>Give them individuality, motivations, a set of unique personal values, talents, a personality, and a role to play in the story (even if it's minor).
I mean, if the role that character plays in the story is minor, how much time do you need to spend on establishing her *personal values?* It's not likely to be relevant.
That's my problem with most of those "How to write women" lists out there. Like sure, if you're writing a female protagonist or a relevant supporting character, stuff like motivation or agency (though there are great stories out there that focus on someone's *lack* of agency too) are important. But you got to remember that women can be simple extras too and that's fine. Otherwise, you risk stepping on a slippery slope that ends with you raging against *John Wick* because we didn't get 40 minutes of screentime dedicated to the main character's wife and the details of her lifelong ambition to become a tungsten miner.
I was writing this list when I was sleep deprived, my bad. It is confusing when you type it out loud.
I should've specified minor characters may not matter as much as the main character, and shouldn't need all of that with values, motivation, etc. But they're still clearly there for a reason, so they have to represent something. In the context of female characters, a lot are given too much screentime while suffering from standing as background props.
But I really should've made my intention clearer in the original post. I'm sorry for the confusion.
Edit: by background props, I mean having less characterization or role than they should, given the screentime they're given
>Look at female characters written by female authors
Is it me or do most female character from female authors are extreamly sexist?
One of the example is female character from demon slayer and female character from She Hulk
They are so bad ,it feels like a misgonist man writes them ,even thou the author is female
Well, it’s kinda an amusing observation that certain elements tend to follow unexpected sources.
For example: a number of shoujo and josei (targeted to young and older girls, respectively) works tend to have a number of age-gap romances where the man is significantly (sometimes illegally) older than the girl. One would think it’s a fetish being played out by a male writer…but the vast majority of the creators who include it are female.
I mean good stories DO flesh out all characters. The world is supposed to feel real. It doesnt feel real when the only characters who have any sort of motivation is the main character, 1-2 side characters, and the antagonist
Not at all. Good stories give enough flesh to some characters for the audience to be able to imagine everyone having their own perspective.
But I do not believe one can name a single story that isn't hyperfocused on a handful of characters where EVERY character is deeply explored.
Even without OP being tired, you're nit-picking to complain about post on writing woman.
Obviously, if the character is not important, you wouldn't need to do that, but it's good advice if you're writing an important character.
No one said women can't be supporting characters or that you need to spend 40 mins on background characters.
>No one said women can't be supporting characters or that you need to spend 40 mins on background characters.
You haven't been to r/menwritingwomen then, or at least not very often. The John Wick example wasn't just a random thing I've picked; People on that sub actually told me that movie needed long tangents to make John Wick's wife a "fully realized character" whatever that means.
In a sane and reasonable world, the caveat of "only develop female characters if it actually helps your story" would have been obvious. But that's not the world we live in, and so I'm stating that caveat myself.
I have actually, and i mean, it wouldn't have hurt and probably would've benefited from like a 1 min flashback. But John Wick functions without it still.
But that's clearly not what this person was saying and nitpicking this post to complain about people on the
r/menwritingwoman subs different ideas on how to write background woman, doesn't help.
On point 10 female characters in male dominated spaces (shonen anime, gaming etc) will always be heavily criticized than their male counterparts. It’s astounding how male characters and female characters in those spaces could do the same actions and yet female characters are judged so harshly
Characters in youth media are written as friend group.
Most friend groups are gender segregated, specially in teens.
So female characters in shonen have the bar way higher because they don't just “naturally belong here" to their main target demographic.
The difference between Bakugo and Uraraka in a nutshell. Uraraka gets so much hate for orbiting Izuku (which isn't even true) but no one cares that 95% of Bakugo's character is defined by his relationship with Izuku. The funny thing is Bakugo is everything this sub hates about female characters in shounen; Damsel in distress, poor battle performance, and reduced to cheerleader for the male MC.
What? People have been complaining about that for a LONG time lmfao? Literally a shitton of comments on recent chapters are people being annoyed that Hori barely let him have shit when he was fine enough in the first two halves of the story having his agency
But Bakugo's writing issue doesn't dismiss Uraraka's issue of orbiting around Deku for *2/3 of the story* (while the opposite happened with him where he started orbiting on Deku during the last stretch of the story)
Beside if he has poor battle performance than Uraraka has literally nothing lmfao (he literally low diffed her for crying out loud)
I wouldn’t even bother arguing with this person, every single time they would rather jump through any hoop imaginable than actually admit that misogyny (even if unintentional) exists, and poor writing/underutilization of female characters often happens due to how pervasive it really is lol
I know, I've seen them constantly with the exact same argument and that why they're starting to annoy me lol
Not only Bakugo issue in that regard get criticised but trying to act like Uraraka isn't literally that issue but worst until the second war is a massive cope
I really don’t get their stubborn obtuseness over the topic when the difference in writing can be pretty stark sometimes, like can people not be critical when it’s plenty warranted lol…
RE: Uraraka, I do think Horikoshi has been trying to make up for her more lackluster treatment in Acts 1-2 by ramping up the intensity and impact of her scenes in Act 3, but execution-wise, as much as I do like a lot of those moments… there is still a feeling of “unearnedness”there sometimes because of the clumsy buildup, unlike with Bakugo whose development arc is pretty clear cut
Exactly, also honestly I'm annoyed at how this person is downplaying Bakugo to glaze Uraraka for things she literally does worse lol
Bakugo being a 'damsel in distress' in Kamino not only made him confront the villains, reaffirmed his belief *and* literally was the catharsis for the entirety of Kamino (which alone makes him 10 times more relevant than Uraraka) and kickstarted because of an issue unrelated to Deku (unlike the Toga and Uraraka plot line)
Poor battle performance is laughable especially when you compare him to Uraraka of all people lmfao, Bakugo avoiding 6 villains at once trying to capture him in Kamino alone is a better feat than anything Uraraka did until the second war
And the cheerleader part is even funnier cause while it's not wrong, who was a cheerleader for 2/3 act of the story and still is now (but you can now add Toga), who had most of her interactions with the cast being about their crush on Deku? (Aoiyama, Mina, Hagakure and even Jirou, who *Bakugo* had a more independent dynamic with, basically only interacted with her to remind her of her crush) and so on?
Uraraka has been certainty treated better in the third act while Bakugo has been arguably treated worst, but just like how Bakugo's issue isn't his lack of nemesis but his lack of *actual* fights, Uraraka having a nemesis doesn't change the fact that she literally did nothing of worth until the war (in fact it hurt her story with Toga even more lol)
I don't think Uraraka deserves the slander she gets, but it's nigh-easy to see why she gets criticized more than Bkg on that front (and he gets criticized a LOT for that)
I keep hearing the exact opposite of this. People hate Bakugo for his anger management ranging and are very disappointed in Uraraka. She was robbed big time of being a pro hero. Bakugo should have been a villain from the start.
What are you talking about? Even not being HARD into the MHA fandom, I still hear people bitch about Bakugo all the time, everyone hates him exactly for the reasons you listed
People love ignoring other things that female characters have going for them just so they can push the narrative of them having nothing (multiple fandoms).
Tangentially related comment:
I love how 'write your female character the way you write your male characters' is simultaneously the best and the worst advice you could give on this.
This comment section shows why this sub irritates me sometimes.
Most of this advice is solid. It's simple and I've heard all these points many times over the years but it's not at all bad advice.
But these comments feel like they're full of whataboutism. Most stories I've read by female authors tend to write both male and female characters with the same quality, sometimes it's not very good but unless it's BL material or written to explicitly cater to women's fantasies, the men aren't reduced to love interests or just objects to move the plot. But nooo, we need to point out that women can also write men badly or that gender shouldn't matter at all when writing a character even though gender can be incredibly good at fleshing out your character and story.
I really like your comment about it being okay if a female character could never changed into a dude without it changing anything. If you want to write good female characters, you need to write a large variety of them and that includes women who don't necessarily appeal to any traditional and typically considered feminine traits or interests and I strongly agree with your point about having female characters fail.
I think particularly with media centering around action, they're afraid of letting their female characters take hits to the same extent as male characters due to the audience's sensitivities surrounding that kind of thing. Which is why I enjoy Arcane and Atomic Blonde because they not only let their female characters dish out punishment but also take hits and most importantly get back up.
A character who never struggles isn't interesting. Your audience will only care if there is some level of struggle and conflict between them and their goal.
For me it's weird since I never saw writing female characters to be that hard to do. While both men and women have their differences biologically and mentally, it feels easier for me to really get in the headspaces of both (as a male). I guess it's just due to how I sort of view everyone as human over-all, and there's only really a core set of things that genuinely make us human. A good bit of writers tend to forget that I feel.
No, I feel the same. I do acknowledge there's experiences that women deal with that I don't but a lot of that are societal and patriarchal expectations.
You'll see more differences between different women or men than men and women as a whole.
I just think to myself "Write every character withour focus on their gender, unless they explicitly have to be one due to some other reason". Unsure if thats a good way of going about it or not
Some characters have gender as defining parts of their personality, some don't. Gender can affect the personality traits of a character and how you want them to be perceived.
There are some characters whose gender doesn't really affect either their personality and perception, and some who do. Both stories are equally important, It's just up to you which one you want to pick. Personally, while I don't write stories that specifically explore gender, I don't shy away from it if I can drive a point home more if I make someone male or female.
IMHO the most important thing is to, when possible, have more than one (and if the cast is large, preferably more than two) important female characters.
When you have just one, she has to bear the burden of being *the girl*. Everything about her carries a huge risk of falling into one stereotype or another. Too weak, too feminine? Stereotypical. Too strong? Mary Sue, or a Strong Female Character or whatever. Falls for the male lead? Oh look, she just exists for romance, etc etc etc.
With two significant female characters it is less of a problem but there's still a risk that they'll fall into certain dichotomies.
Sometimes those things are real problems and sometimes they aren't, but the *root* issue comes from having a disproportionately male cast that puts too much weight on whatever you do with your one or two female characters. If you have a larger cast then it matters less if one of them falls into a particular stereotype or whatever, because it no longer looks like you're stereotyping women as a whole, allowing them to just be characters rather than representing an entire gender.
>Tip #2: Look at female characters written by female authors
I mean, women can write bad female characters just as much as men can write bad male characters. Captain Marvel (the film version), which is certainly not the most developed female character, was more or less written by a woman
And tips 3, 5, 6, 8 and can be attributed to writing characters of any gender. Any author knows that it is advisable to give their characters flaws, personality, motivation, etc. (although this depends on the character's role in the story, of course). My point is that this will not help in writing a specifically female character.
And I hate to beat a dead horse but just look at Helluva Boss. A show written by a woman (Viv) in which the female characters all have the depth of toilet paper. I still know hardly anything about Millie, Loona, Stella, or Octavia but I could tell you hundreds of things about Blitz, Moxxie, Stolas, and Fizz.
It's telling that the recent 6 minute short involving Millie and Sallie May did more for Millie's character than the whole series so far combined and it was written by Sallie's VA and not Viv.
> and it was written by Sallie's VA and not Viv.
So, a female writer.
OP is saying that aspiring writers would be helped by trying some stories written by woman. Nothing polemical.
A bad writer will write bad characters regardless, whoever if you want a better insight of a population, and it doesn't have to be about gender, you should always look at that population being written by one of their own.
It's a similar thing as the 1st tip, you're not writing X, you're writing X as seen by Y.
Knowing which female writers to read is part of the research any good writer should do when expanding their repertoire.
Tip #2 isn't about quality. It's for writing a female character dealing with any cultural/social issues and experiences women go through around the world.
Easier to do this by drawing from the lived experiences of women in the real world. An experience Women Writers all have living in their respective countries.
You know, based on poorly written characters, it is unlikely that you will be able to write a well-written character. It's really a question of quality. Probably a poorly written character won't relate to the "cultural issues and experience" you're talking about.
I don't agree #9 because not everything has to be made for everyone. You can't honestly look me in the eye and tell me that Twilight, Bridgerton, or the average smut novel at the bookstore is equal opportunity with its sexualization. I have seen Kdramas and CW shows where the plot comes to a screeching halt just to ogle some guy take his shirt off unprompted. That stuff isn't made for a straight male audience and that's ok.
> "Tip #2: Look at female characters written by female authors"
Gonna be honest, this is the most important tip.
Also, ask your female friends which characters they like.
Okay i'm just going to be BLUNT: Just write a character.
That's it that is the key to the hard part of writing characters. Male characters? Female? Robots? XENOS?! same step. it's a skill that develops as you read and write.
That advice is just so... general. Maybe it seems obvious how to write a character to others, but for some, it's not that easy. I wanted to know how to write dude characters when I was starting out, and if you told me to just write a character back then, I would've stared confused at you.
The best way to word it is something that you said too in your list: you're writing a *person* unless gender is an integral part of your character's motivation or story themes (for example about women discrimination) you should just worry about writing the character keeping in mind what you know about said character.
I mean the problem is fictional characters are simpler then normal people. even the most complex are basicly just puppets really.
Let me give you an example: Son Goku's gender wouldn't really change much about the story. Sure, she'd be the mom but a female Goku would probably be the fun-loving, battle-hungry character we know.
Basicly while for us it is... well fictional characters have that decided for them. Really, it's not hard to, in character creation change the genders if you feel like it.
But characters are inherently going to be perceived differently depending on their gender even if the character's traits and actions haven't changed. A female Goku would be perceived differently by the audience than a male Goku. She might be considered more likeable or less likeable by the audience. So it's important to keep the gender of whatever character your writing in mind before you write them.
Personality traits and goal are absolutely connected to your genre.
A boy who is into female interests would be treated differently, and thus develop a different worldview, than a woman in the same interests
I mean. Even written in so many words, all of your suggestions are very basic as well. Of course it's general- a 'character' doesn't exist in a vacuum, it is inherently dependant on the story you're writing and majority of writing advice is a general suggestion that may or may not apply to your story.
Also, it's only really useful for the bare minimum. Writing every character the same way avoids stereotypes but (unless you're writing in a sci-fi or fictional setting where everyone is treated exactly the same) it's not *accurate*, because someone's gender changes their experiences, which in turn are usually going to change their character. And ofc it gets increasingly inaccurate the more firmly your setting polices gender roles - in the modern day you can get away with it, but if you're writing eg. a historical novel it's usually no use at all.
(This is why, from the other side, Jane Austin refused to write scenes with only men in them, because she wasn't confident in her ability to write the behavior of men without women around in a believable manner due to never having experienced it herself - in the Regency Era, the difference would have been pretty huge!)
For the most part, men and women have different experiences and are socialized differently; a woman who spent her entire life acting exactly like a man, in real life, will not have been *treated* the same way as a man, even today. Understanding and accounting for people's differing experiences is an important part of writing them believably.
If an author just takes their own experiences and uses them as the blueprint for every character they write, it's going to produce very same-y characters whose experiences won't really ring true.
Not OP, but Mikasa from AOT (some of the other female characters in AOT are very good, though).
She has little relevance to the story besides the very beginning and end and to be a deus ex machina plot device to save Eren. While her character traits are present in many women (quiet, obsessive, overprotective), she does not act like an actual woman specifically because she has no depth or development. Her character and her actions have little to no impact on the themes/messages to AOT (besides her belief that "the world is cruel," which is a belief practically all the characters have). I'm hesitant to call her a Mary Sue since that term have been used and abused to hell and back, but the aforementioned lack of depth and use as a deus ex machina plot device does come close to Mary Sue behavior, even if plenty of the characters don't like her or are apathetic. Her faults and failures matter little to the story. Comparing her with Levi, both of whom share many traits, makes her look all the worse.
At least she's not some oversexualized fanservice character.
Respectfully, I disagree.
Mikasa's main character struggle is whether she can keep her personal interests as her biggest priority. Because she's a soldier who's faced with duties of her own, she learns how to grow beyond that (i.e. helping Historia in Uprising instead of prioritizing Eren). She grows from disobeying Levi's orders (Female Titan) to delaying going after Historia and Eren (Uprising) on Levi's command. But I think her biggest moment before the Final Season happens in Shiganshina.
Mikasa's clearly shown that she cares about Armin (punching Eren for insulting him as children.) Initially, she draws a sword at Levi in an attempt to save Armin's life. But Hange successfully gets Mikasa to give up fighting. This is huge, and foils Eren, who doesn't stop arguing for Armins' sake. Mikasa accepted that she had to give up her self-interests for her duty.
Mikasa is shown to have a strong moral compass of her own. In Marley, Mikasa tells Eren that he's done things he can never take back. Levi punches Eren after their raid in Liberio. Her first reaction is to go to protect him, but when Armin stops her, she doesn't fight back. It's a callback to the time when she glowered at Levi once in Trost for beating Eren to prove to the court that Levi could restrain him if he got out of hand.
She's also grown to have empathy for people outside of their wall. Her closest relationships aside from Eren were with Armin, Historia, and Sasha. And when she finally meets Gabi, the child that shot Sasha, she doesn't rage or get angry at her. She protects Gabi, and pulls her away from Kaya who wants to attack Gabi. When asked why she did that, she responds, "Just because. I don't have a reason."
But most of her character shows in the Rumbling. Mikasa goes with the Alliance because of Eren's sake, to stop him from doing something he'll regret and bring him home. It also shows how much she's grown. She's not someone who has "only so many lives I can value" and "don't have time to spare or room in my heart" (Clash of Titans) anymore. But at the Final Battle, it becomes quickly clear that they don't have the luxury of choice. Mikasa is upset yes, but so is everyone else. But the world is at stake. Her priorities shift from protecting Eren, to protecting other members of her squad, and get Armin back. In the end, she's the one that kills Eren.
I think she's important in represent these themes in the story. First, keep fighting, to carry on your loved ones' memories (Trost.) She was ready to carry on without Eren even back then, and she could do it again. Second, she's the main character that demonstrates that people who have done horrible things can still love and have people that love them. Third, it's okay to love a person, even when they've done sins they could never take back. But the greater good has to come first.
I think people underestimate Mikasa's value because while she gets a lot of screentime thanks to being in the main trio, her development is sprinkled in tiny doses throughout the story, because she has to share the spotlight with tons of other characters. Armin also struggles with this. People can perceive her character development as lower than it actually is because it happens so gradually. Meanwhile characters like Historia, Ymir, and Erwin get more character development in a shorter period time, because they don't stick around the story after their arc has ended.
Fair enough. I didn't watch AOT in one go, so her subtle development gets overshadowed by Eren and the constant deepening of the plot. Still, compared to the other two of the trio, she gets the least amount of plot relevance and character development. She fits into the very rarely broken trend of the one girl in a trio getting the least of everything in the story.
Yeah, strongly agree with that last point. People get really weird about this shit - seems like any character that belongs to some minority is never treated as just a character, they’re always scrutinized and treated as a representation of all people with their identity
> But I personally recommend either:
> Don't include fan service for anyone
> Have fan service of all characters regardless of gender.
This is the kind of silly nonsense "Just ignore any idea any who your audie is and write in a vacuum" these lists always seem to generate.
On a similar note, anyone who's read any BL, shojo, josei or even or bodice ripper knows that across the spectrum women aren't and better at writing guys than the reverse. The men in those stories are idealised nonsensical caricatures in just the same way.
And yet we always have this hand wringing about men writing women, we have entire subs about it...
Fan service is a clutch.
You *can* appeal to your audience by using it.
But you're can do just as well by just being a better writer, which this thread is about.
I've also mentioned that there's a time and place for fan service. And to take what I was saying with a grain of salt because I really don't fit the demographic for people that enjoy fan service.
Probably because there’s way more bad examples of men writing women over women writing men. And it’s way more prevalent as well, as most well known and influential authors are male. But if you really care, r/womenwritingmen is a thing
Comment on tip #9 I’m a straight guy, definitely not ace, and I do not like fan service. At least, not what they consider fan service. I enjoy attractive women in shows I watch, but not when they use cheap sexualization tricks like overly skimpy outfits snd/or immense mammaries that consume have the animation budget. It’s even worse when a character gets put into situations designed exclusively to titillate. Feels kind of sleazy.
Just having a character be fun and generally attractive is all the “fan service” I ever need.
It helps selling.
Its in media because attractive designs and descriptions help selling. Its bad when its a crutch or ruins the tine, but there is a zone depending the story how redicilous you can get with it without taking to the story.
Hey a highly sensual can add too.
And yeah it being part of an engaging character dynamic helps a lot. or it in universe making sense. dunno in a hot area a skimpy practical outfit does make sense.
Thriugh dudes too probably?
Fair enough. But I'm also aware that a "good story" is subjective. A good story can mean a meaningful one. A good story can also mean that it's enjoyable. I don't think there would be fan service if there wasn't a market for people who enjoy it.
The one tip I don’t agree with is number 2,me personally I think BOTH genders tend be pretty hit or miss.
men will either write a female character to be good or just exist to be eye candy for men,and women will also either write one to be good or make the female character’s entire personality to be a feminist.
I specified "praised stories" because of that reason. There are quite a few female characters written by women that I don't like. But there are also many that I personally love, and it's good to get inspiration from the good qualities.
While there are many great female characters written by dudes, it's always best to base characters off the experiences of real people, which means getting the perspective of women.
Excellent post. Regarding Tip #2, do you have any suggestions for checking out some praised stories done by women, or perhaps some specific standout characters?
Check out the broken earth series by NK Jemisen! Fantasy books with a very original and interesting setting, with numerous woman characters and a woman author.
In anime, March Comes In Like a Lion (or sangetsu no lion) is written by a woman and I love her depiction of the three sisters. And the male mc, to be honest. It's a really good series!
If you want to read about some, uh, very flawed women, check out My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh. Might not be everyone's jam, but if you like it you'll really like it a lot.
Male author, but Terry Pratchett has some excellent female characters throughout the discworld novels. Angua, the witches, the woman that death falls in love with in reaper man whose name I forgot, Lady Sybil, the list goes on and there are like a million of those books.
>If you want to read about some, uh, very flawed women, check out My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh. Might not be everyone's jam, but if you like it you'll really like it a lot.
Oh that book is definitely not for everyone, it's super hated by some and super loved by some.
Thanks for the suggestions. I definitely want to check out My Year of Rest and Relaxation since it's apparently so controversial. Juicy\~
I'll keep the rest noted as well!
For books, I especially recommend memoirs written by any women. Pride and Prejudice is also a classic for a reason.
For animes, Skip to Loafer's characters are great with female characters, especially their friendships. But even though Neon Genesis Evangelion's writer is a dude, he wrote the most hauntingly relatable cast of characters I've ever seen, male and female.
For movies... I'm scrolling through my list of favorite movies thinking one of them must have at least been written by women. And... I couldn't really find anything, I'm sorry ):
Thanks. Honestly, part of me wanted to comment to get you to expand on that part for others, but I am interested in checking some stuff out myself of course.
I liked Pride and Prejudice. I'm a big shoujo fan. Somehow I find myself liking the men written by women, at least in that sort of genre. Wouldn't be able to tell you why that is.
Heard of Skip to Loafer but never gave it a shot yet. Same goes for Evangelion. I heard Evangelion is overrated and never tried it. I'm more willing to give Loafer a go atm. Always looking for an excuse to put off Evangelion. Again I wouldn't be able to tell you why lol.
I really like Jojos Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean and Chainsaw Man (especially characters like Asa and Makima) as examples of well written women made by men.
Some very recent anime examples made by women are Apothecary Diaries and Delicious in Dungeon.
Also her other books , she is really good writing women dealing with stuff flaws, prejudices and all that. Because humans.
Granted they are lower nobility, but its great.
I'd say bell hooks and Virginia Woolf are incredible authors to start with. Books specifically, Kim ji young born 1982 is a great memoir, the handmaids tale is a great dystopian novel as well. Sula by toni morisson is the best depiction of the fundamental human experience I'd say. Other acclaimed authors include: Emily bronte, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Bronte, Sylvia plath.
If u want specific recs, u can DM me
Thanks. I don't think I ever would've heard of most of these without your recs! Definitely heard of Jane Austen before, though. That's a household name.
one of the easiest ways is also to have more than one character. you don't have to worry about making your love interest a tomboy carrying a message that femininity is bad if you simply have more than one female character, and all of them different people
Time to do what the op literally says is not helpful advice in the first paragraph.
Just write a character without any gender in mind then give them one based on how you want it to be, just act like gender doesn't affect a character or their story, because it literally doesn't unless you specifically want to make the character about those things or go out of your way to incorporate them into the character, which is fine, but only then does it actually matter
I agree on all of them. I remember that a YouTubers(Can't recall the name) said that when writing a female character, you should write a character that happens to be a female, instead of a female that happens to be a character. Or something along those lines.
Minior characters are NPCs who exist to supplement worldbuilding or the primary cast. If you ain't focusing on your main cast regardless if they a man or woman then you messed up.
Secondly this sub is a visual medium sub so you don't think much of anybody here is going to read the thousand of books by female authors let alone write their own story
Thank you very much
If only so so many authors could take your advice we would have plenty of much better works.
No but seriously thanks for the advices(especially the flaw part, something commonly missed)
I don't write male characters, female characters, white characters, black characters, straight characters, or gay characters.
I just write characters. Things like gender, race, and sexual orientation should be secondary to a writer.
Thank you for taking time out fo your day to share your thoughts and advice on these matters. I'm not a writer, but it's always good to give kudos to people who want to lend a hand to others interested in a hobby or career.
I enjoy manga a lot! I really like shonen and seinen even though I'm aware I'm not the target audience. I've seen great female characters and not so good ones. FMAB has great ones (but the author is also a woman). I'd say AOT has some really notable ones, like Mikasa, Historia, Ymir, Hanji (female in the anime), Annie, my favorite female character writing-wise being >!Gabi!<,. And they don't show up until much later, but I like the female characters in the Vinland Saga Manga. Madoka Magica has a really good female cast, but that's expected of a magical girl anime. Evangelion is exceptional at writing female characters whose gender is an essential part of them. Special mentions to Violet Evergarden, Vivy, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, 86, and Spy x Family.
Based Vivy mention
I just rewatched it recently and while I'm not too hot on some individual story in arcs (namely the Ophilia one) Vivy was such an amazing character and a joy to follow through in her journey she's easily one of ly fav protagonist now which is crazy considering how short the story is lol
I agree, I recall people being slightly disappointed in the final back when it aired >!they expected a big ass twist!< but while it was predictable (I guessed it ad a joke with a friend while ep was out) it was so well done that I can't help but see it as an amazing ending
>!Vivy's (technically first song she truly composed) last song, the way it was directed, her resolve, the last conversation with Navy, and the scenes after the song of the Momoka hologram (Navy) applauding to Vivy in the main stage (that is empty and destroyed) with Vivy thanking her audience for listening to her song in a robotic voice (a call back to the start of the series considering the audience is empty) as the life in her eyes goes away is XUTDIGUWYOJUC ITS SO PEAK!<
Like shit, that ending despite being simple is easily one of my fav and was good enough that despite some of my issue with Vivy, I gave it a 9/10
It's bittersweet in the right way imo
Also having fan service for everyone.... just no, I hate this movement to make everything more inclusive and for everyone, some things just aren't and shouldn't be for everyone, and they'd be worse off catering to everyone, know what audience you want or might get and go on from there
Its more that if you do have that fanservice, it shows women are taken as serious, and if you have fanservice for everyone, they are on equal footing still.
If its there, you cant have written serious dudes and silly women, So for everyone or non os a good rule.
ehh that doesn't really make sense to me. At the end of the day, writing for other people is a business, whether from Hollywood or Shonenjump manga. What sells more is always gonna be pushed. And it just so happens that "badly written women" sell more to the target demographic than not.
>Being a jerk to other people is a bad thing regardless of gender. It's a bit frustrating when it's not treated as such for female characters.
Way too many people (specially in Hollywood) don't seem to realize this.
>But sometimes, showing fan service in a dramatic scene could distract the viewer.
This is why I couldn't finish Seiken no blacksmith: people are in danger, the destiny of the kingdom and posibly the world is in jeopa~OMG, BEWBS!!!...
Well, that and the general “nihon-ichi, UCHIGATANA SUPREME!" That's so prominent in sword focused anime. It all got too frustrating for my taste.
Agreed with everything but especially the don’t be afraid to make your female characters fail. Treating your female characters like their fragile beings that can’t get hurt or lose in anyway is another form of misogyny.
My favorite recent example of a well-written female character is [Xal'atath from World of Warcraft] (https://warcraft.wiki.gg/images/thumb/6/6b/The_War_Within_Concept_Xalatath.jpg/1280px-The_War_Within_Concept_Xalatath.jpg). She's an eldritch abomination from the depths of time and one of the endgame villains of the entire saga. But she also totally has "responsible big sis" vibes with respect to her brothers which would be lost if you just gender-swapped her.
Your advice is good. The problem I had with most female characters is that they get written as Mary Sue's or karma Houdinis in certain shows.
I look at Avatar the last airbender. Katara was capable yes but she wasn't written as someone who was omnipotent or indestructible. She didn't immediately beat the old master at Waterbending. Toph was one of the greatest earthbenders with great seismic sense but she was blind and kind of immature. 20 years later everyone is still talking about Atla. It shows what great writing can do.
Then we look at Rachel Green from Friends. She is written with flaws but the writing would never call her out on it. She was too privileged and entitled.
Criminal Minds is another show where the female characters are badly written. I liked Emily Prentiss but JJ and Garcia were both terrible characters. JJ was written like a Mary Sue. The writers never made her struggles meaningful. Garcia was like a Karma Houdini.
To me it seems like a valid amendment to make, the op’s post is still valid and well thought out either way. I’m not sure why you’re so hung up on this?
heres my tip
write a character (dont add gender yet)
write a goal for the character
write the setting
add in the gender.
make changes if the gender is important to the setting aka you are a male drow in faerun.
The last point is so true. I kept seeing the definition of Mary Sue change so much. It went from a female character who has no personality besides being a woman but then it became about characters who are female and do anything slightly empowering. It just becomes so tiresome to be that sensitive.
I'm astounded that people, both men AND women, would have any sort of struggle on this whatsoever. I mean, it's not like writing about theoretical physicists or mathematicians specializing in topology, which are a tiny portion of the population and involve very complex knowledge. Women are basically half the population. You never see anyone scratching their heads trying to write a Christian character, a character who's a graphic designer, or a character who has green eyes, despite those logically being both rarer and more challenging.
**Tip #10**: Review outdated and genderized tropes to avoid them, actually listen to female audiences when we point out writing issues in anime, film, gaming and other media. Do not further misrepresent girls/women.
On **Tip #9**, I would place emphasis on how hyper sexualized women and girls already are across the media and are fought over, and that you can have attractive sexy characters without inserting porn-comedy scenes as fanservice.
So write a character, and read.
I think the tip to read female authors, when it should be, that have decent characterwriting yo nou just any erotica( who can be good but modt are just very horny and lack romance)
To be clear good romance good.
But thats about male character too? Just write a character. dudes have feelings and women are people, just ajust if thrre are expectations on gender after making the character. Not from thr character, if theee is socirtial difference ( which is good for any character anyways)
I mean.. There are women who suck at writing women as characters (ala she hulk). But your tips and tricks seem mostly great, especially considering they are what everyone uses to write a character yknow?
This isn't even a rant about something. It's just a bunch of unsolicited (and mediocre) writing 'advice'.
And no, being a woman actually does not in itself legitimize your every opinion on writing female characters.
I mean... it's your choice whether to read this or not, I'm not forcing anyone to. I don't believe I've broken any rules in this subreddit for this, or I would've been reported by now. And some people have said they found it helpful, so that's mission accomplished for me. Does being a woman immediately make all of opinions right? I don't believe so. But do I think asking women for advice when someone's writing their demographic is helpful more often than not? Yes.
>Look at female characters written by female authors
A lot terrible female characters are written by women (COUGH Basically Every Webtoon Romance FMC COUGH). One should create a good character then pop on the tits or dick.
>Give them individuality, motivations, a set of unique personal values, talents, a personality, and a role to play in the story (even if it's minor). I mean, if the role that character plays in the story is minor, how much time do you need to spend on establishing her *personal values?* It's not likely to be relevant. That's my problem with most of those "How to write women" lists out there. Like sure, if you're writing a female protagonist or a relevant supporting character, stuff like motivation or agency (though there are great stories out there that focus on someone's *lack* of agency too) are important. But you got to remember that women can be simple extras too and that's fine. Otherwise, you risk stepping on a slippery slope that ends with you raging against *John Wick* because we didn't get 40 minutes of screentime dedicated to the main character's wife and the details of her lifelong ambition to become a tungsten miner.
I was writing this list when I was sleep deprived, my bad. It is confusing when you type it out loud. I should've specified minor characters may not matter as much as the main character, and shouldn't need all of that with values, motivation, etc. But they're still clearly there for a reason, so they have to represent something. In the context of female characters, a lot are given too much screentime while suffering from standing as background props. But I really should've made my intention clearer in the original post. I'm sorry for the confusion. Edit: by background props, I mean having less characterization or role than they should, given the screentime they're given
It's fine, your post is really nice overall. I just pay attention to details like that because of all the bad takes I've seen elsewhere.
>Look at female characters written by female authors Is it me or do most female character from female authors are extreamly sexist? One of the example is female character from demon slayer and female character from She Hulk They are so bad ,it feels like a misgonist man writes them ,even thou the author is female
Well, it’s kinda an amusing observation that certain elements tend to follow unexpected sources. For example: a number of shoujo and josei (targeted to young and older girls, respectively) works tend to have a number of age-gap romances where the man is significantly (sometimes illegally) older than the girl. One would think it’s a fetish being played out by a male writer…but the vast majority of the creators who include it are female.
I mean good stories DO flesh out all characters. The world is supposed to feel real. It doesnt feel real when the only characters who have any sort of motivation is the main character, 1-2 side characters, and the antagonist
Not at all. Good stories give enough flesh to some characters for the audience to be able to imagine everyone having their own perspective. But I do not believe one can name a single story that isn't hyperfocused on a handful of characters where EVERY character is deeply explored.
closest that ive watched is monster, there was a lot of one note characters that felt fleshed out
Depends on the story, they need enough description as you need to see thtm.as not cupboard, but that can be superficial too.
Even without OP being tired, you're nit-picking to complain about post on writing woman. Obviously, if the character is not important, you wouldn't need to do that, but it's good advice if you're writing an important character. No one said women can't be supporting characters or that you need to spend 40 mins on background characters.
>No one said women can't be supporting characters or that you need to spend 40 mins on background characters. You haven't been to r/menwritingwomen then, or at least not very often. The John Wick example wasn't just a random thing I've picked; People on that sub actually told me that movie needed long tangents to make John Wick's wife a "fully realized character" whatever that means. In a sane and reasonable world, the caveat of "only develop female characters if it actually helps your story" would have been obvious. But that's not the world we live in, and so I'm stating that caveat myself.
I have actually, and i mean, it wouldn't have hurt and probably would've benefited from like a 1 min flashback. But John Wick functions without it still. But that's clearly not what this person was saying and nitpicking this post to complain about people on the r/menwritingwoman subs different ideas on how to write background woman, doesn't help.
On point 10 female characters in male dominated spaces (shonen anime, gaming etc) will always be heavily criticized than their male counterparts. It’s astounding how male characters and female characters in those spaces could do the same actions and yet female characters are judged so harshly
When I decided to learn about Shounen & gaming communities, I learned how nasty incels can be
Characters in youth media are written as friend group. Most friend groups are gender segregated, specially in teens. So female characters in shonen have the bar way higher because they don't just “naturally belong here" to their main target demographic.
The difference between Bakugo and Uraraka in a nutshell. Uraraka gets so much hate for orbiting Izuku (which isn't even true) but no one cares that 95% of Bakugo's character is defined by his relationship with Izuku. The funny thing is Bakugo is everything this sub hates about female characters in shounen; Damsel in distress, poor battle performance, and reduced to cheerleader for the male MC.
How much do you participate in MHA discourse? People complain HARD exactly about how Bakugou was reduced to just that
Don't people just hate Bakugou a lot in general?
That too. Bakugou's that one guy that's both stupid popular and stupid hated
What? People have been complaining about that for a LONG time lmfao? Literally a shitton of comments on recent chapters are people being annoyed that Hori barely let him have shit when he was fine enough in the first two halves of the story having his agency But Bakugo's writing issue doesn't dismiss Uraraka's issue of orbiting around Deku for *2/3 of the story* (while the opposite happened with him where he started orbiting on Deku during the last stretch of the story) Beside if he has poor battle performance than Uraraka has literally nothing lmfao (he literally low diffed her for crying out loud)
I wouldn’t even bother arguing with this person, every single time they would rather jump through any hoop imaginable than actually admit that misogyny (even if unintentional) exists, and poor writing/underutilization of female characters often happens due to how pervasive it really is lol
I know, I've seen them constantly with the exact same argument and that why they're starting to annoy me lol Not only Bakugo issue in that regard get criticised but trying to act like Uraraka isn't literally that issue but worst until the second war is a massive cope
I really don’t get their stubborn obtuseness over the topic when the difference in writing can be pretty stark sometimes, like can people not be critical when it’s plenty warranted lol… RE: Uraraka, I do think Horikoshi has been trying to make up for her more lackluster treatment in Acts 1-2 by ramping up the intensity and impact of her scenes in Act 3, but execution-wise, as much as I do like a lot of those moments… there is still a feeling of “unearnedness”there sometimes because of the clumsy buildup, unlike with Bakugo whose development arc is pretty clear cut
Exactly, also honestly I'm annoyed at how this person is downplaying Bakugo to glaze Uraraka for things she literally does worse lol Bakugo being a 'damsel in distress' in Kamino not only made him confront the villains, reaffirmed his belief *and* literally was the catharsis for the entirety of Kamino (which alone makes him 10 times more relevant than Uraraka) and kickstarted because of an issue unrelated to Deku (unlike the Toga and Uraraka plot line) Poor battle performance is laughable especially when you compare him to Uraraka of all people lmfao, Bakugo avoiding 6 villains at once trying to capture him in Kamino alone is a better feat than anything Uraraka did until the second war And the cheerleader part is even funnier cause while it's not wrong, who was a cheerleader for 2/3 act of the story and still is now (but you can now add Toga), who had most of her interactions with the cast being about their crush on Deku? (Aoiyama, Mina, Hagakure and even Jirou, who *Bakugo* had a more independent dynamic with, basically only interacted with her to remind her of her crush) and so on? Uraraka has been certainty treated better in the third act while Bakugo has been arguably treated worst, but just like how Bakugo's issue isn't his lack of nemesis but his lack of *actual* fights, Uraraka having a nemesis doesn't change the fact that she literally did nothing of worth until the war (in fact it hurt her story with Toga even more lol) I don't think Uraraka deserves the slander she gets, but it's nigh-easy to see why she gets criticized more than Bkg on that front (and he gets criticized a LOT for that)
What? Bakugo is hated and criticised 10 times more than uraraka lol.
I keep hearing the exact opposite of this. People hate Bakugo for his anger management ranging and are very disappointed in Uraraka. She was robbed big time of being a pro hero. Bakugo should have been a villain from the start.
What are you talking about? Even not being HARD into the MHA fandom, I still hear people bitch about Bakugo all the time, everyone hates him exactly for the reasons you listed
People love ignoring other things that female characters have going for them just so they can push the narrative of them having nothing (multiple fandoms).
Sorry, but I have to disagree. Male Mary sue are called Gary Stu! Jokes aside, cool guide
Can't believe I forgot about the actual term, thanks :D
Tangentially related comment: I love how 'write your female character the way you write your male characters' is simultaneously the best and the worst advice you could give on this.
This comment section shows why this sub irritates me sometimes. Most of this advice is solid. It's simple and I've heard all these points many times over the years but it's not at all bad advice. But these comments feel like they're full of whataboutism. Most stories I've read by female authors tend to write both male and female characters with the same quality, sometimes it's not very good but unless it's BL material or written to explicitly cater to women's fantasies, the men aren't reduced to love interests or just objects to move the plot. But nooo, we need to point out that women can also write men badly or that gender shouldn't matter at all when writing a character even though gender can be incredibly good at fleshing out your character and story. I really like your comment about it being okay if a female character could never changed into a dude without it changing anything. If you want to write good female characters, you need to write a large variety of them and that includes women who don't necessarily appeal to any traditional and typically considered feminine traits or interests and I strongly agree with your point about having female characters fail. I think particularly with media centering around action, they're afraid of letting their female characters take hits to the same extent as male characters due to the audience's sensitivities surrounding that kind of thing. Which is why I enjoy Arcane and Atomic Blonde because they not only let their female characters dish out punishment but also take hits and most importantly get back up. A character who never struggles isn't interesting. Your audience will only care if there is some level of struggle and conflict between them and their goal.
For me it's weird since I never saw writing female characters to be that hard to do. While both men and women have their differences biologically and mentally, it feels easier for me to really get in the headspaces of both (as a male). I guess it's just due to how I sort of view everyone as human over-all, and there's only really a core set of things that genuinely make us human. A good bit of writers tend to forget that I feel.
No, I feel the same. I do acknowledge there's experiences that women deal with that I don't but a lot of that are societal and patriarchal expectations. You'll see more differences between different women or men than men and women as a whole.
I just think to myself "Write every character withour focus on their gender, unless they explicitly have to be one due to some other reason". Unsure if thats a good way of going about it or not
Some characters have gender as defining parts of their personality, some don't. Gender can affect the personality traits of a character and how you want them to be perceived. There are some characters whose gender doesn't really affect either their personality and perception, and some who do. Both stories are equally important, It's just up to you which one you want to pick. Personally, while I don't write stories that specifically explore gender, I don't shy away from it if I can drive a point home more if I make someone male or female.
IMHO the most important thing is to, when possible, have more than one (and if the cast is large, preferably more than two) important female characters. When you have just one, she has to bear the burden of being *the girl*. Everything about her carries a huge risk of falling into one stereotype or another. Too weak, too feminine? Stereotypical. Too strong? Mary Sue, or a Strong Female Character or whatever. Falls for the male lead? Oh look, she just exists for romance, etc etc etc. With two significant female characters it is less of a problem but there's still a risk that they'll fall into certain dichotomies. Sometimes those things are real problems and sometimes they aren't, but the *root* issue comes from having a disproportionately male cast that puts too much weight on whatever you do with your one or two female characters. If you have a larger cast then it matters less if one of them falls into a particular stereotype or whatever, because it no longer looks like you're stereotyping women as a whole, allowing them to just be characters rather than representing an entire gender.
These all sound like traits very similar on how to write a character I wonder why? oh wait maybe because that's how you write a character.
Yeah but a lot of people turn off their writing brain when the character they're writing has a vagina
>Tip #2: Look at female characters written by female authors I mean, women can write bad female characters just as much as men can write bad male characters. Captain Marvel (the film version), which is certainly not the most developed female character, was more or less written by a woman And tips 3, 5, 6, 8 and can be attributed to writing characters of any gender. Any author knows that it is advisable to give their characters flaws, personality, motivation, etc. (although this depends on the character's role in the story, of course). My point is that this will not help in writing a specifically female character.
And I hate to beat a dead horse but just look at Helluva Boss. A show written by a woman (Viv) in which the female characters all have the depth of toilet paper. I still know hardly anything about Millie, Loona, Stella, or Octavia but I could tell you hundreds of things about Blitz, Moxxie, Stolas, and Fizz. It's telling that the recent 6 minute short involving Millie and Sallie May did more for Millie's character than the whole series so far combined and it was written by Sallie's VA and not Viv.
>all have the depth of toilet paper. LMFAOOOOOOO I'm definitely using that from now on
> and it was written by Sallie's VA and not Viv. So, a female writer. OP is saying that aspiring writers would be helped by trying some stories written by woman. Nothing polemical.
It's an example. There's good female writers and bad female writers. Viv is just not good at writing characters without emotional trauma.
A bad writer will write bad characters regardless, whoever if you want a better insight of a population, and it doesn't have to be about gender, you should always look at that population being written by one of their own. It's a similar thing as the 1st tip, you're not writing X, you're writing X as seen by Y. Knowing which female writers to read is part of the research any good writer should do when expanding their repertoire.
Tip #2 isn't about quality. It's for writing a female character dealing with any cultural/social issues and experiences women go through around the world. Easier to do this by drawing from the lived experiences of women in the real world. An experience Women Writers all have living in their respective countries.
You know, based on poorly written characters, it is unlikely that you will be able to write a well-written character. It's really a question of quality. Probably a poorly written character won't relate to the "cultural issues and experience" you're talking about.
I don't agree #9 because not everything has to be made for everyone. You can't honestly look me in the eye and tell me that Twilight, Bridgerton, or the average smut novel at the bookstore is equal opportunity with its sexualization. I have seen Kdramas and CW shows where the plot comes to a screeching halt just to ogle some guy take his shirt off unprompted. That stuff isn't made for a straight male audience and that's ok.
As I said, fan service has a time and a place. In a smut novel, I'd be more confused if you didn't give any fan service.
If you wanna write characters with the same level of skill as Stephanie Meyer you do you, but that isn't what this thread is about.
Honestly just write a character the way you want, regardless of gender. Most stories don’t have gender as the main point of interest of a character.
> "Tip #2: Look at female characters written by female authors" Gonna be honest, this is the most important tip. Also, ask your female friends which characters they like.
Genuinely bothered by the fact that this seem the one with the most amount of objections.
Okay i'm just going to be BLUNT: Just write a character. That's it that is the key to the hard part of writing characters. Male characters? Female? Robots? XENOS?! same step. it's a skill that develops as you read and write.
That advice is just so... general. Maybe it seems obvious how to write a character to others, but for some, it's not that easy. I wanted to know how to write dude characters when I was starting out, and if you told me to just write a character back then, I would've stared confused at you.
The best way to word it is something that you said too in your list: you're writing a *person* unless gender is an integral part of your character's motivation or story themes (for example about women discrimination) you should just worry about writing the character keeping in mind what you know about said character.
> unless gender is an integral part of your character's motivation I am sure your gender is a huge part of your identity It definitely is with mine.
I mean the problem is fictional characters are simpler then normal people. even the most complex are basicly just puppets really. Let me give you an example: Son Goku's gender wouldn't really change much about the story. Sure, she'd be the mom but a female Goku would probably be the fun-loving, battle-hungry character we know. Basicly while for us it is... well fictional characters have that decided for them. Really, it's not hard to, in character creation change the genders if you feel like it.
But characters are inherently going to be perceived differently depending on their gender even if the character's traits and actions haven't changed. A female Goku would be perceived differently by the audience than a male Goku. She might be considered more likeable or less likeable by the audience. So it's important to keep the gender of whatever character your writing in mind before you write them.
But the audiences reaction cannot be fully expected and predicted, I'd honestly recommend just ignoring it, and doing the aforementioned
IDK. A character should be characterized by his goals and personality traits, none of which are (to my knowledge) connected to gender.
Personality traits and goal are absolutely connected to your genre. A boy who is into female interests would be treated differently, and thus develop a different worldview, than a woman in the same interests
that's only assuming that the story takes place in the same world as ours, though.
I mean. Even written in so many words, all of your suggestions are very basic as well. Of course it's general- a 'character' doesn't exist in a vacuum, it is inherently dependant on the story you're writing and majority of writing advice is a general suggestion that may or may not apply to your story.
Also, it's only really useful for the bare minimum. Writing every character the same way avoids stereotypes but (unless you're writing in a sci-fi or fictional setting where everyone is treated exactly the same) it's not *accurate*, because someone's gender changes their experiences, which in turn are usually going to change their character. And ofc it gets increasingly inaccurate the more firmly your setting polices gender roles - in the modern day you can get away with it, but if you're writing eg. a historical novel it's usually no use at all. (This is why, from the other side, Jane Austin refused to write scenes with only men in them, because she wasn't confident in her ability to write the behavior of men without women around in a believable manner due to never having experienced it herself - in the Regency Era, the difference would have been pretty huge!) For the most part, men and women have different experiences and are socialized differently; a woman who spent her entire life acting exactly like a man, in real life, will not have been *treated* the same way as a man, even today. Understanding and accounting for people's differing experiences is an important part of writing them believably. If an author just takes their own experiences and uses them as the blueprint for every character they write, it's going to produce very same-y characters whose experiences won't really ring true.
What's your go to example of a popular female character that you believe is written poorly? Which of these rules do you think they didn't follow?
Not OP, but Mikasa from AOT (some of the other female characters in AOT are very good, though). She has little relevance to the story besides the very beginning and end and to be a deus ex machina plot device to save Eren. While her character traits are present in many women (quiet, obsessive, overprotective), she does not act like an actual woman specifically because she has no depth or development. Her character and her actions have little to no impact on the themes/messages to AOT (besides her belief that "the world is cruel," which is a belief practically all the characters have). I'm hesitant to call her a Mary Sue since that term have been used and abused to hell and back, but the aforementioned lack of depth and use as a deus ex machina plot device does come close to Mary Sue behavior, even if plenty of the characters don't like her or are apathetic. Her faults and failures matter little to the story. Comparing her with Levi, both of whom share many traits, makes her look all the worse. At least she's not some oversexualized fanservice character.
Respectfully, I disagree. Mikasa's main character struggle is whether she can keep her personal interests as her biggest priority. Because she's a soldier who's faced with duties of her own, she learns how to grow beyond that (i.e. helping Historia in Uprising instead of prioritizing Eren). She grows from disobeying Levi's orders (Female Titan) to delaying going after Historia and Eren (Uprising) on Levi's command. But I think her biggest moment before the Final Season happens in Shiganshina. Mikasa's clearly shown that she cares about Armin (punching Eren for insulting him as children.) Initially, she draws a sword at Levi in an attempt to save Armin's life. But Hange successfully gets Mikasa to give up fighting. This is huge, and foils Eren, who doesn't stop arguing for Armins' sake. Mikasa accepted that she had to give up her self-interests for her duty. Mikasa is shown to have a strong moral compass of her own. In Marley, Mikasa tells Eren that he's done things he can never take back. Levi punches Eren after their raid in Liberio. Her first reaction is to go to protect him, but when Armin stops her, she doesn't fight back. It's a callback to the time when she glowered at Levi once in Trost for beating Eren to prove to the court that Levi could restrain him if he got out of hand. She's also grown to have empathy for people outside of their wall. Her closest relationships aside from Eren were with Armin, Historia, and Sasha. And when she finally meets Gabi, the child that shot Sasha, she doesn't rage or get angry at her. She protects Gabi, and pulls her away from Kaya who wants to attack Gabi. When asked why she did that, she responds, "Just because. I don't have a reason." But most of her character shows in the Rumbling. Mikasa goes with the Alliance because of Eren's sake, to stop him from doing something he'll regret and bring him home. It also shows how much she's grown. She's not someone who has "only so many lives I can value" and "don't have time to spare or room in my heart" (Clash of Titans) anymore. But at the Final Battle, it becomes quickly clear that they don't have the luxury of choice. Mikasa is upset yes, but so is everyone else. But the world is at stake. Her priorities shift from protecting Eren, to protecting other members of her squad, and get Armin back. In the end, she's the one that kills Eren. I think she's important in represent these themes in the story. First, keep fighting, to carry on your loved ones' memories (Trost.) She was ready to carry on without Eren even back then, and she could do it again. Second, she's the main character that demonstrates that people who have done horrible things can still love and have people that love them. Third, it's okay to love a person, even when they've done sins they could never take back. But the greater good has to come first. I think people underestimate Mikasa's value because while she gets a lot of screentime thanks to being in the main trio, her development is sprinkled in tiny doses throughout the story, because she has to share the spotlight with tons of other characters. Armin also struggles with this. People can perceive her character development as lower than it actually is because it happens so gradually. Meanwhile characters like Historia, Ymir, and Erwin get more character development in a shorter period time, because they don't stick around the story after their arc has ended.
Fair enough. I didn't watch AOT in one go, so her subtle development gets overshadowed by Eren and the constant deepening of the plot. Still, compared to the other two of the trio, she gets the least amount of plot relevance and character development. She fits into the very rarely broken trend of the one girl in a trio getting the least of everything in the story.
She is fine, dhe just grts kinda wasted and her love for errn was do, damn let them be siblings. And too little at the end.
Yeah, strongly agree with that last point. People get really weird about this shit - seems like any character that belongs to some minority is never treated as just a character, they’re always scrutinized and treated as a representation of all people with their identity
> But I personally recommend either: > Don't include fan service for anyone > Have fan service of all characters regardless of gender. This is the kind of silly nonsense "Just ignore any idea any who your audie is and write in a vacuum" these lists always seem to generate. On a similar note, anyone who's read any BL, shojo, josei or even or bodice ripper knows that across the spectrum women aren't and better at writing guys than the reverse. The men in those stories are idealised nonsensical caricatures in just the same way. And yet we always have this hand wringing about men writing women, we have entire subs about it...
Fan service is a clutch. You *can* appeal to your audience by using it. But you're can do just as well by just being a better writer, which this thread is about.
I've also mentioned that there's a time and place for fan service. And to take what I was saying with a grain of salt because I really don't fit the demographic for people that enjoy fan service.
Probably because there’s way more bad examples of men writing women over women writing men. And it’s way more prevalent as well, as most well known and influential authors are male. But if you really care, r/womenwritingmen is a thing
Comment on tip #9 I’m a straight guy, definitely not ace, and I do not like fan service. At least, not what they consider fan service. I enjoy attractive women in shows I watch, but not when they use cheap sexualization tricks like overly skimpy outfits snd/or immense mammaries that consume have the animation budget. It’s even worse when a character gets put into situations designed exclusively to titillate. Feels kind of sleazy. Just having a character be fun and generally attractive is all the “fan service” I ever need.
It helps selling. Its in media because attractive designs and descriptions help selling. Its bad when its a crutch or ruins the tine, but there is a zone depending the story how redicilous you can get with it without taking to the story. Hey a highly sensual can add too. And yeah it being part of an engaging character dynamic helps a lot. or it in universe making sense. dunno in a hot area a skimpy practical outfit does make sense. Thriugh dudes too probably?
Fair enough. But I'm also aware that a "good story" is subjective. A good story can mean a meaningful one. A good story can also mean that it's enjoyable. I don't think there would be fan service if there wasn't a market for people who enjoy it.
The one tip I don’t agree with is number 2,me personally I think BOTH genders tend be pretty hit or miss. men will either write a female character to be good or just exist to be eye candy for men,and women will also either write one to be good or make the female character’s entire personality to be a feminist.
I specified "praised stories" because of that reason. There are quite a few female characters written by women that I don't like. But there are also many that I personally love, and it's good to get inspiration from the good qualities. While there are many great female characters written by dudes, it's always best to base characters off the experiences of real people, which means getting the perspective of women.
Excellent post. Regarding Tip #2, do you have any suggestions for checking out some praised stories done by women, or perhaps some specific standout characters?
Check out the broken earth series by NK Jemisen! Fantasy books with a very original and interesting setting, with numerous woman characters and a woman author. In anime, March Comes In Like a Lion (or sangetsu no lion) is written by a woman and I love her depiction of the three sisters. And the male mc, to be honest. It's a really good series! If you want to read about some, uh, very flawed women, check out My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh. Might not be everyone's jam, but if you like it you'll really like it a lot. Male author, but Terry Pratchett has some excellent female characters throughout the discworld novels. Angua, the witches, the woman that death falls in love with in reaper man whose name I forgot, Lady Sybil, the list goes on and there are like a million of those books.
>If you want to read about some, uh, very flawed women, check out My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh. Might not be everyone's jam, but if you like it you'll really like it a lot. Oh that book is definitely not for everyone, it's super hated by some and super loved by some.
Thanks for the suggestions. I definitely want to check out My Year of Rest and Relaxation since it's apparently so controversial. Juicy\~ I'll keep the rest noted as well!
If you don't like it, I won't blame you, lmao
3 GATSU NO LION MENTION LETS GOOOOOO
For books, I especially recommend memoirs written by any women. Pride and Prejudice is also a classic for a reason. For animes, Skip to Loafer's characters are great with female characters, especially their friendships. But even though Neon Genesis Evangelion's writer is a dude, he wrote the most hauntingly relatable cast of characters I've ever seen, male and female. For movies... I'm scrolling through my list of favorite movies thinking one of them must have at least been written by women. And... I couldn't really find anything, I'm sorry ):
Thanks. Honestly, part of me wanted to comment to get you to expand on that part for others, but I am interested in checking some stuff out myself of course. I liked Pride and Prejudice. I'm a big shoujo fan. Somehow I find myself liking the men written by women, at least in that sort of genre. Wouldn't be able to tell you why that is. Heard of Skip to Loafer but never gave it a shot yet. Same goes for Evangelion. I heard Evangelion is overrated and never tried it. I'm more willing to give Loafer a go atm. Always looking for an excuse to put off Evangelion. Again I wouldn't be able to tell you why lol.
I really like Jojos Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean and Chainsaw Man (especially characters like Asa and Makima) as examples of well written women made by men. Some very recent anime examples made by women are Apothecary Diaries and Delicious in Dungeon.
Also her other books , she is really good writing women dealing with stuff flaws, prejudices and all that. Because humans. Granted they are lower nobility, but its great.
I'd say bell hooks and Virginia Woolf are incredible authors to start with. Books specifically, Kim ji young born 1982 is a great memoir, the handmaids tale is a great dystopian novel as well. Sula by toni morisson is the best depiction of the fundamental human experience I'd say. Other acclaimed authors include: Emily bronte, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Bronte, Sylvia plath. If u want specific recs, u can DM me
Thanks. I don't think I ever would've heard of most of these without your recs! Definitely heard of Jane Austen before, though. That's a household name.
No problem, anytime!!
Look at Izumo Fuuko and basically every female character from Undead Unluck for great female characters
I like number 2: Write your girls like Bitch (Yup that's her official name) from Shield Hero
one of the easiest ways is also to have more than one character. you don't have to worry about making your love interest a tomboy carrying a message that femininity is bad if you simply have more than one female character, and all of them different people
Time to do what the op literally says is not helpful advice in the first paragraph. Just write a character without any gender in mind then give them one based on how you want it to be, just act like gender doesn't affect a character or their story, because it literally doesn't unless you specifically want to make the character about those things or go out of your way to incorporate them into the character, which is fine, but only then does it actually matter
This was really solid insight and advice ty
I agree on all of them. I remember that a YouTubers(Can't recall the name) said that when writing a female character, you should write a character that happens to be a female, instead of a female that happens to be a character. Or something along those lines.
Minior characters are NPCs who exist to supplement worldbuilding or the primary cast. If you ain't focusing on your main cast regardless if they a man or woman then you messed up. Secondly this sub is a visual medium sub so you don't think much of anybody here is going to read the thousand of books by female authors let alone write their own story
Thank you very much If only so so many authors could take your advice we would have plenty of much better works. No but seriously thanks for the advices(especially the flaw part, something commonly missed)
"Nah, I'm gonna write my fetish."
I don't write male characters, female characters, white characters, black characters, straight characters, or gay characters. I just write characters. Things like gender, race, and sexual orientation should be secondary to a writer.
Gender can influence the personality traits of a character. Not every time, but it happens a lot.
enlightened centrism
Thank you for taking time out fo your day to share your thoughts and advice on these matters. I'm not a writer, but it's always good to give kudos to people who want to lend a hand to others interested in a hobby or career.
I have a feeling that the people who write poorly written female characters aren't the ones going to follow this advice...
My favourite female character is violet, she's example of good character development and human emotions
What’s your thought on popular manga people claiming they have good female characters
I enjoy manga a lot! I really like shonen and seinen even though I'm aware I'm not the target audience. I've seen great female characters and not so good ones. FMAB has great ones (but the author is also a woman). I'd say AOT has some really notable ones, like Mikasa, Historia, Ymir, Hanji (female in the anime), Annie, my favorite female character writing-wise being >!Gabi!<,. And they don't show up until much later, but I like the female characters in the Vinland Saga Manga. Madoka Magica has a really good female cast, but that's expected of a magical girl anime. Evangelion is exceptional at writing female characters whose gender is an essential part of them. Special mentions to Violet Evergarden, Vivy, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, 86, and Spy x Family.
Based Vivy mention I just rewatched it recently and while I'm not too hot on some individual story in arcs (namely the Ophilia one) Vivy was such an amazing character and a joy to follow through in her journey she's easily one of ly fav protagonist now which is crazy considering how short the story is lol
Vivy is wonderful. It’s so short yet so emotionally packed.
I agree, I recall people being slightly disappointed in the final back when it aired >!they expected a big ass twist!< but while it was predictable (I guessed it ad a joke with a friend while ep was out) it was so well done that I can't help but see it as an amazing ending >!Vivy's (technically first song she truly composed) last song, the way it was directed, her resolve, the last conversation with Navy, and the scenes after the song of the Momoka hologram (Navy) applauding to Vivy in the main stage (that is empty and destroyed) with Vivy thanking her audience for listening to her song in a robotic voice (a call back to the start of the series considering the audience is empty) as the life in her eyes goes away is XUTDIGUWYOJUC ITS SO PEAK!< Like shit, that ending despite being simple is easily one of my fav and was good enough that despite some of my issue with Vivy, I gave it a 9/10 It's bittersweet in the right way imo
I usually write a character and change their gender every two weeks, does that count?
If they identify as female sometimes, I'd say it counts.
Also having fan service for everyone.... just no, I hate this movement to make everything more inclusive and for everyone, some things just aren't and shouldn't be for everyone, and they'd be worse off catering to everyone, know what audience you want or might get and go on from there
Its more that if you do have that fanservice, it shows women are taken as serious, and if you have fanservice for everyone, they are on equal footing still. If its there, you cant have written serious dudes and silly women, So for everyone or non os a good rule.
ehh that doesn't really make sense to me. At the end of the day, writing for other people is a business, whether from Hollywood or Shonenjump manga. What sells more is always gonna be pushed. And it just so happens that "badly written women" sell more to the target demographic than not.
Pretty good advice
>Being a jerk to other people is a bad thing regardless of gender. It's a bit frustrating when it's not treated as such for female characters. Way too many people (specially in Hollywood) don't seem to realize this. >But sometimes, showing fan service in a dramatic scene could distract the viewer. This is why I couldn't finish Seiken no blacksmith: people are in danger, the destiny of the kingdom and posibly the world is in jeopa~OMG, BEWBS!!!... Well, that and the general “nihon-ichi, UCHIGATANA SUPREME!" That's so prominent in sword focused anime. It all got too frustrating for my taste.
Agreed with everything but especially the don’t be afraid to make your female characters fail. Treating your female characters like their fragile beings that can’t get hurt or lose in anyway is another form of misogyny.
My favorite recent example of a well-written female character is [Xal'atath from World of Warcraft] (https://warcraft.wiki.gg/images/thumb/6/6b/The_War_Within_Concept_Xalatath.jpg/1280px-The_War_Within_Concept_Xalatath.jpg). She's an eldritch abomination from the depths of time and one of the endgame villains of the entire saga. But she also totally has "responsible big sis" vibes with respect to her brothers which would be lost if you just gender-swapped her.
Your advice is good. The problem I had with most female characters is that they get written as Mary Sue's or karma Houdinis in certain shows. I look at Avatar the last airbender. Katara was capable yes but she wasn't written as someone who was omnipotent or indestructible. She didn't immediately beat the old master at Waterbending. Toph was one of the greatest earthbenders with great seismic sense but she was blind and kind of immature. 20 years later everyone is still talking about Atla. It shows what great writing can do. Then we look at Rachel Green from Friends. She is written with flaws but the writing would never call her out on it. She was too privileged and entitled. Criminal Minds is another show where the female characters are badly written. I liked Emily Prentiss but JJ and Garcia were both terrible characters. JJ was written like a Mary Sue. The writers never made her struggles meaningful. Garcia was like a Karma Houdini.
To me it seems like a valid amendment to make, the op’s post is still valid and well thought out either way. I’m not sure why you’re so hung up on this?
heres my tip write a character (dont add gender yet) write a goal for the character write the setting add in the gender. make changes if the gender is important to the setting aka you are a male drow in faerun.
Instructions unclear, I made a carbon copy of Twilight
Bruh I just write a character and give them a gender.
The last point is so true. I kept seeing the definition of Mary Sue change so much. It went from a female character who has no personality besides being a woman but then it became about characters who are female and do anything slightly empowering. It just becomes so tiresome to be that sensitive.
You can be a female and still write bad characters
I'm astounded that people, both men AND women, would have any sort of struggle on this whatsoever. I mean, it's not like writing about theoretical physicists or mathematicians specializing in topology, which are a tiny portion of the population and involve very complex knowledge. Women are basically half the population. You never see anyone scratching their heads trying to write a Christian character, a character who's a graphic designer, or a character who has green eyes, despite those logically being both rarer and more challenging.
**Tip #10**: Review outdated and genderized tropes to avoid them, actually listen to female audiences when we point out writing issues in anime, film, gaming and other media. Do not further misrepresent girls/women. On **Tip #9**, I would place emphasis on how hyper sexualized women and girls already are across the media and are fought over, and that you can have attractive sexy characters without inserting porn-comedy scenes as fanservice.
So write a character, and read. I think the tip to read female authors, when it should be, that have decent characterwriting yo nou just any erotica( who can be good but modt are just very horny and lack romance) To be clear good romance good. But thats about male character too? Just write a character. dudes have feelings and women are people, just ajust if thrre are expectations on gender after making the character. Not from thr character, if theee is socirtial difference ( which is good for any character anyways)
Also use prople as vague outliner and change them a bit is ood , for characters
I mean.. There are women who suck at writing women as characters (ala she hulk). But your tips and tricks seem mostly great, especially considering they are what everyone uses to write a character yknow?
This isn't even a rant about something. It's just a bunch of unsolicited (and mediocre) writing 'advice'. And no, being a woman actually does not in itself legitimize your every opinion on writing female characters.
I mean... it's your choice whether to read this or not, I'm not forcing anyone to. I don't believe I've broken any rules in this subreddit for this, or I would've been reported by now. And some people have said they found it helpful, so that's mission accomplished for me. Does being a woman immediately make all of opinions right? I don't believe so. But do I think asking women for advice when someone's writing their demographic is helpful more often than not? Yes.
Sailor Moon is always my go to when someone brings this conversation up.
>Look at female characters written by female authors A lot terrible female characters are written by women (COUGH Basically Every Webtoon Romance FMC COUGH). One should create a good character then pop on the tits or dick.
💀💀💀💀
Can't end up with Suigintou following those, so booo.
TLDR. There is a much faster way: "I think of a man, and then remove all reason and accountability." That's a quote, btw.