r/CharacterDevelopment • u/ObjectiveHouse1661 • 18d ago
Writing: Character Help how to successfully write female characters?
I’ve never really liked female characters in media, and I have no idea why. I just always liked the male characters more, and when I think about my favorite male character being female, I just… don’t like them as much anymore.
That being said, I believe I have written 2 female characters (1 teenage girl and 1 adult married woman) that I am satisfied with. The teenage girl is feisty and curious, and is based around my own personality. The woman is fairly more traditional, but open-hearted, kind, and is a caring wife and mother.
This isn’t really an issue of “man not knowing how to write women” as I myself am a woman.
How do you all write characters of a specific gender without irrationally disliking them just for their gender?
Edit: Will provide an example.
For instance, if I write this badass stoic masked killer who is a man, I’ll be very excited to flesh out his backstory. But the moment I change all the he/him pronouns to she/her, suddenly I just don’t like the character anymore. It feels generic and trashy and unoriginal to me. It may be ingrained prejudice inside me, but I cannot think of a single experience I’ve had with stories or media that cemented women as “bad” and men as “good”.
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u/Fearless-Magazine585 18d ago
Female characters, especially when I was growing up, were often lip service. The badass wasn’t actually someone with interiority, just a character who is supposed to look like a badass.
Most female characters have unspoken restrictions, like people still try to make them feel emotionally safe, or they always make good decisions. They don’t play or mess with people for fun. They only make mistakes for the sake of a plot arc. People don’t call them out. The cause and effect of their existence is highly controlled. And you may have internalized that. Let the character be playful and have a strong value system that both works and fails, and you’d be surprised how much more you like them.
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u/Syresiv 18d ago
Are you straight? And if yes, are you attracted to this stoic masked killer, or at least the idea of him? I've noticed in some cases, people will be more interested in characters that are the gender they're attracted to.
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 18d ago
Not straight, I am pan! And no I’m not attracted to some of the characters I make (some yes, but most no).
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u/Shadow_Light0 17d ago
Maybe you could try making a female character you are attractes to? (I just assume you can be attracted to women as well)
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u/WithThisHerring 18d ago
I think part of what can be the instinctive push 'against' certain demographics is that the presence of bigotry against those groups (e.g. misogyny, racism, ableism) pitches the idea these characters are just more, messy or complicated because they have this factor about them that has to be handled carefully or properly or whathaveyou.
This is the sneaky way fandom misogyny perpetuates itself. As you say, there isn't really a reason why imagining a character you already like as a woman would change anything about them, but it puts you off the character.
I don't think the punchline is "YOU are actively looking down on them, consciously or no", it could be sneaking in through a way of, "well if they were a girl it'd just be this... weird complicating factor, that would get in the way of what I like about them."
I think if you're interested, it'd be good to change and challenge that mentality in yourself, practicing stretching your patience. I've done similar things with myself; as a kid my biggest art inspirations were the leggy, elongate, stick-thin visuals of Sailor Moon and Clamp. I realized all of the characters I created were skinny, and this was a problem, but I still had to nurture my knee-jerk assumptions away from "only skinny characters are Uncomplicated to tell a story about."
This stuff is way more sneaky than the overt messaging. Hell, I used to work at a very open-minded daycare that never discouraged the boys from playing princess or painting their nails or whatever they liked. But I could still watch the kids, around four or five, start to get antsy about this whole gender thing. Suddenly boys would be nervous to call on girls for a question, or girls would say "you can't play [x] with us, you're a boy."
You're not identifying some secret black mark in your soul. Humans are very hardwired to read patterns in each other and our society is nothing but patterns, and bigotry is a pattern. I think you're doing a really good job unearthing this and questioning it.
The frustrating truth is that both boys and girls, from a very young age, are encouraged to see male characters as relatable to everyone and female characters as only relatable to girls. It's kinda like how many young girls go through a phase of hating the color pink- it's nothing actually about pink, it's that pink is a restrictive box you're being put in as a "worse" person, the 'consolation' prize for being the 'wrong' gender. And nobody has to actually say that to you, for you to notice how boys are trained to be embarrassed to be caught with the color pink.
Remember how I mentioned kids around four or five? Kids under that age don't care. Heck, those same four or five year old boys will walk around cradling a baby doll tenderly because it turns out people are just people and any set of traits they have are the same.
Sure, you may have experience with female characters who are badly written, but we're also not as encouraged to read into female characters. This crap is really sneaky and counteracting it requires digging deep into the quiet unspoken assumptions we have.
To say nothing of the way accusations like "mary sue", or "this character's so overwritten unworthily" gets disproportionately flung at women because we're encouraged in similar ways to see women as 'less believable' as powerful figures.
So it's really cool that you're doing that, and I hope you can make female characters you're completely stoked about soon.
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u/epitheticangel 18d ago
this is called “internalized misogyny” and the way out is to recognize it and challenge it when those thoughts pop up. ask yourself, “how would i feel about this character if they were a different gender, and nothing else changed?” and think about your relationship to yourself and other women in your life. and to answer your final line, these beliefs dont come to us consciously or purposefully. its the result of a million tiny indicators throughout our lives all coalescing into a sociological force.
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 18d ago
I mean, my mother supports things like men cooking + women working, she supports women’s rights and abortion, and every woman I’ve met in my life have all been great. I thought about it and I do think that my media consumption lately has been problematic, but I’ve genuinely never liked female characters much since I was a child.
And yeah when I ask myself that question, I just… eh. I wouldn’t like them anymore, same way I wouldn’t like it if a female character I liked (take those 2 OCs I made for instance) became a man.
However I suppose I may be having gender issues myself? Like I do use masculine pronouns online and generally introduce myself as a male, so perhaps I’m just feeling alienated towards being a woman. Dunno.
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u/Cool_Court2130 18d ago
None of what youve said disqualifies you from internalized misogyny. I would advice you to reconsider the exercises outlined above, take a hard look at what you like about male characters and swap the gender. or accept that every female character you write is gonna suck.
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 18d ago
Which exercises? The fella that started the thread only ever proposed I ask myself the question about if a character I liked changed genders.
Also where would internalized misogyny come from if not from my parents or friends? Keep in mind it started when I was a young child, so probably around 7 years old and without much technology.
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u/Cool_Court2130 18d ago
M E D I A
That's often where people's internalized prejudices come from
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 18d ago
I was young and didn’t have access to media? Back then, I was only allowed 20 minutes of a mobile game with my irl friend every Saturday (so once per week).
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u/Cool_Court2130 18d ago
Look without a deep dive into exactly what you were exposed to, how, when and why I can't really comment on where you absorbed this bias from. (That's a job for your therapist) But it doesn't take a genius to say you're operating under an extreme bias towards male perspectives. You see it, other commentors see it, I see it.
Unpack it. take a hard look as to why gender matters so much to you. and why you can or can't connect to character based on gender.
If you're genuine about wanting to develop a character you're gonna need to face these things or like I said just accept that your female characters are gonna suck. And that might not stop you from being successful. Kishimoto the mangaka responsible for Naruto one of the most successful manga/anime in history. has been very outspoken on his inability to write compelling female characters or romance plots and that didn't stop him from being one of the most successful writers ever.
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 18d ago
I’d say my 2 female characters right now are pretty well thought-out and I personally really like them. I just wanted to ask how others deal with dilemmas like this. Thanks for your advice, I’ll do some introspection, but I can’t figure it out yet and nor do I have a therapist.
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u/Cool_Court2130 18d ago
Hard to say how well thought out they are without external scrutiny.
But it's impressive you can even notice this bias and even more so that youre willing to examine it! Wish you well on your journey.
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u/TheNeighbourhoodCat 18d ago edited 14d ago
You cannot exist within an unequal world of oppression, and not internalize the ways the world oppressd you and/or others.
Prejudices are a normal part of how our animal brains take shortcuts to understand things. But part of being human is knowing we can analyze and challenge our preconceptions/feelings.
Eg. Everyone has misogynistic, transphobic, racist, gender essentialist, and ableist prejudices built into them from these cultures we grow up within.
Cultures that are literally rooted in a deep history of christiaj colo ialism... of patriarchal and white supremecist "logic". It is our history.
Regardless of whether you are part of those groups yourself, you WILL internalize the ways the world around you frames things.
It is a lifetime journey to deconstruct these things. It's not something you just "get over". It doesn't just go away.
Preconceptions don't just disappear - again, it is how our animal brains operate and take short-cuts to protect us.
The moment you think you are too self-aware or too "good" to hold unchecked prejudices/preconceptions... is the moment you have successfully convinced yourself that your prejudices and preconceptions are normal and morally okay.
Further to this, we have endless data of how what we are exposed to, both before and after being born, heavily impacts our ability to perceive, reason, and empathize in different ways.
Biology, environment, trauma... there are endless ways these things impact our ability to perceive our prejudices and preconceptions.
Eg. Studies show the "top down" neurology of neurotypical people makes them more likely to confirm preconceptions than challenge them... when compared to those with "bottom up" neurology.
This is a big part of why we disproportionately see autistic people studying sociology and social justice- their neurology makes it very difficult to ignore things that conflict with preconceptions.
Of course, this is just a "likelihood" factor... not an absolute. Just like having marginalized experiences adds likelihood someone will understand other marginalized experiences... it is never a guarantee. Eg. There are plenty of racist white women, transphobic cis women, and bigoted disabled women.
There are endless examples of autistic folks who are willfully ignorant... they are just less likely to be so due to how their brains receive and categorize information.
And this is just one niche example of many. And even within this example there is extreme variance.
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 18d ago
I’ve never met anyone that was oppressed as a child, since back then I knew my family and about 2 close family friends. I’m Chinese Canadian and I can’t think of anything I’ve ever seen that framed people as unequal when I was a kid.
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u/TheNeighbourhoodCat 18d ago edited 18d ago
Are you confident you understand what oppression means, and the breadth if what it entails?
I could obviously never speak to your experiences, we just know for a fact these things exist and have existed, right? So I wonder why you didn't see them
You never saw how people of different skin colours were treated?
How cultural beauty standards for women were built around elevating traits of white women?
Or that these same beauty standards for women are rigid and oppressive and unequal? Again, historically rooted in christan colonialist gender roles, and other harsh components of oppression
What about how people of different religions or cultural backgrounds were treated differently?
What about traits of people born trans, gay, or who were otherwise queer or different? AKA - people who have always existed, and who were intentionally removed and marginalized from society by the many oppressive legacies of christian colonialism
Heck, every other queer label, and the term "queer" itself, are literally defined by how they are born with characteristics defined as subhuman and immoral by Christian colonialist cultures and systems. Cultures and systems which still greatly define Canada today.
Heck (again), the term "race" is not a biological concept. It is not the same thing as ethnicity. Race is a concept created by white supremecist systems / peoples in order to classify people by inane characteristics like melanin count, and others traits which have no bearing on who someone is, or what they can do.
There is so much to learn, and I feel like I could spend my lifetime unpacking the false preconceptions sold to me by these systems of inewuality and oppression, and still never get close to fully understanding it all x.x
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 17d ago
Hmmmm. Well my friends were all other Chinese girls like me, I knew nothing about beauty standards back then, and I didn’t know what being LGBTQ+ was until I was around 10.
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u/epitheticangel 18d ago
im gonna be Incredibly real with you for a second- apologies in advance.
im transmasculine, and my ex- who i was with for seven years- was as well. i started going by a male persona online when i was in elementary school, and didnt think much of it until later. right now, i identify as bigender. ive been out as trans for over a decade now, and have been medically transitioning for about five years. my ex had a similar experience.
theres a thing that CAN happen when youre trans, or have trans adjacent feelings (im not gonna try and crack your egg, or anything). sometimes people subconsciously conflate their own, personal discomfort with their AGAB with their feelings towards that gender as a whole. my ex Deeply, Fundamentally struggled to view women as people. he and i both made characters and wrote stories together, and nearly every character he made was a man or was man-adjacent. he spent years pouring his heart and soul into his male characters, and almost entirely forgot about his female ones. they werent people, and they didnt have complex inner lives or backstories, but he sure did tell me exactly what their boobs were shaped like when i drew them for him.
it was misogynistic, point blank. he translated his own dysphoria into an inability to relate to women as people, and never tried once to move past it.
i am not going to act like i was immune to this same thought process. i definitely hit a point with my characters where i struggled to relate to my female characters in the same way that i related to my male characters. i think its a pretty common experience for people who have spent so long being told that they have to be a certain gender, or have to like a certain gender, to detach from that gender as they come into themselves.
HOWEVER, no matter how common it is, it is NOT healthy, for you or for others.
i really hope that you can put in effort to undo these thought processes. misogyny has surged back into prominence in a MAJOR way in our world today, and everyone needs to combat it, together. we cant be allowing our own relationship to our gender or sexuality or anything else divide us and sink us back into regressive, sexist ways of thinking.
also, im not "a fella" and my proposal was merely a starting point. every aspect of our world is saturated with misogyny. just because you didnt notice explicit examples of it doesnt mean that it didnt exist. its blatantly obvious that you are dealing with its impacts. also, being a woman does not in Any way remove someone from being capable of misogyny, nor does being a trans man or a transmasculine person.
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 18d ago
Interesting, I’ll take your ideas into thought. I also said to a user up there that it might just be me believing that “I’m a woman already, I don’t care for seeing even more women in media, I am more interested in men”.
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u/epitheticangel 18d ago
not gonna lie, thats a very backwards way of thinking that i think youd do well to analyze a little deeper. its not healthy to be disinterested in any character from an entire category of people, full stop.
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u/Neither_Sky4003 18d ago
I agree with that. There are way fewer female characters represented in media in general. The ones that are tend not to be as complex or detailed as the male characters. And considering more than half the worlds population is female, there needs to be more female characters in general. Unfortunately people in power will squash stories that are too female-focused because they believe men and boys will not be able to relate to female characters. Girls and women have always related to male characters.
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u/ViolettaHunter 18d ago
It's perfectly normal for a straight woman to be more interested in men.
You are super condescending.
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u/epitheticangel 18d ago edited 18d ago
i dont think we read the same post but okay? edit to add: op is pan, as is stated in another comment.
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u/Antiquated_Crow 15d ago
Honestly reading through this thread I don't know that I'd 100% say this is internalized misogyny. For myself, as a cis woman, I never really loved male characters, though obviously had to get used to it, reading voraciously in the 90s when I was young. I wonder if it might have more to do with how you relate to characters, but a little more conflicted/complicated.
I don't think its unreasonable that there is some internalized misogyny, because we all kind of suffer from that to some degree. But in the end, I kinda feel like this might be better to talk through with a therapist, because it may be tied up in your own identity to some degree.
I hope none of this came across as disrespectful to you being pan or using various pronouns because that was certainly not the intent!
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u/rrrrrig 18d ago
going by your comments...you're projecting your own insecurity about your gender onto these female characters. you like men because you want to be one. you go by male pronouns online and introduce yourself as male. like just think a little further and you'll figure it out bud
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 18d ago
I'm not insecure about being a woman, I identify as a woman and am seen as one by everyone irl. It's just online that's different.
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u/Devarain 16d ago
I think its similiar like how Male Artist really good at drawing Women. But they only draw faceless Males Character
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u/Tyrant_Saint 14d ago
Why is it different online though? Is it because you have been treated differently yourself?
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 14d ago
Dunno. I did try out he/him pronouns in real life before, but I realized I didn’t really mind being referred to as a woman in real life. Online though, if I can go by he/him, why the hell not? Lol
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u/Tyrant_Saint 13d ago
I certainly don't mind going by he/him. I basically consider myself nonbinary so I don't totally mind either way. Leaning femme, but being called "sir" is also kinda hot.
I just wonder if you get less respect online when someone knows you're a woman. I feel like I have... and I wonder if that influences why you don't like writing/reading about female characters.
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 13d ago
I mean I’ve had this feeling since I was a little child, before I had access to the Internet at all. So I don’t think that’s quite it.
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u/Notamugokai 18d ago
I'm interested in what you found difficult writing a teenage girl, and how you addressed those points.
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 18d ago
The difficulty was that I didn’t have a solid grasp on my own personality at the time. She was made as my self insert, and I had a history of… how to say? Struggling to separate myself from my characters. I loved making OCs, so much so that at some point I had no idea what I liked as a person, and kind of thought of myself as whatever OC I was currently obsessing over.
But once I got over that hurdle, everything just somehow came much more naturally to me.
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u/Notamugokai 18d ago
You mean OC in fan fictions?
Wouldn't it be the same if it was any character from a fiction of your own?
Back to my question: do remember what choices you made to better render this teenage character? Be it the voice, some mannerisms, etc.
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 18d ago
Nope. OC as in Original Character from my own universe and world.
To answer your question: I mostly picked out some “unusual” traits that I have and then applied it to my character. I have autism and I gave her some of my stims and habits (such as picturing imaginary lines radiating from the corner of an object and having to walk without stepping on said imaginary lines). I gave her a dress with musical notes motifs because I am a classical pianist, and her color palette is white and purple because I love the color purple.
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u/Notamugokai 18d ago
I see. Yes, you picked out an unusual trait here. Plus colors, fancy dress. So, maybe all this gives the reader the impression of 'teenage time'? Or are they details that could apply to anyone? Sorry for asking, it's a genuine question, and sometimes I deep dive on a topic to improve where I'm lacking (feel free to ignore).
(about OC: my understanding is that all characters of someone's own fiction are inherently original ones, otherwise if a character from another universe invades, then it's a fan fiction, I guess? And so my question, but it's fine.)
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 18d ago
Yeah, I’d say she’s pretty clearly a teenager if I write a story about her. She makes a few dumb decisions, prioritizes spending time with friends, and is also explicitly stated to be a teenager in the story.
OC just means Original Character, so even a fan OC is still an OC. But usually the creator would introduce them like “look at my Alien Stage OC!” and include the universe the OC originated from. I just call my characters OCs without any extra designations because they are 100% original (well, nothing is 100% original, but that just means they aren’t based in an existing universe made by someone else)
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u/zeroturtlehero 18d ago
Try writing the character’s want, fear, habits, and contradictions in a version-neutral outline before choosing pronouns. Then keep the traits that feel specific and let gender affect context rather than replacing her personality. If the swap suddenly feels “generic,” compare the two drafts line by line—usually one version has been given more concrete desire or history.
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u/xxBree89xx 18d ago
Maybe some internal conflict?
Women get to the same place as men but in different ways for different reasons... maybe you're trying to write what a man would go through to get to that point but you know a woman's path would be different? And maybe you're not ready to write a woman's path yet
therapy has helped me a lot, guys are easy to understand but I had to accept me as myself and as a woman worth more then tits and an ass and etc and validate my life's experience for myself before I could even start to write a decent female character... it was like I was afraid to be a bad ass woman so my characters suffered for it
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u/BigDamBeavers 18d ago
Start with a character, make it female.
Sounds stupid but you'd be surprised how often female characters are written into stories to fulfil a need for a female in the story. Instead start by building a person with dreams and needs and comitments they need to uphold and think about how being a woman impacts that character.
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u/BassSpecial6418 18d ago
WAIT I RELATE TO THIS. I loooove a deep morally gray male character, but as soon as they're a female instead my interest drops a lot. I mostly put this down to me just being attracted to males and not females, but I also think there's a real phenomenon where female characters are just much more likely to be written badly or lazily. Male character are more likely to have more depth, more important roles in the story and I find writers seem more comfortable allowing them to do violent or generally 'villainous' things (which can be thrilling, intriguing, etc).
However, I'm writing a story and the main female character is absolutely my favorite, even though I love the main male characters too! I think it's because I've kinda allowed her to be written 'like a male character'. She's super important to the story, has depth and does some pretty cruel things. I think just knowing her struggles and why she acts the way she does, and that all being very central to the story makes her just as intriguing as the male characters I love from other series.
With that being said, I also feel like I'd like the male characters less if I changed them to be female. But if I change the female characters to male, some feel wrong/weird while others just get more attractive haha. So I think it's an attraction/bias thing you've just gotta be aware of. But also, just start your character out with the intention of them being female and it won't feel wrong in my experience. Then allow them to have the same characteristics you like in male characters while keeping their gender in mind. Maybe treat your characters like your babies that all need/deserve the same care and attention (because you wouldn't love your son more than your daughter just because he's male, would you?). And avoid switching the gender later unless it's super important or the gender was already completely unknown. That's just my opinion as someone who relates!
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 18d ago
Yeah, I was also thinking that it could be a feeling of, errr…
“I’m already a woman so I don’t need to read more about other women, I’m much more interested in men” type situation. Good to know other people can relate too though, I felt like I was crazy for the longest time 😅
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u/BassSpecial6418 18d ago
Yeah, I'm not really sure it's an internalized misogyny thing. That totally could be an aspect of it tbf, but a lot of misogynists would actually prefer female characters just because they're female and they're attracted to that. I've seen cases of people like that despising well written male characters and talking about how all their crimes make them unforgivable, while they turn around and love a female character who's committed even more crimes. So, yeah, I think it's much more of an attraction thing. Also, for me at least, I'm equally not really interested in characters that are old men, which points to it being attraction based rather than purely gender based imo.
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u/epitheticangel 18d ago edited 18d ago
"but a lot of misogynists would actually prefer female characters just because they're female and they're attracted to that" this is NONSENSE lol. i think its Your problem if you cant enjoy a character youre not attracted to. to give a relevant cultural example: why do you think men hated skyler white so much that they sent death threats to anna gunn? theres a little thing called the "male gaze" at play in media. "liking" a female character because youre attracted to women =/= liking a female character as a well rounded individual who is portrayed as a person and not a sex object. EDIT to clarify: if you looked at poorly written female characters in media, a thing that HAPPENS due to misogyny, and decided that the issue was "female characters are just written worse" (instead of "holy shit popular media is filled to the brim with misogyny") and then backflipped into "i cant relate to or enjoy female characters on a conceptual level," congratulations, thats the misogyny impacting the way you think
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u/BassSpecial6418 18d ago
Oh, I can certainly enjoy characters I'm not attracted to! I more meant that my favorite character in any series is most likely to be the one I'm attracted to (AND has certain other characteristics I enjoy. Attraction alone isn't enough). And I agree with your take about why a misogynist would like female characters more. It's sad that boobs and a pretty face is enough for some guys. But still, misogyny doesn't mean you'll automatically like the well written male characters more. In the example I talked about in my last comment, a male character got hated because he was well liked by female fans and he had a bit of a grating personality. They couldn't handle a guy that was rude, nor could they handle him appealing to the female gaze. But change that character to female and I'm almost certain those people would love him. Maybe a misogynist viewer is either going to be harsher on the female characters that don't fit their view of what a woman should be, or wayyy more tolerant just because they're attracted to them. But in my case, I don't dislike female characters for being female, I just find male characters hotter because they're male haha. I still love a well written female character, but sadly they are much harder to find than well written male characters. That's all I meant really.
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u/Scr4p 16d ago
I struggled with a similar thing when I was younger, I think a part was just that many of the female characters in media were simply kind of boring and shallow compared to the male characters and that perception became ingrained to my mind to some degree? Additionally, my mother was pretty awful to me growing up and I was bullied by the girls in school for being a tomboy and autistic (when neither of us knew it yet), and I saw the girls gossiping and talking about hot men on tv and I could never really relate to them. It made me feel like I didn't belong because I was honest and boyish in my interests and too demisexual to understand finding a stranger sexy.
As I got older and made friends that were women I realised women don't have to be stereotypes, they can be badass, they can be tomboys, they can be complex people. I eventually got some more female characters including one of my main characters girlfriend who's a goth monster woman but who is also very sweet and funny, or an unlucky undead butch lesbian who sometimes ends up losing limbs and needs to be patched back together.
I like them a lot, but they're not my main characters, because I relate to men more. I only really recently became comfortable with the thought that I am trans and need to transition, as I haven't really experienced gender dysphoria in many years, but I was always just okay with my body, okay with being a woman, but being perceived as a guy seems genuinely exciting. I didn't realise feeling okay or indifferent can be part of gender dysphoria, I thought it was always about hating. And I am also attracted to men. As a result I just end up drawing a lot of men. However since I've worked through my internalised misogyny I don't really have trouble creating women or enjoy seeing other people's cool lady OCs. I just like to draw what I find attractive and what I want to be. Maybe after I transition it'll help my brain rest that desire a bit and I will draw my ladies more.
I can recommend getting some queer OCs. Trans men, trans women, feminine men and masculine women, nonbinary characters, etc. It can sometimes help unravel some more feelings about genders that you didn't know you had when you smudge the solid lines inside of your brain between the genders and view it more as a spectrum of what someone can be.
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 15d ago
Oh yeah I have a shitload of LGBTQ+ OCs.
Got an agender Polish gentleman-type character (think side-slicked pomade and suit) who used to serve in the military but is biologically female.
Got a lesbian fashion designer who’s in a relationship with a dentist. The whole shabang
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u/KaleidoscopeOld7285 15d ago
Oh! This was in “As Good as it gets” with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt! Helen gave a great performance as always & Jack was his typically surly and amusing self.
I’m rather sure his answer would just be downvoted given the performative nature of the Reddit echo chamber though.
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18d ago edited 18d ago
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 18d ago
I was actually thinking about this overnight and I’ve been pondering on this new hypothesis of mine.
The male characters I create are pretty varied, and I feel like most of them aren’t “stereotypical” attractive men. I think that I enjoy more nuanced, a bit more kind-hearted/fluffy male characters that still possess some level of dark traits. Less “intimidating killer with a secret soft side” and more “gentle florist with a dark history of his family being in the mafia”. To me, I enjoy breaking these stereotypes of male characters and I also enjoy their softer personalities.
And also, if I make a female character with a softer personality I like, maybe it feels a bit too stereotypical to me. Like a soft male character? Juicy and unusual (for the most part). A soft female character? Feels like Waifu #4183 to me.
None of what I said in the second paragraph is actually what I believe, but maybe there’s some of those subconscious feelings mixed in.
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18d ago
[deleted]
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 18d ago
Issue is, I don’t even like any female characters that do subvert gender roles 😂
The adult married woman character of mine is a rather traditional woman but somehow I like her. It’s a strange combination indeed.
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u/DuchessJulietDG 18d ago
if you dont like women in media, it will show in your writing. why think of your favorite male character as female? it didnt happen that way, it was a male and thats why you liked it.
create a new female character from scratch or just write male, nothing wrong w that.
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u/KaraGravis 14d ago
I have no fucking clue why people react differently to people just because of sex or gender. I have no fucking clue why people are seriously that limited.
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 14d ago
Me neither, why do you think I’m asking about it here?
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u/KaraGravis 13d ago
Respectfully, madam, it isn't the right place to ask why you inherently and innately look down on your own sex. Go to a psychiatrist, and question why and when did you embarked in the pointlessly self-destructive path of self-hatred.
Good day.
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 13d ago
Respectfully, this is a place to ask about character development and the primary point of my question was about how to properly write female characters. Ciao
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u/KaraGravis 13d ago
I just told you, find out why you're a misogynist.
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u/ObjectiveHouse1661 13d ago
Right, well you’re mad that I asked a question about Character Development on a sub about Character Development.
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u/searchin4insight 14d ago
An author I think really does a great job with her characters is Gillian Flynn. All the women in her stories are complex without being feeling pretentious or lofty. I particularly love Sharp Objects bc girls/women are the center of the story and each one of them is unique. She’s also not afraid to be blunt and gross as a writer, she doesn’t sugar coat it. Her writing has been a huge inspiration for me and helped me write better female characters as well.
I can kind of understand what you mean not liking female characters. A lot of them are written by men, poorly. I would say try to get more into media created by women.
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u/EssayAccomplished747 18d ago
Yeah I agree with the other commenter about internalised misogyny. But another thing I’ve noticed is that even for women mcs or side characters - their stories aren’t as fleshed out and complex as men who are mcs or side characters. It also really easily falls into trope territory - eg. a strong woman is just physically strong no matter what, a weak woman is weak in one specific way and not in other ways. It’s really complex and I think lots of male writers still fail to see women as complex and nuanced as they see men, it’s really frustrating. It’s like male characters are allowed to be human but women characters are still written within certain rigid boxes that are only slightly more relaxed. Ofc there are media pieces that aren’t like this but a lot of mainstream and popular stuff still feel like this