I've been on your flist or you mine or something for months now but I don't think I've actually commented. But your topic today is a most excellent one.
I used to be (and I suppose still am, to some degree) a writer/reader of male characters. They were just more interesting!! Furthermore, I often didn't feel like any of the women given me in fiction were real to me-- they never reflected how I felt as a person, as a woman. My sympathies always laid pretty squarely with the boys. When I'm given what's billed as a "strong female character" in fiction, it usually turns out to be a raging Mary Sue who's stunningly beautiful and pisses me off like hell. (See: Elizabeth Swann, POTC, as an example.)
It wasn't until I started a fictional universe with a friend in which we consciously set out to have both a gender balance and a race balance with the characters that I really started writing a lot of female characters. And, despite some initial mental hurdling, we ended up with several women who were strong female characters-- on our terms. That's not to say they're all necessarily positive or healthy characters, but they are people, and not a bunch of traits with a set of boobs attached.
Recently I've also started writing a character who's a middle-aged, divorced-with-two-kids Jewish librarian and kabbalist-- and she's the most fun I have had in ages. She doesn't get to swan around in badass leather or use swords or have rooftop chases or get the men to fall for her-- instead she gets to be real, to be smart (and geeky!) and tough (in a true, life's-put-me-through-hell-but-I'm-still-here-and-still-sane way) and funny and earthy and, man, I could go on about her for ages.
It feels wonderful to be writing her, to realize that for the first time ever I have a female character I can conceive of as a protagonist for her own story, and not just back-up for some guy's.
The key for me was throwing out all the stuff a female protagonist is "supposed" to have-- and I would make the case that high on that list is sex appeal. Not that my female characters don't have it, in various degrees according to their personalities, but it's just not the point of their characters. There just seems to be such a strong unwritten rule that Female Characters Must Be Attractive, and it wasn't until I mentally said "okay, I'm not going to pay that any attention" that I started writing women characters I actually clicked with.
no subject
I used to be (and I suppose still am, to some degree) a writer/reader of male characters. They were just more interesting!! Furthermore, I often didn't feel like any of the women given me in fiction were real to me-- they never reflected how I felt as a person, as a woman. My sympathies always laid pretty squarely with the boys. When I'm given what's billed as a "strong female character" in fiction, it usually turns out to be a raging Mary Sue who's stunningly beautiful and pisses me off like hell. (See: Elizabeth Swann, POTC, as an example.)
It wasn't until I started a fictional universe with a friend in which we consciously set out to have both a gender balance and a race balance with the characters that I really started writing a lot of female characters. And, despite some initial mental hurdling, we ended up with several women who were strong female characters-- on our terms. That's not to say they're all necessarily positive or healthy characters, but they are people, and not a bunch of traits with a set of boobs attached.
Recently I've also started writing a character who's a middle-aged, divorced-with-two-kids Jewish librarian and kabbalist-- and she's the most fun I have had in ages. She doesn't get to swan around in badass leather or use swords or have rooftop chases or get the men to fall for her-- instead she gets to be real, to be smart (and geeky!) and tough (in a true, life's-put-me-through-hell-but-I'm-still-here-and-still-sane way) and funny and earthy and, man, I could go on about her for ages.
It feels wonderful to be writing her, to realize that for the first time ever I have a female character I can conceive of as a protagonist for her own story, and not just back-up for some guy's.
The key for me was throwing out all the stuff a female protagonist is "supposed" to have-- and I would make the case that high on that list is sex appeal. Not that my female characters don't have it, in various degrees according to their personalities, but it's just not the point of their characters. There just seems to be such a strong unwritten rule that Female Characters Must Be Attractive, and it wasn't until I mentally said "okay, I'm not going to pay that any attention" that I started writing women characters I actually clicked with.
Just my two cents.