![cgcookie_cgc_female_body_character_basemesh_medium_1aee59cb4348c53acaec8cea413cc9e8b17e27c3[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/iqSy0Fb.jpg "cgcookie_cgc_female_body_character_basemesh_medium_1aee59cb4348c53acaec8cea413cc9e8b17e27c3[1].jpg")
How do you write female characters? I'm a male in my early twenties and I always write very poor, superficial female characters.
Could anyone recommend any male writers that portray female characters well?
""I always start with physicality when I'm writing as a woman. So I always have a vagina and think about having periods. I always start with an embodiment. And I think when I read men writing about women, they never seem to have thought about that. They've never thought: actually, you've got a cycle, you're different. So if I do succeed at all, that's what it's down to." - will self
is he talking shite?
should I just write a female character like I would write for a male character but add in more anxiety and neurosis i.e. "blah blah blah does my bum look too big blah blah blah blah"
>>7453934
>I always write very poor, superficial female characters.
Are you implying that your male characters are deep and emotionally complex?
Wish people would stop asking this retarded question. People who can't write females are almost always incapable of writing men as well, and for precisely the same reasons.
>>7453938
not really . but they're viable and believable
Look, it's not that difficult
Females aren't magical creatures, in fact your quote makes it seem like they would react to everything differently just because they have periods, which is the opposite imo
A Chinese character isn't defined by being Chinese, but he or she still is and should be empowered by it rather than hindered or confused
Write a female character like a male character, which is better and more applicable is an artistic subtlety
>>7453934
this thread is pic related
I'm pretty sure Will Self was at least half-trolling when he said that. He's a troll.
>>7453942
How so? What makes your male characters believable and your female characters shallow?
Write a man and take away all reason and accountability.
>>7453942
You probably think this because you write them solely from your own perspective. You could write your females the same way and have them be totally "viable and believable", but all of your characters will look alike.
>>7453949
>What makes your male characters believable
my mum said she liked them and I felt I gave them a tangible interior life
"WELL U KNOW I WRITE EWOMEN BECAUSE IVE ALWAYS CONSIDERED THEM AS PEOPEL...." - GEORGE R MARTIN
>>7453934
>when i write feelmale characters, i pretend i have a vagine and spend a lot of time thinking about the cycle in which blood and dead tissue leak from it
>>7453934
It depends a lot on what you want to do with the character. If a character's role depends mostly on her actions and outward role, you should just write a 'default' character (like you would write her if she was a man, basically). If it's her psychology and inner life that's important, you should take more care to make her 'feminine' enough. But it's easy to fuck this up and end up writing a MUH FEELINGS MUH MYSONOGY MUH [insert whatever way you imagine women to be importantly different from men here] character, which is way worse than writing a women that's too 'masculine'. Women aren't aliens, for the most part they're like men but less rough and they have vaginas.
Think about it this way: when reading Harry Potter(don't deny having read it you pleblord), did you ever think Harry or Ron weren't masculine enough? If you're writing something about magic teenagers fighting Lord Voldemort, their gender just isn't a big deal and paying attention to it beyond the occasional subtle jab is only going to look stupid.
>>7453967
>did you ever think Harry or Ron weren't masculine enough
I mean...Harry is probably the biggest, most useless pussy in the history of literature. He gets carried all the way by others, then takes all the glory. For all we know he was no man at all, the Dudleys probably had him castrated.
Write a male character and change the pronoun. BOOM. done.
>>7453980
oh shit. there must have been some dirty ball busting scenes off screen
>>7453980
>literally fucks up shit all day erry day while skipping class to fight bald magic Hitler
He has his Shinji Ikari moments, sure, but by no means he's unenterprising
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBz0BTb83H8
Literally this.
Replace every 30th to 31th character with "vagina", or "blood" every 28th for bisexual paragraphs.
>>7453941
Yup. Sometimes I think this is a bait thread but unfortunately people really are that dumb.
>>7453934
Just think of a man and take away reason and accountability.
Also always write her as a really hot 10/10 babe. People are not interested in ugly women.
>>7454322
You don't get to decide how me made our points here, you fucking menstrual blood muffin.
>>7454322
>being this triggered by a bit of banter
>logic and reason
>>>/reddit/
You wouldn't be too far from reality.
>>7454322
It blows my mind how easy is it to triggertumblrinas/redditors in this board.
>>7453934
I rarely read anything with female characters in it, so why bother.
>>7454347
>>7454362
>>7454371
>>7454365
>I can be le misogynist LOL so edgy free speech means I can be an asshole and people will love me for it amirite?
>reddit banned me they are fascist fucks I will go to my secret 4chinz club and make totally cool jokes with my brudders
You'll grow up one day little boys, but you'll still be virgins.
>>7454418
You must be autistic to not comprehend the level of sarcasm in this thread.
>>7453941
Correct.
Imagine yourself but everyone thinks you have access to some mythical emotional secrets that stop you from having rational thought. In the end you start to believe it yourself.
>>7454418
I hope this is just an anon trolling and pretending to be offended womyn
but i fear it might be real
>>7453967
>>7453980
I remember the start of the seventh book. Suddenly Rowling had decided it was time for Harry to hit puberty and start acting like a guy. The descriptions provided here just seemed silly, not convincing in the slightest, and the sudden contrast to the rest of the series made me cringe. I actually stopped reading.
Now, amusingly, it can also go off in the opposite direction. When Mary Renault wrote about Theseus she really made sure to equip him with a highly competitive nature and a touchy pride. Promiscuous, too. That was a fun read.
>>7454418
This line,
"Just think of a man and take away reason and accountability."
...is a movie quote. It's a joke.
Even if the rest aren't jokes, there's nothing you can do about it. Now, when you blow up and start screaming at people, you'll make it worse. You will only attract more /pol/sters to come fling shit at you.
If you like, you can start telling people to read more [insert cloistered academic] so at least some of the /pol/tards will hiss and scatter and hurry on back to their containment board as they are allergic to the idea of actually having to read long texts in order to win arguments. Bye for now!
Depends on the character, but what you want to include when writing a woman is the superficial action. What she's saying and what she's feeling can be characterized by what she's physically doing, the way she's sitting/standing, what she's doing with her hands, where she's looking, what she's wearing.
Joyce, Updike, and Roth all write women very well.
>>7454425
It's a soothing that to the feminist mind that the only misogynists are virgins and neckbeards, and not the charmers and regular guys who bang a lot of chicks. Ha ha. Ha ha.
>>7454782
>Updike, and Roth all write women very well.
lmao
>>7454800
They characterize women as oppressed men.... Like they have some sort of inherent masculinity just waiting to be released. Their characterisation of written is essentially masculine and way off the mark.
>>7454839
>>7454800
>off the mark
>lmao
I don't understand where you guys are coming from. OP shouldn't be looking to write unrealistic archetypes and Ruths.
>>7454800
Out of curiosity what differences do you see between Joyce's women and Roth/Updike's women?
lol at the retarded womyn multishitposter in this thread
>>7454869
He's only written one substantial female character, Molly Bloom, which I haven't read. The minor ones in Dubliners are shit, not many in Portrait, so if I had to guess I'd assume Joyce is shit as well.
>>7453934
write a man, then take away reason and accountability. Done.
>>7454869
Damn that white meat thick.
>>7453934
It's a lot like the Sims, really.
Think of a good trait. We'll say Mary has a need to help everybody she can.
Now think of a bad trait. Mary hates old women because her father left her mother for an older gal.
The real trick is remembering that you know these traits for certain, but your reader won't.
So you would set up scenes that play these traits against one another. Like Mary sees an old woman struggling one day, but runs from the woman and feels awful afterwards.
This advice probably sucks, but it's where I'm at on my writing journey.
Write a guy and then slap a pair of tits on him.
>>7455029
you know nothing..where are the boobs?
>>7453934
Don't want realism, eh?
Ever heard of the Bechdel test? It's a piece of fiction that has two female characters converse amongst themselves about something other than a man. Sounds easy right?
I find out after 160,000 words of my second novel that I hadn't passed the Bechdel test. Hahaha. Although it doesn't necessarily make or break the depth of a female character. I just gave them separate motives of their own that explain their actions, just like any other character really. However, first time around I had the exact same issue. Just work on developing them a bit deeper in later drafts.
>>7453934
What sort of story are you writing, OP?
Because the answer for how to write a convincing female character is going to be a lot different depending on whether the character in question is supposed to be an ordinary middle class office drone woman in the 20th century, or if she's the captain of a starship 500 years in the future, or if she's a the wife of a spice trader in renaissance-era Venice.
The key to making a character believable is considering how their past and personal ambitions relate to the expectations of society for someone of their gender/class/race/etc.
>>7455488
you don't need to pass the bechdel test to have deep female characters, as you said
and you don't need to have deep female characters to write a good novel.
not every character has to be deep, some can be more shallow, provided the focus isn't on them.
it can happen that all the female ones are shallow.
>>7454927
>He's only written one substantial female character, Molly Bloom, which I haven't read. The minor ones in Dubliners are shit, not many in Portrait, so if I had to guess I'd assume Joyce is shit as well.
OK. I can't make you think differently, but I'll tell you why I petition them as both fascinating and educational illustrations of women for the Opie.
--Roth--
If we look beyond the surface-noise of Roth's oeuvre we see a steady depiction of women as complex people whose spirits are both recalcitrant and submissive. Although you can find this characteristic in many of his novels and short stories, it is in Portnoy's Complaint and When She Was Good that we find Roth's most important conclusions regarding women.
--Updike--
(I read Updike a few years ago, so give me grace on the fact that I'm only referencing his most popular book-a book in which he says so much more wise things on men-, Rabbit Run)
Rabbit Run presents a great image of women in its faithfulness to their (realistically) highest and lowest qualities, love and trust, and stupidity and opportunism. We see these three traits manifested in the behavior of the men too, but it seems that with women, what John does is combine the characteristics together to make the hysterics and passion of women seem, plausible. (I don't know how you feel about writing in the present-tense, but, Christ almighty does Updike do it well.)
--Joyce--
Joyce does the same thing that Updike does, but he does it with, what I've found to be an extreme amount of subtlety. And in the second to last post I made, I drew reference to superficial action, what the characters are physically doing, and here's what I mean by that. Largely by implementing qualia (not by the Spiritual, the Psychological, or Stream of Consciousness/Interior monologue, but by qualia), Joyce makes manifest the emotions of his characters. These little psychical details are more than superficial, they are cymiferous descriptors that, when examined either broadly or locally (scene by scene), reveal the intentions and emotional states of his characters. Sometimes Joyce even employs Freudian imagery to depict this. (re-read Araby with this in mind)
That's why I'm recommending Joyce, Updike, and Roth.
>>7455112
Shit yeah it is
>>7454601
>It's just a prank bro!
You forget the past 5 years. Faux shitfuckers, for humorous purposes, acted all retarded across the spectrum of 4chan's boards. This act attracted actual shitfuckers. Behold, /pol/, /v/, /b/, /tv/, and all the other cesspit boards only exist as they do because they were transformed slowly into something less than what they were.
>>7454325
I understood that reference.
>>7453934
Think of a man, then take away reason and accountability.
>>7454425
This post reminds me of a woman. I learned how to write a woman from this, thanks anon
>>7456321
Read the thread you fucking moron.
"chad is bringing us some weed and has a huge cock, I'm definitely gonna fuck him"
"ewww I can't believe that guy Stuart is attracted to me; He's so gross, it makes me feel gross"
"I wonder what I should have for dinner tonight"
>>7454322
Back to Reddit and Tumblr.
This is 4chan. You need to learn to handle the banter.
>>7456551
For the record, THIS POST IS A JOKE.
Go back to ShitRedditSays and Tumblr if you're going to get mad.
>>7453942
Doubt it to be desu family if you're having problems writing women.
I just write about all-male Unions of Egoists going on adventures together and building friendships so intimate they border on the homosexual, as might be found in the works of Hesse. Women are meme
>>7456648
the Mivehind is foreal
>>7453934
Get to know some interesting women, use them as source.
