Female characters in fantasy???

[ali565]

Hi guys. Again, I apologise in advance if this has already been discussed in this forum .
See, I write fantasy and real world stories, and it seems to me that I have a greater deal with writing likeable female characters in the fantasy genre, funny considering I am a girl. But, like many other writers, I seem to have a lot of male characters and less female ones and I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas as how to sensibly portray female characters in fantasy?
I do have female characters, but I'm not big into female characters being 'strong' in a masculine sense of the word, like big muscles and fighting off several large guys etc. you sometimes see in fantasy, to me this seems unrealistic.
I'm not against strong women, definitely not, and as a girl, I like to see female characters being about more than just looks, but I was just wondering how to properly write female characters without them seeming unrealistic and unlikable? Does anyone else have this problem.
Thanks guys!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I had this problem when I started writing (I'm a female, btw) and I think it's because so much of the fantasy (trad) we read has male mcs and it was hard for me, at first, to imagine telling the story as a woman. Now, several books later, I'm equally comfortable writing either sex.

A few ideas - try writing a few short stories or scenes from a first person, woman's perspective. First often makes us find a character's thoughts easier.

Take a scene you've already written and write it as if you were a woman in it. You could be an observer, or change the mc to a woman and be them, but again, it's just practising the woman's perspective.

And women don't have to be strong and macho to replace a male mc. They just need to be themselves, whatever them that is.

 

[thaddeus6th]

It's perhaps because in a 'traditional' (medieval) setting there were fewer opportunities for women, so writing strong/interesting women whilst maintaining a credible world can be trickier.

I feel similarly, so before my current WIP I focused on female characters, to try and ensure there'd be a reasonable number that were interesting whilst not trying to impose a modern sense of equality on a medieval(ish) world.

Some things I considered were:
women as mages
the odd one or two women as warriors (women did fight even in medieval times but it was quite uncommon)
women as power behind the throne/wicked wives

Religion might also be a route for female characters. It's also worth noting whilst the 14th century and surrounding era was not the land of equality women could and did run their own businesses (at least until marriage, and sometimes even then). I'm re-reading the Knight Unofficial Manual, and when a blacksmith was taken by one royal or other to join the army in France his work in London was taken over by his mother.

 

[ali565]

Thanks Springs, I'm glad I'm not the only girl who's struggled with this. I don't want my female characters to be pseudo-males or objects of desire, I'm just afraid that I fall into the same traps as so many other writers seem too. Most of my MCs are usually male, but that's because it's hard to be brave enough to break the stereotype of male hero and female love interest. I did originally have a girl MC but somehow she seemed slightly out of place given the context of my story, and was more masculine than your typical real woman.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think Thad's right, in a way. If you're writing traditional fantasy, there are some roles it's harder to put a female into.

Maybe reading some strong female protagonists would help? I'm not massively well read in fantasy, but some of the fantasy peeps might pipe up with some better examples, but in mainstream books (because I see you write both) some that come to mind are:

Gone with the wind - Scarlett O'Hara.
To Kill a Mocking Bird - Scout.
I just read Banished by Liz de Jaegar and, whilst I wasn't falling over myself about it, the mc was female and the love interest was male. (YA urban fantasy)
The Hunger Games, of course. (YA scifi dystopian)
I'm sure there are many, many others. Maybe by seeing how others break the stereotype you'll get some ideas on how to do it?

 

[ali565]

I agree with you guys, it is much harder to write females in fantasy because of the limits of traditional fantasy societies, but breaking these traditions would undoubtedly question the credibility of my writing, so its really hard! Real life stuff, I don't really have a problem with writing females because we live in a much more even society where guys and girls get the same opportunities so there's far more scope for exploration of female characters .

 

[JoanDrake]

The major way it's done in a lot of Fantasy I've read is that women are Sorceresses and men are Warriors. That is probably what you are trying to get away from, though Sorceresses can be just a likeable as anyone else.

Take a scene you've already written and replace one or more main characters with females. Don't change anything else, but just have the female do what the male does in a more likely female way. Instead of blocking a sword blow with main force they adroitly sidestep and parry.

Another possible way is just to write the character as doing whatever they are doing and don't give them names or physical descriptions until somewhat later in the story. I have been told that Samuel Delany once went to page 157 in a story before letting us know the main character was female, though I've not read it and forget which one it is.

One Western Fantasy, a movie, that does this pretty well is The Quick and the Dead. The "whores round back" scene makes it pretty clear that this is not an Equal Rights tract, but OTOH, Stone's character has a gun and can obviously handle it, so who's going to argue where she enters?


One other work I can think of offhand is Friday, by Robert A. Heinlein. It's SF rather than Fantasy but Friday is clearly a woman who does things traditionally thought of as male.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Why does the main character have to tell the story? Sometimes, particularly in Arthurian literature (which tends to the pseudo medieval, often) the most interesting stories have been told by the females. Much as it pains me to reccommend anything she's written, The Mists of Avalon by Zimmer-Bradley does this very well.

 

[Susan Boulton]

The thing is not to have your female characters out of sinc with your fantasy. Remember you are creating a whole world, so both male and female character must act within the boundaries you create.

One of my beta readers for my novel, Hand of Glory wanted me to make my character,"more modern." I tired to explain that for an upper middle class women to take up nursing and go the western front in the 1914-18 war was not quite the done thing. Then to come back and want to continue nursing and make her own way in life, was very modern for the time, but they would not have it.

In my novel, Oracle,(soon to be published by Tickety-Boo Press) women have no say in politics, but that doesn't mean they are not shadowy players in the game of power, and at times more ruthless than the men.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

But there were women in medieval society who did break out of the mould as there have been in all periods. There have always been the Boudicca's, Cleopatra's, Joan of Arc's, Black Agnes's, Lady Godiva's, Lady Macbeth's, Empress Matilda's, Queen Elizabeth I's etc There were women who took on businesses upon the death of their men.

Shakespeare for his era wrote some very strong female characters.

My MC in my fantasy was male. Whilst he was 6ft11 he was also poorly trained and due to being waited on all his life he was also rather inept. His wife had been weapons trained, and was the one more capable of being the army's general. He was decidedly hen-pecked

 

[ZombieWife]

First off, it's fantasy. Even a "faux medieval" setting is still fantasy. That means gender is all up to you. And anyone who starts sputtering about "b-b-b-b-but, it's not REAL MEDIEVAL if you have strong women who wear pants, OMGZorz," then kindly ignore them and move along.

Guess what? It's fantasy.

Not "Super realistic historical fiction with magic," but FANTASY.
Not "I have to have every medieval detail perfect, even sociological circumstances EXACTLY LIKE MEDIEVAL TIMES," but FANTASY.

It's your world, your rules. Let's say you decide to create a world where women ARE subjugated. You want to keep that aspect of a medieval setting (or an ancient X_civilization setting). Look at Cersei in Game of Thrones. Is she broken-down woman with no power who does only what men tell her? Hell no. She finds power wherever she can. She may not be out wielding a sword, but she's mastering other strengths. She has motivations. She's not just an accessory for the male hero.

Brienne of Tarth? She kicks ass. She's an outlier in her world. The rules are there. "Women's battle is in the birthing bed." (King Robert) But Brienne pushes back against that norm. And we see what it has done for her and what it's cost her.

Dany in the east. Never seen her pick up a sword and use it. Definitely not a "dude with tits" type of character. But she has a massive amount of power, reasons for making her choices (ill or good), motivations and desires.

On the other hand, let's say you create a medieval-esque world where women are fairly equal. They fight side-by-side with men. In my book, I have women who are the rulers in one country because the lineages are confirmed through the mother (whereas men? Who REALLY knows if King What-his-Eff over there is really the father.) Society has women who stay at home, cook, clean, take care of kids. And women who choose to fight.

And some think, "Wow, wimmins should be at home with the childrens," and some think, "Hellz no, they can kick ass too, let them fight."

Just because I create a world where things are equal, doesn't mean that the mass majority will completely agree with ME, the writer. There will always be those who believe that something should be different in society--or--that something should stay the same. Your civilians are characters too, each one with motivations and thoughts and beliefs.

As a woman who writes and reads fantasy, I like a good female character. Strong isn't important (unless that's part of a character's make-up, either physical or mental). I just want a character I can believe. That is AUTHENTIC. That I haven't seen a million times in film television.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Skill, training, knowledge/education, strategy, speed, experience, wisdom, intuition etc can all be more important than brute strength and a frontal attack anyway.

Besides for a reader it's a bit boring if the MC is just a Macho Bully.

Of course some women in the real world are large and physically stronger than most men. Some are even Macho Bullies (But rare compared to men). Both sexes are on "distribution" curves for each attribute. Real people are more complicated mix than society will admit. So in your story you can emphasis different aspects you find interesting in the real world combined into your imaginary character.

 

[ZombieWife]

Another quick note, even female writers can frack up female characters. I can't think of a single female character (except for Claudia) that Anne Rice wrote . . . that I did not loathe or find utterly banal.

Women?

uhhhh.......................................

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm always surprised at the attitude some (mainly male) writers take to writing women. It's as if women are all very alike, but totally alien and incomprehensible. As far as I can tell, they vary just as much as men. I also doubt whether everything a female character does or thinks has to be filtered through some sort of level of "femaleness". The gender of, say, a strategist approaching a battle may not have very much effect at all on the decisions taken.

I think Zombiewife makes some good points. The fantasy world has to convince in itself, not as a copy of our past with some magic thrown in. I am currently writing about characters in what's effectively a knightly order established by their world's equivalent of Joan of Arc. It's an accepted tradition that women can join, although some don't go in for the armour-and-hitting end of things, and take a more strategic role. Some people in the setting may disapprove of the custom, others may approve, but they all respond to it.

I suppose, in terms of writing, female characters in a pseudo-medieval world will have to deal with the pressure to conform (like everyone - society could be extremely stratified), and hence may be seen as freakish if they refuse outright. They may have to work through other people, or rely more on links to friends, in order to get things done. But there might be advantages that a female character could play off: a female private eye might be given sensitive jobs by noblewomen, or a female painter might be assumed to be better at capturing the inner thoughts of a subject, or some such (or else could just have novelty value).

The thing that I do find tricky is the families and children aspect. But then, not everyone else is interested in that. I'm sure the story of the woman who struggles between family and her "calling" has been told a million times, but it might be interesting if the "calling" is riding a dragon into battle.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas as how to sensibly portray female characters in fantasy?

My suggestion would be to experiment with writing gender neutral characters, and toy with making any of them male or female. The story might let you know that one works over the other, and then you could write in the extra character development accordingly.

That may or may not help with avoiding gender stereotypes.

2c.

 

[ratsy]

My MC in the book I'm working on is a woman. It isn't a fantasy setting though...I think I have done female MC's in 3 out of my last 4 short stories, and I'm not sure why. I guess it's just the way the stories wrote themselves.

I think there are some great female characters out there. Most recently Shallan from The Stormlight Archive by Sanderson. Her story is one of my favorites in a long time.

 

[millymollymo]

Interesting couple of panels at Nineworlds about this. Plenty of reading material was offered up. Springing to mind other than the Buffy/Hunger Games options: Melanie Rawn, Kate Elliott, Liesel Schwarz

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6458963.Liesel_Schwarz

 

[Null_Zone]

Personally,

Don't give her modern knowledge in a fantasy setting to prove how better she is than all those men.

Have her know which fights to win, so no Machiavellian geniuses that can also take a dozen soldiers hand to hand. Pick one. Great leaders will have others to do the fighting, great warriors will be of use to even mediocre lead e 're.

Pre industrial society can't afford to have half the population sat around doing nothing, so have women with useful skills sets beyond healer. For example a surprising number of women were head of the London bell and cannon makers guild during the 17th and 18th century. It was a trade where couples worked side by side.

And apparently women ask more open ended questions than men, not that I've ever noticed.

 

[Darkranger85]

I dabble in fantasy writing and it's funny because I'm a guy and my main characters tend to be women.

In a story I was writing last year my main character was an Elf named Streea and she was very headstrong, impetuous, and a touch over confident.

She wasn't masculine of anything, she used wits, agility, and skill to achieve her victories. Not everything has to be brute strength.

If I knew where it was I would post it for you.

 

[JoanDrake]

I dabble in fantasy writing and it's funny because I'm a guy and my main characters tend to be women.

In a story I was writing last year my main character was an Elf named Streea and she was very headstrong, impetuous, and a touch over confident.

She wasn't masculine of anything, she used wits, agility, and skill to achieve her victories. Not everything has to be brute strength.

If I knew where it was I would post it for you.

Keep in mind that you don't have to give a character big muscles to make her strong. Pound for pound strength can vary widely among animals that are the same size. Cheetahs were used to hunt wolves in the Middle Ages because not only were they the only animal able to run down wolves but, being cats, much stronger than even the biggest. Most chimps weigh less than 100lbs but are generally at least 5 times stronger than most men. Hounds are twice as strong as dogs, who are twice as strong as people, (pound for pound)


I have a race of rather small girls who are generally matchless warriors because they are both very strong, very agile and very fast.