." Gawking, or at least fixating, would be the correct terminology to use for prolonged or repeated interest in something visual, so I reject that it is some leap to get there.


Or worrying. 

Do you know that fathers worry about the fact that their daughters are developing and moving from childhood to adulthood? I haven't read the book in question but from this example all I see is that the father has this development on his radar because he may need to deal with a developing young woman soon who is still seeing things more innocently than what will be good for her. He is her dad, old enough to know that there are men who will attempt to use her innocence against her to get what they want.


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## Terry D

luckyscars said:


> King indicates this is a recurring observation/obsession of the father's: "He told himself *again *that Ricky would be deep in the swamp of puberty and his daughter would likely be developing breasts...and *again *found it difficult to believe." Gawking, or at least fixating, would be the correct terminology to use for prolonged or repeated interest in something visual, so I reject that it is some leap to get there.
> 
> FTR I don't think King is including this is to be titillating and did not say as such. I think King is writing it because his natural instinct is to write in a manner that is visceral, impacting, and gritty. It's ultimately more striking to describe puberty in terms of breasts than, say, of height change, pimples or any of the 1001 different changes because, well, they are breasts. King's early career was propelled by his willingness to 'go there' in his stories and push controversy, which is why we have things like Shit Weasels and preteen orgies. I get it.
> 
> So I understand why King does this. My contention is that he does not need to do it... and that the fact he so relentlessly does write this way about women and girls irrespective of whether it makes sense for POV or anything else, is something that should probably be avoided by male and female writers alike.



I believe the "fixation" is yours in your desire to prove a point. "Relentlessly?" Seriously? The man's published nearly 100 books over the last 45 years. The only thing he has done 'relentlessly' is entertain readers. When you or I come close to that level of output, then we can look back and parse out every passage and see if we can't find a few which might not meet everyone's standards of what should be "avoided". And which standards should we apply when looking at the bulk of an author's work? Today's standards? Tomorrow's (whatever those might be)? Or the standards of the time in which the work was written -- in King's case for Carrie, 1975? 

But as far as this discussion pertains to the OP, a writer does himself, or herself, or themself, no favors by "avoiding" constructions which are true to their characters and to their vision for the story. That means if my POV character thinks of women in sexist terms, then I'm damned sure going to write it that way, not sanitize the language or attitude to fit current events. It has been said that there is great truth in fiction, that it is a mirror for society to look into. I believe that. But, when we start to 'manage' that truth to create an artificial reflection of the world around us, then we really are all just a pack of liars.


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## Amnesiac

I've raised two girls and two boys. Doesn't matter whether they are boys are girls, puberty _sucks._ It's like your kids turn into little aliens and they aren't likable again until they are around 23 or 24 years of age.

I agree with Terry, too. If I'm writing a sexist character, like King wrote in, "Rose Madder," and I'm in that character's mind, I'm going to think and talk in that character's voice, no matter how vile.


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## luckyscars

Foxee said:


> Or worrying.
> 
> Do you know that fathers worry about the fact that their daughters are developing and moving from childhood to adulthood? I haven't read the book in question but from this example all I see is that the father has this development on his radar because he may need to deal with a developing young woman soon who is still seeing things more innocently than what will be good for her. He is her dad, old enough to know that there are men who will attempt to use her innocence against her to get what they want.



Yeah, I have a daughter.

But even leaving aside that this story (it's not a novel) is about teleportation to Mars and the theme you propose would seem tenuous in relation to this story, I find the idea of a father 'worrying' over his role as gatekeeper for his daughter's 'innocence' to be grotesquely outdated and sexist.


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## Terry D

luckyscars said:


> Yeah, I have a daughter.
> 
> But even leaving aside that this story (it's not a novel) is about teleportation to Mars and the theme you propose would seem tenuous in relation to this story, I find the idea of a father 'worrying' over his role as gatekeeper for his daughter's 'innocence' to be grotesquely outdated and sexist.



There are a lot of people who still feel that way, though. Does that mean none of your characters will fall into that group? Do you think the prevailing attitude might have been different 40 years ago when The Jaunt was originally published?


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## Foxee

luckyscars said:


> Yeah, I have a daughter.
> 
> But even leaving aside that this story (it's not a novel) is about teleportation to Mars and the theme you propose would seem tenuous in relation to this story, I find the idea of a father 'worrying' over his role as gatekeeper for his daughter's 'innocence' to be grotesquely outdated and sexist.


So what? I mean this seriously. All of us have our opinions.

When we write something other people will load their opinions onto our writing. In my opinion fathers' instinctive protectiveness is okay. In yours it makes him sexist. Neither changes what is on the page.


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## Amnesiac

Look at the mother in, "Carrie." Same dynamic.

As for the protectiveness that a father feels towards his daughter(s), this is not intrinsically a bad thing. Like I said in an earlier thread, the most convincing and dangerous villains are those whose actions are steeped in good intentions, especially when those good and noble intentions are taken to the extreme.


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## luckyscars

Terry D said:


> I believe the "fixation" is yours in your desire to prove a point. "Relentlessly?" Seriously? The man's published nearly 100 books over the last 45 years. The only thing he has done 'relentlessly' is entertain readers. When you or I come close to that level of output, then we can look back and parse out every passage and see if we can't find a few which might not meet everyone's standards of what should be "avoided". And which standards should we apply when looking at the bulk of an author's work? Today's standards? Tomorrow's (whatever those might be)? Or the standards of the time in which the work was written -- in King's case for Carrie, 1975?



We should apply today's standards to today's writing and yesterday's standards to yesterdays. It's not that complicated. 

The only reason King is worthy of discussion here is not because he committed a sin by writing in the register of his time but because there are thousands of writers (including several on this board) who seek to ape King at every turn and in every respect. 

Therefore it is not just reasonable but _necessary_ to evaluate which parts of his work 'work' and which parts do not in the context of modern writing. It doesn't matter a snowballs how popular or famous he is, that's a loser's argument. Bad writing is bad writing and good writing is good writing and every writer should be held accountable to both.

If you are so blindly mesmerized by the man that you can't tolerate criticism of him without making up excuses that don't work, that you don't think we are worthy to object to anything he has written, then that's your business and there's probably not much point in discussing it further. You see it how you want to see it, I see it a different way. You don't get to denigrate my criticisms on the basis of 'it's Stephen King and he's a great writer' anymore than I would get to denigrate yours on the basis of 'Stephen King sucks and you're wrong'. There's a better way to talk about things. It's not a binary.



> But as far as this discussion pertains to the OP, a writer does himself, or herself, or themself, no favors by "avoiding" constructions which are true to their characters and to their vision for the story. That means if my POV character thinks of women in sexist terms, then I'm damned sure going to write it that way, not sanitize the language or attitude to fit current events. It has been said that there is great truth in fiction, that it is a mirror for society to look into. I believe that. But, when we start to 'manage' that truth to create an artificial reflection of the world around us, then we really are all just a pack of liars.



Again, this is a total straw man. Absolutely nobody is talking about sanitizing anything except you. 

The goal isn't to avoid writing about anything. The goal is simply to look at things critically so we can figure out what aspects of King's work are good, that we should take pointers from, and what aren't good, that should be dispensed with. That's how we get better.

 I already pointed out that the argument-from-POV doesn't work for that particular example. If you want, we could go through every single piece King wrote about women and, yes, we would find some extracts that are totally fine, a few others that are very good... 

But! - and this is what we seem to be struggling with - we could _also _find extracts that are _really bad_. Those deserve attention as well, free from inane excuse-making like 'oh it's POV, see it's still fine'. If anything, doing so is a really good way to read authors because it humanizes them. Reading some terrible passage King writes about an underage girl's pubic hair, and acknowledging that it doesn't work and is problematic, should be helpful.


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## luckyscars

Foxee said:


> So what? I mean this seriously. All of us have our opinions.
> 
> When we write something other people will load their opinions onto our writing. In my opinion fathers' instinctive protectiveness is okay. In yours it makes him sexist. Neither changes what is on the page.



Yup, all subjective. I just happen to think the 'protective dad' trope is pretty worn out. If you think it still has mileage or relevancy, feel free to use it and good luck.


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## luckyscars

epimetheus said:


> But it can manifest in myriad ways, which change as society develops. Daughter, go be a woman can now mean that she becomes the sole custodian of her sexuality at a certain age, rather than the old fashioned view that the father hands over her sexuality to a husband on her wedding night.
> 
> I don't have a horse in this race, just pointing out that there are multiple runners.



Correct, and it's also fair to say that is the zeitgeist now. 

But, it doesn't mean that every story needs to be written that way or that stories that aren't written that way should all be shunned, especially if those stories are written thirty years ago like King's. It only means that we should recognize the _movement _is away from the idea of the chaste woman who needs Daddy to protect her from sex.

Nuance and appreciation of context is really important with this stuff. There are failures of it on both sides of the debate. I have no problem reading a story even in 20202 with an protective father. But I do have a problem with an assertion that it is a sign of a good parent to be afraid of their daughter's sexuality, especially compared to their son's. 

That kind of thing is extremely dated at best, insidious and creepy at worst; and only serves to perpetuate misogynistic shit like this:


View attachment 25850View attachment 25851


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## Theglasshouse

I will quote something squalid glass said:


> But you could literally do this thought experiment with anything you put in your writing. Every story produces unexpected interpretations and consequences. That's the nature of art.



However, I think my opinion is that writing women is something that a lot of people get wrong.  I think the advice I like the most is to have a woman read it.

For me a cliché can be changed. I am not objecting to anything said. Just continuing what was said in the thread about the police being about political correctness. Which was a great discussion. Which resulted in that quote. So what I am basically saying if handled well, a cliché can no longer be a cliché. 

However, I haven't had the opportunity to read many Stephen King's novels. I think he’s a great writer based on what others may say. But  writing a novel is a dream a writer could be selling to anyone. But I assume he can write a story, and we can pay attention to his tropes like other writers who write. Most plots are not original. His characterization is made up which is what I mean to say. Writers are liars as had been said here and by others.

That's just my opinion.


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## luckyscars

Terry D said:


> There are a lot of people who still feel that way, though. Does that mean none of your characters will fall into that group? Do you think the prevailing attitude might have been different 40 years ago when The Jaunt was originally published?



But I'm not concerned with the attitudes of 40 years ago because it's irrelevant. We are talking about how to write women now, right, not evaluating how it was done in the past. There are lots of things that don't work now that did in the past. Historical appreciation is a different thing.

When I criticize King, I am doing so purely through the frame of 'how would this shit pan out in 2020?'

My view on that is simply that such 'attitudes' are likely to be less effective, in part because most writers are already disadvantaged by not being as good writers overall as King and therefore their readers are less tolerant of bullshit. Further then disadvantaged by the fact you now have lots more bleeding heart pansies like me, people who think that describing every female under the sun according to her boobs is, at best, extremely boring and, at worst, obnoxiously sexist.

As far as whether there are men who still think about their daughters that way now, the answer is of course most definitely (at least, judging by the t-shirts). But those guys have been represented positively in thousands of books for hundreds of years.


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## luckyscars

Amnesiac said:


> Look at the mother in, "Carrie." Same dynamic.
> 
> As for the protectiveness that a father feels towards his daughter(s), this is not intrinsically a bad thing. Like I said in an earlier thread, the most convincing and dangerous villains are those whose actions are steeped in good intentions, especially when those good and noble intentions are taken to the extreme.



Carrie's mother is probably the most interesting character in Carrie. She's certainly the most complex.

There probably is really good mileage now in a story about a father who is obsessive over his daughter's puberty, an obsession that culminates in him actually being the antagonist. Almost an incestuous Lolita. We could call the daughter 'Ivanka'. 

I doubt I could write it, not without churning up a few dinners, but I could see it being of interest.


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## Darren White

*Admin note, again!
I've been moving posts to the off-topic thread. And really that was a nightmare. So PLEASE write about WRITING, nothing else. Honestly, behave!*


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## Ralph Rotten

*A question: How many of you have ever written a female protagonist?*


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## indianroads

Ralph Rotten said:


> *A question: How many of you have ever written a female protagonist?*



Part 3 of my WIP, the POV character is female. This occurs in some of my other books as well.


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## epimetheus

Ralph Rotten said:


> *A question: How many of you have ever written a female protagonist?*



My LM entries are my only writings that see other people. Out of those that i've won, two had female protagonists and one had a mix. I don't think that says anything about my writing - or if it does i'm not sure what.


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## Bayview

I find it easier to write male protagonists than female. (I'm a woman).

I don't think this is anything intrinsic with me, but rather because of audience response. It really seems like readers will put up with a LOT more complexity and "unlikeable" behaviour from male characters. I've had male characters do WAY worse things than female characters, and my readers (mostly female) are willing to forgive them. I hear "Ugh, what a bitch" about female characters who've done way less.

I have no idea about the roots of these reactions, but given that I like my characters to have flaws, I'm definitely prone to writing men.


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## Kyle R

Bayview said:


> I find it easier to write male protagonists than female. (I'm a woman).
> 
> I don't think this is anything intrinsic with me, but rather because of audience response. It really seems like readers will put up with a LOT more complexity and "unlikeable" behaviour from male characters. I've had male characters do WAY worse things than female characters, and my readers (mostly female) are willing to forgive them. I hear "Ugh, what a bitch" about female characters who've done way less.
> 
> I have no idea about the roots of these reactions, but given that I like my characters to have flaws, I'm definitely prone to writing men.



Are you framing these female characters as wholesome and/or virtuous, in some way? Because that might be part of the reason for the responses you've been getting.

For example: if you had a female character who self-identified as being more on the "bad" side of the moral spectrum, then readers might not take such issue with their behaviors.

In Victoria Schwab's _This Savage Song_ (YA, Urban Fantasy), the female lead opens the story by casually burning down a school church. Then she takes a seat on a nearby bench, pops a cigarette in her mouth, and patiently waits to watch the chaos that follows.

Immediately the reader knows that this character isn't going to be shining role model. So when she does "bad" stuff later on in the story, it feels within character.

(Just thinking of suggestions out loud here. Though, I do agree with you that male characters seem to get more of a pass on bad behavior, for whatever reason. The author has to go out of their way to frame the female character differently, or create more justifications, for behavior that otherwise wouldn't get questioned from a male character. :grief


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## Gumby

*A Friendly Admin Note:

FYI-

The Off Topic Posts have been moved Here
*
For those of you who are interested in taking the discussion to a different level than what is acceptable in both this thread and the *Off Topic thread*, please request a ticket to *Dante's *where you can get down and dirty without the danger of being removed from the discussion. 

*Those who continue to derail this thread* or go beyond what is acceptable in the *off topic thread*, please be aware that from this point forward you will be removed from the discussions if you continue.


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## Ralph Rotten

I wrote one book twice.
I wrote it the first time as narrated by the male protagonist.
Ten years later I rewrote it as narrated by the LatinX female heroine.
I was never happy with either version. Inoffensive characters, tame plot.
I think I did a _meh _job of writing a woman. 
*It's harder to write a woman from 1st person perspective than it is to write her from 3rd person omnipotent narrator.*


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## luckyscars

Ralph Rotten said:


> *It's harder to write a woman from 1st person perspective than it is to write her from 3rd person omnipotent narrator.*



Don't disagree, but I would say it's generally harder to write first person for any character _unless _that character is a proxy for the writer themselves. I had a similar degree of difficulty with one of my stories which was supposed to be first person written as an elderly man who is going blind. I'm not sure if it's harder to write a different age/ability/culture group than a different gender who is otherwise the same demographic as the writer, but I feel like they're all basically requiring of a lot of imagination.

P.S Do you mean omniscient narrator? I haven't heard the term omnipotent narrator before.

ETA P.P.S when I say 'proxy' I don't mean a direct insert, just similar enough that essentially we are writing how _we _​as the author would see things as opposed to through a vastly different lens.


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## Kyle R

I think a lot depends on the writer. I know some writers personally who are all about writing in first person, and wouldn't touch third person with a ten-foot pole.

For them, writing anything in third person (if you could somehow force them to) would feel considerably harder.

So I'd say it's somewhat a matter of habit. There are always exceptions, of course, but for the most part: whatever form of POV you write in the most, that form tends to feel the easiest.


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## Tettsuo

Ralph Rotten said:


> *A question: How many of you have ever written a female protagonist?*


My second novel has a female protagonist and my current WIP has a female protagonist.


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## indianroads

I've read a lot of poorly written men by women authors - just sayin' that this issue goes both ways.


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## epimetheus

Maybe i don't read widely enough or maybe i just don't notice it, but i've not really come across characters poorly written by authors of the opposite sex. 

Do people have any specific examples? Perhaps in sci-fi as that's what i'm most familiar with.


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## Ralph Rotten

Tettsuo said:


> My second novel has a female protagonist and my current WIP has a female protagonist.




Tell us about them. Were they 1st person or 3rd perspective?
Do you think you pulled them off well?
Show us a screenshot or two.


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## Ralph Rotten

indianroads said:


> I've read a lot of poorly written men by women authors - just sayin' that this issue goes both ways.




I have not so much seen women write bad men, as they have a different perspective.
For instance, I read one lady writer where her hero had to think out an elaborate way to get past a guard or something.
But a man would have been much more direct. Men have hulk-smash on speed dial.
_*Women don't always think from a place of power or physical strength.

Conversely, men don't often think from a perspective of weakness and burden.*_


----------



## luckyscars

epimetheus said:


> Maybe i don't read widely enough or maybe i just don't notice it, but i've not really come across characters poorly written by authors of the opposite sex.
> 
> Do people have any specific examples? Perhaps in sci-fi as that's what i'm most familiar with.



I put lots of specific examples on page one in reference to Stephen King. 

Sci-fi? Oh definitely. Here's one that came to mind right off the bat because it's always been memorable. Arthur C. Clarke from Rendezvous with Rama:

View attachment 25857

^This may qualify under the Terry D 'so long as its in character it's cool' excuse, and if it was supposed to be satire it could be quite funny. But it's not satire, it's just shitty writing and I have no idea what Clarke thought he was giving any reader by its inclusion, assuming he believed his reader was over the age of 15. 

Not bad enough? How about Asimov, a writer so genius he only seemed to be aware of around three female body parts?

View attachment 25858

View attachment 25859

View attachment 25860






Ralph Rotten said:


> I have not so much seen women write bad men, as they have a different perspective.
> For instance, I read one lady writer where her hero had to think out an elaborate way to get past a guard or something.
> But a man would have been much more direct. Men have hulk-smash on speed dial.
> _*Women don't always think from a place of power or physical strength.
> 
> Conversely, men don't often think from a perspective of weakness and burden.*_



It's beyond character, too. I think a lot of women tend to be more reluctant to write scenes in which the resolution comes down to physical violence -- regardless of whether they are writing as men or women. It's very much a generalization, but I don't see it very often. 

Even in something like Harry Potter there aren't very many examples I can think of where a conflict is resolved physically. There are _some _but there's far more emphasis on outwitting the monster or whatever, and magic tends to be used. Compare this to, well, any fantasy writing (even kid-friendly stuff like Narnia, written by a man) and its quite striking. 

Probably a reason why more violent genres tend to be dominated by men.


----------



## Annoying kid

luckyscars said:


> I put lots of specific examples on page one in reference to Stephen King.
> 
> Even in something like Harry Potter there aren't very many examples I can think of where a conflict is resolved physically. There are _some _but there's far more emphasis on outwitting the monster or whatever, and magic tends to be used. Compare this to, well, any fantasy writing (even kid-friendly stuff like Narnia, written by a man) and its quite striking.
> 
> Probably a reason why more violent genres tend to be dominated by men.



The main character in my story https://www.writingforums.com/threads/186726-Main-character-gets-her-neck-snapped outright rejects the mentor https://i.imgur.com/acyOQZa.jpg, who is more of a sword and shield, traditional warrior. As she knew that simply wouldn't be enough and it would be very difficult to escape his shadow if she spent so long learning from such a domineering paternal figure. 

I have had feedback in the past that this makes her weak - that she can't just learn from him and then go her own way once she's done. And I said, you're damn right she's weak. At that point anyway. Young weak and impressionable. But smart enough to realize she'd never surpass him if he trained her. As its likely she'd have been conditioned into seeing nothing wrong with the way he does things, and would never have incorporated cunning, planning, memory, sleight of hand, gymnastics, agility, stealth, ranged accuracy, meditation, psychology and calculation. 

What makes her a better warrior to use in terms of storytelling is her much wider skill set allows for much more elaborate stunts and creative solutions to problems that go far beyond slashing it with blades.

Because I don't think physical violence is big enough or all that interesting on its own. And I don't think she does either. Thats why she prefers using an elegant bit of skill to win fights instead of brute forcing. Its all about finding the best move. As fighting for her isn't about domination, its about self discovery and self improvement.

As such when shes faced with a minigun she hates that the best move was missed.   https://i.imgur.com/hVOd0oR.jpg And that she really should have been able to see that throwing the knife at the strap will sever the  ammo backpack and take him out of the fight. 

People say they don't want the "Strong Female Characters" to be Relentless, unflinching, unhesitating, fearless, calculating, invincible fighting machines - but it really bothers her that she's not that.


----------



## luckyscars

It's definitely not black and white. A lot of (very good) crime writers are women, arguably the best ones are, and some of them don't pull any punches when it comes to description of violence. 

However I don't recall reading too many books by women where the solution to violence was ever _more _violence. I think that's probably the biggest difference I see. A lot of male writers seem to respond to the idea of evil with killing the evil thing, often quite graphically. Female writers seem to do this far less often and, when an act of violence is needed, tend toward implying it rather than providing a blow-by-blow account.

A comparison example that comes to mind is _The Shining_ by King and _The Haunting Of Hill House _by Shirley Jackson. They're both pretty similar stories: In both cases the protagonist finds themselves living in an unfamiliar building in which they gradually go insane by paranormal forces. In King's book, the resolution to that madness is to have the protagonist  smash his own face in with a hammer and die in a deeply unpleasant fashion. Jackson's resolution is similar but far less violent: She implies the protagonist commits suicide by crashing a car into a tree, though it's pretty ambiguous that even happens. These seem like archetypal 'male and female' responses to what is basically the same problem.


----------



## luckyscars

In case anyone thinks the men are getting a raw deal out of this thread, I happened to discover this little gem in the wild today. Download the free sample, it’s brilliant.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01H2Z5X6G/?tag=writingforu06-20


----------



## epimetheus

luckyscars said:


> Sci-fi? Oh definitely. Here's one that came to mind right off the bat because it's always been memorable. Arthur C. Clarke from Rendezvous with Rama:
> 
> View attachment 25857
> 
> ^This may qualify under the Terry D 'so long as its in character it's cool' excuse, and if it was supposed to be satire it could be quite funny. But it's not satire, it's just shitty writing and I have no idea what Clarke thought he was giving any reader by its inclusion, assuming he believed his reader was over the age of 15.
> 
> Not bad enough? How about Asimov, a writer so genius he only seemed to be aware of around three female body parts?
> 
> View attachment 25858
> 
> View attachment 25859
> 
> View attachment 25860



Thanks for the examples. But these aren't examples of male authors writing female characters, but male authors writing male characters noticing female characters. They are all 3rd person limited from the POV of a male character. To my mind that makes this a question of _writing men_ badly.

And is it really as simple as if an author mentions breasts it's bad writing (it's the common theme in all these examples)? Presumably it's a matter of context - sometimes men notice breasts, and sometimes that is relevant to character development.


----------



## Kyle R

epimetheus said:


> Maybe i don't read widely enough or maybe i just don't notice it, but i've not really come across characters poorly written by authors of the opposite sex.



Here's snippet from Haruki Murakami's (hugely successful Japanese author) _1Q84_. What do you think of it?

A troubled young woman walking toward the abyss of destruction. She had had beautiful breasts as well.

Aomame mourned the deaths of these two friends deeply. It saddened her to think that these women were forever gone from the world. And she mourned their lovely breasts—breasts that had vanished without a trace.​
I haven't read the book, but some (female) readers who have say that this is just one of many breast-focused passages that feel out of place in the narrative. :-s


----------



## Bayview

Ralph Rotten said:


> I have not so much seen women write bad men, as they have a different perspective.
> For instance, I read one lady writer where her hero had to think out an elaborate way to get past a guard or something.
> But a man would have been much more direct. Men have hulk-smash on speed dial.
> _*Women don't always think from a place of power or physical strength.
> 
> Conversely, men don't often think from a perspective of weakness and burden.*_




I think you're taking a gender-based average and mis-applying it to individual authors.

Yes, as an average, women are not as physically powerful as men. But there are plenty of women, and I assume plenty of women authors, who are more physically powerful than plenty of men, and I assume plenty of men authors.


----------



## epimetheus

Kyle R said:


> Here's snippet from Haruki Murakami's (hugely successful Japanese author) _1Q84_. What do you think of it?
> A troubled young woman walking toward the abyss of destruction. She had had beautiful beasts as well.
> 
> Aomame mourned the deaths of these two friends deeply. It saddened her to think that these women were forever gone from the world. And she mourned their lovely breasts—breasts that had vanished without a trace.​
> I haven't read the book, but some (female) readers who have say that this is just one of many breast-focused passages that feel out of place in the narrative. :-s



I've read 1Q84 - i don't remember it very well, except that it was a convoluted romance with tons of sex in it. The portrait of a world not quite our own was interesting but other than that i found it boring. I wouldn't recommend it.

I don't remember that scene in particular - all i can say is that none of the characters have stayed with me so i'm not sure if that's an example of writing women poorly, or of writing characters poorly. Same is true of Asimov, no? It's his ideas and worlds people remember him for, not his characters. At the very least writing women poorly seems to be correlated with writing men poorly.


----------



## Bayview

I think there's a trend among male writers not so much of writing individual female characters poorly, but of poorly integrating female characters into their societies, if that makes sense.

Looking over my reading, I find that I tend to read female authors when I read contemporary, literary, mystery, etc. This hasn't been a deliberate choice. Interesting? (Obviously I've read OLDER male authors. The classics, etc. But it doesn't seem fair to even look at them through a modern lens in this area, so I leave them out).

The only genre in which I've read a lot of male authors is fantasy, and... I've read a lot of fantasy novels over the last five or ten years with one "kick ass" female character... and that's all. The other female characters still fall into the standard fantasy stereotypes for women. And I'd be okay with this _if it was acknowledged that the kick ass woman is an anomaly_. But too often that isn't addressed, and it leaves the impression that, no, this ISN'T a sexist society. Look at Female Character X! She's a warrior and nobody has any kind of problem with it! Everything's fine. And... I guess all those OTHER female characters, all the ones leading lives in which they're subordinate to men, are just... naturally subordinate? I guess? Because Character X doesn't face any sexism, so...?

Some excerpts from my comments on Goodreads:

From Kings of the Wyld: "But, honestly, I need to stop reading male-written fantasy novels that include female characters. If you want to write a paean to male friendship, just do it. I love male friendship, too! I'll read your story. But including a handful of token female characters and then sexualizing them and/or defining their worth only based on their relationships with male characters? I'd much rather read a sausage-fest than read the patronizing nonsense."

From Theft of Swords: "I think there's some good worldbuilding - gave an extra star for that. But the two MCs are ridiculous Marty Stus, the plot is based on a LOT of convenient coincidences, and the characterization in general is really, really shallow. I read somewhere that the author wrote these books for his teenage daughter, and I really hope that isn't true, because why the hell would anyone write a book for a teenage girl in which there isn't a single female character with even a DROP of agency or common sense?"

From The Emperor's Blades: "The first three-quarters isn't so much Grimdark as Cartoonish Torture Porn. When one of the MCs "dies" but wakes up in the next scene after having been rescued, it made it clear that there's nothing really grim here. Other people might die, but our heroes will be tortured but come out stronger, not damaged or weakened. They might get a few artistic scars, but their bodies and minds still function and they've learned their lessons. The secondary characters (especially, of course, the female ones) may be destroyed, but not our heroes.

Speaking of our heroes? There are two. Both male. I have no idea why the token sister storyline was included - it certainly wasn't given equal time or effort. And don't get me started on the other depictions of female characters."

From The Final Empire: "And I'm pretty tired of this weird form of "strong female character" we get where only ONE woman is at all three dimensional or even really present, and of course she's only useful because she has super-special magic, not because she's smart or disciplined or well-trained or anything. Essentially the only way for a woman to be a meaningful character in a lot of fantasy is if she's MAGIC. Blech."

From The Black Prism: "And Karris? Come on, male writers! It's not enough to give female characters some skills - you have to make them make sense, too! Don't set Karris up as a super-disciplined leader of a crack team of hyper-devoted bodyguards and then have her stalk off and abandon her charge behind enemy lines because he cheated on her sixteen years earlier, especially when they've been broken up for all that time! Don't make her so stupid she [ can't recognize the man she loved, or tell him apart from his brother (not twins, just brothers) to whom she was engaged, just because the guy put a scar on his forehead to match. Every OTHER character who'd known the two was apparently banished from the Chromaturgy in order to avoid detection, but Karris? Who's slept with both of them and is in love with one of them? Nah, she won't notice. No problem."

From The Steel Remains: "And I'm starting to notice a pattern in fantasy books written by men - they tend to have ONE Kickass female character, but all the other women are still stuck in traditional female roles. This book had Kickass, mom, crazy sorceress, and bewildered victim. I'd like it better if the stories at least called out the sexism - like, if the Kickass character was frustrated by the passivity of other women, or if she had to fight against the misogyny of other men. But it seems like, in this pattern, the Kickass character doesn't even NOTICE that she's the only woman with any agency, which really makes it more frustrating."

By contrast, I found my reaction to Brent Weekes' The Palace Job: "...it's one of the few fantasy novels, or, really, action-style novels in general that I've read with multiple female POV characters. That worked for me. When one of the characters is a somewhat stereotypical KickAss Heroine, it doesn't really bother me because there's also a nerdish woman, a femme fatale, and a manic pixie dream-horse. All the principle villains were male, though, which seemed like a bit of a lost opportunity. And having so many female characters may have contributed to the apparent decision to have a lot of weird romances sprouting up, like everyone has to hook up with someone else in order to have a happy ending."

And an interesting progression in Brian McLellan's Powder Mage Trilogy:

From the first book, Promise of Blood: "I was also a bit concerned about the portrayal of women. Women without magic aren't given much respect in society (at the start of the book the nobles are all executed along with their wives - no mention of nobles being executed along with their husbands, so I guess the noble women didn't have any power; the leader of the mercenaries is female but only has the role b/c of her late husband, etc.); the women who DO have magic seem to be consistently underestimated (Julene, Ka-Poel), but none of it is really reconciled. Like, how do the women with magic feel about the way other women are treated? I have no idea, b/c the only female POV we get is the laundress, who does... nothing interesting."

From the second book, The Crimson Campaign: "at first I thought the women were being treated better in this novel, but by the time the book was over I wasn't really sure it was (we still have only one female POV, and she's really passive - she thinks about doing things, and then... doesn't. And why was Tamas's assumption, on breaking in to his old lover's house, that her HUSBAND must be a partisan? Why didn't he assume SHE might be one? etc.). "

And then from the third book, The Autumn Republic: "The only really notable thing is the definite change in the way female characters were handled. I honestly felt as if the author had read my reviews here, realized that I was brilliant and right, and had fixed the issues! We now have female soldiers killing and getting killed, female union leaders, etc. It leads to a bit of a continuity issue with the first two books, but, whatever, I can handle it. I liked it!"


----------



## Kyle R

epimetheus said:


> I don't remember that scene in particular - all i can say is that none of the characters have stayed with me so i'm not sure if that's an example of writing women poorly, or of writing characters poorly.



I think that's a smart distinction to make.

From what I've seen, Murakami's critics argue that the problem is in his own (apparent) infatuation with breasts—and his insistence on nudging the narrative (in many of his books) toward breast-related thoughts from his characters, when such thoughts don't really fit the story.

I've only read his _Norwegian Wood_, and, like your experience with his writing, I don't really remember much about it. I certainly don't recall any weird female characterizations, though that doesn't mean they weren't there.

Perhaps such things are invisible to me on first glance, because I'm male, and I'm not actively searching for such things in the first place.

Which might be all the more reason for male authors like myself to pay close attention when female authors/readers point out problematic depictions of female characters; they likely have a point.


----------



## indianroads

luckyscars said:


> I put lots of specific examples on page one in reference to Stephen King.
> 
> Sci-fi? Oh definitely. Here's one that came to mind right off the bat because it's always been memorable. Arthur C. Clarke from Rendezvous with Rama:
> 
> ^This may qualify under the Terry D 'so long as its in character it's cool' excuse, and if it was supposed to be satire it could be quite funny. But it's not satire, it's just shitty writing and I have no idea what Clarke thought he was giving any reader by its inclusion, assuming he believed his reader was over the age of 15.
> 
> Not bad enough? How about Asimov, a writer so genius he only seemed to be aware of around three female body parts?
> 
> [...]



I think we have to consider the era and the intended audience for the older works cited. 

Years ago, SciFi was only thought to be of interest to science geeks and pubescent males... which, generally speaking, are very interested in female breasts. So, reading about them bouncing around in zero gravity might be entertaining to the intended audience. This was also a time when a novel showing women as strong and self reliant wouldn't do well - because in that era many didn't believe it was possible. Yes, it was wrong - but if you wrote something akin to what we see today, the book probably wouldn't be picked up for publication.


----------



## BornForBurning

> They are all 3rd person limited from the POV of a male character. To my mind that makes this a question of _writing men badly._


Despite my _major _misgivings regarding the 'guy notices sexy lady and describes her in detail' trope, I do think POV is a very valid point (Biro was the first person to note this, I believe). It would be ridiculous to assume that mere depiction of evil implied endorsement. The best approach is to analyze each work on a case-by-case basis. Lucky posted a link to those erotica novels...I think that's a pretty clear-cut example of endorsement. Same with the Murakami quote, that stuff makes my skin crawl. I also think it's easy to rag on someone like King or whoever because he's rich, famous and old. But the most important thing to do is to examine our own work and strain out the creeping 2AM immorality. Sometimes I get sucked into this trap of raging on about how EVIL some guy's novel is. And it _is _evil, but it's ultimately not my job to convict him.


----------



## luckyscars

epimetheus said:


> Thanks for the examples. But these aren't examples of male authors writing female characters, but male authors writing male characters noticing female characters. They are all 3rd person limited from the POV of a male character. To my mind that makes this a question of _writing men_ badly.
> 
> And is it really as simple as if an author mentions breasts it's bad writing (it's the common theme in all these examples)? Presumably it's a matter of context - sometimes men notice breasts, and sometimes that is relevant to character development.



The problem with the argument from character POV is it only works if the POV is credible.

I get what you're saying, I really do, but let's take that logic to its natural conclusion...

 Imagine a book that was riddled with really vile tropes and stereotypes about Jews...but the ostensible POV happened to be that of a sparrow at Auschwitz. In that case, I assume you would not say 'this is a bird’s pint of view, therefore it's not that the writer is antisemetic so much as he's just really bad at writing as a bird'?

At a certain point, we know when somebody is saying what they think (or, at least, pandering to their reader’s thoughts) instead of writing 'in character'. 

I'm not trying to go Godwin with the above, nor am I saying for a moment that Clarke's example (or King's examples, for that matter) are born of some hatred of women or pedophilia or whatever else. Only that this is kind of where we would have to make a judgment as to whether the POV is actually the sole reason for writing it, or whether it's being used as a kind of veneer for the writer.

 I don't have a problem with breasts at all -- I'm a huge fan! But I also recognize that they are generally a male obsession more than a female one, that men tend to exaggerate their significance in a multitude of hyper-sexualized and, often biologically invalid and pornographically influenced ways while conveniently ignoring their actual function or what they represent to women. I don't see many male authors writing about breast cancer or non-erotic lactation, for instance. 

This means extended or frivolous descriptions or, worse still, evaluating women according to breast size/shape or really any obvious sexual asset (especially when its for no evident purpose, double-especially when it's downright creepy) can backfire. The examples I have given I did not pick just because they mentioned breasts but because they are examples of bad, pointless writing, even in their respective contexts.



indianroads said:


> I think we have to consider the era and the intended audience for the older works cited.
> 
> Years ago, SciFi was only thought to be of interest to science geeks and pubescent males... which, generally speaking, are very interested in female breasts. So, reading about them bouncing around in zero gravity might be entertaining to the intended audience. This was also a time when a novel showing women as strong and self reliant wouldn't do well - because in that era many didn't believe it was possible. Yes, it was wrong - but if you wrote something akin to what we see today, the book probably wouldn't be picked up for publication.



I get your point and agree: Context does matter. But, again, I am only interested in modern application. This isn’t a history of writing discussion, it’s a how to write (now) discussion.

With that in mind, the Clarke example is bad writing even in the context of its time. Breasts don't bounce around willy-nilly in zero gravity and Clarke as a scientist likely knew it was ridiculous when he wrote it: For one thing, Bras exist. 

Secondarily, if breasts bounce around in zero gravity, so do penises and balls, and Clarke didn't feel necessary to include _that _observation. 

It's just a weird, and fairly adolescent, take. If it was satire or a fourteen year old boy writing it, it would hardly be relevant, but this is the Arch-Lord of science fiction and a man known for his grasp of realism and insight. We can call a lone paragraph bullshit, can’t we? 




BornForBurning said:


> Despite my _major _misgivings regarding the 'guy notices sexy lady and describes her in detail' trope, I do think POV is a very valid point (Biro was the first person to note this, I believe). It would be ridiculous to assume that mere depiction of evil implied endorsement. The best approach is to analyze each work on a case-by-case basis. Lucky posted a link to those erotica novels...I think that's a pretty clear-cut example of endorsement. Same with the Murakami quote, that stuff makes my skin crawl. I also think it's easy to rag on someone like King or whoever because he's rich, famous and old. But the most important thing to do is to examine our own work and strain out the creeping 2AM immorality. Sometimes I get sucked into this trap of raging on about how EVIL some guy's novel is. And it _is _evil, but it's ultimately not my job to convict him.



Just to be super clear I am most definitely not coming at this from a moralistic or prudish perspective. I write a good amount of sex stuff and some of it is pretty graphic. I would post it here but “rules”z

I just think we can invoke the defenses of 'POV' or 'culture' or 'product of its time' and still point out something doesn't work now, either because standards have gone up or the readership has changed. 

In point of fact, I actually think the needle can often swing the other way. There are a lot of novels where I feel like the sexual aspects are conspicuous in their absence, where the lack of any sexuality, or at least a lot of umming and aahing over it, is actually an annoyance -- where it starts to feel like...are these people totally asexual or what? Why isn’t he trying to sleep with her? Sometimes the slow burn on sex can be almost as unrealistic as corsets being ripped off in chapter one. There’s a balance.

Possibly a discussion for another day.


----------



## Ralph Rotten

Bayview said:


> I think there's a trend among male writers not so much of writing individual female characters poorly, but of poorly integrating female characters into their societies, if that makes sense.
> 
> Looking over my reading, I find that I tend to read female authors when I read contemporary, literary, mystery, etc. This hasn't been a deliberate choice. Interesting? (Obviously I've read OLDER male authors. The classics, etc. But it doesn't seem fair to even look at them through a modern lens in this area, so I leave them out).
> 
> The only genre in which I've read a lot of male authors is fantasy, and... I've read a lot of fantasy novels over the last five or ten years with one "kick ass" female character... and that's all. The other female characters still fall into the standard fantasy stereotypes for women. And I'd be okay with this _if it was acknowledged that the kick ass woman is an anomaly_. But too often that isn't addressed, and it leaves the impression that, no, this ISN'T a sexist society. Look at Female Character X! She's a warrior and nobody has any kind of problem with it! Everything's fine. And... I guess all those OTHER female characters, all the ones leading lives in which they're subordinate to men, are just... naturally subordinate? I guess? Because Character X doesn't face any sexism, so...?
> 
> Some excerpts from my comments on Goodreads:
> 
> From Kings of the Wyld: "But, honestly, I need to stop reading male-written fantasy novels that include female characters. If you want to write a paean to male friendship, just do it. I love male friendship, too! I'll read your story. But including a handful of token female characters and then sexualizing them and/or defining their worth only based on their relationships with male characters? I'd much rather read a sausage-fest than read the patronizing nonsense."
> 
> From Theft of Swords: "I think there's some good worldbuilding - gave an extra star for that. But the two MCs are ridiculous Marty Stus, the plot is based on a LOT of convenient coincidences, and the characterization in general is really, really shallow. I read somewhere that the author wrote these books for his teenage daughter, and I really hope that isn't true, because why the hell would anyone write a book for a teenage girl in which there isn't a single female character with even a DROP of agency or common sense?"
> 
> From The Emperor's Blades: "The first three-quarters isn't so much Grimdark as Cartoonish Torture Porn. When one of the MCs "dies" but wakes up in the next scene after having been rescued, it made it clear that there's nothing really grim here. Other people might die, but our heroes will be tortured but come out stronger, not damaged or weakened. They might get a few artistic scars, but their bodies and minds still function and they've learned their lessons. The secondary characters (especially, of course, the female ones) may be destroyed, but not our heroes.
> 
> Speaking of our heroes? There are two. Both male. I have no idea why the token sister storyline was included - it certainly wasn't given equal time or effort. And don't get me started on the other depictions of female characters."
> 
> From The Final Empire: "And I'm pretty tired of this weird form of "strong female character" we get where only ONE woman is at all three dimensional or even really present, and of course she's only useful because she has super-special magic, not because she's smart or disciplined or well-trained or anything. Essentially the only way for a woman to be a meaningful character in a lot of fantasy is if she's MAGIC. Blech."
> 
> From The Black Prism: "And Karris? Come on, male writers! It's not enough to give female characters some skills - you have to make them make sense, too! Don't set Karris up as a super-disciplined leader of a crack team of hyper-devoted bodyguards and then have her stalk off and abandon her charge behind enemy lines because he cheated on her sixteen years earlier, especially when they've been broken up for all that time! Don't make her so stupid she [ can't recognize the man she loved, or tell him apart from his brother (not twins, just brothers) to whom she was engaged, just because the guy put a scar on his forehead to match. Every OTHER character who'd known the two was apparently banished from the Chromaturgy in order to avoid detection, but Karris? Who's slept with both of them and is in love with one of them? Nah, she won't notice. No problem."
> 
> From The Steel Remains: "And I'm starting to notice a pattern in fantasy books written by men - they tend to have ONE Kickass female character, but all the other women are still stuck in traditional female roles. This book had Kickass, mom, crazy sorceress, and bewildered victim. I'd like it better if the stories at least called out the sexism - like, if the Kickass character was frustrated by the passivity of other women, or if she had to fight against the misogyny of other men. But it seems like, in this pattern, the Kickass character doesn't even NOTICE that she's the only woman with any agency, which really makes it more frustrating."
> 
> By contrast, I found my reaction to Brent Weekes' The Palace Job: "...it's one of the few fantasy novels, or, really, action-style novels in general that I've read with multiple female POV characters. That worked for me. When one of the characters is a somewhat stereotypical KickAss Heroine, it doesn't really bother me because there's also a nerdish woman, a femme fatale, and a manic pixie dream-horse. All the principle villains were male, though, which seemed like a bit of a lost opportunity. And having so many female characters may have contributed to the apparent decision to have a lot of weird romances sprouting up, like everyone has to hook up with someone else in order to have a happy ending."
> 
> And an interesting progression in Brian McLellan's Powder Mage Trilogy:
> 
> From the first book, Promise of Blood: "I was also a bit concerned about the portrayal of women. Women without magic aren't given much respect in society (at the start of the book the nobles are all executed along with their wives - no mention of nobles being executed along with their husbands, so I guess the noble women didn't have any power; the leader of the mercenaries is female but only has the role b/c of her late husband, etc.); the women who DO have magic seem to be consistently underestimated (Julene, Ka-Poel), but none of it is really reconciled. Like, how do the women with magic feel about the way other women are treated? I have no idea, b/c the only female POV we get is the laundress, who does... nothing interesting."
> 
> From the second book, The Crimson Campaign: "at first I thought the women were being treated better in this novel, but by the time the book was over I wasn't really sure it was (we still have only one female POV, and she's really passive - she thinks about doing things, and then... doesn't. And why was Tamas's assumption, on breaking in to his old lover's house, that her HUSBAND must be a partisan? Why didn't he assume SHE might be one? etc.). "
> 
> And then from the third book, The Autumn Republic: "The only really notable thing is the definite change in the way female characters were handled. I honestly felt as if the author had read my reviews here, realized that I was brilliant and right, and had fixed the issues! We now have female soldiers killing and getting killed, female union leaders, etc. It leads to a bit of a continuity issue with the first two books, but, whatever, I can handle it. I liked it!"




And this is exactly what I am talking about; men who do a bad job of writing women.
Guys: These are not the kind of reviews you wanna be getting.

Spike Lee has said many times that Hollywood loves to feature 'magic negroes' in their movies.
These are people of color, who have some special power that makes the story possible, but end up actually being a subordinate character to a couple of white guys.
Think of The Green Mile as an example. Coffee would have been the magic one.

I bring this up because I think Spike is right...but his focus was too narrow. If you look at literature and cinema, you find that most stories include a magic negro, or a magic woman, or a magic gay-guy...  We include a stereotype, use them to solve our white protagonist's problem, then usually kill them.
This is a trope done often in the mass-produced entertainment of 2020.


So, maybe we need to look at some examples of how to write women PROPERLY.


----------



## Ibru

> If you look at literature and cinema, you find that most stories include a magic negro, or a magic woman, or a magic gay-guy... We include a stereotype, use them to solve our white protagonist's problem, then usually kill them.
> This is a trope done often in the mass-produced entertainment of 2020.



This is so interesting. I would posit that this is evident in entertainment made from a white male perspective in particular, where they feel they have the most important 'type' of humanity and are reductive about other races, women and gay people. (Also usually children.)

I believe the problem lies in truly only seeing the person as WHAT THEY CAN DO FOR YOU or how they are USEFUL to you, rather than seeing them as fully experiencing human beings who have as rich an inner life and perspectives as you do. This is also the case with very simplistic villains, when you're only seeing the person in the terms of what danger they pose to you.

I think the best solution is to become more aware of other people, but this takes a lot of time and experience.

To simplify it, I think an easy way to enrich a character in one of these categories would be to define:
- Their goals for their own life NOT as in relation to the protag. Even if they are the protag's helper, WHY, there has to be something in it for them, either psychologically or in material terms. This can be related back to their backstory and its psychological wounds.
- Their interests and hobbies. These should be not stereotypical, and should reveal something about their character
- Their likes and dislikes in how other people behave.
- Their moral values, and how they communicate when other people trespass these or do not adhere to them. Even criminals have moral values. I like how this was done in Hannibal, where he is a cannibal but has very particular moral values.
- Their flaws, to make them not 'magical' or the 'noble savage', which happens when white people write other racists, when men write women, and when women write men.

I am extremely bored of reading black men side characters who are criminals. It's boring and reductive. But let's say you do have a black man criminal...

- Their goals for their own life NOT as in relation to the protag - bullied at school, now wants to prove himself and his worth through career progression but doesn't have access to education or money so does armed robberies to pay for his children's upbringing
- Their interests and hobbies - he is very intelligent and self-educated in economics and finances because he wants to work in an investment bank
- Their likes and dislikes in how other people behave - he hates people with a silver spoon who are lazy because he wishes he could be in their position, so he robs rich people's homes
- Their moral values, and how they communicate when other people trespass these or do not adhere to them - his values are taking care of his children and making sure they get the best education. He is very furiously against mediocrity and lack of effort. He justifies his robberies by saying no one else is going to take care of his children, so he will have to.
- Their flaws, to make them not 'magical' or the 'noble savage' - he has a hot temper and can be intellectually snobbish. he looks down on his children's mother because she is not as intelligent as him. 

So an armed robber who wishes he was an investment banker, and robs rich people's homes in his jealousy and contempt for them, and encourages his children toward education... that is a lot more interesting than a stereotypical gun-toting thug that people like to throw around.

Any thoughts on this?


----------



## luckyscars

Ralph Rotten said:


> I bring this up because I think Spike is right...but his focus was too narrow. If you look at literature and cinema, you find that most stories include a magic negro, or a magic woman, or a magic gay-guy... We include a stereotype, use them to solve our white protagonist's problem, then usually kill them.
> This is a trope done often in the mass-produced entertainment of 2020.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So, maybe we need to look at some examples of how to write women PROPERLY.





Ibru said:


> I believe the problem lies in truly only seeing the person as WHAT THEY CAN DO FOR YOU or how they are USEFUL to you, rather than seeing them as fully experiencing human beings who have as rich an inner life and perspectives as you do. This is also the case with very simplistic villains, when you're only seeing the person in the terms of what danger they pose to you.



I actually think Ibru's solution was dead on, though I'm not sure if he (she?) intended it how I am interpreting it.

It seems to me the overwhelming issue is that men tend to write women they want to fuck. I know that sounds super crude, but stay with me...

I don't even mean this literally. Like, I'm not saying that Stephen King wanted to have sex with the twelve year old girl. I do think, however, that straight male writers do fall into the habit of inadvertently considering the sexual utility of women characters. Once that happens, the likelihood of screwing it up magnifies because, lets face it, it's a distraction.

It's sort of similar in terms of the 'magic negro' thing. In that case, it's not sexual, but it's still considering the character through a distorted lens of association -- 'what they can bring to the table' -- rather than a rounded human being. 

I made this mistake in the first novel I wrote. I didn't mean to write a 'magic negro', had never even heard of the term, but that's exactly what I did. 

The reason for the 'magic negro' error was because I wanted my character, who was very white and fairly conservative, to be a little _afraid _of this character he met. I also wanted them to be surprised by how intelligent and powerful and kind this character was, fulfilling some kind of 'appearances can be deceiving' trope. So, I guess I was thinking some version of "I'll make this character super opposite to the stereotype of a wise old white priest...I'll make him a black janitor!". Which was, itself, a mistake because it simply ended up being a different kind of stereotype, arguably worse than if I'd just made him an old white man. 

The hard part in all of this is finding the Goldilocks zone between subversion of stereotype and avoiding creating a whole new one by blatantly pandering, and part of the reason it is hard is because we have a tendency to fixate on 'finding the right place for them'

 I think what Spike Lee is saying is that he wants to see black characters but he doesn't want to see them as criminals _and nor does he want to see them as some perfectly moral, Christlike figure. _That shouldn't be a big ask, but it kind of is, because we white people have a lot of baggage relating to race that is hard for us to get over. Like, I often find it's really hard to write a black character without either not mentioning their race at all ever...or mentioning it in a way that feels like pandering. Writing human beings naturally, as human beings, is oddly hard to do sometimes.


----------



## Annoying kid

luckyscars said:


> I don't even mean this literally. Like, I'm not saying that Stephen King wanted to have sex with the twelve year old girl. I do think, however, that straight male writers do fall into the habit of inadvertently considering the sexual utility of women characters. Once that happens, the likelihood of screwing it up magnifies because, lets face it, it's a distraction.



Its an attempt to make characters they perceive as having great value. Compared to sexiness, what other qualities of women are young men taught to appreciate by society? Who teaches men to appreciate female intelligence or wisdom? Their peers? No, The media? No. Feminism tries, but thats not exactly "in" with the young men. To make a female lead or even character not sexy, from that perspective is to greatly diminish their value. And is that even a conscious bias? In most cases probably not, but its there. 

So from there they think, I want this sexiness, but I can't show it by images. So I'll compensate for that by using those words to really drive that sex appeal home. But they're never fully satisfied, as theyre used to consuming female sex appeal via images. Therefore they dedicate more and more words to it, and without even realizing its happening, they quickly go into over compensated, highly graphic , or otherwise inappropriate descriptions.

Thats how I think it happens. Its not like they wake up one morning, and decide I'm going to suck at writing women today. No, they sleep walk into this.


----------



## Xander416

luckyscars said:


> View attachment 25860


I'm not sure what bothers me more, just how pointless and unnecessary the line is, the fact that it's an observation by one character interjected right in the middle of an action that another character is performing, or just the fact that Asimov thought it needed to be in parentheses. I mean, my brain literally started hurting when I read that. I need rest and possibly an Aspirin right now. ffended:


----------



## epimetheus

luckyscars said:


> The problem with the argument from character POV is it only works if the POV is credible.
> 
> I get what you're saying, I really do, but let's take that logic to its natural conclusion...
> 
> Imagine a book that was riddled with really vile tropes and stereotypes about Jews...but the ostensible POV happened to be that of a sparrow at Auschwitz. In that case, I assume you would not say 'this is a bird’s pint of view, therefore it's not that the writer is antisemetic so much as he's just really bad at writing as a bird'?
> 
> At a certain point, we know when somebody is saying what they think (or, at least, pandering to their reader’s thoughts) instead of writing 'in character'.
> 
> I'm not trying to go Godwin with the above, nor am I saying for a moment that Clarke's example (or King's examples, for that matter) are born of some hatred of women or pedophilia or whatever else. Only that this is kind of where we would have to make a judgment as to whether the POV is actually the sole reason for writing it, or whether it's being used as a kind of veneer for the writer.
> 
> I don't have a problem with breasts at all -- I'm a huge fan! But I also recognize that they are generally a male obsession more than a female one, that men tend to exaggerate their significance in a multitude of hyper-sexualized and, often biologically invalid and pornographically influenced ways while conveniently ignoring their actual function or what they represent to women. I don't see many male authors writing about breast cancer or non-erotic lactation, for instance.
> 
> This means extended or frivolous descriptions or, worse still, evaluating women according to breast size/shape or really any obvious sexual asset (especially when its for no evident purpose, double-especially when it's downright creepy) can backfire. The examples I have given I did not pick just because they mentioned breasts but because they are examples of bad, pointless writing, even in their respective contexts.



I think Bayview had it right: those particular examples aren't so much a case of women being poorly written, but of women being poorly integrated into a story. I think it is a useful distinction because although we can never experience life as a member of the opposite sex, we do experience life with members of the opposite sex, and thus should have more resources to draw on.

As for your Nazi bird... not sure i understand the point you're trying to make. If i read a story about a bird that started having anti-semitic thoughts my first instinct would be to trust the author who, for some reason, wants to characterise the bird as a little fascist. I would expect that to feature somewhere in the story - either as a part of the character arc of the bird, or some plot point. If it doesn't, then i would agree it's poor writing.

If i remember correctly the character Trevize was a roguish character - him noticing breasts might be in keeping with his character: it's the the sort of thing he would notice. In that context i think its fine. I'm not familiar with the other examples, but agree that if the mention of breasts isn't relevant to the story then its poor writing - with the possible exception of erotica, not read enough in that genre to comment.


----------



## Ibru

Biro...



> Yes they are still a criminal and should be treated as such.


 I didn't say they weren't a criminal. 'Be treated as such' by whom?



> The point you make leans towards some people of society believing that 'rich' people are not deserving of the same rights as poor people. So robbing them is 'ok'.


 I think you are missing the point. I am not stating if the character is somehow morally 'acceptable' or not. I don't do that with any of my characters, and if you do, you're probably coming across as preachy. I'm not thinking about this guy in terms of right and wrong, but his own justifications, beliefs and morality. 



> The point that you make of your dreamer armed robber who spends their 'stolen' money which they obtained by potential deadly force on their kids education rather than themself is not a point to consider. Their offspring are their responsibility to provide for. The society they choose to live in does not allow theft by threat of death as a valid occupation. Your character is nothing but a dangerous gun-toting thug.


 Not sure why you decided to preach at me about the moral wrongs of a character? Hannibal Lecter, for example, is cultured and refined and charming. Me saying that is not me taking a stance on his moral fiber. 

You say 'is not a point to consider'? 'Not a point to consider' in what? I'm not a judge sentencing the character to time in jail. I'm a writer.


----------



## Bayview

I think there's something to be said for knowing your own limitations as an author, as well.

If you can't empathize with ANY other human beings, you should probably give up on writing altogether. But if you find there's a certain GROUP you can't empathize with, it may be best for you to just avoid writing that group. Like, if you genuinely feel as though women are _other_ and you just can't get inside their heads? Avoid writing them, or at least make sure you don't have any as significant characters. Yes, there's a problem with lack of representation of women in fiction, but I think it's just as harmful to write them poorly as it is to not write them at all.

If you can't empathize with people who've had certain life experiences or made certain decisions or whatever, don't write them, or at least don't focus your writing on them. I could never empathize with a right-wing conservative who judges others with no compassion, so unless I wanted to write a cartoon villain, I wouldn't write a character with those traits.

I recently stretched myself by writing a main character who said and did some really racist, hateful things at the start of the book. I was able to understand that character, and humanize him, by showing how the ugliness stemmed from his own unhappiness and insecurity. He was pathetic rather than evil. It was a good realization as an author, and I try (although I do not always succeed) to apply my learning from that when I encounter people who seem to be assholes in real life.

But if I hadn't been able to work that out to my satisfaction, I think it would have been better to not write that character than to have written him poorly.

Now, fortunately, racist, judgmental assholes are less common than women, so it's easier to avoid writing about them. But I think the same rule applies. If you aren't confident you can really get inside a woman's head, then you can probably avoid writing female characters.


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## indianroads

As male writers we can watch and listen to the women in our lives, and we can read female authors writing MC's of their gender, but we must keep in mind that people are individuals. 

_(Female writers can and should do likewise with men.)_

I have noticed a few common(ish) trends. The women I know notice smells more than I do, and they are also more aware of what their female companions are wearing that I am about the men I'm around. Also, the women in my life tend to be more sensitive to colder temperatures. Again, there are many women that go against these trends. The trick (if there is one) to writing another gender is to notice trends, but paint them with a light hand.


----------



## luckyscars

Bayview said:


> I think there's something to be said for knowing your own limitations as an author, as well.
> 
> If you can't empathize with ANY other human beings, you should probably give up on writing altogether. But if you find there's a certain GROUP you can't empathize with, it may be best for you to just avoid writing that group. Like, if you genuinely feel as though women are _other_ and you just can't get inside their heads? Avoid writing them, or at least make sure you don't have any as significant characters. Yes, there's a problem with lack of representation of women in fiction, but I think it's just as harmful to write them poorly as it is to not write them at all.
> 
> If you can't empathize with people who've had certain life experiences or made certain decisions or whatever, don't write them, or at least don't focus your writing on them. I could never empathize with a right-wing conservative who judges others with no compassion, so unless I wanted to write a cartoon villain, I wouldn't write a character with those traits.
> 
> I recently stretched myself by writing a main character who said and did some really racist, hateful things at the start of the book. I was able to understand that character, and humanize him, by showing how the ugliness stemmed from his own unhappiness and insecurity. He was pathetic rather than evil. It was a good realization as an author, and I try (although I do not always succeed) to apply my learning from that when I encounter people who seem to be assholes in real life.
> 
> But if I hadn't been able to work that out to my satisfaction, I think it would have been better to not write that character than to have written him poorly.
> 
> Now, fortunately, racist, judgmental assholes are less common than women, so it's easier to avoid writing about them. But I think the same rule applies. If you aren't confident you can really get inside a woman's head, then you can probably avoid writing female characters.



I think you give people's self-awareness a little too much credit here. More than that, though, I think you simplify the issue to something a little binary: A little 'you can either do it or you can't'.  

I think for some people you might well be right. There are certainly some men I know who find it basically impossible to think of women as equals. They tend to be older, more conservative generally, etc. They also tend not to be writers anyway.

I feel like most people know they shouldn't write characters they lack complete empathy for.  *Don't jump in the pool if you can't swim* is sort of the sense I get from this advice. For one thing, writing a character you lack any empathy for is actually quite boring. I get really bored if I feel like I'm forcing emotions onto imaginary people that I either don't believe or don't care about. So I kind of don't really believe it's even possible to write characters you can't empathize with at all.

But even that aside, what if this empathy is there but _partial_? What if you, say, do believe women in real life are fundamentally equal, valuable, etc -- you're not a misogynist -- but you have been exposed to a lot of media growing up that has ingrained some really bad habits? What if you are comfortable with writing as a female character but perhaps not a female human character or a female human person of color character and what if that reason is a reason that while fairly simple is quite difficult to resolve because society makes it hard to ask the questions?

What if this means that you _-- _the writer -- feel comfortable enough with writing some women all of the time? Or all women some of the time? Of maybe just *one* woman? At what point is it reasonable to say you are qualified to write 'X' and, perhaps more importantly, how do you know?

Is this then a coach-able issue? If it's a coach-able issue, then it seems bad advice to say 'it's better not to write them if you can't write them well', even if that advice might make perfect sense. Ultimately nobody is born being able to write _anything _well. Everything is *difficult* to learn. Some of it might seem so difficult that somebody might be tempted to saying they *can't* do it. My concern isn't so much with the logic of what you're saying but with how to interpret it: If I have written ten books and feel like I didn't capture women authentically in any of those ten HOWEVER I still believe I can empathize with women perfectly fine, that I don't have a sexist bone in my body, that my difficulty lies in translation...then how should your position then be interpreted? 

I think that's where a lot (maybe most) of us are at. The vast majority of men, in my opinion, are perfectly capable of empathizing with women, they just can't translate it and they screw up. What often trips them up is (1) Bad habits -- _I've been writing this way for years! _(2) Lack of cultural reference point to doing it well -- _Stephen King is a bestselling author so the fact he writes about women poorly means it's a non-issue_ (3) Their erection -- _she's an attractive woman . _I don't see any of those as insurmountable for really any writer, but maybe that's optimistic?


----------



## Bayview

Lucky, I think  you're right - I've created a false dichotomy.

I guess maybe I'm thinking of the people who don't seem to even _want_ to write women, but feel like they have to. I think they shouldn't feel like they have to, and it's better for everyone if they don't.

If someone actually _wants_ to write women, then, sure, it's worth working at. You're right.


----------



## Taylor

Ralph Rotten said:


> The other day on twitter, another writer posted this:
> 
> *How men write women characters: She was gorgeous beyond imagination, jaw-dropping, and still, she didn't know it. Her legs were long, her height a cool 5'10, yet she barely grazed 105 pounds. Unlike other girls, she never complained, not once. Her top was perfect; non-existent.*
> 
> 
> Of course that started a discussion on how men write women.
> I thought it was a good topic for a conversation in the forum, since I had indeed seen a few men write exactly this way.
> 
> *Okay, some ground rules;*
> *1)* Yes, women can contribute to this thread. In fact it would be very helpful if some of the ladies would help us idiot-men write better women.
> 
> *2)* You are encouraged to contribute by showing your work. yes, comments are welcome, but you'll get more respect if you show us how YOU write women. Don't just talk the talk...
> 
> *3)* This thread in no way makes any claims that I am an expert on writing women.



Thanks for starting this thread.  As a woman I am constantly frustrated with the narrow descriptions of women in fiction including literature and cinema.  Especially the later.  Even female authors have a tendancy to stereo type.  Nice girls have brown hair, are a little over weight and wear inexpensive clothes.  Whereas the bad girls are thin, have blonde ponytails and wear designer clothes.  

I also get tired of watching movie after movie where the characters are about 80% men.  They are of all sizes, ages, intelligence and attractiveness.  And there are one or two women in the movie.  And it doesn't matter what her role is...she looks like a victoria secret model.  Is that how the script was written.  Or is the casting bad. 

At any rate, my general rule of thumb for men writing about women is look around your real life.  What type of women do you see?  All kinds.  So get creative with your characters.  Perhaps base them on actual people you know.   But don't keep giving us gorgeous, smart, fearless, high sex drive...etc.   Here is an example of one of my charcters.  Read the description and then tell me if you can guess her profession:

[FONT=&quot]“Hello Lucy.  Thanks for coming”, Rosalind said in her usual monotone voice.  Her light grey hair was in a classic bob. She wore no makeup, but her defined features were emphasized with large stylish horn rimmed glasses.  She wore a grey cashmere sweater tied around her shoulders over a crisp white blouse with the collar stylishly turned up.


[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]


----------



## luckyscars

Taylor said:


> Thanks for starting this thread.  As a woman I am constantly frustrated with the narrow descriptions of women in fiction including literature and cinema.  Especially the later.  Even female authors have a tendancy to stereo type.  Nice girls have brown hair, are a little over weight and wear inexpensive clothes.  Whereas the bad girls are thin, have blonde ponytails and wear designer clothes.
> 
> I also get tired of watching movie after movie where the characters are about 80% men.  They are of all sizes, ages, intelligence and attractiveness.  And there are one or two women in the movie.  And it doesn't matter what her role is...she looks like a victoria secret model.  Is that how the script was written.  Or is the casting bad.
> 
> At any rate, my general rule of thumb for men writing about women is look around your real life.  What type of women do you see?  All kinds.  So get creative with your characters.  Perhaps base them on actual people you know.   But don't keep giving us gorgeous, smart, fearless, high sex drive...etc.   Here is an example of one of my charcters.  Read the description and then tell me if you can guess her profession:
> 
> [FONT=&Verdana]“Hello Lucy.  Thanks for coming”, Rosalind said in her usual monotone voice.  Her light grey hair was in a classic bob. She wore no makeup, but her defined features were emphasized with large stylish horn rimmed glasses.  She wore a grey cashmere sweater tied around her shoulders over a crisp white blouse with the collar stylishly turned up.
> 
> 
> [/FONT][FONT=&Verdana]
> [/FONT]




It seems like most of your criticisms concern the way women are visually described? 

Do you feel that physical descriptions are actually the biggest area-of-concern? What is the relationship between the way a character looks or dresses and their authenticity, or lack of authenticity? 

If there are 'all kinds' of women in real life then how can any fictional female character not be 'an actual person'?


----------



## SueC

Good grief - this topic again. I was watching a movie last night called "Death of an Author." There was a female character, the wife of one of the authors in the story and when I saw her, this forum heading "Writing Women" actually came to mind! The wife's response to just about everything was so typically male, in my head (stoic, business-like, calm, cruel) that I thought the author of this book must have been a man (it was from Intrigo by Scandinavian mystery author Hakan Messer). She was very low-key in her emotions, even when the situation she was in absolutely demanded that someone in the cast get hysterical over the story line! 

So I went online to Amazon to see if I could read some of this book, to see how he describes a woman. He didn't describe her - and very effectively. The little I read was about a woman in bed, waking up to a phone call from someone from her past. He writes deeply about her emotions, how she feels, what she says, but not once did he describe her physical appearance. But in just a few paragraphs I already had her in my head. I was hooked. I'm really going to have to get the book now. 

Mystery. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1509892184/?tag=writingforu06-20

Men are going to write women they way they see them, or the way they wish they were. But sometimes I think, they might write women to fit the story, to capture our attention by giving us women we either know or want to know, regardless of how they look.


----------



## Taylor

luckyscars said:


> It seems like most of your criticisms concern the way women are visually described?
> 
> Do you feel that physical descriptions are actually the biggest area-of-concern? What is the relationship between the way a character looks or dresses and their authenticity, or lack of authenticity?
> 
> If there are 'all kinds' of women in real life then how can any fictional female character not be 'an actual person'?



Good question.  I think I feel like writers are not creative enough with female characters.  There just seems to be a few stereo types that we see over and over again.  For example if she is a strong, independant women, then she does not want to be supported by a man.  Which is not always the case in real life.    So the original question was how to write women, and my advice is make them atypical.  And yes you can achieve a part of this by how they look.  That is not all of it.  But how they look can help build a their character.  And for woman I think how they dress is an integral part of who they are inside.  I know that is that same for men as well but perhaps not to the same degree.

I gave the character description above, which was perhaps too short.  But the point I was trying to make is that the character is an accountant in her late fifties.  But she is stylish and fashionably dressed.  I feel like the trap for some when writing this character would be to make her look old and dowdy and have a nasty voice.  That is the type of thing I see a lot with female characters.  So maybe a good technique for a man writing a female character would be to think about how she looks and dresses, and then make her the opposite to what you are thinking.   It's just a thought...


----------



## luckyscars

Taylor said:


> So maybe a good technique for a man writing a female character would be to think about how she looks and dresses, and then make her the opposite to what you are thinking.   It's just a thought...



I think I kind of agree with this. 

It's not complete agreement, because I think character design should be about more than just 'do the opposite of everything that's expected', you know? There's a bit of a problem with striving for originality by simply making the person a total opposite of what's expected. 

For one thing, I think modern audiences can detect that stuff: It's how you get these super obvious 'bad ass' female characters who are, effectively, just male stereotypes who happen to be attractive women. To me, that's as bad as just having an overly feminized woman. Neither one of them is particularly what one might call 'real'.

But your accountant example I see as being better than that. Maybe it's because you're not completely flipping every stereotype of 'accountant'? For one thing, she still is wearing glasses. The fact they are stylish ones isn't so much working against the accountant type as it is improving it: Fashioning it into a character who has her own identity (or dress sense, at least). She is still an older woman. She probably is still, in terms of personality, _an accountant. _But she isn't a stereotype (at least visually) and she isn't an obvious 'middle finger' to the stereotype either. 

I think the word that best fits that sort of thing would be 'subversion'. You're not ignoring stereotypes and you're certainly not playing into them but you are aware of them and looking for ways, even minor or superficial ones, that stop a reader falling victim of assumptions.


----------



## Annoying kid

I seen alot of reviews where they basically say the Strong Female Character almost inevitably acts like a promiscuous demon in the sack. And I never understood the association. Why an SFC would act more sexually aggressive than anyone else. Its as if the writer thinks we already made her more dominant in terms of strength and action, may as well make her dominant and masculine in the way she goes after sexual partners too. Which gets kind of jarring in  pre contraception setting and/or if its diametrically opposed to how every other female in the setting is acting.  

But thats not the point. The point is, I just never understood the association in the first place. Maybe its a work hard/play hard attitude. Maybe its a madonna/whore complex where the writer thinks this character can't be a madonna, she's slaughtering and/or battering people left and right. So she must be a "whore". (for lack of a better word).


----------



## Annoying kid

Biro said:


> Why do you say/think it is a masculine thing?  I have known and know women who have used sex to get what they want from financial reward to revenge.  Some in bad and scary ways.  There is nothing masculine about it.
> 
> If I were to write/describe them.  Then you never believe that they could act or think the way of my description from what you say above.



Sleeping around without a care about pregnancy or safety is pretty masculine. Tallying up conquests and seeing sex in terms of quantity is a very dudebro attitude.

I didnt say anything about sex as revenge/nefarious purposes. Thats a very old female trope ala Basic Instinct/the Dark Knight Rises. etc


----------



## luckyscars

Annoying kid said:


> I seen alot of reviews where they basically say the Strong Female Character almost inevitably acts like a promiscuous demon in the sack. And I never understood the association. Why an SFC would act more sexually aggressive than anyone else. Its as if the writer thinks we already made her more dominant in terms of strength and action, may as well make her dominant and masculine in the way she goes after sexual partners too. Which gets kind of jarring in  pre contraception setting and/or if its diametrically opposed to how every other female in the setting is acting.
> 
> But thats not the point. The point is, I just never understood the association in the first place. Maybe its a work hard/play hard attitude. Maybe its a madonna/whore complex where the writer thinks this character can't be a madonna, she's slaughtering and/or battering people left and right. So she must be a "whore". (for lack of a better word).



I think it's because sex is still viewed mainly in terms of power.

In some respects we've come a really long way with sex in fiction... but we still 'have issues', for sure. We still, as a society, are turned on by various forms of power and domination. You can see it in just about any mainstream pornographic scene. Pornography doesn't depict real sex obviously, but it certainly incorporates real sexual attitudes. Otherwise it would not work as pornography.

Which means that the hypothetical writer is not coming at heterosexual, cisgendered sex without some form of the preconceived idea that there has to be 'somebody fucking' and there has to be 'somebody who is being fucked'. Which means they have to figure out to some degree 'who is who' or else essentially re-choreograph hundreds of years of sexual evolution to figure out another way. 

And...I don't think many writers want to do that. Not least because I don't think there's necessarily a big payoff. Most readers are, it seems, reasonably happy with some version of the status quo. 

But even the ones who are NOT happy with traditional, male-dominated sex scenes, the promiscuous demon woman serves that. The 'strong woman who has sex' trope is one of those clever takes that works on two levels. It combines the sexual traditions of power and humiliation (inherently anti-feminist) with a plausible display of female empowerment (inherently pro-feminist) thereby creating an easy and convenient smokescreen for the real problems that have bedeviled sexual behavior and sexual politics since the dawn of time. 

The fact that sort of thing only serves to perpetuate the problem of sexual oppression doesn't matter. What matters is the immediate gratification of seeing that it is a woman who is *for once* the oppressor.


----------



## Annoying kid

Biro said:


> Well if you believe that you are very inexperienced regards what women are out there.  Hope you learn before you get tangled with one.



What an odd thing to say. 

A masculine behaviour doesnt mean only men do it. It means it is more correlated with that gender. There are women out there who have done just about anything a man has. That's obvious and doesn't change the point. This is about why the SFC invariably goes to promiscuity when written by men.


----------



## Annoying kid

Biro said:


> Masculine is just a word that is associated with men.  The behavior you refer to has been documented before just a few years or so ago.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazons
> 
> The good old days when a girls night out meant kicked a mans ass and teaching them to 'know their place'.



What we care about as writers is whats going on in our settings. So when we say a behaviour is masculine or feminine, we have to look at the writer's own setting and own internal logic. So when he's having his SFC act like the males he's portraying and not at all like the females, which is typically the case, that is objectively masculine behaviour by the writer's own standards. 

If there was evidence that the Strong Female Character was like other girls, then you could say its a universal behaviour, but typically other women are used to foil the SFC. They are deliberately portrayed in opposition.


----------



## Von_Mitchell

I don't really see anything inherently wrong with the example, provided that this is written in the voice of a character. Sometimes people are scumbags who think this way and there isn't anything wrong with representing this in your fiction.

However, if this is just the author, as the author, describing someone... well that's problematic. Is it sexist? Probably. Its definitely misogynistic, if that is the case. More importantly though, its just bad writing. I find that many writers who think that they have a problem writing female characters have the exact same problem writing male characters, and that the whole thing is a result of a failure to understand what makes characters interesting to a reader. Characters of any gender are interesting because we enjoy seeing how they solve problems, handle conflict, change over time, etc. What motivates people is pretty ubiquitous irrespective of gender identity, orientation, biological sex, ethnicity, etc. As long as you try to focus more on the interpersonal conflicts, the internal conflicts, and how these things relate to the plot, you will find that the quality of your character writing increases across the board.


----------



## Tettsuo

Ralph Rotten said:


> Tell us about them. Were they 1st person or 3rd perspective?
> Do you think you pulled them off well?
> Show us a screenshot or two.


1 - Fallen Sun was written in 1st person, present tense.
2 - I do think I pulled it off well. There were a more than a few spots I had to ask for opinions for a number of women, but for the most part I think I did well enough.

Scene from the book below:

Chapter 1 page 18-22

This room feels strange to me with its buzzing lights, electronic devises, and rows of eggs.

I remember waking up in a room similar to this one, facing white-masked techs prodding me endlessly. The moment I was able to lift myself up from the interior of my stasis chamber, I was greeted by the sight of thousands working away, checking newborn FOGs... and disposing of the stillborn. Despite the vast number of dead, the room felt alive with buzzing machinery, whispered voices, and the weary complaints of patients popping up from their eggs. Each of us strained to look down the rows, checking to see who survived. We each probably breathed a sigh of relief that we were one of the lucky ones that made it.


But today, there is only eerie silence in this holding area. Rows and rows of bodies encased in silver stasis chambers lie side by side on the gray rubber flooring. Above each egg, a monitor pings the vitals of its prisoner, glowing bright in the dim lights.

I step towards Ophelia’s stasis pod and look into a small double-paned, super-dense square of glass within the silver casing. It’s frosted with an opaque white haze, and I can barely see her, although I can faintly see my own reflection. God, I look terrible. She seems peaceful, though, resting in her deathlike sleep. That’s good.

Strands of her hair that once shone bright, now lie dull and weathered across her sleeping face. I lean on the egg and touch the glass, desiring nothing more than to whisk the hair from her eyes. How desperately I want to fix this mess for her. But some messes, some decisions, can’t be undone, only managed.

Why did we choose this?

I love my country. My presence here and now is proof of that love. But, God help me, I’d never make this choice again.

“Oa,” I say, fogging the thick glass with my breath. “Soon, we’ll be headed to the western front. I think we’re even going to fly there, and not in helio-rovers either, but in actual planes. They say the antiaircraft spores the Keynosians released have mostly faded from Alliance territories. Great thing because it’ll take us half the time to get there by plane.”

I keep expecting her to open her eyes.

“They’re having a party tonight,” I say, with a rap on her window. “Supposedly it’s to thank us for retaking the Harbor and securing the eastern half of the country. But how can they thank us with you and the others cooped up in here?”
I feel an uncomfortable stirring in my midsection as tears threaten to fall. Look at her, she’s only twenty-two, just a baby.

She was such a beautiful girl. When I first saw her, I felt a twinge of jealousy. Everything was perfect on her, nothing sagged or jiggled. Flawless, she turned to me, smiling, asking about my necklace. It was my most cherished possession, given to me by my students.

I lost that thing on a battlefield. I can’t even remember which one now. It was a valuable reminder of my old life as a teacher. Now, it’s just something else I lost on one of many battlefields.

“Oa, do you remember when we first met?” I ask, chuckling to the glass between us. “Oh god, I found you so annoying. So perky and outgoing — and you had no filter whatsoever. You know, I actually wanted to smack you when you dared to invade my space and touch my necklace.

“Do you remember that necklace?” I ask. No response of course, but in my mind’s eye, her playful expression brightens the room.

I wipe the fog of my breath from the glass and stand straight, eying the flickering light of the screen above her prison. “Now that I know you, I can see you did it because you were nervous.” I return my eyes to the receding condensation. “We both were. It’s just, I didn’t want to talk... certainly not to someone so sickeningly cute.”

The egg beeps in response.

“I still laugh when I think back to the inoculation incident. It was finally your turn, and the long steel pole came down and injected you. That’s when we first met Patricia.” I laugh. “You jumped and let out that weird high-pitched yelp that terrified everyone in line behind us.”

“I do remember that.” I hear from behind me. It’s Patricia. I’d know her voice anywhere. I’m surprised I didn’t sense her entrance. The room must be shielded. Must save techs the trouble of calming the revived FOG soldiers when they wake them. “What are you doing in here, Jos?” Patricia asks as if she doesn’t know.

“Keeping Oa company, of course,” I say, turning to face her. The sight of Patricia stops my thoughts in their tracks. She looks gorgeous! “Oh my God, Pat, look at you!”

Her lopsided smirk quickly becomes a full smile. “What? I told you I was going to the party.”

“I know that, but I didn’t expect to see... this,” I say, waving my hand up and down in her direction.

She grins widely, brushing her hands down her dress. “It’s nice, right? I got it made weeks ago, had it shipped to the camp. I promised myself I’d wear it if we ever won back Steel Harbor.”

“No, sweetie, it’s not just the dress, it’s the woman wearing it. You are rockin’ that dress, girl!” I exclaim.

The dress hugs her petite, yet muscular frame like a second skin. The deep-crimson gown covers one arm, her burned side, hiding the horrible scar. The thin, flexible fabric rises up and around her neck, wrapping into a collar. But on the other side, the red disappears and exposes her bare, flawless, caramel-toned back and shoulder. On her uncovered wrist, she wears a thick golden bangle dotted with the same crimson of the gown. It’s the perfect complement to the stunning outfit. For a moment, I feel a twinge of jealousy. She’s so beautiful.

The woman now standing bashfully before me. This is hardly what I would expect from the hardened Sergeant Patel. This is the same person who stared down five Keynosian Guardsmen, fighting ferociously even though her body was burning. After receiving treatment for the burns, the very next day she led eight FOG soldiers, including Ophelia and myself, into combat. She led us to victory.

“Rockin’ it, really?” Her hand flutters over her collarbone. “You think so? It’s not too much, is it?”

“Pffft, please,” I say, waving away her concerns. “You’ve got to model it for me, Pat.” I twirl my finger, encouraging her to relax her arms and show off her beauty.

“Model it? What are you talking about?” her scratchy voice asks innocently.

“Oh stop it! I know you know what I’m talking about,” I tease, raising my hands to my face as if I’m holding a small camera. “Let me see your best catwalk stroll.”

Despite the eye-roll, she complies. Walking up and down the room lined with eggs, she moves like a child unsure of herself in a new Easter Sunday dress.

“Oh come on! You’ve got to do better than that, girl. Show me how you plan to get a man-slave to peel that off of you!”

“Oh please! I’ll be lucky to get a dance tonight. Most of those clowns are too scared to even talk to me.”

“Are you insane? Did you get hit in the head with shrapnel or something? Girl, you look incredible. They’re going to be falling over themselves to get next to you. Now, show me how you work it!”

For a moment, we forget we are soldiers.


----------



## luckyscars

Tettsuo said:


> 1 - Fallen Sun was written in 1st person, present tense.
> 2 - I do think I pulled it off well. There were a more than a few spots I had to ask for opinions for a number of women, but for the most part I think I did well enough.
> 
> Scene from the book below:



I think this is a decent example of writing from a male POV. There was definitely nothing that stood out as misogynistic or unsavory and the sexual tension feels mostly pretty real to me. 

It felt safe, in the sense that I feel like I've read a heroine described this way before: "Petite yet muscular", etc. I did appreciate that you didn't succumb to the temptation to write her as an absolute 'bad ass bitch' or whatever, and I found the juxtaposition of her being bashful in a dress with the idea of her actually being this tough soldier or whatever intriguing, even though her toughness wasn't really shown in this extract and we're kind of taking your word for that side of her character. 

The only part of this that really grated on me, the only part that _hinted _at stereotypical 'men writing women' stuff, was this frequent reprising of parts of this character being 'flawless', 'perfect', etc. I think you use the word 'perfect' twice and the word 'flawless' twice and additionally it's pretty saturated with similar superlatives regarding how she looks - 'how beautiful she is', 'girl you look incredible!'. 

There's quite a lot of that, basically, for an extract about a thousand words long, which sort of makes me wonder how many times 'perfect' and 'flawless' crop up throughout the entire book? -- I suspect this isn't the only part where these epithets are aimed at this woman? 

The notion of a woman being 'perfect' or 'flawless' (particularly in regard to her physical appearance and that is the context in which you are using these words) is very much a male stereotype -- women seldom ever describe men using those kinds of words. 

I guess I wouldn't even probably notice it, much less care, except that I honestly don't get a sense that it's accurate. I don't think the male character actually thinks of her as perfect, and if he does then he clearly misunderstands what 'perfect' means. 

I mean, he is saying these things about her while simultaneously talking about how badly burned her body is. It doesn't make sense that somebody would, on the one hand, consider a romantic interest physically flawless and on the other hand be fixated on her physical flaws, does it? If he is blinded by his love for her then why is he also noticing how 'horrible' her scar' is? It's there when the story's logic starts to feel a little unsteady...to me. Others may not see it that way, of course.

Overall, though, I think this is pretty great. It's definitely a traditional type of male-female relationship, there's nothing here that's rocking the boat, but it feels sincere and I don't feel like the woman is being objectified. She is perhaps being patronized a little, but it seems like the male character probably is quite a bit older and/or more experienced (?) so I didn't find that to be a problem.


----------



## rarie

I'm a girl, so I don't really know much about writing female characters from a guy's perspective, but I do often write stories from the perspective of male characters.

Honestly, I don't think that a character's gender much influences the way that their minds work, if that makes sense. Obviously, their gender will affect their characterisation in some respects, but only insofar as any other character trait would. For some reason people seem to think that the opposite gender is some kind of alien species, but in the end, it honestly doesn't make much difference to who a person actually is.

But that's just my thoughts on the matter.


----------



## Tettsuo

luckyscars said:


> I think this is a decent example of writing from a male POV.


I guess I didn't do a very good job of writing from a female POV, as the main character is a female. That scene had no men in it at all.


----------



## Annoying kid

> The notion of a woman being 'perfect' or 'flawless' (particularly in regard to her physical appearance and that is the context in which you are using these words) is very much a male stereotype -- women seldom ever describe men using those kinds of words.
> 
> I guess I wouldn't even probably notice it, much less care, except that I honestly don't get a sense that it's accurate. I don't think the male character actually thinks of her as perfect, and if he does then he clearly misunderstands what 'perfect' means.



I dislike a character that uses the word perfect to describe someone as it implies imperfection in everybody else. Its not like the more inclusive descriptor of "beautiful", where different types of people can be beautiful in their own way. *There can be only one* - when it comes to perfection.

And that sucks.


----------



## Bayview

Annoying kid said:


> I dislike a character that uses the word perfect to describe someone as it implies imperfection in everybody else. Its not like the more inclusive descriptor of "beautiful", where different types of people can be beautiful in their own way. *There can be only one* - when it comes to perfection.
> 
> And that sucks.




I don't think this is technically true... lots of things can be perfect at the same time. 

That said, if it's the connotation the word has for you, that could be significant.


----------



## Annoying kid

Bayview said:


> I don't think this is technically true... lots of things can be perfect at the same time.
> 
> That said, if it's the connotation the word has for you, that could be significant.



Lots of things can, but not things that are mutually exclusive.
Perfection has both a colloqial and a formal interpretation. That could be interpreted either way depending on the reader. Some readers really do interpret it as just a synonym for beautiful. While others (correctly in my view) recognise it as a state of flawlessness, where to change a single thing would make it imperfect. A state of being that cannot get any better.


----------



## Bayview

Annoying kid said:


> Lots of things can, but not things that are mutually exclusive.
> Perfection has both a colloqial and a formal interpretation. That could be interpreted either way depending on the reader. Some readers really do interpret it as just a synonym for beautiful. While others (correctly in my view) recognise it as a state of flawlessness, where to change a single thing would make it imperfect. A state of being that cannot get any better.



I agree that perfection means something flawless that can't be improved. I'm just saying that lots of things could be flawless and unimprovable at the same time. One perfect apple does not mean that no other apples can be perfect.


----------



## indianroads

Just peeked back in at this thread - wow... it's getting deep.

Pottery from the Ming Dynasty often contained deliberate flaws to draw  the eye to other aspects of the art - would such a Ming vase be  considered perfect?

IMO perfection either doesn't exist, or it's everywhere we look. How a person looks is perfection for themselves. Should I compare my partner to some 21 year old starlet? Of course not; both are perfect for who they are and what they are.

In terms of attractiveness - I've always been drawn to women that 1. appeared healthy, and 2. looked interesting - like they could hold up their end of a conversation. Under this criteria, the before mentioned starlet would probably be found lacking.

Anyone (male or female) that judges the quality of another based purely on appearance, is themselves far from perfection.


----------



## luckyscars

Tettsuo said:


> I guess I didn't do a very good job of writing from a female POV, as the main character is a female. That scene had no men in it at all.



I think it was mainly my comprehension and a bit of bias since we had been mainly discussing hetero couples, Tettsuo. Now I read back I can definitely see how they are both female (necklace, etc). I wouldn't be remotely qualified to talk about female-female romances.


----------



## Annoying kid

Bayview said:


> I agree that perfection means something flawless that can't be improved. I'm just saying that lots of things could be flawless and unimprovable at the same time. One perfect apple does not mean that no other apples can be perfect.



True, but those apples then have to be identical to the perfect one for this to make sense.  It sounds like we're denying the implication exists simply because its unsavoury. For instance: 

Woman A is considered perfect. 

Most agree that perfection becomes imperfect once changed, as perfect is defined as correctness in every way. 

Woman B has "different features" But lets pretend we didn't know about her existence. 

If woman A suddenly got woman B's features by magic or surgery that's considered turning perfect into imperfect by definition. 

But we don't want to acknowledge that describing woman A as perfect implies woman B is imperfect, because it gets very unsavoury very quickly.  

Even if you try to get around this as a writer by saying this woman is perfect by the standards of her race or people, that just reminds me of the term "You're pretty for a dark" which is a backhanded compliment alot of black women do report getting from even their own families. 

But this goes back to the core question : Do we really need to engage in such hyperbole when describing female characters? Take Christopher Paolini for instance calling Arya "Beautiful beyond compare". What does that even mean? As an artist, thats undrawable.  And believe me I've tried. 
So this kind of hyperbole doesn't make the character seem any more beautiful, it just makes them seem like someone who can't be illustrated and so can't really exist.


----------



## Bayview

Annoying kid said:


> True, but those apples then have to be identical to the perfect one for this to make sense.



I don't agree, but I don't really care enough to continue with the de-rail.


----------



## Annoying kid

Bayview said:


> I don't agree, but I don't really care enough to continue with the de-rail.



It doesn't matter if we agree. What matters is how readers may interpret our work. The vast majority of female leads are white and  it gets tiresome for people of colour to read about them being physically perfect so much. Its easy to not care when you are represented. 

If talking about use of the word "perfection" when describing women is a derail in a topic called "writing women", I am so outta here. Deuces.


----------



## luckyscars

I don't think most people really mean actually perfect when they use the word. That's why in my critique of the piece I included the possibility that the word just wasn't being used correctly. It's one of those hyperbolic words like "incredible" that tends to just be used to say "something I really like" on steroids.

The reason I still felt it reasonable to criticize its usage in that excerpt was because I felt -- and still do feel -- that hyperbole when it comes to describing a woman, especially when it comes to describing a woman's physical appearance, is kind of a male thing. Maybe it isn't, I just feel like it is. 

I mean, I've called several women including my wife 'perfect' over the years. None of them have ever returned the gesture. It's anecdotal, sure, but that might be another good point of difference relating to this subject? Over-emphasis on physical attractiveness is more of a mail quality than a female quality. Doesn't mean women _never _do it, just that they're less likely to, and perhaps more likely to use more nuance than 'he was flawless' or 'he was perfect'.


----------



## Annoying kid

luckyscars said:


> I don't think most people really mean actually perfect when they use the word. That's why in my critique of the piece I included the possibility that the word just wasn't being used correctly. It's one of those hyperbolic words like "incredible" that tends to just be used to say "something I really like" on steroids.
> 
> The reason I still felt it reasonable to criticize its usage in that excerpt was because I felt -- and still do feel -- that hyperbole when it comes to describing a woman, especially when it comes to describing a woman's physical appearance, is kind of a male thing. Maybe it isn't, I just feel like it is.
> 
> I mean, I've called several women including my wife 'perfect' over the years. None of them have ever returned the gesture. It's anecdotal, sure, but that might be another good point of difference relating to this subject? Over-emphasis on physical attractiveness is more of a mail quality than a female quality. Doesn't mean women _never _do it, just that they're less likely to, and perhaps more likely to use more nuance than 'he was flawless' or 'he was perfect'.



I have to ask again: Whats to be gained from using hyperbolic terms to describe women? The best way to convey beauty is through character interaction: how far would one character go for another for instance. aka show don't tell. Again, it doesn't make the woman sound any more beautiful, it just makes her sound unrealistic. There's a law of diminishing returns. Less is more. Dumping hyperbole or flowery description simply diminishes the impact of each word.


----------



## Tettsuo

luckyscars said:


> I think it was mainly my comprehension and a bit of bias since we had been mainly discussing hetero couples, Tettsuo. Now I read back I can definitely see how they are both female (necklace, etc). I wouldn't be remotely qualified to talk about female-female romances.


What in the piece makes you think these two women are romantically involved?

Because they're not.


----------



## Tettsuo

luckyscars said:


> I don't think most people really mean actually perfect when they use the word. That's why in my critique of the piece I included the possibility that the word just wasn't being used correctly. It's one of those hyperbolic words like "incredible" that tends to just be used to say "something I really like" on steroids.
> 
> The reason I still felt it reasonable to criticize its usage in that excerpt was because I felt -- and still do feel -- that hyperbole when it comes to describing a woman, especially when it comes to describing a woman's physical appearance, is kind of a male thing. Maybe it isn't, I just feel like it is.
> 
> I mean, I've called several women including my wife 'perfect' over the years. None of them have ever returned the gesture. It's anecdotal, sure, but that might be another good point of difference relating to this subject? Over-emphasis on physical attractiveness is more of a mail quality than a female quality. Doesn't mean women _never _do it, just that they're less likely to, and perhaps more likely to use more nuance than 'he was flawless' or 'he was perfect'.



Perfect - 1. having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.

You can be perfect yet still have physical flaws. At least according to the definition of the word. A person is more than there body. Therefore, you can consider a person perfect, just as they are.


So, why do you think people don't mean perfect, when they use that word in writing or in direction discussion according to the definition?


----------



## Tettsuo

Annoying kid said:


> I dislike a character that uses the word perfect to describe someone as it implies imperfection in everybody else.


False. I'm sorry, but this comment is simply untrue. You can call something perfect and that statement would have zero reflection on other things.


> Its not like the more inclusive descriptor of "beautiful", where different types of people can be beautiful in their own way. *There can be only one* - when it comes to perfection.
> 
> And that sucks.


Again, this is false. Not sure how you've come to this belief.

I'm actually interested in why you believe that calling one thing perfect, somehow excludes other things for also being perfect. Can you explain?


----------



## Annoying kid

Tettsuo said:


> False. I'm sorry, but this comment is simply untrue. You can call something perfect and that statement would have zero reflection on other things.
> 
> Again, this is false. Not sure how you've come to this belief.
> 
> I'm actually interested in why you believe that calling one thing perfect, somehow excludes other things for also being perfect. Can you explain?



Pretty sure I already did, but even in the definition you gave, you said: _Perfect - 1. having *all* the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as _*good as it is possible to be.


*That means to change it makes it less good. 

From there you simply ask what ways are there to change that ideal? 
Answers include : Magic, surgery, the features existing on someone else who does not represent that proposed ideal. 

As I told Bayview, it really doesn't matter if you agree with me. What matters is how readers interpret the work. The fact that I've interpreted it this way means others might. 

From there you need to ask what you gain from the word perfection and if its really worth it. You can risk it, but personally I'm not. 

Especially considering the characters who get called perfect, are disproportionately white, straight, cis etc.


----------



## luckyscars

Annoying kid said:


> I have to ask again: Whats to be gained from using hyperbolic terms to describe women? The best way to convey beauty is through character interaction: how far would one character go for another for instance. aka show don't tell. Again, it doesn't make the woman sound any more beautiful, it just makes her sound unrealistic. There's a law of diminishing returns. Less is more. Dumping hyperbole or flowery description simply diminishes the impact of each word.



I mean, what's to be gained with using hyperbolic terms to describe anything? 

I don't think hyperbole is something that is selected without any particular thought. It's kind of human nature to over-state feelings. That's why we say things like 'it's boiling outside' or 'it's freezing in here'. It's not supposed to be taken literally. 

I don't know why we do it and I'm sure there are psychological reasons but it might just have something to do with telling somebody 'you're slightly above average in terms of physicality' just doesn't sound better even though it might sound more _realistic_.




Tettsuo said:


> What in the piece makes you think these two women are romantically involved?
> 
> Because they're not.



Maybe 'sexually charged' is better than 'romantic'. Either way, yes I felt there was sexual tension there.

_“Pffft, please,” I say, waving away her concerns. “You’ve got to model it for me, Pat.” I twirl my finger, encouraging her to relax her arms and show off her beauty._ <-- This doesn't seem like a platonic request. 

Now that you have said these are two women and they are not romantically involved I can see how they could be just extremely close friends. Definitely that makes certain things add up better, like the idea of her being jealous of the girl (I had read that as being jealous of her partner more than her directly) and a few other things.

Again, if I'm not an expert on female-female romances I'm definitely not an expert on female-female friendships either, so this might be well above board. I felt -- still feel -- this passage _in isolation _had some undercurrent of sexual tension, perhaps just one-sided, and a few of the descriptions, observations and language choices felt a little male. But of course I am reading it totally out of context so it may be the effect it has on somebody who reads your novel is totally different. Especially a female reader.




Tettsuo said:


> Perfect - 1. having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.
> 
> You can be perfect yet still have physical flaws. At least according to the definition of the word. A person is more than there body. Therefore, you can consider a person perfect, just as they are.
> 
> 
> So, why do you think people don't mean perfect, when they use that word in writing or in direction discussion according to the definition?



This seems like a bit of a semantic derailment. I'm not sure where your definition is from but mine is from Merriam Webster and says:

Definition of perfect (Entry 1 of 3) 1a: being *entirely* without fault or defect : FLAWLESS a perfect diamond b: satisfying *all* requirements 
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perfect

My reading of that definition, and the way I have used this word all my life, is that 'perfect' is without a single flaw.

You are correct that it is possible to be perfect by one standard (say, have perfect vision) and be imperfect by another (say, have imperfect skin) or to have a perfect personality with an imperfect body or vice versa. 

The reason that doesn't wash in this case, for me, is because your character _only _really talks about this girl's physical appearance at any real length, and only talks about her physical flaws in the same breath as she mentions her physical flawlessness/perfection.

_The dress hugs her petite, yet muscular frame like a second skin The deep-crimson gown covers one arm,* her burned side, hiding the horrible scar*. The thin, flexible fabric rises up and around her neck, wrapping into a collar. But on the other side, the red disappears and exposes her *bare, flawless, caramel-toned back and shoulder*. On her uncovered wrist, she wears a thick golden bangle dotted with the same crimson of the gown. It’s the perfect complement to the stunning outfit. For a moment, I feel a twinge of jealousy. She’s so beautiful._

It's not so much that these two observations are totally incompatible -- I can see what you are saying -- but it's more the fact they are so close together and saying such opposite things I felt it sounded like a whole different train of thought. I feel this way because if I am observing how horrible a scar is it is difficult for me to, at least in a non condescending and totally sincere way, claim that the person is super beautiful. 

Thinking about it, I do see other people sometimes do this, though: Overcompensate. It's how you get these 'extreme makeover' type videos with the super fat people who lose a few pounds so that they look *better* and suddenly everybody is like "OMG YOU LOOK GORGEOUS!". Of course they don't actually look 'gorgeous', they just look better. So, if that's the reason for these two very different reactions, then that makes sense. It probably makes _more _sense knowing they are two women. I find women tend to be more willing to hype their friends' attractiveness.


----------



## Tettsuo

Annoying kid said:


> What matters is how readers interpret the work. The fact that I've interpreted it this way means others might.
> 
> From there you need to ask what you gain from the word perfection and if its really worth it. You can risk it, but personally I'm not.



Just know that you are in the vast minority of people that would interpret the word "perfect" as you do. I say that from experience. Most people don't use the word as you do.



> Especially considering the characters who get called perfect, are disproportionately white, straight, cis etc.


What does that have to do with those that aren't white, straight, cis, etc? Can they not also be perfect if a white, straight, cis person is called perfect?


----------



## Tettsuo

luckyscars said:


> I mean, what's to be gained with using hyperbolic terms to describe anything?
> 
> I don't think hyperbole is something that is selected without any particular thought. It's kind of human nature to over-state feelings. That's why we say things like 'it's boiling outside' or 'it's freezing in here'. It's not supposed to be taken literally.
> 
> I don't know why we do it and I'm sure there are psychological reasons but it might just have something to do with telling somebody 'you're slightly above average in terms of physicality' just doesn't sound better even though it might sound more _realistic_.


What makes it hyperbole? If the exposed skin has no blemishes, marks or imperfects, can it not be describes as perfect?




> Maybe 'sexually charged' is better than 'romantic'. Either way, yes I felt there was sexual tension there.
> 
> _“Pffft, please,” I say, waving away her concerns. “You’ve got to model it for me, Pat.” I twirl my finger, encouraging her to relax her arms and show off her beauty._ <-- This doesn't seem like a platonic request.
> 
> Now that you have said these are two women and they are not romantically involved I can see how they could be just extremely close friends. Definitely that makes certain things add up better, like the idea of her being jealous of the girl (I had read that as being jealous of her partner more than her directly) and a few other things.
> 
> Again, if I'm not an expert on female-female romances I'm definitely not an expert on female-female friendships either, so this might be well above board. I felt -- still feel -- this passage _in isolation _had some undercurrent of sexual tension, perhaps just one-sided, and a few of the descriptions, observations and language choices felt a little male. But of course I am reading it totally out of context so it may be the effect it has on somebody who reads your novel is totally different. Especially a female reader.



Duly noted.




> This seems like a bit of a semantic derailment. I'm not sure where your definition is from but mine is from Merriam Webster and says:
> 
> Definition of perfect (Entry 1 of 3) 1a: being *entirely* without fault or defect : FLAWLESS a perfect diamond b: satisfying *all* requirements
> https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perfect
> 
> My reading of that definition, and the way I have used this word all my life, is that 'perfect' is without a single flaw.
> 
> You are correct that it is possible to be perfect by one standard (say, have perfect vision) and be imperfect by another (say, have imperfect skin) or to have a perfect personality with an imperfect body or vice versa.
> 
> The reason that doesn't wash in this case, for me, is because your character _only _really talks about this girl's physical appearance at any real length, and only talks about her physical flaws in the same breath as she mentions her physical flawlessness/perfection.
> 
> _The dress hugs her petite, yet muscular frame like a second skin The deep-crimson gown covers one arm,* her burned side, hiding the horrible scar*. The thin, flexible fabric rises up and around her neck, wrapping into a collar. But on the other side, the red disappears and exposes her *bare, flawless, caramel-toned back and shoulder*. On her uncovered wrist, she wears a thick golden bangle dotted with the same crimson of the gown. It’s the perfect complement to the stunning outfit. For a moment, I feel a twinge of jealousy. She’s so beautiful._
> 
> It's not so much that these two observations are totally incompatible -- I can see what you are saying -- but it's more the fact they are so close together and saying such opposite things I felt it sounded like a whole different train of thought. I feel this way because if I am observing how horrible a scar is it is difficult for me to, at least in a non condescending and totally sincere way, claim that the person is super beautiful.
> 
> Thinking about it, I do see other people sometimes do this, though: Overcompensate. It's how you get these 'extreme makeover' type videos with the super fat people who lose a few pounds so that they look *better* and suddenly everybody is like "OMG YOU LOOK GORGEOUS!". Of course they don't actually look 'gorgeous', they just look better. So, if that's the reason for these two very different reactions, then that makes sense. It probably makes _more _sense knowing they are two women. I find women tend to be more willing to hype their friends' attractiveness.


I agree. Also to note, she's thinking most of that and saying little.


----------



## BornForBurning

On Perfection, 
The thing is, in a universe with divergent forms, wouldn't we expect, on some level, divergent standards? Assuming you don't believe that specialization is a flaw in and of itself, wouldn't we expect different creatures to be held to different standards of perfection? Or, at the very least, that they would aspire to different ideals of perfection? This does not mean that all forms don't as a baseline obey the same laws. It simply means that we should not assume all creatures, as they approach sanctification and perfection, are becoming precisely the same thing. They _are _becoming the 'same thing' in the sense that they are all becoming good. But some are becoming musicians, some soldiers, some scholars. That is why the word 'perfection' isn't inherently exclusionary. There are many good things, but few are identical.


----------



## luckyscars

BornForBurning said:


> On Perfection,
> The thing is, in a universe with divergent forms, wouldn't we expect, on some level, divergent standards? Assuming you don't believe that specialization is a flaw in and of itself, wouldn't we expect different creatures to be held to different standards of perfection? Or, at the very least, that they would aspire to different ideals of perfection? This does not mean that all forms don't as a baseline obey the same laws. It simply means that we should not assume all creatures, as they approach sanctification and perfection, are becoming precisely the same thing. They _are _becoming the 'same thing' in the sense that they are all becoming good. But some are becoming musicians, some soldiers, some scholars. That is why the word 'perfection' isn't inherently exclusionary. There are many good things, but few are identical.



This kind of thing starts to get into a Socratic sort of argument.

Probably beyond a writing forum. Certainly beyond me. I can say I also don't believe in fixed standards, at least not of anything that is completely empirical. We all know a perfect circle exists because it's a mathematical concept, but to talk of 'perfect skin' and try to pretend such a thing exists _even theoretically _seems an absurd thing to do. 

I mean, we can't even talk about perfect skin as simply being 'skin that has no blemishes, scars, etc" because even in that case a racist would say that somebody with black or brown skin doesn't have 'perfect skin', no matter how much more 'perfect' it might be versus a white person's who is covered in zits. And, if you are a racist, that position would be completely reasonable. You certainly can't disprove that white skin is more perfect than black skin. 

You can't even really prove a standard of what makes a blemish verses what makes an alluring addition. Does Harry Potter's lightning-strike birth mark mean he has imperfect skin? Depends on whether you like the shape of lightning and whether you like it in the form of a birthmark, I guess. If you like lightning-strike birthmarks, his skin is more perfect than anybody's. If you don't, it isn't. What if the shape was not a lightning-strike but a circle, or a swastika, or a penis? At that point we are making purely subjective judgments based on what _we _value, not on what the thing actually _is._

What we CAN expect, I think, is for the writer, or the writer's proxy (the narrator or the POV character) to have a consistent idea of what _they _think is perfect and for that to be articulated in a way that is (1) Believable -- we have to accept they think it even if we don't and (2) Consistent with itself.

My issue with the use of 'perfect' to describe the woman isn't because I don't think it's an acceptable word to use to describe somebody. That is irrelevant. My issue with it was simply that I felt a certain lack of congruity between describing a woman repeatedly as flawless, perfect, so beautiful while the same viewpoint is focusing on flaws, imperfections, and things that are -- in their words, not mine -- ugly. That sort of inconsistency reminds me of stories I have read where the character talks about how they can't wait to go off somewhere on their own and, at the same time, goes on and on about how afraid they are, how much they will miss anybody.

There is a balance that can be struck with this stuff, of course. Humans are fickle and more than capable of carrying multiple opinions at the same time. If that is part of this POV character's makeup, to simultaneously believe somebody is beautiful and ugly (I know that's not exactly an accurate characterization but for the sake of argument...) and if a good case can be made as to why they might be so all over the place, that kind of thing can actually be super effective. For example, it would be totally accurate for an abuse victim to alternate constantly between loving and hateful thoughts toward their abuser: That's part of the profile. With that in mind, Tettsuo's excerpt is likely fine. It's just difficult to say when we are dealing with something totally out of context.


----------



## BornForBurning

> I mean, we can't even talk about perfect skin as simply being 'skin that has no blemishes, scars, etc" because even in that case a racist would say that somebody with black or brown skin doesn't have 'perfect skin', no matter how much more 'perfect' it might be versus a white person's who is covered in zits. And, if you are a racist, that position would be completely reasonable. You certainly can't disprove that white skin is more perfect than black skin.


I do think this is a common mistake, arguing that due to a concept being largely derived from sensual/emotional or some other highly personal experience, it must be subjective and therefore unprovable. I do not say that it is provable merely because it is personal. I simply say, we have no more reason to think that a concept derived from data is subjective than one derived from experience. In a broader sense, of course people employ different standards of beauty, but I see no reason why all those standards must be correct, or why differing standards prove all standards wrong. 



> You can't even really prove a standard of what makes a blemish verses what makes an alluring addition.


The core of the argument, I think, hinges on subjectivity and its relation to reality. Subjective means 'changing due to personal perspective,' and while belief certainly changes with perspective, we have no reason to assume that reality does. In fact, assuming belief is subjective (and if belief, by extension, perception), reality isn't necessarily in flux, it is simply unreachable. You seem to argue (correct me if I'm wrong) that we know reality is in flux due to subjectivity, but reality is far worse: it is there, beyond our grasp. 

How do we know, then? Only through miraculous intervention of reality itself; there is no other option. This is probably the core of our disagreement, namely a confusion involving how we 'know' when something is aesthetically pleasing or aesthetically degrading. The confusion stems from a conflation of subjective and implicit. I implicitly know that Harry Potter's birthmark being a penis is aesthetically degrading (due to the miraculous intervention of reality, not the working of my own mind), and while I cannot articulate this knowledge empirically due to the degradation transcending the matter with which it incarnates itself (and thus, my own knowledge), the knowledge itself is *not *subjective. 

I agree with the second half of your post, regarding the pragmatics of fiction.


----------



## luckyscars

BornForBurning said:


> I do think this is a common mistake, arguing that due to a concept being largely derived from sensual/emotional or some other highly personal experience, it must be subjective and therefore unprovable. I do not say that it is provable merely because it is personal. I simply say, we have no more reason to think that a concept derived from data is subjective than one derived from experience. In a broader sense, of course people employ different standards of beauty, but I see no reason why all those standards must be correct, or why differing standards prove all standards wrong.
> 
> 
> The core of the argument, I think, hinges on subjectivity and its relation to reality. Subjective means 'changing due to personal perspective,' and while belief certainly changes with perspective, we have no reason to assume that reality does. In fact, assuming belief is subjective (and if belief, by extension, perception), reality isn't necessarily in flux, it is simply unreachable. You seem to argue (correct me if I'm wrong) that we know reality is in flux due to subjectivity, but reality is far worse: it is there, beyond our grasp.
> 
> How do we know, then? Only through miraculous intervention of reality itself; there is no other option. This is probably the core of our disagreement, namely a confusion involving how we 'know' when something is aesthetically pleasing or aesthetically degrading. The confusion stems from a conflation of subjective and implicit. I implicitly know that Harry Potter's birthmark being a penis is aesthetically degrading (due to the miraculous intervention of reality, not the working of my own mind), and while I cannot articulate this knowledge empirically due to the degradation transcending the matter with which it incarnates itself (and thus, my own knowledge), the knowledge itself is *not *subjective.
> 
> I agree with the second half of your post, regarding the pragmatics of fiction.





One of the things I try to catch in my own work (and that frequently bothers me when reading other people's) is when the writer uses this type of language -- beautiful, perfect, ugly, etc -- reliant on the reader's definitions and not on the character's.

I think this is a pretty good work-around. It's OKAY to refer to somebody as beautiful IF the standard of beauty being used is that of the POV character's and IF that standard has already been well established (through development of the character) or, at a minimum, will quickly be qualified in short order after-the-fact. 

It is NOT OKAY to refer to somebody as beautiful and have it be reliant in some way on what the reader (or the writer, for that matter) thinks beauty is. It's NOT OKAY to do that because it requires so much subjectivity that it becomes ambiguous and therefore meaningless.

So, you can say 'Character B was beautiful' if (1) It is an opinion of Character A and (2) If Character A has already been somehow developed so that the reader understands what Character A's values are with regard to Character B and/or beauty itself. Like, I know what my wife considers beautiful. I don't know what a stranger thinks is beautiful. So, if a stranger says 'she is beautiful' it is a meaningless statement. If my wife says it, I have a pretty good idea what she means because I know her.

In short, it's a risky business and this kind of comes back to the argument against abstract language more broadly: How often is it necessary to explicitly state somebody is perfect/flawless/beautiful/ugly as opposed to actually show it through a more robust, concrete description? 

"_Joanne's face reminded Quentin of the Mona Lisa midway through a particularly orgasmic poo_" may be more laborious way of saying "_Joanne had a perfect smile_" but it also works without any degree of doubt to explain what Joanne's smile is like and does so without ambiguity. It also, done well, can lead to some good second-hand character build of Quentin.


----------



## PiP

luckyscars said:


> "_Joanne's face reminded Quentin of the Mona Lisa midway through a particularly orgasmic poo_" may be more laborious way of saying "_Joanne had a perfect smile_" but it also works without any degree of doubt to explain what Joanne's smile is like and does so without ambiguity. It also, done well, can lead to some good second-hand character build of Quentin.



Seriously? 
:cookie::cookie::cookie:



Tettsuo said:


> Perfect - 1. having all the required or desirable  elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to  be.
> 
> You can be perfect yet still have physical flaws. At least according to  the definition of the word. A person is more than there body. Therefore,  you can consider a person perfect, just as they are.
> 
> 
> So, why do you think people don't mean perfect, when they use that word  in writing or in direction discussion according to the  definition?



I agree, T.

Circles and squares are perfect. Most other things are down to interpretation

Husband: Would you like a cup of tea to cheer you up.
Me: Perfect ...
Me... Actually, a large Gin and tonic would be better

Beautiful is abstract and so is perfect because everyone's idea of perfect differs.


----------



## PiP

Admin note: I've just realised we are wandering way off topic from the original OP. If we all want to continue this line of discussion I will move it to it's own thread.


----------



## Ralph Rotten

Annoying kid said:


> If talking about use of the word "perfection" when describing women is a derail in a topic called "writing women", I am so outta here. Deuces.




Then go ahead and get gone.
Honestly kid, there is nothing wrong with discussing how bad it is to describe women as *perfect*...but you turn it into some kind of circular discussion of....I don't even know.
You aren't actually talking about how to write women anymore, but arguing over the use of a single word and how it relates to people of color...


----------



## Ralph Rotten

"Beautiful is abstract and so is perfect because everyone's idea of perfect differs."
PIP


When I write women, I don;t usually give them a lot of surface description. My focus is usually what is happening inside of their heads...what they are thinking of, their impressions on things happening around them, their motivations.

The only time I mention a woman being attractive is if it plays into their character. That sample I posted about the former beauty queen would be a great example. Maria's experience as a beauty queen had gone on to influence the rest of her life. 

Eye of the beholder: Often when I speak to the beauty of a character, I do it through the eyes of another character. This way we learn that she is attractive, and at the same time learn about whomever is eyeballing her (man or woman). How one person thinks about another actually tells us about both characters.
So although I may have a CHARACTER reflect on how perfect a woman is, I would never have my narrator do it unless it was a 1st person narration.


----------



## Mutimir

SueC said:


> Good grief - this topic again. I was watching a movie last night called "Death of an Author." There was a female character, the wife of one of the authors in the story and when I saw her, this forum heading "Writing Women" actually came to mind! The wife's response to just about everything was so typically male, in my head (stoic, business-like, calm, cruel) that I thought the author of this book must have been a man (it was from Intrigo by Scandinavian mystery author Hakan Messer). She was very low-key in her emotions, even when the situation she was in absolutely demanded that someone in the cast get hysterical over the story line!
> 
> So I went online to Amazon to see if I could read some of this book, to see how he describes a woman. He didn't describe her - and very effectively. The little I read was about a woman in bed, waking up to a phone call from someone from her past. He writes deeply about her emotions, how she feels, what she says, but not once did he describe her physical appearance. But in just a few paragraphs I already had her in my head. I was hooked. I'm really going to have to get the book now.
> 
> Mystery. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1509892184/?tag=writingforu06-20
> 
> Men are going to write women they way they see them, or the way they wish they were. But sometimes I think, they might write women to fit the story, to capture our attention by giving us women we either know or want to know, regardless of how they look.



This post got buried it seems but I wanted to respond that you pretty much described my thoughts on this topic. I think bad writers are quick to describe female characters physically and essentially objectify them. I guess I question if there is going to be any depth there over the course of the book. When I'm reading a book I don't really care what the person looks like I'm more interested in who the person is and what their goals are.

I will say, as it was mentioned previously in this thread, Hiraku Makimura's Norwegian Wood was pretty graphic in it's description of the characters. However, I think he does make up for it by creating a strong female character in Midori and others honestly.


----------



## Gofa

Dont shoot the messenger 
movie As good as it gets 

[FONT=&Verdana]Receptionist:
How do you write women so well?[/FONT]
[FONT=&Verdana]Melvin Udall:
I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.[/FONT]


----------



## luckyscars

Gofa said:


> Dont shoot the messenger
> movie As good as it gets
> 
> [FONT=&Verdana]Receptionist:
> How do you write women so well?[/FONT]
> [FONT=&Verdana]Melvin Udall:
> I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.[/FONT]



I love that movie.

It's funny though, I actually write women kind of the opposite way: I think of a man and apply additional sense of accountability since women generally are held to a higher degree of responsibility for certain choices they make.


----------



## Gofa

I write women too, often shifting to their POV and back again
to me describing physicality is pointless  its how the character thinks acts feels reasons reacts

she stood there in a long sexy dress    Nuh

she surveyed the room quietly and felt particularly satisfied in her choice of dress for this evening.

I look for participation i guess. The only way i would physically describe a character male or female is if they look in a mirror and then its the why or how they perceive themselves more than, what is seen 

perhaps a bridge to far but

the most attractive piece of a female is between her ears and thereafter the shadows casts by that inner light 

although Ive been known to sing along with

”Her name was Lola 
  she was a dancer“


----------



## Xander416

Gofa said:


> Dont shoot the messenger
> movie As good as it gets
> 
> [FONT=&Verdana]Receptionist:
> How do you write women so well?[/FONT]
> [FONT=&Verdana]Melvin Udall:
> I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.[/FONT]


Thought about pulling that one out, but figured I'd get labeled a misogynist for it.


----------



## Taylor

Gofa said:


> Dont shoot the messenger
> movie As good as it gets
> 
> [FONT=&Verdana]Receptionist:
> How do you write women so well?[/FONT]
> [FONT=&Verdana]Melvin Udall:
> I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.[/FONT]





luckyscars said:


> I love that movie.
> 
> It's funny though, I actually write women kind of the opposite way: I think of a man and apply additional sense of accountability since women generally are held to a higher degree of responsibility for certain choices they make.





Xander416 said:


> Thought about pulling that one out, but figured I'd get labeled a misogynist for it.



Ok...I think a woman needs to chime in here lol!!   

Thank you luckyscars!  

I think this line is just a funny one-liner and I don't think anyone takes it seriosly.  It's more of a reflection for how that character relates to the women in his life.    But I'm pretty sure it would be cut from any modern day script.  We've come a long way baby!


----------



## Xander416

Taylor said:


> I think this line is just a funny one-liner and I don't think anyone takes it seriosly.


You wouldn't think anyone would take issue with a common use greeting like "Hi guys!", either, but you'd be wrong.

Outside of extremes like overt racism, I find it's just easier to assume I'm going to somehow end up offending _someone_ out there no matter what I do, adopt an "I don't give a crap" mentality in response, then go on with my intended task. Know what I mean, _guys_?


----------



## SueC

Xander416 said:


> You wouldn't think anyone would take issue with a common use greeting like "Hi guys!", either, but you'd be wrong.
> 
> Outside of extremes like overt racism, I find it's just easier to assume I'm going to somehow end up offending _someone_ out there no matter what I do, adopt an "I don't give a crap" mentality in response, then go on with my intended task. Know what I mean, _guys_?



This whole conversation is so telling. There was a time, a while ago now, where if the crowd was mixed a speaker always had to reference the women in the group as a separate entity. "Ladies and Gentlemen," kind of thing. Or if a leader were to approach the troops and say, "Men!" he might notice a woman or two, and feel compelled to amend his opening.

Then came this really narrow span of time, where we were all "guys." It came as a surprise, I think, to most men (of a certain age) that women were fine with that. In the beginning the girls may have chuckled at being referred to as a "guy," but most women were fine with it.

Now, today, as Xander says, we run the possibility of offending _someone_ at every turn. The biggest occurrence that comes to mind is the gender-fluid issue. I'm not making any judgment calls on this, just stating that it is sometimes difficult to know which pronoun, or address, to use. To this point, there are many GF individuals, who have selected their own pronoun. For example, I heard of a family in Chicago who had been told by their teenage daughter that she insisted her family refer to her as "It." This was her pronoun of choice, and if anyone in the family slipped up, there would be heck to pay.  Well, there always is with teenagers, isn't there?

Anyway, it did make me wonder - what if you don't know a GF person's pronoun and wind up offending them? To tell the truth, I haven't run into this personally yet, but I know it's out there and as far as I can see - this is just another path to isolation. While my attitude isn't exactly _I don't give a crap,_ it might be close.


----------



## Bayview

SueC said:


> Anyway, it did make me wonder - what if you don't know a GF person's pronoun and wind up offending them? To tell the truth, I haven't run into this personally yet, but I know it's out there and as far as I can see - this is just another path to isolation. While my attitude isn't exactly _I don't give a crap,_ it might be close.



I feel like the "I haven't run into this personally yet" is the most important part of this post. (rest of my response not really directed at you, Sue)

There are undoubtedly a small number of gender-fluid people who will be assholes about someone making an innocent mistake. There are plenty of non-gender-fluid people who are assholes about stuff, and gender-fluid people aren't magically better behaved than everyone else.

But I don't think I've ever met anyone with unusual pronoun preferences who had a problem with explaining what the preference is. I've only met a couple who would go as far as an eyeroll if someone _with good intentions_ subsequently messed up the pronouns. If someone deliberately misgendered them, they might get upset, just as I might get upset if someone deliberately ignored _my_ requests in terms of how I'd like to be addressed.

As a general rule? Don't be an asshole and people won't treat you like you're an asshole. I don't think it's anything worth getting paranoid about.


----------



## Xander416

SueC said:


> This whole conversation is so telling. There was a time, a while ago now, where if the crowd was mixed a speaker always had to reference the women in the group as a separate entity. "Ladies and Gentlemen," kind of thing. Or if a leader were to approach the troops and say, "Men!" he might notice a woman or two, and feel compelled to amend his opening.
> 
> Then came this really narrow span of time, where we were all "guys." It came as a surprise, I think, to most men (of a certain age) that women were fine with that. In the beginning the girls may have chuckled at being referred to as a "guy," but most women were fine with it.


I've always viewed "guys" to be a gender-neutral term. Heck, at one time "man" was considered gender-neutral.



> Now, today, as Xander says, we run the possibility of offending _someone_ at every turn. The biggest occurrence that comes to mind is the gender-fluid issue. I'm not making any judgment calls on this, just stating that it is sometimes difficult to know which pronoun, or address, to use. To this point, there are many GF individuals, who have selected their own pronoun. For example, I heard of a family in Chicago who had been told by their teenage daughter that she insisted her family refer to her as "It." This was her pronoun of choice, and if anyone in the family slipped up, there would be heck to pay.  Well, there always is with teenagers, isn't there?


As someone who has been addressed as "Ma'am" over the phone numerous times, I think I'd find being called "It" to be far worse since it carries a perhaps-unintentional implication that I'm something less than human. But that's just me, someone who has never had any gender identity issues.



> Anyway, it did make me wonder - what if you don't know a GF person's pronoun and wind up offending them? To tell the truth, I haven't run into this personally yet, but I know it's out there and as far as I can see - this is just another path to isolation.


In all honesty, I rarely ever find myself addressing someone I don't know with a gender pronoun in casual conversation. But I figure if and when it does come to that, I'll just take an "if it looks like a duck" approach. That way, I can say, "My mistake, you looked like a man/woman to me. Sorry."



> While my attitude isn't exactly _I don't give a crap,_ it might be close.


You should try it, it feels surprisingly liberating. irate:



Bayview said:


> As  a general rule? Don't be an asshole and people won't treat you like  you're an asshole. I don't think it's anything worth getting paranoid  about.


Well, I wouldn't say I'm taking it that far. I don't  purposely try to be an asshole, rather I try to be empathetic. But like I  said, sometimes you're doomed to offend somebody no matter what you do. There are a lot of cases where it's simply an "us or them" matter.


----------



## Bayview

Biro said:


> Bayview if you were taught as a sign of good manners and also by adopting what had gone on forever and a day before to.............
> 
> Open the door for a lady (female).
> 
> Allow the lady (female) to enter first.
> 
> Refer to her as 'luv' or maybe 'miss' when talking to her as mrs could be not so good.
> 
> Allow her the seat on a bus or train.
> 
> Help or offer her help if she needs assistance with something.
> 
> You see all this in older films and more as a sign of general politeness and respectfulness.
> 
> This a man would never do for another man not because you aren't being polite but a man would not see a man in such a respectful manner.
> 
> To a man he may refer to him as 'mate' at most and allow him to stand.  But for a man to be seated allowing a woman to stand was taught to me as a sign of rudeness at least.
> 
> Now it seems someone like me is offensive to everyone just for trying to be polite as he was taught at school and by elders.
> 
> Dare someone write the above in todays world.



I don't know how old you are, but I think there's generally an exception made for the truly elderly.

If you aren't that old, though... you clearly know that times have changed. Your post is an acknowledgment that you recognize that. There's nothing preventing you from changing your behaviour to match the times except that you don't want to. That's your choice. I think you should own it.


----------



## Bayview

Xander416 said:


> Well, I wouldn't say I'm taking it that far. I don't  purposely try to be an asshole, rather I try to be empathetic. But like I  said, sometimes you're doomed to offend somebody no matter what you do. There are a lot of cases where it's simply an "us or them" matter.



I really don't think it's true that you're sometimes doomed to offend somebody. I absolutely offend people sometimes, but it's pretty much always on purpose! There was a less offensive option available, and I just didn't want to take it.

Can you give an example of a situation you've been in where you absolutely had to offend someone?


----------



## luckyscars

Xander416 said:


> But like I  said, sometimes you're doomed to offend somebody no matter what you do. There are a lot of cases where it's simply an "us or them" matter.



The problem with this premise is I think for a lot of people (not necessarily including you) it's kind of an excuse. It's something we have invented in modern times to justify plain bigoted or antisocial behavior. It's the sort of thing that gives rise to the 'Fuck Your Feelings!' philosophy.

I agree that sometimes some people are prone to get offended irrationally. I offend people on this board all the time, so I'm definitely sympathetic to the idea that _people need to toughen up and engage with the argument. 

_But the moment we start saying 'anything goes' with what we say/write, we lose all ability to act with social awareness, because it's always easier to say 'they're just being sensitive' rather than 'I was wrong'. It's always easier to shift the moral fault to the other person rather than own it ourselves.

So I guess I don't disagree entirely with your point HOWEVER I think it's something we should kind of work to overcome, if that makes sense? Like, even though I think a lot of the things people get offended by are bullshit, I won't allow that to be my assumption going in. 

There's an old wisdom that you should always hold conversations with other people with the assumption that they know something you don't, that they can teach you something. I think that wisdom can be applied beyond just knowledge. It's good to engage with people, whether it's women or people of color or the disabled or really just anybody on the understanding that they have a perspective that would be beneficial to learn about rather than be combative against.


----------



## SueC

Biro said:


> Where I came from in the UK, when talking to a female you called her 'love' or more so 'luv' as a general term.  Or if the truth was known we didnt know or had forgotten her name.  Anyway is was a general name reference and it meant nothing that somebody saying 'mister' or 'son'.  In no way was it ever offensive, degrading or sexist.
> 
> You would say...."Can I help you luv?"..........."Is that ok luv?"
> 
> Now I have seen younger women saying they regard this as totally offensive and sexist.
> 
> If I was to write a story today set in its present tense, I wouldn't have a clue how  to refer to a female anymore in a conversation.  If I said Miss or Mrs I could be wrong.  'Luv' was much easier.



Biro, I love "luv"! I watch tons of British TV and I really like the casual style of endearment that is used by both men and women. I wish we (yanks) would adopt some of the terminology, like "ta" or "cheers" for a thanks, or they way they always want to put on a "cuppa" if your day stinks, and the recipient always wants one. A lot of the shows I watch are crime dramas, and it took me awhile to recognize that they weren't saying "Mom," when talking to their superiors. It was a variation - I think anyway - of "Ma'am," but with a different pronunciation. I think I'll start it off - and call everyone "luv."


----------



## indianroads

One of the best comedy shows I've watched is the BBC series 'Coupling', hilarious!


----------



## Xander416

Bayview said:


> I really don't think it's true that you're sometimes doomed to offend somebody. I absolutely offend people sometimes, but it's pretty much always on purpose! There was a less offensive option available, and I just didn't want to take it.


I like you. XD



> Can you give an example of a situation you've been in where you absolutely had to offend someone?


Gay marriage is one. You support it and the puritanical and super-religious groups get pissed off at you and label you gay as an insult (although they typically use a different word starting with F, I'm sure you know the word I'm talking about), but if you oppose it you have the LGBTQ hardliners that label you bigoted and homophobic. Even civil unions aren't seen as a middle ground because there are still people in the LBGTQ community that oppose them as not equal to marriage.

Another one is Confederate monuments. If you're opposed to removing (or defacing) them, the political left labels you a bigoted racist who wants to reinstate slavery. If you support it, the right labels you anti-American, a communist, a fascist, a Marxist, and God knows what else. There's not even an _illusion_ of a middle ground on this one like the gay marriage debate has with civil unions.


----------



## luckyscars

Xander416 said:


> Gay marriage is one. You support it and the puritanical and super-religious groups get pissed off at you and label you gay as an insult (although they typically use a different word starting with F, I'm sure you know the word I'm talking about), but if you oppose it you have the LGBTQ hardliners that label you bigoted and homophobic. Even civil unions aren't seen as a middle ground because there are still people in the LBGTQ community that oppose them as not equal to marriage.
> 
> Another one is Confederate monuments. If you're opposed to removing (or defacing) them, the political left labels you a bigoted racist who wants to reinstate slavery. If you support it, the right labels you anti-American, a communist, a fascist, a Marxist, and God knows what else. There's not even an _illusion_ of a middle ground on this one like the gay marriage debate has with civil unions.



I think the question there is: 'How are you presenting your views?' 

If you are presenting it in a considered, respectful way then I don't think many people (maybe besides some real wingnuts or, frankly, lunatics) are going to be 'offended'. There's a gulf of difference between disagreement and offence, right? 

I suppose it all depends, but most people I know who are generally pretty conservative and oppose gay marriage or dismantling of Confederate monuments aren't _offended _that I disagree with them in supporting those things, so long as I make extra sure to be respectful of their difference of opinion (which, admittedly, can get pretty hard, especially when we are talking about issues that impact real people's lives). 

But, so long as I am careful (and so are they), we just disagree. My wife and I have a selection of particularly bigoted aunts and cousins and we have not killed each other yet. 

Typically three options: (1) Don't talk to them at all (good in all circumstances) (2) Talk to them but avoid controversial topics (good for close family) or (3) Talk to them but be really, really careful as to how you do so (good if/when you actually want to have the dialogue). Neither one of those should result in anybody being offended. 

The secret to #3 is to make sure you try to stick to the issue itself, try to keep it factual and avoid emotionally triggering or insulting language (like 'racist', or 'sexist', or 'Nazi', for instance), and try to listen and ask questions more than talk and provide answers. 

Questions are particularly effective, I find. As long as you ask questions you can pretty much discuss anything without offense, because people are human and respond positively when they think you value their opinions. If you want, you can use that. There's always the danger of crossing into being disingenuous or unpleasantly manipulative, sure, but a debate IS about manipulation and it's totally legitimate as a rhetorical tool to use the other person's self-awareness, to the extent they have any, to see your side through exposing theirs. Lawyers do this all the time in the courtroom.

e.g:

Uncle: "All these lefty kids are a bunch of Marxists or Nazis"
Nephew: "It seems strange to me that you would lump Marxists in with Nazis, I've always thought they were quite different. Can you expand on why you are lumping them together?"
Uncle: "Well, I lump them together because they are both totalitarian ideologies!"
Nephew: "I don't quite understand, I'm sorry. What about Marxism makes it totalitarian? Can you explain to me what Marxism means to you? I might have misunderstood it?"
Uncle: "ABSOLUTELY I WILL!" *_Uncle __proceeds to explain and realizes midway though the explanation that he doesn't know. He then stops spouting nonsense and dinner continues in piece and nobody was offended*_

It's really hard and I'm very bad at it, for what it's worth!

ETA: Lost track of what this has to do with writing about women, but I will try to tack it back around to that. Maybe we would all write different genders better if we tried to write less judgmentally about them. A lot of the really bad, offensive even, examples I have encountered of writing women (which I'm sure features for men as well) are ones that tend to come across as sweeping generalizations or some form of 'gender judgment'. Men seem particularly prone to 'deciding', through language selection, what makes a woman attractive, what women desire, etc. I think that's probably where female readers tend to become most alienated. It's difficult because part of good writing IS being specific and decisive on things and we want to avoid being vague, but there should be some kind of middle ground even if it just comes down to tone?


----------



## Bayview

Re offending people - I think it's almost always possible, for a private citizen, to just not talk about these issues. Don't want to offend people who are for or against gay marriage? If someone tries to talk about gay marriage, say "I'm really too distant from that debate to be able to discuss it intelligently, and I don't want to do either side a disservice by discussing it un-intelligently. But I'm really interested in what you were saying about your trip to India! Can you tell me more about that?"

Again, this is not an approach I'd generally choose, at least for that issue, because I'm not worried about offending homophobes. But if I'm confronted with opinions I find distasteful and I'm somewhere I should avoid giving offense (work comes to mind) I've also had success with "Let's not get sidetracked with that. We're here to talk about [work related topic]."

Now, these options involve you _not sharing your opinion, _and that can be an uncomfortable situation for many of us. It certainly is with me. As I've said, I'm generally not too worried about giving offense if I disagree with someone. But I think it's important to not conflate "unable to avoid giving offense" with "unable to avoid giving offense _while saying what I want, when I want, to whom I want_."


----------



## SueC

Biro said:


> That's correct Sue it was similar to Ma'am and meant nothing derogatory in any shape or form.  I watched some tv reporter from the UK about 10 years ago who had some different slant on it and thought she was being talked down to somehow by the men who used it.
> 
> Thankfully I live in a country where they still use it and have manners and respect women in general.  Whereas the UK has started to descend into chaos. Much the same as the other places that appear to lost all sense of purpose in an attempt to make one size fit all and hammer that square peg into the round hole.
> 
> Where I am people would still stop to help someone, give up their seat to women or old people, stop and offer you assistance and hold the door open for you.  If you were walking and stuck out your thumb then someone would stop and give you help.  Complete strangers.  Women can walk down the road without fear.  Of course there is that small element but thankfully it is still small.
> 
> They also know what toilet to use as well.  You can be who you like here and aren't pressurized by that minority.
> 
> You say you like that Sue.  It's just 'being pleasant' and 'having manners'.  Well there's proof of it still works and is wanted.  There is no need for continued nastiness and blandness of being forced to be all the same.
> 
> The term 'Ma'am' in the UK forces is a term of respect and also politeness to a female superior officer.  Just the same and no different than saying 'Sir' to a superior male officer.  Or you may use the term 'Sir' as a form of politeness to a male customer.
> 
> The trouble is if you write a story about these places.  Then those who live in other countries who do not have these niceties, do not understand the stories as they are too far removed from them?
> 
> There is the problem possibly?



You must live in a wonderful place, Biro. As I have aged, I have really taken notice of the idea that (in the U.S.) when something new comes along, the former habits are completely and totally abandoned. I am so old school, and while I feel some ideas of mine can be contemporary, I still appreciate the gestures and compliments of "yore." Sounds funny to even say that, but I have noticed that compliments, for example, are few and far between. One time, not too long ago, I had spent some considerable time getting ready for a dinner date. This guy and I went out to eat often, but this night was the night between our birthdays and I wanted to look nice; more so than usual. We live in the same apartment building and I met him at his car. I had hoped he would say something nice about my appearance, but what he said was "Kind of silly to wear white when we're going to an Italian restaurant." I was so disappointed, and it really kind of cast a blip at the beginning of the evening. I mean it was silly of me to let it affect me like that, and eventually it all turned out well, but that is what I mean. Compliments are not fashionable now, I guess, or maybe they give the wrong impression that you care more than you do. I don't know - but it sounds like where you live that would not be a problem!


----------



## indianroads

Observing little things can give our characters depth.
I was working with my partner in our garden this AM, and she jokingly asked me if I had a hair tie (I'm folicly challenged). When I asked, she said that she usually carries one with her, and I never knew that.


----------



## Mutimir

Biro said:


> Thats a shame.  You obviously made an effort for a nice night out.  I bet if you turned up in dirty jeans and your breakfast down your top he would have complained.  That Italian restaurant.  Was the floor mud or something?  :shock:
> 
> I see nothing wrong with giving someone a compliment.  I was told when I first came here that words are powerful things.  I thought about it a few times and I think it's utter garbage.  If I want to kill someone I will grab a gun or a knife, even an axe.  The one thing I wouldn't do is say..."You look nice tonight dear."  Words dont kill people.



The ability to kill someone physically isn't powerful. The ability to convince someone with your words not to kill, that's powerful.


----------



## JJBuchholz

I experimented writing women in two short stories (both were related) from a few years ago, and let me say that the MC was not perfect. Cute in appearance, maybe. Complicated and strong, most definitely. Anyone who writes a women as the perfect character with no flaws can't be that good of a writer to begin with. No matter if it's a man or a woman, all characters need flaws to be able to be a part of the storytelling process.

If the woman has no flaws (physically or emotionally), then she's one sided and will bore the reader.

I have seen examples (in writing) of someone writing a female character in this manner, and it's an immediate turn-off, and will make me close the story or toss the book aside because of it. 

-JJB


----------



## Joker

JJBuchholz said:


> I experimented writing women in two short stories (both were related) from a few years ago, and let me say that the MC was not perfect. Cute in appearance, maybe. Complicated and strong, most definitely. Anyone who writes a women as the perfect character with no flaws can't be that good of a writer to begin with. No matter if it's a man or a woman, all characters need flaws to be able to be a part of the storytelling process.
> 
> If the woman has no flaws (physically or emotionally), then she's one sided and will bore the reader.
> 
> I have seen examples (in writing) of someone writing a female character in this manner, and it's an immediate turn-off, and will make me close the story or toss the book aside because of it.
> 
> -JJB



Oh good, because my MC is a woman that doubles as a walking bundle of issues.


----------



## thethreetearedeye

When I write women, I just write them as people. I leave out any details about their measurements, and if they're attractive I don't dedicate much to saying it, rather I leave it to how they are treated by other characters. I try to give them flaws, such as lashing out when, going over the top, festering in their negativity, but I also have them work through deeper issues. I believe its best to write women as equally capable as the men in the books they are in. If they are a soldier, they know what they're doing. If they're a scientist, they had to work for that career and have the smarts to back it up. Falling back onto physical details about their chest and buns (while fun to make fun of), is lazy in describing them (unless its supposed to be some saucy writing). Just keep in mind that they are a person who just so happens to be a woman.


----------



## Smooth Jazz and 45 ACP

I’m by no means an authority on writing women, and there’s plenty I could stand to learn. Still, I got out of the “describe her boobs in great detail” phase pretty early. I tend to just describe them as I would any male character if I’m doing a purely neutral description. 

Generally though, I don’t do neutral descriptions. I have a preference for the third person limited perspective, and all too often, the POV is that of a cisgendered male. I’m not afraid to jump behind the driver’s seat of female characters every once in a while, but cisgendered men are an easy default (speaking from experience). And all too often, they do tend to put more emphasis on a woman’s “features”. If I’m following around a character who is, say, a young heterosexual man with a tendency for charm, of course I’m going to give a flattering description of any attractive woman he meets. That’s his prerogative and I feel it’s good to get into his head. 

Funny side note, I do have some dialogue and narration I’m saving for a future project. One such character (young heterosexual man) is fawning over a married lesbian woman, with the usual “she’s curvy, great bosom, etc” descriptors. Only thing is, she’s an esper capable of reading minds and she interrupts the narration with a quip along the lines of “you’re not my type”. 

But generally, I do tend to avoid it if I’m doing a more omniscient point of view or if it wouldn’t make sense for the character I’m following.


----------



## luckyscars

I think the approach of 'describe her as you would a male character!' or 'I avoid it unless it's absolutely necessary!' is interesting. 

I see the rationale -- we don't want people's identity to be wrapped up in whatever gender stereotypes -- and sure, that makes sense. However it's worth pointing out we DON'T typically follow this process for any other character traits, do we? It seems we only get into the habit of 'avoidance' with certain traits that have the propensity to make us uncomfortable, the ones where there is (or could be) some kind of backlash?

Take something relatively neutral such as age. Nobody would be saying "THE BEST WAY TO WRITE A NINETY YEAR OLD MAN IS TO WRITE THEM THE SAME WAY AS A NINE YEAR OLD BOY"....right? That makes no sense. We know there are physical, psychological, cultural, social differences between ninety year olds and nine year olds, even if those differences simply lie in the perceptions of the people around them. Most likely, nobody is helping a nine year old boy down the stairs. Nobody is having a ninety year old man playing tag. We do not treat these characters as the same, nor should we.

I'm not suggesting age differences are the same as sex or gender ones, obviously. I'm just saying that sex differences do exist and that, like any differences, they should absolutely be incorporated into writing a character. If we all agree a character with one leg probably should have that experience somehow included in how they navigate the story-world...why wouldn't the same be true for a character without a penis -- or _with_ a penis? Not to mention the differences between men and women inevitably rise well above simply anatomical ones. We know this. 

I tend to think when people espouse that female characters should be written about identically to male ones, that's more an exercise in self-censorship than anything else. We all know (or should) that people are partially defined by their sex (and their sexuality, for that matter). The key word there is 'partially'. Nobody wants a female character whose 'femaleness' is so dominant in a story that every other facet of her character is therefore ignored or that absolutely everything is tied back to her being a woman. Tokenism is always a bad way to go. And so is sexism. But, if I am writing a female character, then I absolutely keep her gender front and center when considering her actions, motives, and the way others around her treat her. I don't want to be dismissing it.

This isn't something that should be treated as trivial or unimportant anymore than it is something that should be treated as overwhelmingly important. It should not be avoided. I get annoyed when I read stories in which you can tell the writer absolutely bent over backwards to avoid the issue, to the point the character feels like some kind of eunuch and for no good reason. Reading a story about a teenage girl character who is a total prude (knowing that most teenagers are hormone crazed) often feels almost as grotesque as reading a story about a teenage girl character who is relentlessly promiscuous. Neither feels real, both are perverse in different ways.


----------



## Annoying kid

luckyscars said:


> Nobody wants a female character whose 'femaleness' is so dominant in a story that every other facet of her character is therefore ignored or that absolutely everything is tied back to her being a woman. Tokenism is always a bad way to go. And so is sexism. But, if I am writing a female character, then I absolutely keep her gender front and center when considering her actions, motives, and the way others around her treat her. I don't want to be dismissing it.



The problem is, when writers keep her gender front and center, her gender becomes very dominant in the eyes of the reader. Its when writers dont try to write what they think of as quintessentially female, and instead try to write more neutrally, that the "femaleness" still comes out, but in a more subtle and less annoying way. Aka writers tend to under estimate how gendered their characters are.

And the compulsion to tie femaleness to sex is pervasive in society, where sex appeal is promoted as women's primary value. So much so that writers will define a characters femaleness to a great extent by the sex she's having as well as sexualization in general. Which is kinda perverse.

If warped views of what gender is is given to people, it is a good idea for the writer to check themselves - alot- when portraying gender.


----------



## luckyscars

Annoying kid said:


> The problem is, when writers keep her gender front and center, her gender becomes very dominant in the eyes of the reader. Its when writers dont try to write what they think of as quintessentially female, and instead try to write more neutrally, that the "femaleness" still comes out, but in a more subtle and less annoying way. Aka writers tend to under estimate how gendered their characters are.
> 
> And the compulsion to tie femaleness to sex is pervasive in society, where sex appeal is promoted as women's primary value. So much so that writers will define a characters femaleness to a great extent by the sex she's having as well as sexualization in general. Which is kinda perverse.
> 
> If warped views of what gender is is given to people, it is a good idea for the writer to check themselves - alot- when portraying gender.



 Most _female _writers seem fairly capable of writing about women in a non-sexualized manner, even in books that are 'about gender'. Therefore I don't think there's necessarily a reason why male writers can't do that? Are we saying that men are not capable of writing about women in a non-sexually charged way?


----------



## Joker

luckyscars said:


> I think the approach of 'describe her as you would a male character!' or 'I avoid it unless it's absolutely necessary!' is interesting.
> 
> I see the rationale -- we don't want people's identity to be wrapped up in whatever gender stereotypes -- and sure, that makes sense. However it's worth pointing out we DON'T typically follow this process for any other character traits, do we? It seems we only get into the habit of 'avoidance' with certain traits that have the propensity to make us uncomfortable, the ones where there is (or could be) some kind of backlash?
> 
> Take something relatively neutral such as age. Nobody would be saying "THE BEST WAY TO WRITE A NINETY YEAR OLD MAN IS TO WRITE THEM THE SAME WAY AS A NINE YEAR OLD BOY"....right? That makes no sense. We know there are physical, psychological, cultural, social differences between ninety year olds and nine year olds, even if those differences simply lie in the perceptions of the people around them. Most likely, nobody is helping a nine year old boy down the stairs. Nobody is having a ninety year old man playing tag. We do not treat these characters as the same, nor should we.
> 
> I'm not suggesting age differences are the same as sex or gender ones, obviously. I'm just saying that sex differences do exist and that, like any differences, they should absolutely be incorporated into writing a character. If we all agree a character with one leg probably should have that experience somehow included in how they navigate the story-world...why wouldn't the same be true for a character without a penis -- or _with_ a penis? Not to mention the differences between men and women inevitably rise well above simply anatomical ones. We know this.
> 
> I tend to think when people espouse that female characters should be written about identically to male ones, that's more an exercise in self-censorship than anything else. We all know (or should) that people are partially defined by their sex (and their sexuality, for that matter). The key word there is 'partially'. Nobody wants a female character whose 'femaleness' is so dominant in a story that every other facet of her character is therefore ignored or that absolutely everything is tied back to her being a woman. Tokenism is always a bad way to go. And so is sexism. But, if I am writing a female character, then I absolutely keep her gender front and center when considering her actions, motives, and the way others around her treat her. I don't want to be dismissing it.
> 
> This isn't something that should be treated as trivial or unimportant anymore than it is something that should be treated as overwhelmingly important. It should not be avoided. I get annoyed when I read stories in which you can tell the writer absolutely bent over backwards to avoid the issue, to the point the character feels like some kind of eunuch and for no good reason. Reading a story about a teenage girl character who is a total prude (knowing that most teenagers are hormone crazed) often feels almost as grotesque as reading a story about a teenage girl character who is relentlessly promiscuous. Neither feels real, both are perverse in different ways.



Huh? Of course gender should be incorporated in a character in at least subtle ways. I specifically chose to write about a female monster hunter to avoid the usual male cliches of the genre - a foul-mouthed musclehead that drinks like a sailor and loves killing and fucks everything with a moist hole. That guy got old decades ago. Definitely not saying all fantasy hero men are that shallow, but it's still common and my MC handles things in a much less direct approach. Being only 110 pounds or so helps.

But just because she handles things differently than most men doesn't mean she's a sexpot who reminds us she's female every other line. I think that's what OP was referring to when starting this thread. I'm also tired of the fact that every fantasy female has to be dripping with sexiness. Boobs are nice, but the complete package of a woman should have brains.


----------



## Annoying kid

luckyscars said:


> Most _female _writers seem fairly capable of writing about women in a non-sexualized manner, even in books that are 'about gender'. Therefore I don't think there's necessarily a reason why male writers can't do that? Are we saying that men are not capable of writing about women in a non-sexually charged way? If so, that's an argument, and it might be defensible, but it's very depressing!
> 
> This might be partially a genre issue, as well. If we are talking a female elf or humanoid alien or whatever in an epic fantasy or science fiction novel, I can see that writing female characters in a fairly neutral way would be acceptable. I wouldn't say it's 'good' to do that, but it's certainly more likely to be less of an issue. Because, after all, these aren't supposed to be people.



The notion that most women can do it either is debatable. Hell Bella Swan was written by a woman. And I've had to reign in an online friend's description over gendering for her novel before.  (For example, she kept using the term "The woman..." to describe her female characters over and over and over). No writer should assume that just because women wrote it, that means thats how its to be done. However, the advantage women do have, is that they at no point need to consciously put "femaleness" at the center of their mind because they live that every day. So they can just not even think about that and then get on with the business of writing the human being, the personality, confident that femaleness will come through anyway. 

The writers who write authentically in ways that include gender are those who have done their research, who draw on life experience and maybe even psychology. Memoirs of a Geisha was written by a man and it's very true to that culture, and displays a level of complexity to the characters that in my view can't have resulted in the writer having something as reductive as "femaleness" front and center.


----------



## luckyscars

Joker said:


> But just because she handles things differently than most men doesn't mean she's a sexpot who reminds us she's female every other line. I think that's what OP was referring to when starting this thread. I'm also tired of the fact that every fantasy female has to be dripping with sexiness. Boobs are nice, but the complete package of a woman should have brains.



Right, but it's not an either/or. I occasionally mention boobs. I have written sex scenes. I don't _think _I write women badly. I find what makes the difference, for me anyway, is simple self-discipline and a cold shower of an editing process. It's certainly something I have worked on for some years now.

 As straight men we are undoubtedly more predisposed to associating at least some female characters with sexual appeal. That is not something that can be changed and I don't think it even needs to be changed. 

But we can self-edit our work and train ourselves to look out for possible landmines as far as things that may come across as sexist, peurile or just plain lame.

My peeve with some forms of men writing women, of which I gave numerous examples through this thread, is that a lot of male writers either don't bother doing that OR do it so badly they may as well not have tried. But the answer cannot be to avoid writing women or to write them 'like men'. That's not a solution. 

We need to get better.



Annoying kid said:


> The notion that most women can do it either is debatable. Hell Bella Swan was written by a woman. And I've had to reign in an online friend's description over gendering for her novel before.  (For example, she kept using the term "The woman..." to describe her female characters over and over and over). No writer should assume that just because women wrote it, that means thats how its to be done.



I had a feeling you would mention Bella Swan or something similar. Yes, there are bad examples of women writing women. However, besides being cherry picked examples, those tend to be women writers who are just plain bad at writing generally. Meyer is an asinine hack who writes _everything _and _everybody _in her books like shit regardless of who they are, so it would be weird if she wrote Bella Swan well. I don't know about your online friend, but chances are they aren't going to be shortlisted for a Man Booker anytime soon. It's not fair to hold new writers to a high standard with any of this stuff.

I posit that most women writers who are competent don't have the same problem writing women than most male writers who are otherwise competent do. There are plenty of competent male authors (like Stephen King) who are plain terrible at writing women, or at least have their moments, who absolutely never have such problems writing male characters. It's like some weird handicap. Like a missing limb. _Or is it perhaps sexism?_

There may be some competent female authors who have similar issues writing men, but I can't think of them. I would be interested to hear any examples of generally-considered-to-be-quite-good female writers who struggle with writing either gender? Do you have any?



> However, the advantage women do have, is that they at no point need to consciously put "femaleness" at the center of their mind because they live that every day. So they can just not even think about that and then get on with the business of writing the human being, the personality, confident that femaleness will come through anyway.



That's valid, I agree. However, again, I don't see it working both ways to the same extent? I don't know if men are naturally better at writing male characters -- they may be -- but I definitely can't think of many women (again, strictly focusing on competent women) who write extremely poor versions of men? At absolute worst, women tend to write male characters who are slightly feminine in terms of how they think about things or perhaps slightly idealized, either physically or emotionally or whatever. That's arguably a form of handicap, it's certainly losing points on 'authenticity', but it doesn't seem nearly as bad as 'She had excitable nipples' stuff.



> The writers who write authentically in ways that include gender are those who have done their research, who draw on life experience and maybe even psychology. Memoirs of a Geisha was written by a man and it's very true to that culture, and displays a level of complexity to the characters that in my view can't have resulted in the writer having something as reductive as "femaleness" front and center.



So do you think male writers tend to be poorer at doing research, drawing on life experiences, psychology, than female ones? It's not a trick question, I am just trying to understand the disparity.


----------



## Joker

I think you're way overthinking this, man. It's really quite simple - the sexual characteristics of a character, regardless of gender, should only be brought up in the context of sexuality.

Describing a woman's boobs in the context of a sex scene, or a man checking her out? Normal and not noobish.

Introducing a woman by describing her cup size? Very noobish.

Also, there are plenty of women who oversexualize female protagonists for the sake of wish-fulfillment. It's no different than men writing ultra-buff dudebros for the same reason.


----------



## Annoying kid

luckyscars said:


> So do you think male writers tend to be poorer at doing research, drawing on life experiences, psychology, than female ones? It's not a trick question, I am just trying to understand the disparity.



No, I don't think any of that. I think its remarkably simple. Male writers get in their own way. They try to consciously write femaleness and womanhood. If you consciously try to emulate something that a woman can do subconsciously, how can a man ever expect to come out on top or even on par? The answer is he can't. 

The answer therefore is to do what women do. To step out of the way of the writing, to trust your preparation and life experience, and don't try to consciously control the character's gender expression so much. Because men have life experiences of women too. Real ones, not from porn or movies or whatever media. And while this life experience isn't going to beat the first hand experience of a woman, the gap can be closed substantially by just relaxing, chilling out, getting out of the way of the writing, and letting what you know of women come through subconsciously. 

The bottom line is if you want to be as good as women writers at writing women, you gotta do what they do, and they don't consciously try to inject femaleness. They don't have to, and the truth is, neither does a man. The problem is men think they do. 

And that... 

[video=youtube;fLrpBLDWyCI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLrpBLDWyCI[/video]


----------



## luckyscars

Joker said:


> I think you're way overthinking this, man. It's really quite simple - the sexual characteristics of a character, regardless of gender, should only be brought up in the context of sexuality.
> 
> Describing a woman's boobs in the context of a sex scene, or a man checking her out? Normal and not noobish.
> 
> Introducing a woman by describing her cup size? Very noobish.
> 
> Also, there are plenty of women who oversexualize female protagonists for the sake of wish-fulfillment. It's no different than men writing ultra-buff dudebros for the same reason.



I put it to you that sexuality exists commonly outside of sex scenes and other obviously 'sexual' contexts. 



> The answer therefore is to do what women do. To step out of the way of the writing, to trust your preparation and life experience, and don't try to consciously control the character's gender expression so much. Because men have life experiences of women too. Real ones, not from porn or movies or whatever media. And while this life experience isn't going to beat the first hand experience of a woman, the gap can be closed substantially by just relaxing, chilling out, getting out of the way of the writing, and letting what you know of women come through subconsciously.



That's fine, if your interpretation of 'keeping gender front and center' is to avoid constant sexualization of female characters, I agree. 

I'm not actually talking about that, though. Gender is not the same as sexuality. I think we often get that confused, but it's an important difference. Sexuality is the woman as a sexual being -- that would be the fixation on breast size, etc. I agree, that needs to be touched on less. I don't think I have ever referred to a character's breast size and probably wouldn't. I almost always find it nauseatingly predictable when it comes up. I almost always assume bad faith on the part of the author, especially if the author is male.

But the more cultural and social aspects of gender -- I believe MUST be centralized in writing a 'real female' experience. 

An example of that would be something like personal safety. A story I read recently was a thriller in which some woman on a business trip in a foreign country meets a man in a coffee shop and the next thing you know they're back at his house having sex. 

Put aside the sex part, because that's whatever and some women like to do that and that's just lovely, the fact she went back to a strange dude's _house _while completely sober and the whole time seemed totally blase about the obvious safety implications of that didn't seem right. Now, I know this kind of thing happens, people do reckless things, but I would prefer it if the character at least had some kind of hesitation, some kind of nervousness or trepidation, some kind of 'wow that was totally out of character -- shit, what if he was a serial killer?' moment afterwards. But no. It was treated as something that could totally happen. I don't even think that kind of scene makes sense if the character is male, but it definitely doesn't make sense if they're female & not drunk or dumb or a teenager. The same scene would have been so much more powerful, so much more real, if the writer had engaged with reality a little bit more, even if it was just something as minor as having her have a moment's pause.


----------



## BornForBurning

> _Or is it perhaps sexism?_


It's lust.


----------



## Mutimir

luckyscars said:


> An example of that would be something like personal safety. A story I read recently was a thriller in which some woman on a business trip in a foreign country meets a man in a coffee shop and the next thing you know they're back at his house having sex.
> 
> Put aside the sex part, because that's whatever and some women like to do that and that's just lovely, the fact she went back to a strange dude's _house _while completely sober and the whole time seemed totally blase about the obvious safety implications of that didn't seem right. Now, I know this kind of thing happens, people do reckless things, but I would prefer it if the character at least had some kind of hesitation, some kind of nervousness or trepidation, some kind of 'wow that was totally out of character -- shit, what if he was a serial killer?' moment afterwards. But no. It was treated as something that could totally happen. I don't even think that kind of scene makes sense if the character is male, but it definitely doesn't make sense if they're female & not drunk or dumb or a teenager. The same scene would have been so much more powerful, so much more real, if the writer had engaged with reality a little bit more, even if it was just something as minor as having her have a moment's pause.



It seems like this thread got really caught up in the superficial aspects of women as characters. When I read your explanation of the thriller story you read recently it made me think to myself "Why isn't this realistic?" Well, probably for many reasons. BUT. Why can't a woman sleep with a man she just met? Why does she have to question if he's a serial killer? Why would she have to be drunk to do this? Why does the woman have to be the victim and not the man in this scenario?  I think when we start to think about it in this way we start to at least gather some perspective.


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## Bayview

Mutimir said:


> It seems like this thread got really caught up in the superficial aspects of women as characters. When I read your explanation of the thriller story you read recently it made me think to myself "Why isn't this realistic?" Well, probably for many reasons. BUT. Why can't a woman sleep with a man she just met? Why does she have to question if he's a serial killer? Why would she have to be drunk to do this? Why does the woman have to be the victim and not the man in this scenario?  I think when we start to think about it in this way we start to at least gather some perspective.




I think women in our society have been programmed to be VERY aware of potential danger from strange men. Which doesn't mean the woman couldn't behave this way, but which does suggest, to me as a reader, that the answer to your question should be included in the story. That is, if this woman has gone against societal programming and feels safe going home with a stranger in a strange country, then I want to know WHY she's like that.

It's not a question of the author having to make all the characters conform to societal expectations, it's a question of the author having to RECOGNIZE societal expectations and know when they're being violated.

In the example at hand, something as simple as a friend the next day saying, "I can't believe you keep doing shit like that - one day you're going to wake up dead," and then having the character reply with "One day we all will, no matter how careful we are" for the issue to be addressed AND for us to get a bit of characterization that lets us understand the female character that much better.


----------



## Joker

Mutimir said:


> It seems like this thread got really caught up in the superficial aspects of women as characters. When I read your explanation of the thriller story you read recently it made me think to myself "Why isn't this realistic?" Well, probably for many reasons. BUT. Why can't a woman sleep with a man she just met? Why does she have to question if he's a serial killer? Why would she have to be drunk to do this? Why does the woman have to be the victim and not the man in this scenario?  I think when we start to think about it in this way we start to at least gather some perspective.



The average woman only has something like 60% of the upper body strength of the average man. Compound that with the fact men are wired to want to sleep around and spread their genetic material while women are wired to be more cautious due to having to deal with pregnancy...


----------



## Annoying kid

luckyscars said:


> I put it to you that sexuality exists commonly outside of sex scenes and other obviously 'sexual' contexts.
> 
> 
> 
> That's fine, if your interpretation of 'keeping gender front and center' is to avoid constant sexualization of female characters, I agree.
> 
> I'm not actually talking about that, though. Gender is not the same as sexuality. I think we often get that confused, but it's an important difference. Sexuality is the woman as a sexual being -- that would be the fixation on breast size, etc. I agree, that needs to be touched on less. I don't think I have ever referred to a character's breast size and probably wouldn't. I almost always find it nauseatingly predictable when it comes up. I almost always assume bad faith on the part of the author, especially if the author is male.
> 
> But the more cultural and social aspects of gender -- I believe MUST be centralized in writing a 'real female' experience.
> 
> An example of that would be something like personal safety. A story I read recently was a thriller in which some woman on a business trip in a foreign country meets a man in a coffee shop and the next thing you know they're back at his house having sex.
> 
> Put aside the sex part, because that's whatever and some women like to do that and that's just lovely, the fact she went back to a strange dude's _house _while completely sober and the whole time seemed totally blase about the obvious safety implications of that didn't seem right. Now, I know this kind of thing happens, people do reckless things, but I would prefer it if the character at least had some kind of hesitation, some kind of nervousness or trepidation, some kind of 'wow that was totally out of character -- shit, what if he was a serial killer?' moment afterwards. But no. It was treated as something that could totally happen. I don't even think that kind of scene makes sense if the character is male, but it definitely doesn't make sense if they're female & not drunk or dumb or a teenager. The same scene would have been so much more powerful, so much more real, if the writer had engaged with reality a little bit more, even if it was just something as minor as having her have a moment's pause.



I wasn't talking about sex specifically. I'm talking about the idea that a writer who puts femaleness front and center will inevitably write a stereotype. What if every male writer actively, and consciously put what they thought was "femaleness" , front and center? Would there be enough diversity in those ideas of femaleness in order to have characters with a variety? Because it sounds to me like thats a sure fire way to make a legion of samey characters on the page. Even without getting into sexuality, what may start as a noble attempt to capture authenticity invariably results in strong skew toward physical vulnerability, risk aversion, intuition, hypergamy, manipulativeness, social conformity and non contronational behaviour. When male writers consciously try to put those in they get emphasized and dialed up, and it becomes characterizarion by checklist. Once a male writer has femaleness on the brain,  would he have the ability to dial it back and reduce the femaleness without it being conflated with a loss of womanhood and authenticity? Or will be get into the mental trap of thinking more of their notions of "femaleness" makes the character seem more womanly?  The problem is that masculinity is seen as default and femininity is seen as other. Therefore when they think "femaleness"  that becomes a few set behaviours, which highly limits the creativity within their female characters while the male ones, as they're seen as default, get all the other behaviours, so come off as much more deep.   

[video=youtube;MIA_-HgugAI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIA_-HgugAI[/video]


----------



## Joker

Biro said:


> I have met women which have been as bad or worse than men for a number of reasons.  So your theory is only partly correct.



The exception that proves the rule.


----------



## BornForBurning

> Why can't a woman sleep with a man she just met?


Well, to take it out of the realms of fiction and into reality for a second, the psych department at my university actually did a study on this very phenomena. What they discovered was that close to _zero _percent of women will agree to have sex with a man they have had no prior contact with. That's in contrast to ten percent of men who will agree to have sex with a woman they have had no prior contact with. I bring this up not to dictate what types of characters we should be allowed to write. I bring this up to illustrate how stark of an outlier the proposed female character would be. Statistically, it is comparable to writing a serial killer. It's not that you can't write serial killers, but the actions need to be seriously justified through effective characterization, and this is a problem I _do _observe in amateur writing. Extremes are attractive, but they aren't necessarily easier to write, especially if you have very little conception of what makes the extreme tick in the first place.


----------



## Joker

BornForBurning said:


> That's in contrast to ten percent of men who will agree to have sex with a woman they have had no prior contact with.



That's... surprisingly low, to be honest.

I think men put up a bunch of machismo and bravado in front of each other, but really, we want intimacy and meaningful connections just as much as women do. We just can't admit it as readily without being torn down.


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## luckyscars

Annoying kid said:


> I wasn't talking about sex specifically. I'm talking about the idea that a writer who puts femaleness front and center will inevitably write a stereotype. What if every male writer actively, and consciously put what they thought was "femaleness" , front and center?



I don't think you're grasping what I mean by 'femaleness at front and center'. 

I'm not talking about a male writer sitting down and writing some kind of treatise on womanhood. What I am talking about is as simple as the example I gave in the last post regarding the supposedly smart, supposedly stable-minded female character who went to a stranger's house to have sex with them without any kind of second thought and how that doesn't jibe with what I _think _most women would do and how this can undermine credibility. Presumably even more so if the reader is a woman. 

It's about small details, observations, priorities that seem almost intentionally ignorant of the social constructs that exist with regard to gender and, to borrow the term, 'programming'. Differences that a lot of male writers either seem ignorant of or willfully disregard out of some misguided notion of 'equality'. There are hundreds of examples.



> Would there be enough diversity in those ideas of femaleness in order to have characters with a variety?



Why wouldn't there be? I think 'femaleness' is a pretty big tent. I actually think it's essentially an _endlessly _big tent. For example, in the above example, I wouldn't need -- as a reader -- for the woman to be hesitant about doing this reckless act. I would not need that so long as it was at least in some way acknowledged that the act is something that would normally be considered by society as reckless. The options for handling are endless within her character. She could be shaking and nervous. The guy could have drugged her. She could be freely consenting and simply not give a fuck. I'm not limiting her behavior or impacting her 'diversity' by simply requiring that she acts in a manner consistent with how the world works. 



> Once a male writer has femaleness on the brain,  would he have the ability to dial it back and reduce the femaleness without it being conflated with a loss of womanhood and authenticity? Or will be get into the mental trap of thinking more of their notions of "femaleness" makes the character seem more womanly?



 I don't think I suggested that femaleness should be on the brain. That would be a mistake. If you go back and read my post, I put "This isn't something that should be treated as trivial or unimportant *anymore than it is something that should be treated as overwhelmingly important*." There are lots of aspects that may dictate behavior and while gender/sex is one of them, it's by no means the only one. I think it's important that writers can balance all of the different influences on their character _including their gender_.

An example that comes to mind (admittedly a little bit weirdly) is the main female character from Disney's Frozen, which is typically considered a fairly rounded portrayal of female leads and was kind of a big leap forward in how Disney portrayed its 'princesses'. In that story, one of the Princesses is driven away because her magical power is considered a threat, primarily because it is not in keeping with how the kingdom views women. She uses her powers to reinvent herself in an ice castle and, in the process, it is suggested she has become sexually empowered (although, being a kids movies, its obviously vague). The sexuality is prevalent, it's clearly written with 'femaleness front and center', but it's combined with ideas of individuality, empowerment, and other things that are important aspects of feminism yet not strictly female -- males can relate to it as well. In other words, its a blended take. It manages to be both feminist and, more broadly, humanist. There is no reason male writers cannot write women like that, is there?



> The problem is that masculinity is seen as default and femininity is seen as other. Therefore when they think "femaleness"  that becomes a few set behaviours, which highly limits the creativity within their female characters while the male ones, as they're seen as default, get all the other behaviours, so come off as much more deep.



I simply reject that view. Femininity does not belong to women and masculinity does not belong to men. There is no rule that either _has_ to be a default, other than social stigma and possibly some laziness. One can learn, one can empathize, and a writer should do both. I've met some very masculine women who frankly seem as mystified by 'femaleness' as any average man, and some very effeminate men for whom 'masculinity' is very much _not _a default and may, in fact, be something that they are as fearful of as an average woman. Which isn't to say that male/female is an irrelevant distinction or anything, just that it is complicated and not the binary you are describing it as.  

Since we're talking 'writing women', here's a 'tip' for any straight man who wants to understand a _little_ bit of what it may feel like being a woman in certain situations: Go to the seediest gay bar you can after dark and go there alone. Order a drink from the bar and sit there by yourself or maybe go to the bathroom. Most likely nothing untoward will happen of course, but you might, just might, feel a little bit of what it is like to be viewed as a potential sexual target by men. You _might_ feel the way women in regular bars get looked at, and that experience _might _just offer just the smallest flicker of insight which _might _be helpful in understanding 'femaleness'. Obviously I can't say if it would be helpful for everybody, but it kind of helped my empathy a little bit when I was younger.


----------



## luckyscars

BornForBurning said:


> Well, to take it out of the realms of fiction and into reality for a second, the psych department at my university actually did a study on this very phenomena. What they discovered was that close to _zero _percent of women will agree to have sex with a man they have had no prior contact with. That's in contrast to ten percent of men who will agree to have sex with a woman they have had no prior contact with. I bring this up not to dictate what types of characters we should be allowed to write. I bring this up to illustrate how stark of an outlier the proposed female character would be. Statistically, it is comparable to writing a serial killer. It's not that you can't write serial killers, but the actions need to be seriously justified through effective characterization, and this is a problem I _do _observe in amateur writing. Extremes are attractive, but they aren't necessarily easier to write, especially if you have very little conception of what makes the extreme tick in the first place.



I’m not saying it’s not true, but I tend fo think those kinds of studies are a little tenuous. They’re based on people self reporting on a hypothetical rather than an actual behavior, and especially with something like promiscuity I feel like people tend to be reticent. I don’t know obv but I suspect the numbers are a little higher for both men and women, especially if alcohol is taken into account.


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## BornForBurning

> They’re based on people self reporting on a hypothetical rather than an actual behavior, and especially with something like promiscuity I feel like people tend to be reticent.


Oh no, it wasn't self-reporting, at least not in that sense. They actually had folks go out and try to seduce people. There wasn't any alcohol involved, but that would have been an entirely different study anyways.


----------



## Annoying kid

luckyscars said:


> I don't think you're grasping what I mean by 'femaleness at front and center'.
> 
> I'm not talking about a male writer sitting down and writing some kind of treatise on womanhood.



Thats what happens though. You can see it in this very topic with Ralph Rotten's own posts casting wide generalizations about men and especially women. 

You say: 

_"I gave in the last post regarding the supposedly smart, supposedly stable-minded female character who went to a stranger's house to have sex with them without any kind of second thought and how that doesn't jibe with what I think most women would do and how this can undermine credibility. Presumably even more so if the reader is a woman."

_But most =/= all, and when writers start to say things like relating credibility as a woman with not conforming with majority of women, thats the basis of the regressive "Man with boobs" trope, a perjorative that takes away a character's woman card because she doesn't align with men's view of a "proper" woman. Closely related is Mary Sue. The notion that a woman is less credible because her behavoiour doesn't align with the way a man thinks the majority of women behave, is the reason men write women worse, because the criteria they consiously have for what consititutes femaleness is limited and subject to a sexist bias consciously or otherwise. 



> Differences that a lot of male writers either seem ignorant of or willfully disregard out of some misguided notion of 'equality'.



My experience has been different. Male writers Ive observed regard any kind of ideologically based or what they call "forced" equality to be SJW nonsense. I've seen it alot in fantasy/genre fiction - male writers have no problems with their male heroes punching above their weight, be it against stronger than human orcs, vampires or whatever. But when a woman punches above her weight even less dramatically by fighting a man, suddenly they call unrealistic! Man with boobs! This is because they have placed their notions of femaleness front and center and tied it with the credibility of female characters. 

So if a writer wants to have his female lead be risk averse and not go to a strangers house to sleep with him then thats fine. There are reasons to do that. But a woman who doesnt do that isn't any less realistic - there are women out there who arent that careful and who actually dont get hurt because the odds on being hurt - contrary to the media is actually low. Less women are killed then men. But the male writer who thinks a credible woman is a highly risk averse one, then thins oh she must be so unusual then I better give her an abusive childhood, or a drug habit, or something terrible to explain it. Oh then I gotta give her a comeuppance , because the reader will find it unrealistic that her recklessness didnt lead to a bad end. 

Then you get the guys who think any attractive  female lead who gets captured by straight male bad guys should be raped. Or must have been raped. Cos "realism".   

Male writers when they put femaleness front and center, are not portraying femaleness as it is, but as they subjectively think it is. And that is where their portrayals break down. 

The writers you talk about who are potraying seemingly genderless women, are those who have actively tried to erase the gender.Thats not the way either. One doesnt need to erase gender or consciously keep it front and center. But male writers do one or the other because they believe they either can't, or its hard to write women. If they believed they could write women and believed it was easy, and just wrote it with confidence, they'd be fine.



> Why wouldn't there be? I think 'femaleness' is a pretty big tent. I actually think it's essentially an _endlessly _big tent.



And if only it was portrayed as such but it's not. There's certain narrow minded things that many guys believe about women thats difficult to change their mind on. 



> There is no reason male writers cannot write women like that, is there?



A woman wrote Frozen and I think its authenticity is an example of women being able to naturally put femaleness into their work (men can do this too but often choose not to). I guarantee the writer never worried about making Blondie a credible _female_ as thats taken as a given. From there the writer did the business of writing.

A male writer who believes he can write  women well and just goes with it will write a compelling woman. 
A male writer who doesn't believe he can write women well so either doesn't try-  by erasing gender altogether, or overcompensates by keeping their notions of femaleness front and center - will write a caricature either way, to varying degrees.

As such my argument comes down to this entire topic, going on for 23 pages treating writing women as if its rocket science, is a microcosm of the problem.


----------



## Joker

That's... not what a Mary Sue is.


----------



## luckyscars

BornForBurning said:


> They actually had folks go out and try to seduce people.



Interesting! Did they use the same guy for each “experiment” or different ones? How did they ensure a roughly equal level of attractiveness for each attempted seduction?


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## BornForBurning

> Interesting! Did they use the same guy for each “experiment” or different ones? How did they ensure a roughly equal level of attractiveness for each attempted seduction?


I have no idea, I'm sorry. The canvas website that had all the information for my Psych 101 class got deleted at the end of the semester. I'm sure you could find the data somewhere. I'd guess that they standardized the attractiveness element by just using one person of each gender and ensuring they stuck to a script as much as possible.


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## luckyscars

Nevermind


----------



## Ralph Rotten

The problems I see most often with men writing women are:

1) Oversexualized. Women have sex drives equal to their male counterparts. All women hot.

2) Underutilized. In modern cinema, women only garner 18% of the dialogue. Not only that, but women are rarely part of the solution. They are used as plot devices, window dressing, or the 'magic woman'.

3) Women are defined by their looks. Although we may get into a male character's head during their intro, a woman's intro will almost always mention breasts or how tight her skirt is, and hair color (because we all know that brunette=nice girl, and blonde=bad girl)

4) Disney Princesses; they need to be rescued by a man.

5) Motivations all wrong. Men seem to have a hard time understanding a woman's perspective in a scene. Especially women with kids.


----------



## Ralph Rotten

My favorite Hollywood trope was when John Wayne can ride into town, woo the gangster's daughter, and turn her against her own father in the span of 120 minutes. Just never bought that storyline when I see it in movies. Even when she finds out he isn't really her Daddy. That script was clearly written by a man.


----------



## Joker

Ralph Rotten said:


> 3) Women are defined by their looks. Although we may get into a male character's head during their intro, a woman's intro will almost always mention breasts or how tight her skirt is, and hair color (because we all know that brunette=nice girl, and blonde=bad girl)



Funny you mention this. I just started a book that introduced a woman like this... except the woman was the POV character's wife. Does that make a difference? I caught myself wondering what people's reaction would be.


----------



## Ralph Rotten

Joker said:


> Funny you mention this. I just started a book that introduced a woman like this... except the woman was the POV character's wife. Does that make a difference? I caught myself wondering what people's reaction would be.




There is a big difference between a narrator doing this, and a character doing it.
When a character does it, you are illustrating BOTH characters at once.
How one character views another character tells the reader about both characters.


----------



## Taylor

Joker said:


> Funny you mention this. I just started a book that introduced a woman like this... except the woman was the POV character's wife. Does that make a difference? I caught myself wondering what people's reaction would be.



I don't think it makes a difference that she is the POV character's wife.  

I am usually turned off if the basic, brown-haired, plain-clothed "nice" girl or the blonde, pony-tailed, designer-clothed "bad" girl stereo-types are used too efficiently to characterize.   

Also, not sure about mentioning breasts, if that is what you meant above.  Unless an augmentation was overdone and that was part of the characterization, well then maybe.   But frankly if you can avoid it, I would.


----------



## Ralph Rotten

Tis better to find other ways to illustrate a woman.
Even if you are going to say she's hot, there are subtler methods than saying she has big tits.
Unless she is a solicitress, try to define her first by her mind.


----------



## Joker

Ralph Rotten said:


> Tis better to find other ways to illustrate a woman.
> Even if you are going to say she's hot, there are subtler methods than saying she has big tits.
> Unless she is a solicitress, try to define her first by her mind.



As I said earlier, smart women _are _hot :witless:


----------



## Turnbull

To be honest, I think this is a topic that people take too seriously.  Yes, sometimes men describe women's looks in a dumb way, but not because they're men, but because they're lesser authors. The better the author, the better the description of the female.  Also, when people start getting offended by every little thing about a female's description, it is a form of censorship because such criticism tells the writer what he is or is not allowed to do.  Quite frankly, some of the best writing is not politically correct.  Sometimes the truth itself isn't PC, and the only way the truth can be told is to risk offending someone.

Moreover, the "strong, independent" woman is not inherently interesting.  People complain that Superman is boring because he can't be defeated.  Why does this not equally apply to female characters?  I call this the "Rocky Balboa" principle.  Rocky is sympathetic because he really is a loser.  He barely makes enough money to live from, his trainer doesn't take him seriously, he's not terribly smart, and the only girl he has a chance with is the awkward pet shop worker who is the sister of his alcoholic best friend.  The low points of Rocky's life are what make the high points so high.  I'd like to see female driven stories based more on this model.  Because, speaking from the heart, many women are not strong or independent.  And here the media is, trying to say that women are so great.  What if a woman isn't great?  What if she's suffering from a lot of things, but never gets to see herself in media because there's only room for "strong, independent" women?

In other words, I like characters with struggles, and thus the idea that one must police one's writing about one gender is absurd.  Weak people can make strong characters.  Ones actually worth relating to.


----------



## Joker

Turnbull said:


> To be honest, I think this is a topic that people take too seriously.  Yes, sometimes men describe women's looks in a dumb way, but not because they're men, but because they're lesser authors. The better the author, the better the description of the female.  Also, when people start getting offended by every little thing about a female's description, it is a form of censorship because such criticism tells the writer what he is or is not allowed to do.  Quite frankly, some of the best writing is not politically correct.  Sometimes the truth itself isn't PC, and the only way the truth can be told is to risk offending someone.
> 
> Moreover, the "strong, independent" woman is not inherently interesting.  People complain that Superman is boring because he can't be defeated.  Why does this not equally apply to female characters?  I call this the "Rocky Balboa" principle.  Rocky is sympathetic because he really is a loser.  He barely makes enough money to live from, his trainer doesn't take him seriously, he's not terribly smart, and the only girl he has a chance with is the awkward pet shop worker who is the sister of his alcoholic best friend.  The low points of Rocky's life are what make the high points so high.  I'd like to see female driven stories based more on this model.  Because, speaking from the heart, many women are not strong or independent.  And here the media is, trying to say that women are so great.  What if a woman isn't great?  What if she's suffering from a lot of things, but never gets to see herself in media because there's only room for "strong, independent" women?
> 
> In other words, I like characters with struggles, and thus the idea that one must police one's writing about one gender is absurd.  Weak people can make strong characters.  Ones actually worth relating to.



You'll like my protagonist, then! All the magical might in the world doesn't prevent her from being a loser, because power doesn't get rid of having a crummy attitude that alienates people. She has to _gasp _grow up a little.


----------



## luckyscars

Turnbull said:


> Moreover, the "strong, independent" woman is not inherently interesting.  People complain that Superman is boring because he can't be defeated.  Why does this not equally apply to female characters?  I call this the "Rocky Balboa" principle.  Rocky is sympathetic because he really is a loser.  He barely makes enough money to live from, his trainer doesn't take him seriously, he's not terribly smart, and the only girl he has a chance with is the awkward pet shop worker who is the sister of his alcoholic best friend.  The low points of Rocky's life are what make the high points so high.  I'd like to see female driven stories based more on this model.  Because, speaking from the heart, many women are not strong or independent.  And here the media is, trying to say that women are so great.  What if a woman isn't great?  What if she's suffering from a lot of things, but never gets to see herself in media because there's only room for "strong, independent" women?
> 
> In other words, I like characters with struggles, and thus the idea that one must police one's writing about one gender is absurd.  Weak people can make strong characters.  Ones actually worth relating to.



This seems to ignore the issue of circumstances. People - men and women - can be 'strong and independent' in terms of their inner nature, their convictions, etc. and still be 'losers' because they are constrained by people around them, their financial situation, being physically incarcerated, whatever it is.

Rocky Balboa is an effective character because he embodies the spirit of the underdog. He isn't a 'loser', I disagree totally with that description. What he is is just an ordinary working class man with a dream. Nothing about him indicates lack of strength  in the one way that actually matters in a human being and that is their _inner _strength.

('independence' is kind of a squishy term and I don't think it's very useful -- what is an independent person exactly? The only 'independent' person is one who lives alone on a deserted island)

What is compelling in Rocky -- and in a lot of fiction -- is in the realization of inner strength, the overcoming of the odds to forge dreams into reality. Truly weak people don't have those sorts of aspirations and they certainly don't do anything to try to achieve them. Characters like Rocky make good fiction because their arc revolves around making the sacrifices necessary and realizing the grit to overcome ridiculous odds. That is inherently interesting. 

If you don't think that Rocky possessed strength of character, then how do you explain how he was able to accomplish so much? It wasn't magic, right?

Regarding women, I agree that the 'I'm a strong woman' trope isn't inherently interesting. Some stories involve characters who start out as inwardly quite weak and gradually become stronger through realization of potential -- Oliver Twist, Harry Potter, etc. Others involve characters who start out as inwardly strong but externally disadvantaged and have to overcome their disadvantages -- that would probably be somebody like Rocky Balboa. Still others involve characters who start out as both strong and with advantages but suffer some sort of crisis that turns their world upside down and returning to a (unusually improved) version of the status quo becomes the goal. That would be your _Gone With The Wind _type of character who starts out rich and 'happy', loses everything because of a war or something, and has to reevaluate their lives. These are all really just different formulations of conflict between the inner and outer self. The real reason Superman is dull is because there is very little conflict between who he is inwardly and who he is outwardly, they're both 'super', there's not much you can do with that.

So it's really less about what a character 'is' and more about what they 'become' and how they get there.


----------



## Joker

luckyscars said:


> The real reason Superman is dull is because there is very little conflict between who he is inwardly and who he is outwardly, they're both 'super', there's not much you can do with that.
> 
> So it's really less about what a character 'is' and more about what they 'become' and how they get there.



The best writers know that it isn't a matter of what Clark _can_ do, or _wants_ to do, it's a matter of what he _should_. He's still a farm boy from Kansas at the end of the day, entrusted with ultimate power. His big flaw in the animated shows, for instance, was him being pompous and moralistic. His self-assuredness is not always a good thing.


----------



## Turnbull

luckyscars said:


> If you don't think that Rocky possessed strength of character, then how do you explain how he was able to accomplish so much? It wasn't magic, right?



It might as well have been.  Rocky did have good characteristics, but it wasn't them that saved him.  It was a random whim of Apollo Creed.  Rocky 1-3 are all the stories of how a random Apollo Creed whim pulled Rocky out of the conflict he was suffering from.

I'm not saying that a weak person has to be absolutely weak in every way, but that it's okay for a female character to be weak and to be helped by others.  This doesn't make her less of a person, just as it doesn't make Rocky less of a person.


----------



## b_brecker

...judging by the length of this thread, I'd say a lot of people here are overthinking the issue a bit.

I'm a woman, and I can say with certainty that the essentialist narrative pushed by some people in this thread is... deeply flawed. I see a lot of people in this thread writing about how men are always in the mood for sex and women are always passive and romance-oriented; I see a lot of men claiming that men "ARE that simple!" about love and sex, and how women, by extension, are not; I see a lot of men in this thread and not nearly enough women. 

One quick guide to introducing characters (if one is using a 3rd person POV): if you change the name and pronouns of this character to those of the opposite gender, does the character's introduction seem bizarre, or does it seem perfectly reasonable? E.g.: it isn't strange to describe a "John" OR a "Jane" as being neatly-dressed with blue eyes and walnut-brown hair. For that matter, don't describe a woman's breasts, don't describe her as a sex object, and just describe her as you would a human being. It really is that simple, unless you're using a 1st person POV, which can obviously include the character's biases and beliefs about the opposite sex/gender.


----------



## Joker

Turnbull said:


> It might as well have been.  Rocky did have good characteristics, but it wasn't them that saved him.  It was a random whim of Apollo Creed.  Rocky 1-3 are all the stories of how a random Apollo Creed whim pulled Rocky out of the conflict he was suffering from.
> 
> I'm not saying that a weak person has to be absolutely weak in every way, but that it's okay for a female character to be weak and to be helped by others.  This doesn't make her less of a person, just as it doesn't make Rocky less of a person.



The bigotry of lower expectations. The same crowd also feels the need to coddle black characters as if they were children.


----------



## luckyscars

Turnbull said:


> It might as well have been.  Rocky did have good characteristics, but it wasn't them that saved him.  It was a random whim of Apollo Creed.  Rocky 1-3 are all the stories of how a random Apollo Creed whim pulled Rocky out of the conflict he was suffering from.



I do think you miss the point of _Rocky. _It's been awhile and I'm not here to sing the praises of the movie or anything, but the message of the movie is undoubtedly to 'never give up on your dream'. It's about, to put it in a schmaltzy way, 'the triumph of the human spirit over adversity'. Which is not to say he receives no help, he does, but the point is he wouldn't have been in the ring to begin with if he had not been strong or courageous, and that makes -- in my opinion -- the judgment of him being a 'loser' unfair. You have to read the character in a very superficial sense to really call him that. I think it's a bad example.



> I'm not saying that a weak person has to be absolutely weak in every way, but that it's okay for a female character to be weak and to be helped by others. This doesn't make her less of a person, just as it doesn't make Rocky less of a person.



I disagree again. Identifying somebody as 'weak' absolutely makes them 'less of a person' in similar terms we can say that a weak cup of coffee contains less coffee than a strong cup of coffee. But, in this case, what is the coffee? 

It's sort of a metaphysical question. Is a person with a more resilient character and sense of self 'more of a person'? Are they more objectively 'human' than a person whose personality and principles and drive happen to be less assertive or less well defined? I personally wouldn't use that language because I don't really like to talk about people's personality or humanity in terms of 'less' or 'more'...but if we are going to, then there's no other paradigm in which it makes sense to say 'less of a person' except with regard to something like relative lack of agency and control over one's thoughts, beliefs and actions, is there? 

This is further complicated by problems of morality. Hitler had personality and principles and drive...but given that few of them seem to be based on any moral position, I'm honestly not sure that it would be correct to refer to him as a 'strong character'. It's certainly possible to look at the baseness of Hitler's moral compass and see some inherent weaknesses there, you could see that as being his ultimate Achilles heal. Which leads to the question: Would a female character (or any character) who has tremendous moral strength -- s/he is a good person regardless of what happens -- but next to no strength of character (she is afraid of everything and constantly doubts herself) be considered a 'strong' character? Or, to turn that around, would a Lady Macbeth type of character who is undoubtedly 'strong' yet sociopathic and dead inside qualify as a 'strong' character?

It's kind of a rabbit hole, really! If I had to pick a single, simple rule for characters I don't think I would go with 'weak is okay' anymore than I would go with 'I want strong and independent'. I don't think it's useful. I would simply go with the idea of every character, regardless of what weaknesses they have and in what sense, being compatible with real life. This would undoubtedly exclude Superman, who cannot exist in a human sense, but would include most other types of character. Beyond that it's a case of fitting characters with conflicts and proceeding with actions and reactions that 'fit'.


----------



## Turnbull

You're going way too far with this.  Being weak doesn't make someone less of a person because a person isn't a coffee.  Coffee's existence depends on how useful it is to people.  People have inherent value regardless of their usefulness to others.

But to take the context and put it specifically into writing, a character can be interesting to a reader and still be weak, stupid, lacking, poor, or any other negative thing.


----------



## Bayview

Turnbull said:


> You're going way too far with this.  Being weak doesn't make someone less of a person because a person isn't a coffee.  Coffee's existence depends on how useful it is to people.  People have inherent value regardless of their usefulness to others.
> 
> But to take the context and put it specifically into writing, a character can be interesting to a reader and still be weak, stupid, lacking, poor, or any other negative thing.



I'm struggling with this. I mean, SECONDARY characters can certainly be "weak" in all ways, but I feel like most protagonists have weaknesses but have counterbalancing strengths - I think it's most interesting when the strength and weakness is the same characteristic, and it just works sometimes and doesn't work other times.

I don't think characters have to be (or should be) perfect. They shouldn't be strong ACROSS THE BOARD. But I'm having trouble thinking of a protagonist who has NO strengths. Can you give some examples?

ETA: Examples other than Rocky, because I'm in lucky's camp on him. He's not a genius, but he's determined and tough and he powers through. Think of the soundtracks for those movies - he's got the Eye of the Tiger, etc. Strengths.


----------



## luckyscars

Bayview said:


> I'm struggling with this. I mean, SECONDARY characters can certainly be "weak" in all ways, but I feel like most protagonists have weaknesses but have counterbalancing strengths - I think it's most interesting when the strength and weakness is the same characteristic, and it just works sometimes and doesn't work other times.
> 
> I don't think characters have to be (or should be) perfect. They shouldn't be strong ACROSS THE BOARD. But I'm having trouble thinking of a protagonist who has NO strengths. Can you give some examples?
> 
> ETA: Examples other than Rocky, because I'm in lucky's camp on him. He's not a genius, but he's determined and tough and he powers through. Think of the soundtracks for those movies - he's got the Eye of the Tiger, etc. Strengths.



In fairness to Turnbull, I don't think he/she means that characters should be weak across the board, based on the following quotes:



Turnbull said:


> It might as well have been. Rocky did have good characteristics, but it wasn't them that saved him. It was a random whim of Apollo Creed. Rocky 1-3 are all the stories of how a random Apollo Creed whim pulled Rocky out of the conflict he was suffering from.
> 
> 
> I'm not *saying that a weak person has to be absolutely weak in every way*, but that it's okay for a female character to be weak and to be helped by others. This doesn't make her less of a person, just as it doesn't make Rocky less of a person.






Turnbull said:


> *The low points of Rocky's life are what make the high points so high*. I'd like to see female driven stories based more on this model. Because, speaking from the heart, many women are not strong or independent. And here the media is, trying to say that women are so great. What if a woman isn't great? What if she's suffering from a lot of things, but never gets to see herself in media because there's only room for "strong, independent" women?



I _think _Turnbull is saying something along the lines of: "less emphasis should be placed on the notion of women being strong/independent because it's not necessarily interesting". I guess that's a reasonable position.

But, my objection remains the same -- *What the f*ck is a strong character? What is a weak one? *

Turnbull has not really explained what he thinks strong/weak means other than to use the example of Rocky, which seems a fairly bad example honestly.

It obviously isn't about being physically strong because we already have a ton of examples of 'strong' characters who are in physical decline. So, it's about personality, presumably, and possibly morality? A strong female character would be one who has something relating to inner strength? 

So a female Rocky could actually be a good place to start? _Million Dollar Baby _anyone?

But if Turnbull doesn't think Rocky is a good example of 'strong character' or thinks that 'weak characters' can be effective, then I want to know what he thinks a strong and weak character are and I want to go beyond the words 'strong' and 'weak' to clarify them. I want to do that not to implement a gotcha but because I also do not understand what he has in mind when he says 'its okay for a female character to be weak [and still be a good character]' because I, also, am not able to bring any to mind. I can only think of characters with some weaknesses, not characters that ARE weak. 

If I think about weak characters in fiction, I generally only think of characters that aren't really important to the story -- the damsel in distress who only screams and is only there as an object to be raped and/or rescued.


----------



## BornForBurning

You know who I think is a really 'strong' character? (By which I mean, he has strength _of _character, not that he is well-written, though he is also that) 
Peregrin Took from _The Lord of the Rings_. 
Pippin is physically weak, not particularly intelligent, not very wise, and has very poor self-control. However, he has terrific virtue. When interrogated by Sauron, he keeps his mouth shut. When faced with a charging line of cave-trolls, he shrugs and says 'I expected it would all come to a bad end, anyways.' He is the avatar of the simple man who fights a war not because he likes it, but because it is his duty. Even if that duty is merely to stand and die, Peregrin Took will stand, ready to smite evil with a joke and a hopeless smile. To me, that's a strong character. A strong character knows their limits and exceeds them, not because they want to, but because they know they must.


----------



## luckyscars

BornForBurning said:


> You know who I think is a really 'strong' character? (By which I mean, he has strength _of _character, not that he is well-written, though he is also that)
> Peregrin Took from _The Lord of the Rings_.
> Pippin is physically weak, not particularly intelligent, not very wise, and has very poor self-control. However, he has terrific virtue. When interrogated by Sauron, he keeps his mouth shut. When faced with a charging line of cave-trolls, he shrugs and says 'I expected it would all come to a bad end, anyways.' He is the avatar of the simple man who fights a war not because he likes it, but because it is his duty. Even if that duty is merely to stand and die, Peregrin Took will stand, ready to smite evil with a joke and a hopeless smile. To me, that's a strong character. A strong character knows their limits and exceeds them, not because they want to, but because they know they must.



I agree with this example of a strong character. I also think moral strength is a really important part of characters, especially if it's challenged by other internal or external pressures that make it seem unlikely and therefore surprising. If Peregrin Took had been physically stronger, his bravery would be less impressive.

A similar arc is present in stories about 'bad people' who do good things, where it isn't so much about overcoming physical limitations but ones within themselves. It's the _Schindler's List _example of how somebody who starts out a pretty awful person, and whose circumstances actually support them remaining that way, changes against the current due to some kind of realization that creates moral resilience.


----------



## indianroads

To the women that post here:

What mistakes do you see male authors make when writing a female POV?


----------



## Turnbull

Bayview said:


> I'm struggling with this. I mean, SECONDARY characters can certainly be "weak" in all ways, but I feel like most protagonists have weaknesses but have counterbalancing strengths - I think it's most interesting when the strength and weakness is the same characteristic, and it just works sometimes and doesn't work other times.
> 
> I don't think characters have to be (or should be) perfect. They shouldn't be strong ACROSS THE BOARD. But I'm having trouble thinking of a protagonist who has NO strengths. Can you give some examples?
> 
> ETA: Examples other than Rocky, because I'm in lucky's camp on him. He's not a genius, but he's determined and tough and he powers through. Think of the soundtracks for those movies - he's got the Eye of the Tiger, etc. Strengths.



Oh goodness, I never meant that a character should never have any strengths.  Lucky was simply misconstruing what I was saying.  I was merely saying that a character is more interesting with flaws rather than being an embodiment of perfection.  I was never saying that a character that is weak has no strengths whatsoever.  Rather than saying Rocky had no strengths, I'm saying that he was weighed down with significantly heavy negative aspects, none of which prevented him from being likable or interesting.

I was also saying that the things that make a male character good are the same things that make a female character interesting.  The implication being that I wish there were more weak females in media, because I find weaker characters more interesting, absent of gender.  Of course, there's been a lot of "strong" males out there too, with the rise of the Marvel movies and such.  It's one reason why I struggle to care about comic books, because they're all so ridiculously invincible.


----------



## Morlock

I create characters based on what I want to explore story wise. So it does vary however I tend to create female characters the same way I create male ones. I like them to be plausible as well as multidimensional in terms of flaws as well as positive attributes. Appearance can vary depending on who the character is. From my role play days I always hated the people who would come out with "She is a middle aged house wife" and the post a photo of a 20 year old Playboy bunny. So I like their appearance to be both realistic and relevant to who they are and the story itself.


----------



## indianroads

Today my grown daughters (and their children) are visiting - and they are dying my partner's hair blue. This isn't something that many men would do.


----------



## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord

indianroads said:


> To the women that post here:
> 
> What mistakes do you see male authors make when writing a female POV?



Biggest one I've noticed is in stories with a weak, cowardly male protagonist, there's this trope of the super-tough, super-cool female co-lead who, for no discernible reason, falls in love with the wimpy male lead. Even if he's sort of cute, I know very few women who will fall for a guy who doesn't have some kind of moral or physical strength (preferably both lol). Usually we like guys who we perceive as being stronger than us in some way. 

Another one I've noticed is the lack of female characters who _become _great, or _become _strong. Compare Luke Skywalker's arc with Rey Skywalker's: he starts out a normal, kind of loserly kid, and then becomes a powerful Jedi. She starts out cool and tough, she becomes slightly more cool and tough. Maybe this is because authors don't want their female characters perceived as weak? I don't know. But I think we could use more "everywoman" characters who become awesome heroes over the course of the story, instead of relatively static "strong, independent women."


----------



## BornForBurning

> there's this trope of the super-tough, super-cool female co-lead who, for no discernible reason, falls in love with the wimpy male lead


*fRoM tHE VOid I coME*


----------



## undead_av

ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord said:


> Biggest one I've noticed is in stories with a weak, cowardly male protagonist, there's this trope of the super-tough, super-cool female co-lead who, for no discernible reason, falls in love with the wimpy male lead. Even if he's sort of cute, I know very few women who will fall for a guy who doesn't have some kind of moral or physical strength (preferably both lol). Usually we like guys who we perceive as being stronger than us in some way.
> 
> Another one I've noticed is the lack of female characters who _become _great, or _become _strong. Compare Luke Skywalker's arc with Rey Skywalker's: he starts out a normal, kind of loserly kid, and then becomes a powerful Jedi. She starts out cool and tough, she becomes slightly more cool and tough. Maybe this is because authors don't want their female characters perceived as weak? I don't know. But I think we could use more "everywoman" characters who become awesome heroes over the course of the story, instead of relatively static "strong, independent women."



This, and the cold, calculating, effortlessly cool-girl character that seems to show up in a lot of YA novels - I'm reading Dry by Neal Shusterman and she just showed up - great! Obnoxious. I hate when these characters are portrayed as cool 'strong women' when they're just evil.


----------



## SueC

ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord said:


> Biggest one I've noticed is in stories with a weak, cowardly male protagonist, there's this trope of the super-tough, super-cool female co-lead who, for no discernible reason, falls in love with the wimpy male lead. Even if he's sort of cute, I know very few women who will fall for a guy who doesn't have some kind of moral or physical strength (preferably both lol). Usually we like guys who we perceive as being stronger than us in some way.
> 
> Another one I've noticed is the lack of female characters who _become _great, or _become _strong. Compare Luke Skywalker's arc with Rey Skywalker's: he starts out a normal, kind of loserly kid, and then becomes a powerful Jedi. She starts out cool and tough, she becomes slightly more cool and tough. Maybe this is because authors don't want their female characters perceived as weak? I don't know. But I think we could use more "everywoman" characters who become awesome heroes over the course of the story, instead of relatively static "strong, independent women."



I couldn't agree more. I like characters who grow, but when it comes to women I often get the sense that some authors are afraid of offending women by portraying them as typical or "normal." I have my own really strong, often unexpressed, views of what a strong woman looks like. Its a different kind of strength than men show, and I am often tired of women (in literature and film) either trying to act like men, better than men, or unacceptably stoic. If you look at the pioneer women, for example, their strength was much different than the men in their lives. Their husbands toiled, worked the land, built the home, protected his family, while the women kept everything together - ran the household, baked the bread, fed the babies. Totally different roles, but ones requiring strength none-the-less. In today's world, the distinctions are more blurred, but we can still fathom a strength of character and strong moral codes in both men and women. So there. LOL!


----------



## luckyscars

ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord said:


> Biggest one I've noticed is in stories with a weak, cowardly male protagonist, there's this trope of the super-tough, super-cool female co-lead who, for no discernible reason, falls in love with the wimpy male lead. Even if he's sort of cute, I know very few women who will fall for a guy who doesn't have some kind of moral or physical strength (preferably both lol). Usually we like guys who we perceive as being stronger than us in some way.





SueC said:


> I often get the sense that some authors are afraid of offending women by portraying them as typical or "normal." I have my own really strong, often unexpressed, views of what a strong woman looks like. Its a different kind of strength than men show, and I am often tired of women (in literature and film) either trying to act like men, better than men, or unacceptably stoic.



This comes back to intersectionality. A lot of what you're observing regarding depictions can be the case for black characters, gay characters, disabled characters...really any character who isn't a 'straight white able bodied male', any character who is considered at the bum end of power dynamics. You won't find many black characters being portrayed as weak or servile these days, because it carries with it the stigma of racism You wont find many gay characters being portrayed as effeminate, because it carries with it the stigma of homophobia. You wont find many female characters being portrayed as submissive because it carries the whiff of patriarchy.

It's interesting because it's quite possible a lot of women may actually prefer male characters who are stronger than female ones, for a variety of reasons, or at the very minimum are happy for men and women to be portrayed in whatever way the writer deems fitting. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your perspective, the fiction publishing industry (which is dominated by women) evidently considers that the risks in encouraging potentially misogynistic or sexist stereotyping outweighs this. It's ironic that certain measures taken to improve diversity in some ways have actually reduced diversity in other respects. But hey ho.

There are still some pretty good books in which more traditional characters can be found. I just got done reading Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens which I found to be pretty much perfect as far as character building. There's nothing zany or bizarre about the 'strong female characters', they are strong, but in a fairly traditional sense. And since it's spent 97 weeks on the NYT bestseller list I guess there's hope!


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## TripleFade

I tend to write a lot of female characters. Generally, I usually just keep the description brief and relevant:

 "She was tall for her age; gangly, yet intimidating (with a scowl that frightened people). Her parents kept complaining about her vermillion-dyed hair and her teachers assumed she was a troublemaker, despite her perfect grades. She was generally thought of as an all-around badass and a petty criminal involved in some sort of gang. This was all a lie; however, she was terrified of other people and perfected looking like a total hellion to avoid anyone attempting to engage her in conversation. Her grades were the result of having no friends and a great many books."

Basically, I try to keep it human and avoid just talking about how "bone-able" she is (even if she is). Basically, I don't write romance books, so I'm not trying to have the reader fall in love, I want them to think of her as relatable.


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## Joker

I've been watching Vikings a lot, and I think Lagertha is an incredibly well-written woman. Especially since the pre-Christian Norse, while far more egalitarian than the Christian kingdoms, would still be considered patriarchal by today's standards.

She's smart, witty, graceful, emotionally intelligent, unwaveringly brave and a cyclone in battle, but she never compromises her feminine traits. Lagertha is a mother, but a mother lioness. Mess with her son and die.

Too many wokesters think a strong woman should just like a man with a vagina... what? Lagertha never once has to beat her chest and go on about being a strong woman. Men don't respect that. Men respect women who lead by example. Lagertha raids with the men, fights with the men, sails on the same cramped boat as the men, shits in the woods with the men, and never once complains. But you would never mistake her for "one of the boys".

She's a strong woman. Captain Marvel is not.


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## Bayview

Joker said:


> She's a strong woman. Captain Marvel is not.



I haven't seen Captain Marvel. What do you object to about her?

I mean, in general, I think there are loads of ways for women, or men, or anyone, to be strong. So I'm assuming you don't mean that Captain Marvel is not strong because she's DIFFERENT from Lagertha. I assume she must do something that makes her seem weak?


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## Lee Messer

To be fair, I've seen women do it too,  but it was actually in the context. Can't remember specifics like you have done, but I know women who write 'smut'. At least I tease them about it by calling it smut. It's all in fun. It is humorous though when you find this kind of perspective within the context of a 'serious' novel by accident. It has a place if you allow it. I'm responding because I'm being forced to insert eroticism into my works at the advice of one of my peer readers (female) who predominantly reads eroticism. Don't get me wrong, it's not the really erm... nasty stuff she reads, but I've looked at it.

Why do it? I trust her insights as she runs a business too. She specifically says that if I want to reach a diverse audience for Sci-fi/Horror, then I need to add eroticism in order to keep a younger group interested.

Anyway, it's pretty evident that the females use less sight senses when writing about it, and more touch and smell senses. Example context of two prisoners tied together: "She could feel his strong musculature moving underneath her as he struggled to get loose from the bonds and could feel her face blushing as his thighs flexed to try to loosen the ropes..." It was something like that, but can't remember where I read it. Anyway it's common for that type of genre.

I guess my point is that it has to have it's place in the story. If I were legitimately trying to write something seriously iconic and genre breaking... I would never use the word "boobies". That's just ridiculous. Same thing with body measurements or the use of the word "thong", but I've seen people do it. Totally blows my mind.

Only way I can put this is that it is a subject that should be researched by reading what sells to a wider audience, yet doesn't exclude the critical thinkers and intellectuals. That's why I haven't got mine done yet. I'm still researching. I have to do a scene that crosses sexual barriers between two alien races that wouldn't normally be compatible. Try that for LGBTQ inclusiveness. It's not easy.


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## Joker

Bayview said:


> I haven't seen Captain Marvel. What do you object to about her?
> 
> I mean, in general, I think there are loads of ways for women, or men, or anyone, to be strong. So I'm assuming you don't mean that Captain Marvel is not strong because she's DIFFERENT from Lagertha. I assume she must do something that makes her seem weak?



By strong I mean strong in character. Her personality is mostly stale cardboard with a dash of "I don't need no man." Doesn't help that the actress is an abrasive jerk.

Yawn.


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## Joker

Lee Messer said:


> *snip*



Yes, women can be just as perverted as men. They just tend to be better at hiding it.


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## luckyscars

Joker said:


> I've been watching Vikings a lot, and I think Lagertha is an incredibly well-written woman. Especially since the pre-Christian Norse, while far more egalitarian than the Christian kingdoms, would still be considered patriarchal by today's standards.
> 
> She's smart, witty, graceful, emotionally intelligent, unwaveringly brave and a cyclone in battle, but she never compromises her feminine traits. Lagertha is a mother, but a mother lioness. Mess with her son and die.
> 
> Too many wokesters think a strong woman should just like a man with a vagina... what? Lagertha never once has to beat her chest and go on about being a strong woman. Men don't respect that. Men respect women who lead by example. Lagertha raids with the men, fights with the men, sails on the same cramped boat as the men, shits in the woods with the men, and never once complains. But you would never mistake her for "one of the boys".
> 
> She's a strong woman. Captain Marvel is not.



I think both 'sides' (meaning, the 'wokesters' and the people who would promote more conventional 'feminine' characters) tend to get this wrong by writing characters that, more than anything, just lack depth. Just aren't good characters. This isn't really a problem of politics, although politics can definitely be part of why it's difficult. It's mainly a problem of writers -- both men and women -- simply finding it difficult to write women without incorporating their sexual identity as a main theme.

The problem is whenever people try to provide examples of "THIS is a good female character" they tend to make that decision at least partially based on what fulfills their personal worldview regarding the kind of feminism they like. The same is true for men, by the way. When most people talk about 'good male characters' they end up kind of going with male characters that simply fit _their _idea of what 'good masculinity' means.

 I'm not necessarily saying you're doing that, I'm not saying you're not coming from the right place or I disagree, only that whenever this subject comes up it tends to get incredibly subjective incredibly fast. 

There are plenty of people, presumably, who don't think that Lagertha is an 'incredibly well written women' because if she was then she would be incredibly well known among academic and layperson circles for being the supreme example of Writing Women. But she isn't, which means that other people are either indifferent to her merits or actually find her too/not enough '[pick your label]' You then may disagree with their suggestions (Captain Marvel) and we get into a circular rut.

So I guess I'm not sure how useful picking examples is. I actually think they can become a distraction, because people then tend to focus on the examples rather than the broader ideas (which we can probably, hopefully agree on).

One broad thing I would suggest as nearly universal (still): Male sexuality tends to be less contentious than female sexuality. There tends to be less baggage. Nobody seriously thinks of promiscuous men as 'sluts', etc. They just don't. Even women can be just as, if not more, intolerant of promiscuous women and just as prone to bad handling of female sexuality; so while the idea of female chasteness may spring from patriarchy, etc, it's an idea that is probably enforced roughly 50/50.

So, with that in mind, rather than the philosophical aspects of the problem, let's talk about how it may impact writing. This is where, for me, it doesn't work to say 'just write everybody as complete individuals', because _people don't think of society as composed of complete individuals. _This is why it doesn't work to write women exactly how you would write men.

So, I return to character depth. It's kind of a stock term at this point, but simple things can easily make the difference and I think there's lots of things people do that just miss the mark. Ensuring the (female) character has a compelling motivation, a relationship with her body that isn't primarily sexual, a relationship with other characters that isn't primarily sexual, her own ideas that aren't primarily sexual, a sense of her own moral ecosystem that isn't primarily sexual, stuff like that -- you can see the pattern? Stuff that, for most male characters, is a given but for some reason often seems missing with female ones. Basically, there needs to be an inner life and that inner life must be compelling, not orbiting around sex and body (although sex and body can be part of it, obviously), and just generally...human.

A frequent point of confusion seems to be that the answer to avoiding the problems of female characters' sexuality is by simply avoiding or making the character hostile to sex/men, which isn't the case at all. It's totally possible to have a romance novel which fulfills the above and totally possible to have an action novel character who 'doesn't need no stinkin' men' who is still nonetheless sexualized, because being hostile toward men can be -- and frequently is -- written as a form of sexualization: The character is still being defined by her sexual relationship to men, even if that relationship is one of antipathy. It's over-compensation, in other words.


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## Joker

luckyscars said:


> *snip*



I think what people mean when they say "strong female character" is a woman who embodies stereotypically feminine traits. Otherwise, as you said, they'd just be a strong character, period. As I said, a strong woman shouldn't just be a man with a vagina. There are attributes that are generally seen more as the realm of women - grace, emotional intelligence, gentleness, modesty, cooperativeness, ect. That isn't to say that men _can't _be those things, but just that women _generally_ are more so. There's a reason women tend to prefer being nurses and school teachers why men tend to prefer computer science and construction work. We're simply wired differently. Anyone who disagrees doesn't have an opposite-sex sibling!

And that also isn't to say that women can't break some of these traits. Of course there are tons of women who are clumsy, or hate people, or who can't read a room. But it's extremely rare for a woman to completely break _all _feminine traits. Men are _generally _one way, and women another.

At the end of the day though, men and women are far more alike than different. A character should be written as a human first, their sex and ethnicity and sexual orientation second.


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## Bayview

Joker said:


> I think what people mean when they say "strong female character" is a woman who embodies stereotypically feminine traits. Otherwise, as you said, they'd just be a strong character, period. As I said, a strong woman shouldn't just be a man with a vagina. There are attributes that are generally seen more as the realm of women - grace, emotional intelligence, gentleness, modesty, cooperativeness, ect. That isn't to say that men _can't _be those things, but just that women _generally_ are more so. There's a reason women tend to prefer being nurses and school teachers why men tend to prefer computer science and construction work. We're simply wired differently. Anyone who disagrees doesn't have an opposite-sex sibling!



So Lagertha the viking is gentle? Modest? I haven't watched much of the show, but I wouldn't say she struck me that way.

And I have two brothers - I'm probably the most cooperative of the three of us, but I think one or the other of the boys would beat me at any of the other characteristics you've listed as feminine. I don't think anyone's ever thought of either of them as effeminate. Possibly you're working from too small of a sample size?


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## Joker

Bayview said:


> So Lagertha the viking is gentle? Modest? I haven't watched much of the show, but I wouldn't say she struck me that way.



Compared to Ragnar, Rollo, Floki, and the vast majority of the other men? Yes. 

Fighting is only something she does maybe 1% of the time.



> And I have two brothers - I'm probably the most cooperative of the three of us, but I think one or the other of the boys would beat me at any of the other characteristics you've listed as feminine. I don't think anyone's ever thought of either of them as effeminate. Possibly you're working from too small of a sample size?



I repeat - I'm speaking in generalizations.

Why else would, in a completely free and equal society with a history of forward-thinking, like Scandinavia, would men dominate certain professions, and women others? Because, when given the choice, men _generally _prefer certain jobs that require certain traits and skills, and women others. Sexual dimorphism doesn't stop in the brain.


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## Bayview

Joker said:


> I repeat - I'm speaking in generalizations.



But your generalizations are inaccurate.



> Why else would, in a completely free and equal society with a history of forward-thinking, like Scandinavia, would men dominate certain professions, and women others? Because, when given the choice, men _generally _prefer certain jobs that require certain traits and skills, and women others. Sexual dimorphism doesn't stop in the brain.



I really don't think we can characterize Scandinavia as "a completely free and equal society", just because they're doing better than some other countries. 

But this is clearly falling into the "no longer talking about characterization" trap that leads threads like these into trouble. I don't want to get into a socio-political debate, so I will stop posting responses to non-literary comments. Sorry, thread!


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## Joker

Bayview said:


> But your generalizations are inaccurate.




I repeat - sexual dimorphism doesn't magically stop at the brain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_sex_differences


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## luckyscars

Joker said:


> I think what people mean when they say "strong female character" is a woman who embodies stereotypically feminine traits. Otherwise, as you said, they'd just be a strong character, period. As I said, a strong woman shouldn't just be a man with a vagina. There are attributes that are generally seen more as the realm of women - grace, emotional intelligence, gentleness, modesty, cooperativeness, ect. That isn't to say that men _can't _be those things, but just that women _generally_ are more so. There's a reason women tend to prefer being nurses and school teachers why men tend to prefer computer science and construction work. We're simply wired differently. Anyone who disagrees doesn't have an opposite-sex sibling!
> 
> And that also isn't to say that women can't break some of these traits. Of course there are tons of women who are clumsy, or hate people, or who can't read a room. But it's extremely rare for a woman to completely break _all _feminine traits. Men are _generally _one way, and women another.
> 
> At the end of the day though, men and women are far more alike than different. A character should be written as a human first, their sex and ethnicity and sexual orientation second.



I don't so much disagree with the premise that 'women are generally...men are generally...' and I don't think many people would. There's a reason why men tend to commit certain crimes, etc. I think it becomes contentious when we start actually putting words after that, especially ones that seek to offer some sort of value judgment. However we qualify it as being 'generally', it causes problems because by virtue of somebody not being 'general' they can read that as not being 'normal' and no woman or man wants to be told they're not a normal as it pertains to gender.

 As long as we underscore the _generally _aspect as being incredibly, incredibly loose to the point it isn't simply a matter of a handful of exceptions but actual huge numbers of exceptions (my sister has been in more fistfights than me -- I have never been in one) to the point such generalizations are _almost _useless in terms of how we write characters while being _very _useful in how we write society, there's probably room for some agreement. But even then, I'm not totally sure. 

I believe society tends to amplify differences between all groups due to tribalism, prejudice, etc. It then gets complicated, because people then _react to society _through social pressures, and often in such a way that it is difficult to tell if this is actual 'female' behavior, intrinsic to 'being female' or if it's a product of people simply wanting to conform to social expectations. I have no idea if the reason my daughter prefers pink is because she actually prefers it or if she was simply subjected to the expectation that Girls Like Pink. I know what I think, and I know what various people would say on the matter, but ultimately there is no way to prove it either way. I doubt she even knows herself. I don't know the reasons for why I like most things.

So, in writing terms, I think its important to reflect on social differences and how they may conflict or compliment personal ones. It becomes relevant when we start talking about stuff like 'strong women' because suddenly we're ascribing a sense of virtue, a sense of greater or less, where none exists. Every woman who is a woman is equally strong as a woman, regardless of feminine traits, just like even the most feminine man is as strong as a man as the most masculine. You only get 'strong women' when you have a preconceived notion of what a woman is. And, since that preconceived notion will NEVER be shared by a majority of people, I'm not sure it means much.

We can talk about strong 'characters' only, because in that case we are talking not about the actual identity of the characters but more about the way they are written. I guess I just don't really like the idea of talking about 'strong men' or 'strong women' in any abstract sense because I think there's better ways of saying it. 

Isn't it better just to qualify exactly what we are talking about? "Lagertha is modest" is something easily agreed or disagreed on. "Lagertha is a strong female character" is not.


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## Joker

luckyscars said:


> *snip*



I suppose it does, in part, come down to cultural expectations. Pink was considered a masculine color, the color of blood, a violent color, not long ago. Battalions of Frenchmen went over the top wearing pink as late as World War 1. So, in that particular instance, I'm betting it's largely cultural.

But that begs the question - how do cultural expectations come about? They don't just pop into existence _ex nihilo. _Biology plays at least some part of it.

I think there's something of a negative feedback loop when it comes to stereotypes. For example, biology dictates that men generally prefer engineering jobs. The development of a patriarchal society, though, would exaggerate this difference into _no _women are capable or even want to be engineers. Women internalize this, and don't even think of teaching their daughters physics, and the cycle continues. But ultimately, the cycle _was _started by genuine physical differences.

For the record, I'm not insinuating the modern West is a patriarchy. It's not. And advocating for any sort of discrimination based on gender would betray my libertarian ethos. But I am saying, given free choice, men and women will and do pick largely separate careers. Feminists trying to make 50% of all engineers women is not only futile, it's not what women, as a collective, want.

(You also never see feminists wanting women to make up half of all trash collectors or infantrymen...)


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## luckyscars

Joker said:


> But that begs the question - how do cultural expectations come about? They don't just pop into existence _ex nihilo. _Biology plays at least some part of it.



Not sure, but I suspect while it does originate from biology it's not biological.

Take one of the more glaring ones, which is that men are more prone to violence than women. We can see how this would evolve beyond programming.

Women are biologically differentiated from men by the ability, you could say the obligation, to have babies. Having babies and feeding and nurturing babies. While that's less meaningful now, we can see that in prehistoric times a woman having to spend months or years in a cave raising babies meant she was unable to go outside the cave so often, which meant men had to go outside the cave, which meant that men had to take on a more combative role to kill mammoths as well as generally be 'hardier'. 

I'm grossly simplifying this stuff, partly because it's easier, partly because I'm not an anthropologist, but its pretty obvious we can see its from that sort of thing that the idea of women being 'gentler' comes from. The 'gentler' isn't biological, but the circumstances that created the perception perhaps are, at a very rudimentary level: Women have babies. 

But...this does not mean that is biological in the sense of programming. It might mean there is a little bit, I understand that DNA can change as a result of environment, but it's obviously a leap to project assumptions based on this stuff. If for no other reason, than things have changed since that time. Most men don't do a lot of hunting anymore and haven't for some time, just like most women now do their own form of 'hunting' in terms of careerism and lots don't have babies anymore, so it makes about as little sense to take modern social cues from the norms of the past as it does to pretend broad gender differences don't exist at all.


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## Joker

luckyscars said:


> Not sure, but I suspect while it does originate from biology it's not biological.
> 
> Take one of the more glaring ones, which is that men are more prone to violence than women. We can see how this would evolve beyond programming.
> 
> Women are biologically differentiated from men by the ability, you could say the obligation, to have babies. Having babies and feeding and nurturing babies. While that's less meaningful now, we can see that in prehistoric times a woman having to spend months or years in a cave raising babies meant she was unable to go outside the cave so often, which meant men had to go outside the cave, which meant that men had to take on a more combative role to kill mammoths as well as generally be 'hardier'.
> 
> I'm grossly simplifying this stuff, partly because it's easier, partly because I'm not an anthropologist, but its pretty obvious we can see its from that sort of thing that the idea of women being 'gentler' comes from. The 'gentler' isn't biological, but the circumstances that created the perception perhaps are, at a very rudimentary level: Women have babies.
> 
> But...this does not mean that is biological in the sense of programming. It might mean there is a little bit, I understand that DNA can change as a result of environment, but it's obviously a leap to project assumptions based on this stuff. If for no other reason, than things have changed since that time. Most men don't do a lot of hunting anymore and haven't for some time, just like most women now do their own form of 'hunting' in terms of careerism and lots don't have babies anymore, so it makes about as little sense to take modern social cues from the norms of the past as it does to pretend broad gender differences don't exist at all.



As they say, God created men and women, but Samuel Colt made them equal.


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## Taylor

Joker said:


> Compared to Ragnar, Rollo, Floki, and the vast majority of the other men? Yes.
> 
> Fighting is only something she does maybe 1% of the time.



I have to challange you on that.  I think she fights as often as the men.  And from my impression of the Vikings series, they are trying to create an image of women who are better fighters then men.  Don't they call them Viking shield-maidens?  One of the things I like about her character is that her traits are similar to men, but they aren't trying to portray her as an unusually "strong" woman, just a clever and powerful one.



Joker said:


> I repeat - I'm speaking in generalizations.
> 
> Why else would, in a completely free and equal society with a history of forward-thinking, like Scandinavia, would men dominate certain professions, and women others? Because, when given the choice, men _generally _prefer certain jobs that require certain traits and skills, and women others. Sexual dimorphism doesn't stop in the brain.



Travelling in other parts of the world, I was often surprised by what gender dominated certain jobs.  For example, in India, the men operate the sewing machines in factories.  And in the Philipines, the women run the businesses and dominate the banking industry.  I can only speak for the cultures I have seen for myself, but I'm certain you will find other gender dominated professions that appear to be anomolies to us in other cultures.  

But I just want to chime in on "strong" women thing.  I think we like to depict women as "strong" because we see strong as a good thing.  But it's not a trait in itself.  It's only an adjective.  So it has to be attached to a trait to have any meaning.  So in my mind, I see each character having a series of traits.  She is both strong and weak in a variety of traits.  But trying to make her strong in what we consider are male traits, doesn't make her "strong" as a person. And frankly I am so over the whole "strong women" thing.  I agree with Bayview on this.  Just write them, the way you want to with all their strengths and frailties.


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## Tettsuo

Taylor said:


> I have to challange you on that.  I think she fights as often as the men.  And from my impression of the Vikings series, they are trying to create an image of women who are better fighters then men.  Don't they call them Viking shield-maidens?  One of the things I like about her character is that her traits are similar to men, but they aren't trying to portray her as an unusually "strong" woman, just a clever and powerful one.
> 
> Travelling in other parts of the world, I was often surprised by what gender dominated certain jobs.  For example, in India, the men operate the sewing machines in factories.  And in the Philipines, the women run the businesses and dominate the banking industry.  I can only speak for the cultures I have seen for myself, but I'm certain you will find other gender dominated professions that appear to be anomolies to us in other cultures.
> 
> But I just want to chime in on "strong" women thing.  I think we like to depict women as "strong" because we see strong as a good thing.  But it's not a trait in itself.  It's only an adjective.  So it has to be attached to a trait to have any meaning.  So in my mind, I see each character having a series of traits.  She is both strong and weak in a variety of traits.  But trying to make her strong in what we consider are male traits, doesn't make her "strong" as a person. And frankly I am so over the whole "strong women" thing.  I agree with Bayview on this.  Just write them, the way you want to with all their strengths and frailties.


Agree 100%

Being more like a man doesn't make a woman strong. That's nonsense, but that's the narrative often pushed in some media.

My favorite example of this comes from my dad.  "It's not weakness to cry," he told me. "But it is weakness if you're afraid to cry because of what others would think of you."


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## Joker

Tettsuo said:


> Agree 100%
> 
> Being more like a man doesn't make a woman strong. That's nonsense, but that's the narrative often pushed in some media.
> 
> My favorite example of this comes from my dad.  "It's not weakness to cry," he told me. "But it is weakness if you're afraid to cry because of what others would think of you."



You have a good dad.


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## TheManx

I think I like you people. I scanned through this whole thing and did not see one toilet seat up vs. down joke.


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## ironpony

Well as far as writing women characters goes, isn't it best to just create the character you want, rather than try to compare her to any real life women or fictional women stereotypes more so?


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## TheManx

Well, I don’t buy the men and women are from different planets thing. Yes, we’re different in  some respects, but when it comes to certain traits (or cliché in some cases) it’s more about amounts and emphasis. So, yeah, I tend not to overthink it.


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## Lee Messer

Can't choose a side in this issue. All arguments are valid in the right situation. All I can add to this is what I do in my approach. So, if if your writing fiction, you can do what you want. That is fairly obvious. If your looking for realism, write only what you've observed. If you are writing some unusual characters all I can do to help is describe what I have done.

I have two very strong female characters.

The first one is a female alien (cephalopod) with a military background. She is as normal as any heterosexual female with a military background you might run into in a bar if you live near a military base. They like to blow off steam, as they sometimes have stressful jobs. She has the same emotions as any female. She desires a loving relationship, and can tend to be somewhat aggressive, yet she is very level headed as most military types seem to be. With this character I chose realism, so I only wrote what I observed. I have observed some people who have worked in special forces units in their career, and their mentality is very controlled. You would never know if they were angry, but they do get angry. They are as kind as any person I have ever seen, and have much in the area of honor. With that said, this character is complex, and has a long background of combat with some spectacular abilities to adapt emotionally.

The second female character is a government trained assassin that has gone rogue. She is a complete sociopath/psychopath. I've come to affectionately refer to her as "the beast". She lacks compassionate emotion, but revels in seeing pain and looks of horror on the faces of her victims. She is also a serial killer that is not much different in motivations than Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs. She picks her targets (mostly males) by a combination of their involvement in human trafficking, or simply their attitude towards women. She sometimes kills men instantly if they insult her in public by putting her finger into their brain. She doesn't play with her kills or eat them. The character eventually is killed only to return as a nanotech-organism with pretty much the same M.O., but loses the ability to have sex, which really screws her up. So, she is forced to kill more often to identify with being alive.


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## ironpony

Those character decisions seem to make sense.

For my current story, there is a judge in court, who's only role is to make judge decisions that are required for the plot for a courtroom scene.  Originally I wrote the character as a man but then later, decided to change him to a woman.  But I didn't change anything about the character's decision making, and the character behaves exactly the same, just with the gender changed...  So the only change was changing 'he' to 'she'.  If that was the right approach for such a character.


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## TheManx

When it comes to writing women — I'm married and have two teenage daughters, so I just think, is this going to make anybody mad?


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## ironpony

Do you think that maybe people are more sensitive to how women characters are portrayed though?  For example I showed the movie Junior (1994), to a female friend of mine and she said that she didn't like how the female characters were portrayed as stupid.  To which I thought, well it's a comedy, the characters are suppose to be dumb, so we can laugh.  The male characters are equally stupid for laughs, but she was only offended at the female ones being stupid.  So is that something to worry about when writing?


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## TheManx

ironpony said:


> Do you think that maybe people are more sensitive to how women characters are portrayed though?



Maybe. Probably because it's been done rather poorly for so long — and mostly by men.


----------



## Lee Messer

First, have a woman present. Preferably pick a partner that has intellect, and an ability to think critically. Always ask your partner for their perspective. I've had countless conversations with women (partners). One of my main requirements for an actual relationship is intellect. I simply cannot stand having someone around me that annoys me with unreachable ignorance.

How can one gaze at the stars to share the moment with a loved one if that loved one cannot appreciate it enough for comment. Whats worse is finding one transparent, ignorant, and shallow to beat. It's like dating an asshole.

"Honey, do you ever wonder what this whole thing is about?"

"What thing?"

"You know... the universe... fate. Where would we be now if we never found each other?"

"With someone else? Someone with more money?"

...those people. Like being married to Rosanne Arnold. Not good for bouncing ideas off of. Not good for supporting a realistic, yet insightful view of a woman's perspective. Every male author should have a female with a mature mentality close by... kind of like a babysitter for drunks. You can quote me on that.


----------



## luckyscars

Lee Messer said:


> How can one gaze at the stars to share the moment with a loved one if that loved one cannot appreciate it enough for comment. Whats worse is finding one transparent, ignorant, and shallow to beat. It's like dating an asshole.
> 
> "Honey, do you ever wonder what this whole thing is about?"
> 
> "What thing?"
> 
> "You know... the universe... fate. Where would we be now if we never found each other?"
> 
> "With someone else? Someone with more money?"
> 
> ...those people. Like being married to Rosanne Arnold. Not good for bouncing ideas off of. Not good for supporting a realistic, yet insightful view of a woman's perspective. Every male author should have a female with a mature mentality close by... kind of like a babysitter for drunks. You can quote me on that.



That example of an exchange seems to me more an example of people who think differently to each other, not necessarily one who is intellectual and one who isn't. 

I don't navel gaze on the universe or fate in that fashion either. It doesn't mean lack of perspective, just a lack of shared perspective. Which can either be bad or good depending on what you want.


----------



## Taylor

Lee Messer said:


> First, have a woman present. Preferably pick a partner that has intellect, and an ability to think critically. Always ask your partner for their perspective. I've had countless conversations with women (partners). One of my main requirements for an actual relationship is intellect. I simply cannot stand having someone around me that annoys me with unreachable ignorance.
> 
> How can one gaze at the stars to share the moment with a loved one if that loved one cannot appreciate it enough for comment. Whats worse is finding one transparent, ignorant, and shallow to beat. It's like dating an asshole.
> 
> "Honey, do you ever wonder what this whole thing is about?"
> 
> "What thing?"
> 
> "You know... the universe... fate. Where would we be now if we never found each other?"
> 
> "With someone else? Someone with more money?"
> 
> ...those people. Like being married to Rosanne Arnold. Not good for bouncing ideas off of. Not good for supporting a realistic, yet insightful view of a woman's perspective. Every male author should have a female with a mature mentality close by... kind of like a babysitter for drunks. You can quote me on that.



Sorry, but I don't find any part of this conversation intellectual! Maybe you should not make assumptions that someone is unreachably ignorant, when you haven't put forth an intellectual thought to respond to.

And why should a woman have to be a "babysitter"?!  Maybe the male author should grow up!!

There's a little thing called emotional intelligence.  Next time try:

"You look so beautiful tonight under the stars.  I can't imagine my life without you."


----------



## Lee Messer

Totally missed the point. The point is that someone isn't even willing to play along. Another sign of ignorance. If they don't care what you think, don't stay with them.
If someone asked you a question like that, you're both telling me you wouldn't notice a change in the conversation?
People don't normally act that way in the context of stargazing. The context is obvious. The premise is obvious.
Don't surround yourself with negative people is the entire point.
If you went to your better half, and told them you wanted to be an author, and their response was you won't amount to a pile of shit (probably more obvious), then I guess you'll have a choice to make.

The babysitting remark was taken wrong too. If your partner can't advise you not to talk about things that will turn women off like say... boobies, size measurements, or thongs when your supposed to be seriously trying to Write something meaningful... you have another problem. Im just saying. Maybe the babysitter remark was demeaning to men.

On another note, yes, I do know better. Otherwise I wouldn't mention it. I'm not as obtuse as you might think.


----------



## TheManx

Hmm. Didn't think this was about life advice. I thought it was about storytelling. Oh well.


----------



## luckyscars

Lee Messer said:


> Totally missed the point. The point is that someone isn't even willing to play along. Another sign of ignorance. If they don't care what you think, don't stay with them.
> If someone asked you a question like that, you're both telling me you wouldn't notice a change in the conversation?
> People don't normally act that way in the context of stargazing. The context is obvious. The premise is obvious.
> Don't surround yourself with negative people is the entire point.
> If you went to your better half, and told them you wanted to be an author, and their response was you won't amount to a pile of shit (probably more obvious), then I guess you'll have a choice to make.
> 
> The babysitting remark was taken wrong too. If your partner can't advise you not to talk about things that will turn women off like say... boobies, size measurements, or thongs when your supposed to be seriously trying to Write something meaningful... you have another problem. Im just saying. Maybe the babysitter remark was demeaning to men.
> 
> On another note, yes, I do know better. Otherwise I wouldn't mention it. I'm not as obtuse as you might think.



I think I see your point but I also think it can go both ways.

I believe there's also such a thing as conflating 'don't be negative' with 'be my cheerleader'. I'm not saying you are doing that, but I think it bears mentioning for balance purposes.

A partner -- lets say a woman, since we're doing 'writing women' but it's true for either gender and for any configuration of couple -- isn't there to have ideas bounced off, isn't there to educate *us* on women. 

My wife takes very little interest in my writing. She's extremely busy and tired, barely has time to read anything and, unlike me, she has a job that doesn't allow her to sit on her butt. So, I would only ask her to read something if I thought she would actually enjoy reading it. I would not ask her to read it to give me pointers. If she felt moved to comment, that's great, but I'm not going to ask for it and I'm definitely not going to set a standard as to what sort of feedback I would expect. If she gives me extended notes or, more typically, grunts and mutters 'ugh, gross' or something, either way is fine. Either way I'm good. I'm not doing this for her approval. I value her approval, I value her feedback (she's pretty smart) when she has it, but she isn't part of my process and I don't see that as particularly a problem or anything. If I want to talk about writing I have other people for that, and this forum


----------



## Sir-KP

ironpony said:


> Do you think that maybe people are more sensitive to how women characters are portrayed though?  For example I showed the movie Junior (1994), to a female friend of mine and she said that she didn't like how the female characters were portrayed as stupid.  To which I thought, well it's a comedy, the characters are suppose to be dumb, so we can laugh.  The male characters are equally stupid for laughs, but she was only offended at the female ones being stupid.  So is that something to worry about when writing?



They're prone to. But after looking at the most reasons why these people, male and female audience, are usually mad about, I really think it's best to instantly disregard them.

Examples I've seen and remember:
- Male audience complaining about female characters getting some worthy action or having tough characteristic
- Male audience complaining about female protagonists, saying the work isn't for dudes because they can't relate to the character
- Male audience who likes female characters complaining about female characters doesn't have enough boobs/ass despite already good looking and busty above beauty standard
- Female audience complaining about female characters being sexy and good looking 
- Female audience complaining about female characters being weak / not tough / not having some actions
- Female audience complaining about male character(s) taking the leading role


Listening to them is only going to put myself in the middle of landmines without escape. The way those audiences see characters is absolutely different than the way I do or how we should treat our characters.


----------



## ironpony

Oh okay, but why aree they prone to, do you think?

The female audience complaining about female characters being too goodlooking strikes me as strange though.  Do male audiences ever complain about a male character being too sexy or goodlooking?

What if the female characters good looks and sexiness play into the story though?


----------



## Taylor

Lee Messer said:


> Totally missed the point. The point is that someone isn't even willing to play along. Another sign of ignorance. If they don't care what you think, don't stay with them.
> If someone asked you a question like that, you're both telling me you wouldn't notice a change in the conversation?



I actually thought the money comment was kind of sarcastic and humorous.  And self-deprecating too, which usually makes me laugh.  I appreciate people who try to make me laugh. 



Lee Messer said:


> The babysitting remark was taken wrong too.



Sorry.  I guess I see your point, but it's a lot to put onto someone else.



Lee Messer said:


> On another note, yes, I do know better. Otherwise I wouldn't mention it. I'm not as obtuse as you might think.



Did not think you were obtuse at all.



Lee Messer said:


> Don't surround yourself with negative people is the entire point.



Totally Agree!


----------



## Joker

ironpony said:


> Oh okay, but why aree they prone to, do you think?
> 
> The female audience complaining about female characters being too goodlooking strikes me as strange though.  Do male audiences ever complain about a male character being too sexy or goodlooking?
> 
> What if the female characters good looks and sexiness play into the story though?



Some men are completely uncomfortable with males being sexualized in any way, _especially_ if it's eye candy for the female audience.

It's sad and pathetic. I like sexy women as much as the next red-blooded man, but you have to be even-handed.


----------



## Bayview

I think one of the reasons female characters often get a lot of criticism is that there are too few of them. If there's only one woman in your major action movie, she's carrying a lot of responsibility. If, on the other hand, you have one who's sexy, one who's smart, one who's aggressive, one who's timid, etc... less room for criticizing any one character. So, as usual, my advice to people who are worried about being criticized for how they write a female character is to write MORE female characters!


----------



## ironpony

Joker said:


> Some men are completely uncomfortable with males being sexualized in any way, _especially_ if it's eye candy for the female audience.
> 
> It's sad and pathetic. I like sexy women as much as the next red-blooded man, but you have to be even-handed.



Oh okay, but it seems me that the female characters are more under attack for this.  For example, look at this video that talks about a new rendition of Wonder Woman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk_j9WA4nuo&t=230s

They felt they had to make Wonder Woman overweight and much more average looking.  But you still see Superman for example, with his good looks and muscles.  No one is making a new rendition of an overweight, average looking Superman.

But when it comes to how people are more bothered by female characters being sexualized compared to men, I had an idea a couple of years ago, for a female spy, who does like to sleep around, similar to James Bond. But people told not to write it, because there is hardly an audience for a female action hero, that enjoys being a 'playerette' in the process, that you are suppose to root for, if that's true...


----------



## Taylor

ironpony said:


> Oh okay, but it seems me that the female characters are more under attack for this.  For example, look at this video that talks about a new rendition of Wonder Woman:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk_j9WA4nuo&t=230s
> 
> They felt they had to make Wonder Woman overweight and much more average looking.  But you still see Superman for example, with his good looks and muscles.  No one is making a new rendition of an overweight, average looking Superman.
> 
> But when it comes to how people are more bothered by female characters being sexualized compared to men, I had an idea a couple of years ago, for a female spy, who does like to sleep around, similar to James Bond. But people told not to write it, because there is hardly an audience for a female action hero, that enjoys being a 'playerette' in the process, that you are suppose to root for, if that's true...



Such a good point ironpony!  But from what I can see, they have toned down 007, over the years.  Yes, there has always been a double standard here, but the gap seems to be closing.   The cold Roger Moore and rugged Sean Connery, were eventually replaced with the more emotionally intelligent Timothy Dalton and gentler, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig.  

But I wouldn't give up on your idea just yet.  I think there is a way you can write a playerette and make it suitable for current tastes.  Maybe the gap hasn't closed enough just yet, or the pendulum will eventually swing.   Have a look at Jackie Collins for inspiration....


----------



## Sir-KP

ironpony said:


> They felt they had to make Wonder Woman overweight and much more average looking.  But you still see Superman for example, with his good looks and muscles.  No one is making a new rendition of an overweight, average looking Superman.



Or skinny or underweighted 150cm Superman. 

Gotta have them 180-190cm+ mesomorphic able-bodied tall dude with chiseled jaw, sharp nosed, deep sharp eyed, great thick hair, bold eyebrows, perfect manly lips thickness, nice bulge, wide chested, and nicely proportioned glutes.

Yeah, try to make that Captain America body transformation scene with a female character. It ain't gonna go well.


----------



## ironpony

Why doesn't it go well with a female character with audiences or readers though?


----------



## BornForBurning

> The female audience complaining about female characters being too goodlooking strikes me as strange though. Do male audiences ever complain about a male character being too sexy or goodlooking?


ironpony, define 'female audience.' Some of this stuff really is just noise. People have opinions, yes. In my personal experience, the average girl you meet on the street does _not _care about female characters being 'too good-looking.' They _may _care about them being oversexualized (good for them!), but that is an entirely different discussion. I guess, all I'm saying is that I don't think we need to care what some weird people on the internet think. Remember, social media _always _amplifies the voice of the radical, but that doesn't mean the radical represents your average Joe. 


> They felt they had to make Wonder Woman overweight and much more average looking.


And this is another example of said noise. I saw those pictures of the new Wonder Woman. Quite frankly, if that's your definition of average...etc etc, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Whatever. The point is, this is for all intents and purposes an entirely worthless argument fought between two groups of people who honestly, more than anything, _have nothing more than differing artistic tastes. _That's fine! If you want to draw Wonder Woman like a Steven Universe character, there is absolutely nothing immoral about that. The 'neckbeards' (o no! middle-aged men who like comics! The worst????) don't have to buy it, and they are welcome to buy and read those works that appeal to _their _tastes. If no one is producing anything they like, then they should make something themselves. Whoever is messaging those crotchety artists/ladies who edit said comics should stop. And the crotchety artists should stop waging an entirely pointless artistic war against the neckbeards who, more than anything at this point, are really just there to point and laugh. Which is mean. But the artists should stop acting like clowns.


----------



## ironpony

Oh okay, but female audience, I meant females who seem to be offended by the idea of a fictional protagonist being sexy and goodlooking.  However, perhaps a male audience could have a problem with this too?  Although I didn't think it was just noise though, as some seem to be taking the new Wonder Woman thing seriously though.


----------



## Bayview

The Wonderwoman thing is obscure enough that I couldn't find the images with a quick Google. Anyone have a link?

And it may be relevant to point out that I don't think Superman really IS considered all that sexy. I mean, he's physically "perfect", which is part of the character idea, but I don't think he's one of the sexier male superheroes. All he has to do to become an insignificant dweeb is put on a pair of glasses and act a little shy... not much inherent sexiness, there! I don't really follow all the machinations of the comic books, but he's traditionally had trouble getting Lois Lane to notice him, hasn't he?


----------



## Joker

Bayview said:


> The Wonderwoman thing is obscure enough that I couldn't find the images with a quick Google. Anyone have a link?
> 
> And it may be relevant to point out that I don't think Superman really IS considered all that sexy. I mean, he's physically "perfect", which is part of the character idea, but I don't think he's one of the sexier male superheroes. All he has to do to become an insignificant dweeb is put on a pair of glasses and act a little shy... not much inherent sexiness, there! I don't really follow all the machinations of the comic books, but he's traditionally had trouble getting Lois Lane to notice him, hasn't he?



Lois, in continuities where she doesn't know his secret identity, prefers Superman... but that doesn't mean Clark doesn't get a lot of attention from other women. He's handsome, nice and charming.


----------



## Bayview

Joker said:


> Lois, in continuities where she doesn't know his secret identity, prefers Superman... but that doesn't mean Clark doesn't get a lot of attention from other women. He's handsome, nice and charming.



But is he SEXY?


----------



## Joker

Bayview said:


> But is he SEXY?



Superman is sexy. Clark is cute.

(No homo tho :cookie


----------



## luckyscars

What does sexy actually mean if not somebody Handsome, Nice and Charming (and sexually eligible, of course)?

Might be another point of difference between men and women, I don’t know. As a straight guy, if you tell me a woman is “beautiful”, “nice”, and “charming” so long as you aren’t secretly talking about somebody underage or a corpse or something else bad faith or silly, I am probably okay with conflating those things with “sexiness” for the purposes of defining her, because I’m not sure what other magic ingredient there is for “sexy” if not just really good looking, with a good character and engaging personality?


----------



## Joker

luckyscars said:


> What does sexy actually mean if not somebody Handsome, Nice and Charming (and sexually eligible, of course)?
> 
> Might be another point of difference between men and women, I don’t know. As a straight guy, if you tell me a woman is “beautiful”, “nice”, and “charming” so long as you aren’t secretly talking about somebody underage or a corpse or something else bad faith or silly, I am probably okay with conflating those things with “sexiness” for the purposes of defining her, because I’m not sure what other magic ingredient there is for “sexy” if not just really good looking, with a good character and engaging personality?



Sexy has always meant more aggressive sex appeal to me. Bruce Wayne, not Clark Kent.


----------



## TheManx

My wife and I are watching a series now — one of the main characters is very good looking. She uses that to manipulate men — they definitely think she’s sexy – and I’d probably describe her that way too, even though she’s a horrible person. So I think a character can be sexy without having any admirable qualities...


----------



## Bayview

I agree, there's definitely more to sexiness than being good looking and pleasant. It's why we talk about a sexy pose, or sexualizing a person. The person is just as good looking and pleasant (or unpleasant) regardless of the way they're posed/presented, but if a pose is sexy, it... makes you think about sex, I guess. Similarly, there are different people who are probably equivalent in terms of physical attractiveness, but some make me think about sex, others don't. Subjective, sure, but real.


----------



## Taylor

Sexiness is in the eyes of the beholder.  I remember thinking Woody Allen was sexy during the Annie Hall era.


----------



## TheManx

Taylor said:


> Sexiness is in the eyes of the beholder.  I  remember thinking Woody Allen was sexy during the Annie Hall  era.



La di da, La di da.


----------



## Lee Messer

[video=youtube_share;BOHtRoJLiFE]https://youtu.be/BOHtRoJLiFE[/video]



I think this is sexy. There are many kinds though. I like them like my food. Variety is the spice of life. Diverse and exotic is how i see races and cultures. I hate being called racist.


----------



## TheManx

I think this is sexy:

[video=youtube;b3WPSH13b2s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3WPSH13b2s[/video]


----------



## velo

Moving this thread to the tavern as it's strayed so far off topic.


----------



## ironpony

TheManx said:


> My wife and I are watching a series now — one of the main characters is very good looking. She uses that to manipulate men — they definitely think she’s sexy – and I’d probably describe her that way too, even though she’s a horrible person. So I think a character can be sexy without having any admirable qualities...



Well what if they had the femme fatale character so she was played by an actress of completely average looks and was overweight, to avoid any kind of objectification.

This would mean that the character would have to completely use 100% of her personality and brain to do the seduction and manipulation.  Would this be bad, or would it be more interesting for the audience, if it's more challenging for her therefore?


----------



## TheManx

ironpony said:


> Well what if they had the femme fatale character so she was played by an actress of completely average looks and was overweight, to avoid any kind of objectification.
> 
> This would mean that the character would have to completely use 100% of her personality and brain to do the seduction and manipulation.  Would this be bad, or would it be more interesting for the audience, if it's more challenging for her therefore?



I wasn’t saying or implying there was a problem with the character.

Here’s an idea — write your story. Do it as honestly as you can, and then maybe when a few other people read it and give you honest feedback you can make adjustments. Sounds to me like you’re making excuses not to write.


----------



## TheManx

And funny the thread was moved. A few of “off topic” comments that really weren’t — considering the overall context of how people think about these things and how it influences our writing. 

But live and learn...


----------



## ironpony

Oh no I wasn't saying that you said there was a problem with the character.  It's just it seems other people have seem to have a problem with female characters been goodlooking, so I was just wondering if that would have helped that, for a seductress character.

It doesn't have anything to do with my story, I was just speaking hypothetically.  For my story, I could write a female James Bond type spy character, who likes being promiscuous with men, it's just I was told before, if that I write a female character like that, she will come off as a male fantasy character, and come off as anti-feminist, or regressive therefore, if that's true.


----------



## TheManx

Write what you want and need to write, based on the assumption that there will be people out there who want to read your stories. 

You can't second guess or try to anticipate _every_ little problem people might have with it.

I'm happy to read something of yours — but I'm betting all this navel gazing and asking questions with zero context isn’t going to help you all that much...


----------



## luckyscars

Bayview said:


> I agree, there's definitely more to sexiness than being good looking and pleasant. It's why we talk about a sexy pose, or sexualizing a person. The person is just as good looking and pleasant (or unpleasant) regardless of the way they're posed/presented, but if a pose is sexy, it... makes you think about sex, I guess. Similarly, there are different people who are probably equivalent in terms of physical attractiveness, but some make me think about sex, others don't. Subjective, sure, but real.





Taylor said:


> Sexiness is in the eyes of the beholder.  I remember thinking Woody Allen was sexy during the Annie Hall era.



I'm thinking about this a lot now! It gets lonely in the basement office, I guess.

'Sexy' isn't really something I have ever much considered in writing. Maybe that would be something to try and learn about on here. A lot of people, especially women (thanks society), seem quite reticent about trying to explain what 'sexy' is to them so to the point you can derive anything through casual conversation IRL it seems like it would be somewhat skewed toward the louder minority rather than perhaps being in any way representative of a gender.

So, I'm going to shoot from the hip a bit regarding what I (a man) perceive women finding sexy, and please forgive any transgressions and eye rolls...

- Physically speaking, I have never met a woman who thinks shortness in men is attractive. I'm not sure if there is a niche for that somewhere, but it seems like one of the few things that is _fairly _universal. That's not to say short men can't be attractive to women, but that the appeal of short men would seem to usually be in spite of shortness, not because of it. It's also something that seems to come up a lot that women seem to notice and possibly would need to be accounted for if writing from a female POV. Men, on the other hand, seem fairly indifferent to height (although to the point they care, they seem to prefer shorter women...), so unless the woman in question is _noticeably_ taller or shorter than usual, probably it would not be mentioned from a male POV, and certainly not a major factor in a male concept of a woman's 'sexiness'.

- Also physically, most women (though this is far less clear) seem to take into account smaller details of men more than vice versa. Women seem much more interested in things like eye color. Women seem more interested in things like hands, jawline, nose size, shape of face. Smell, maybe? I feel like women tend to be more sensitive to things like what type of cologne men wear or body odor, I don't believe I have ever heard of a man becoming aroused over perfume choice -- as long as the smell isn't unpleasant or unclean (more on that below), men don't seem to care. Olfactory considerations seems like it factors into women's preferences more. So, again, this may affect how a POV reads.

- While I think men and women's concept of sexiness is driven by grooming, I think men are generally less tolerant of questionable hygiene and body upkeep in women than vice versa. Obviously, it's not something either likes, but it does appear that women can overlook things like a guy who hasn't shaved his face recently than a man can overlook a woman who hasn't shaved her legs. Women's sex appeal seems much more predicated on an idea of hygiene, perhaps because 'cleanliness = innocence' or something. Conversely, lack of cleanliness (to a point!) can actually seem to add to certain men's appeal, perhaps because 'dirtiness = roughness' or something. This seems evident by the observation that while not all women seem necessarily attracted to male body hair, very few would find a man considerably more attractive if he removed it. A lot of men seem to consider too much (or, in some cases, too little) body hair a total deal-breaker sexy-wise.

- Weight -- body shape generally. This seems very variable among men and women and it's a sensitive issue to speculate on anyway, but it does seem that women generally seem less concerned with male weight, that it's not a huge issue either way, so long as it's within a somewhat normal range of proportionality. I have not met many women who go for really obese guys nor borderline anorexic ones. Women seem generally indifferent to fluctuations within 'normal parameters'. On the other hand, men seem more particular on this: If a man tends to prefer skinnier women, he isn't likely to suddenly find a non-skinny woman sexually appealing. Again, just another thing that may change depending on whether the POV is supposed to sound 'female' or 'male'.

- Personality wise, obviously that's all over the place so just a few observations/extreme generalizations: I think women tend to like emotional complexity more in men than vice versa. It's a really narrow line, though, because I also think women tend to get really turned off by instability and childish drama and the bounds between the two can be pretty blurry. I also think women tend to place more emphasis on men whose personalities are assertive and strong (as distinct from aggressive) and I think that is more of a matchmaker/dealbreaker than for men with women. I think most men like assertive and strong-willed women too, but it's not nearly as big a part of sex appeal. I think women and men both prioritize perceptions of intelligence in each other about equally but have very different interpretations of what it means. There seems to be more women who find 'nerdy' men attractive than men who find 'nerdy' women attractive, which is probably largely down to cultural sexism than anything real. I also think, to some extent, some of the attraction toward 'nerdy' men and women is a reaction to a perceived absence of certain things people want among the more conventionally attractive: To women, nerdy men (like Woody Allen) are less threatening and perhaps more intellectually interesting and thoughtful and sensitive that non-nerdy men; while nerdy women are perceived as more threatening, less sensitive, less fragile, more 'masculine' in some sense, than non-nerdy women.

Anyway, just some thoughts. Again, underscoring it is massively subjective but maybe there are a few things that are different.


----------



## Taylor

luckyscars said:


> - Physically speaking, I have never met a woman who thinks shortness in men is attractive. I'm not sure if there is a niche for that somewhere, but it seems like one of the few things that is _fairly _universal. That's not to say short men can't be attractive to women, but that the appeal of short men would seem to usually be in spite of shortness, not because of it.



Wrong!!  Short men are sexy.  Sorry. 



luckyscars said:


> There seems to be more women who find 'nerdy' men attractive than men who find 'nerdy' women attractive, which is probably largely down to cultural sexism than anything real. I also think, to some extent, some of the attraction toward 'nerdy' men and women is a reaction to a perceived absence of certain things people want among the more conventionally attractive: To women, nerdy men (like Woody Allen) are less threatening and perhaps more intellectually interesting and thoughtful and sensitive that non-nerdy men; while nerdy women are perceived as more threatening, less sensitive, less fragile, more 'masculine' in some sense, than non-nerdy women.



Wrong again.  It has nothing to do with nerdiness.  It has more to do with how he interacts with the woman he is attracted to.  A kind of vulnerability.  Hard to explain.

I don't think you can classify sexiness.  It just is...


----------



## luckyscars

Taylor said:


> Wrong!!  Short men are sexy.  Sorry.
> 
> Wrong again.  It has nothing to do with nerdiness.  It has more to do with how he interacts with the woman he is attracted to.  A kind of vulnerability.  Hard to explain.
> 
> I don't think you can classify sexiness. It just is...



I agree you can't classify it. I do think you can try to understand certain prevalent themes, though.

I think whenever subjects like this come up for discussion, it's always better to start from an agreed-upon standard that there are no absolutes. I feel like starting from that place avoids a lot of confusion regarding anecdotal and personal idiosyncrasies because _we know _there are exceptions aplenty and if people don't feel comfortable speaking in sheer generalities and comparing and contrasting, or just don't think there's anything useful there, they can have their sanity spared. On the other hand, if people want to (try!) to speculate, they can, without anybody necessarily being told they are wrong.

So, with that in mind, do you think it's possible that there are reasons for women liking short men that aren't really to do with actual shortness itself?

You say 'short men are sexy' (so maybe there is a niche...or more than a niche - I don't know!) and then you say you like Woody Allen because of vulnerability. Allowing that these are different things -- shortness and vulnerability -- would it be fair to suggest that maybe on a psychological level they are linked in terms of why they are attractive?

Most short men are less threatening than tall men.
Most (all?) vulnerable men are less threatening than non-vulnerable men.

Do you think (and I want to emphasize strongly that this is only a question I am asking out of interest and I'm definitely not assuming or insinuating anything!) that perhaps liking short/vulnerable men for women might be partly about avoiding the trappings of more conventional masculinity? In other words, is it less about actually liking shortness/vulnerability itself and more about being turned off by the more negative trappings associated with taller, more macho types of men? 

ETA: Or, as a hypothetical, say you had lived on Mars alone your entire life never met a human being before and were suddenly presented with two men, one who was short and Woody Allen-ish and one who was taller and conventionally handsome like -- I don't know -- George Clooney or Jamie Dornan or something...do you imagine you would still think Woody Allen was more attractive, all else being equal?

^ I don't really have a preconceived idea about how this might work for women, but I think as a man a lot of whether a woman is attractive or not is kind of nurture more than nature. I tend to find women sexier when aspects of their personality reflect positive prior experiences with other people, especially other women. I know that sounds kind of fucking weird, but by 'prior experiences' it can come down to really vague, abstract things that aren't necessarily sexual themselves but kind of more comfortable. For example, I find my wife's laugh sexy partly because it reminds me a little bit of how one of my female best friends laughed when I was a kid. I wasn't actually _attracted _to that friend or anything, but there's a kind of vague connection that makes it feel more attractive through association with 'good times'. Conversely, I tend to not find women attractive if I can tie something about them to something negative or unpleasant. I don't find Gwyneth Paltrow sexy purely because I have a burning loathing for psuedoscientific alternative medicine and generally dislike people who obsess over it.


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## Taylor

I think the moderators are going to boot us off this thread for deviating so far from 'writing women'...lol! 

 However...



luckyscars said:


> On the other hand, if people want to (try) to speculate, they can, without anybody necessarily being told 'you are wrong'.



Fair enough.



luckyscars said:


> With that in mind, do you think it's possible that there are reasons for women liking short men that aren't really to do with shortness itself?
> 
> You say 'short men are sexy' (so maybe there is a niche, or more than a niche - I don't know!) and then you say you like Woody Allen because of vulnerability. Allowing that these are quite different things -- shortness and vulnerability -- would it be fair to suggest that maybe they are linked in terms of why they are attractive?
> 
> Most short men are non-threatening -- because they're short.



I don't really see the connection.



luckyscars said:


> Most (all?) vulnerable men are non-threatening.



True



luckyscars said:


> Do you think (and I want to emphasize that this is only a question, I'm not assuming or insinuating anything!) that perhaps liking short men is in some sense linked to liking vulnerable men? And that, maybe, it supports the idea that women who like unconventionally attractive men (like short men, say) like them partly because they are non-threatening?



People  in real life are attracted to people for various reasons, intellect, sense of humour, vulnerability, etc. and there are no physical limitations on that attraction.  I think that was the genius of Woody Allen. He didn't limit himself as an actor, just because he didn't fit the Hollywood stereotype of the romantic lead.  

And I thank you for this discussion, because, it's got me thinking, and I'm going to rewrite one of my characters to embody this concept of 'unconventional' attractiveness.  It will make him so much more interesting...


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## TheManx

Y’all forgot about money.


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## Taylor

TheManx said:


> Y’all forgot about money.



Good point!

Being rich is an interesting charateristic.  If you write your character (love interest) to have money, then it speaks volumes about them.  Most people don't wake up one day and have money, unless they have a trust account.  But either way a short narrative about the character's finances will set the stage for what type of person they may be.  

It's a common theme, when a female character chooses the poor, good looking guy over the rich, perhaps not so good looking guy.  Some people may find a character shallow if they choose the guy with money over the poor guy with looks.  But it could be seen as more shallow for characters to choose looks over money if that is the choice.  People have to do something to make money.  That is something they have control over, to a degree, and it takes effort.   People don't have control over how they look, well not for the most part, so characters that can look past that have a bit more depth.  

However, generally speaking, society accepts that women characters should fall in love with a 'good looking guy', regardless of his financial standing.


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## TheManx

Taylor said:


> Good point!
> 
> Being rich is an interesting charateristic.  If you write your character (love interest) to have money, then it speaks volumes about them.  Most people don't wake up one day and have money, unless they have a trust account.  But either way a short narrative about the character's finances will set the stage for what type of person they may be.
> 
> It's a common theme, when a female character chooses the poor, good looking guy over the rich, perhaps not so good looking guy.  Some people may find a character shallow if they choose the guy with money over the poor guy with looks.  But it could be seen as more shallow for characters to choose looks over money if that is the choice.  People have to do something to make money.  That is something they have control over, to a degree, and it takes effort.   People don't have control over how they look, well not for the most part, so characters that can look past that have a bit more depth.
> 
> However, generally speaking, society accepts that women characters should fall in love with a 'good looking guy', regardless of his financial standing.



 Well, I think in the real world, beyond some initial attraction, a young woman (more so than the other way around) is going to look at a man and evaluate him as a potential  provider. There’s nothing mercenary or wrong about that, if you think about it.

On the other hand, based on what I’ve seen, it seems like some women will choose a partner to instantly achieve  a certain lifestyle. Where my kids go to school and play sports etc., there are lots of guys who are on their second marriages – they are older, and they aren’t very attractive, but they have lots of money. The new, younger wives are judged on some level, but not to any extent where they’re shunned – it seems like some people at least are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I know I do – because who the f%$* am I to judge? And maybe there is a real attraction and love. And of course, the men get a boost too -- having a younger attractive woman on their arm -- so it works both ways.

   There are just so many variables - a good writer can take all these things into consideration and they can use their imagination to create believable characters and interesting scenarios etc. To me, it’s ALL about context. We could go on and on about this, it’s fun and interesting to a degree - but until you put it into a story, it doesn’t mean all that much.


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## luckyscars

Taylor said:


> However, generally speaking, society accepts that women characters should fall in love with a 'good looking guy', regardless of his financial standing.



I think it depends on the society. In a lot of the world, physical attraction is deemed highly unimportant compared to social standing, family politics and perceived 'honor', ability to pay dowries, etc. That was essentially the case in the Western world up until the mid-20th Century, too. It's probably a given in any society where women don't have equivalent  social and financial independence.

Of course, there's a big difference between what people might find attractive and who they choose to actually be with. I do agree money is important and that the importance of money seems particularly important in men, to the point it may actually influence perceived attractiveness. If we look at fairly unattractive men like Donald Trump or Bill Gates, they both have attractive partners and I don't think any sane person would suggest that they would have such attractive partners if the same men were garbage collectors or call center clerks....

...But I think it's complicated. Like, I don't think it's so much a case of _rich_ men being attractive to women as _successful _and _highly-motivated_ men? For example, I don't think many women would suddenly find a guy attractive just because he won the lottery. Sure, he might do better with women than if he was sleeping in a cardboard box, but if he's otherwise just a volatile bum the fact that he may -- for now -- have a million dollars in his account I don't think necessarily makes a significant difference to most women (other than straight up gold-diggers, maybe) 

I also think women tend to base attraction off things like careers and professional identity more than men do. It seems like often when the subject of a new boyfriend comes up, one of the first things women want to know is 'What does he do?' I don't see that coming up so much for men. There are guys I've known for years and have never thought to ask what their girlfriends or wives do for a living. It's not like their wives and girlfriends don't come up in conversation, just that their actual jobs often don't, and it feels like an odd question to ask unprompted. Not sure if that's some ingrained social sexism or what.


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## luckyscars

Taylor said:


> I don't really see the connection.



I think what I'm trying to get at is that people (men and women) make assumptions based on how people look and behave and that such assumptions often meld into certain types.

If you see a Schwarzenegger body-builder type (yeah, extreme example) you're probably going to assume he's fairly shallow, perhaps not all that smart, certainly not the kind of guy who has to carry a conversation based on wit and intellect, right? I would. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily say he can't be those things, but it would surprise me if he was. I would assume, all else being equal, he's probably going to be what is commonly known as a 'meathead'. Likewise, if I see a tanned guy whose swaggering around in a t-shirt that says 'I LOVE BOOBIES' or something, I'm probably going to think he's a douchebag -- and assume such until proven otherwise. All kinds of things might feed into these biases, some immutable, some not.

So, I think that probably extends to things like height and demeanor, too. I think often particular attraction to _shortness_ (in both men and women) likely stems from the idea of liking some form of _vulnerability_ (because small things are usually -- though not always -- more vulnerable than big things) while any attraction to _tallness_ likely stems from the idea of liking some form of social _dominance_ (I'm using that word carefully, it's not the same as aggression or threat) and that maybe the reason why tallness is supposedly more popular among a lot of women is because dominant men are more attractive than submissive men. Likewise, a lot of men probably slightly prefer women who are shorter than them, because a lot of men like to feel, in some sense, like the dominant party and prefer women who are at least a little bit submissive...although I still don't think men take that sort of thing into account as much as women do.


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## Taylor

luckyscars said:


> Of course, there's a big difference between what people might find attractive and who they choose to actually be with. I do agree money is important and that the importance of money seems particularly important in men, to the point it may actually influence perceived attractiveness. If we look at fairly unattractive men like Donald Trump or Bill Gates, they both have attractive partners and I don't think any sane person would suggest that they would have such attractive partners if the same men were garbage collectors or call center clerks....



Agree.  But is it power or money? In reality, there are lots of relationships where the older powerful man marries the beautiful younger women.  However, it would be difficult to write your protagonist to be pursuing such a relationship. What would be going through her head when she is accepting the first date, or when she decides to pursue the relationship and eventually marriage.  Would the protagonist be likeable enough?  

And it would be difficult to write the man in this relationship as likeable as well.  Oh sure there are a few very rich neurosurgeons around, but most very rich men are some kind corporate mogul, who are somewhat unethical -- don't pay much taxes or take shortcuts to get ahead. I'm not going to name anybody, but you know the type.

I think women don't want to read about men who want a newer model, because it scares them.  And I think men don't want to read about women who want a man who is more rich and powerful, because it scares them.  If this woman/man was your protagonist, your readership may shun you.  

However, there might be a new market of rich housewives who would like to read about this sort of relationship because they can relate to it.  If I were to write this theme, I would need a pen name, or my friends would shun me...lol!



luckyscars said:


> ...But I think it's complicated. Like, I don't think it's so much a case of _rich_ men being attractive to women as _successful _and _highly-motivated_ men? For example, I don't think many women would suddenly find a guy attractive just because he won the lottery. Sure, he might do better with women than if he was sleeping in a cardboard box, but if he's otherwise just a volatile bum the fact that he may -- for now -- have a million dollars in his account I don't think necessarily makes a significant difference to most women (other than straight up gold-diggers, maybe)



Agree.  So it gives strength to the argument that power and the traits of a powerful man are more important than just the money alone.



luckyscars said:


> I also think women tend to base attraction off things like careers and professional identity more than men do. It seems like often when the subject of a new boyfriend comes up, one of the first things women want to know is 'What does he do?' I don't see that coming up so much for men. There are guys I've known for years and have never thought to ask what their girlfriends or wives do for a living. It's not like their wives and girlfriends don't come up in conversation, just that their actual jobs often don't, and it feels like an odd question to ask unprompted. Not sure if that's some ingrained social sexism or what.



Also agree, but this has always bugged me.  Often at a dinner party or social function, people will ask my husband what he does for a living. And then not ask me, even though I am standing right beside him.  Can you explain why you think it is an 'odd question' to ask a woman unprompted?  Because, (and I'm not on the attack here), for me it always feels a little demeaning.   Like somehow, what I do isn't important or interesting to you.


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## luckyscars

Taylor said:


> Agree.  But is it power or money? In reality, there are lots of relationships where the older powerful man marries the beautiful younger women.  However, it would be difficult to write your protagonist to be pursuing such a relationship. What would be going through her head when she is accepting the first date, or when she decides to pursue the relationship and eventually marriage.  Would the protagonist be likeable enough?



I think on a purely sexual level, it's probably power. On a practical, "this guy is a good pick" level, it's probably money. I'm not a woman, so IDK. Obviously they are one and the same in a lot of ways. I can't think of any super rich people who aren't also powerful in some sense. Although, it's possible for somebody with little money to also seem powerful, right? Like, a guy with no money can still be powerful in terms of muscles or self-sufficiency of lifestyle or something, which might be enough to make him attractive depending on the woman and the situation?

I tend to find materialistic protagonists to be pretty off putting. I think that's quite common? There are exceptions, though. Scarlett O'Hara or something. The problem with having characters who are motivated by power/money is that those things aren't very popular, especially among people who don't have much money/power. Which is most readers?



> I think women don't want to read about men who want a newer model, because it scares them.  And I think men don't want to read about women who want a man who is more rich and powerful, because it scares them.  If this woman/man was your protagonist, your readership may shun you.



Yep! I think as writers we often forget that the reader is kind of a character in the story, too. In the sense the reader has their own POV, their own motivations, their own backstory.




> Also agree, but this has always bugged me.  Often at a dinner party or social function, people will ask my husband what he does for a living. And then not ask me, even though I am standing right beside him.  Can you explain why you think it is an 'odd question' to ask a woman unprompted?  Because, (and I'm not on the attack here), for me it always feels a little demeaning.   Like somehow, what I do isn't important or interesting to you.



I can't explain anything really, but I think it comes down to our social dynamics.

Part of it might be that even in 2020 a lot of married women still don't work in the formal sense (unfortunately 'homemaker' or 'stay at home mom' never really got taken seriously as an occupation, which is wrong) so I think part of it might be that it feels like you're putting somebody on the spot. I don't ask people who I suspect to be unemployed what they do for a living either.

Part of it is that even among women do work, the broad assumption is that the kind of work they do isn't always something they'd be proud of advertising in a social setting, isn't something impressive. Women do most of the poorly paid jobs (see: gender pay gap) and even income aside, it's more that women seem more likely to hold jobs as _jobs _rather than as _careers. _Men are perceived to work in fields they are passionate about in some way, that they want to be identified as vocationally, while women more likely to work in jobs that simply pay the bills or occupy time. So, again, you don't want to put somebody on the spot asking what they do if you suspect they change motel bed sheets or look after toddlers. Can be awkward.

Part of it is that women still just aren't associated with the workplace as much. There's a lot of generational differences but I am sure most people, especially most older people, associate 'business' with something masculine dominated. That may even be true, depending on what we're classifying as a business. Most people on the stock exchange floor are still men, etc. 

Of course, this totally ignores the fact that it's mostly all bullshit! Most men don't have bragworthy careers anymore than women do. There's really no factual grounds for these assumptions and perceptions anymore...but we live in a sexist society. As much as we may want to think we don't see men and women as different with this stuff, I'm not sure parts of our brain have quite caught up. And, for the record, I think women can be just as guilty of this sort of sexism.


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## Olly Buckle

Just recorded a short story for my YouTube channel called 'Golden Hour' and realised half way through that the whole thing is told from a woman's point of view, bit strange me reading it, but I think I made a reasonable job of the POV.


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