I recommend you track down a second-hand set of The Tenebran Trilogy by Dave Luckett. In it, one of the main characters is a woman who is entirely soldierlike when in military situations, but who does not try to repress or ignore her feminine attributes. I think she was a very well-balanced character, stepping carefully on the line between masculine and feminine. Definitely not a damsel in distress, but still feels comfortable in a dress.

I’ve never really had a problem with this funnily, in part because I find loving, sweet characters impossible to write without making them completely two-dimensional, so I generally steer clear or make them pretty warped inside. I mean, me and a friend of mine once wrote a script together, and after reading how I’d done a scene with a female ninja in it, she said I’d made her very masculine, though it hadn’t registered to me at all. In all the stories I’ve written, there’s usually at least one androgynous female character. The first was, however, a very bitter and twisted woman who resented the entire world, which as you noted doesn’t exactly reflect kindly on the disposition. The second, a sort of adaption of the first, was subdued and at times sharp, but more than capable of being tender with the only person she cared about, though in her own way. And then I had a male character as well who had a sort of grace and emotional fragility that made him seem ‘feminine,’ though in a pretty sinister way (that is, it was pretty easy to make him cry, but also pretty easy to make him attempt to bludgeon you to death.) And in my most recent story, my two VPCs are a small, androgynous girl and a young androgynous man. Characters like this are absolutely fascinating to play with, mostly because the normal character dynamics (which bore me, really) can just be thrown out the window and you can ultimately do whatever you want.

The girl starts out relatively feminine, but as she grows older she becomes much more stolid and cool-headed, though because she uses protective magic exclusively, she deeply cares about people and spends a lot of time saving others because in her mind life is precious, though she comes off as a sort of valiant knight while doing her thing, and the way her magic works makes her something of a barrier warrior. The man, on the other hand, puts on a gentle facade, and has weird habits like touching people when he talks to them and braiding people’s hair when it’s long enough, but he has an incredibly short temper which is only balanced by his incredible passive-agressiveness.

I read a lot of manga, so ‘cool’ characters like this show up pretty frequently, and so I’m used to reading and writing them. I think the thing is with characters like this, is that in an effort to make a female character stronger, she just ends up becoming frustratingly belligerent, which begins to grate. To be honest, I have no interest in characters incapable of showing tenderness, whether male or female. Men who spend entire books flexing and being-stand offish make me fume, and women who do the same aren’t much better. Having a softer side I find to be incredibly endearing, and the absence of it without an explanation bugs me. Obviously, tenderness doesn’t need to be expressed by blushes and stuttering—simple but cool gestures give the same feeling without the emotion being lost, or the character being girlified.

I think the feeling of any ‘sweet’ gesture can be instantly ungirlified by the way the character acts while doing it. If they’re nonchalant, or act sincere without the accompanying embarrasement, then it both makes them seem sweet but also very emotionally under-control. For instance, my female VPC has a habit of holding people’s hands to show she trusts them, but she does it with such sure sense of calm that the people she does it to are usually the ones who become embarrassed. The same goes for my male VPC, who picks flowers when he’s in a bad mood, and if people speak to him while he’s doing it, he usually puts one of the flowers in their hair—though the way he smiles as he does it causes most people who know him to construe it as some sort of threat.

Surely making a character strong without them seeming damaged isn’t impossible? I mean, I’m not exactly the best person to speak about this since all my characters are damaged in one way or another, and the only one who isn’t damaged is basically damaged because he can’t be damaged (or somehting…), but their basic personalities aren’t necessarily a consequence of their damage. I think as long as the character doesn’t show an unnescesary resentment towards people of the opposite sex by snapping at them and such, then it shows that they’re level-headed without them being screwy. I think just making a character confident in themselves is enough to do the trick. People just tend to over-shoot and go into the territories of arrogant and self-righteous, but that’s completely unnescesary. Also, concentrate on making the character themselves more than anything. When people set out to make a certain type of character, what tends to happen is that when the character begins to grow, the author stifles the character and it shows up in the writing, which immediatley removes the believability of anything they do—if a strong, not-so-feminine female characters is able to be such without you forcing her into that role against her will, then why would anyone think something was wrong with her?

It would be cool if you wrote a scene with this type of character and posted it for us to read, then one would know for sure. I mean, how you write something is almost always more important than what you write—you can make anyone seem like anything to the reader, no matter how little it actually fits once you look at their actions without the narrative to pretty them up. If the prose surrounding your character is worthy of an eye-roll, that’s what you’ll get—if it’s not, then you’ll be safe.

Anyway, I think I’ve been on a spiralling tangent this whole message, so I’m sorry…

Get to the heart of how she views emotions—perhaps they don’t matter to her too much because she sees the big picture of life, and being sad for a week doesn’t matter too much when you take it in context of eternity. Perhaps she’s not a demonstrative person who doesn’t like to lie about who she is and feels more herself when she doesn’t try to conform to society’s standard of an overly affectionate woman.

My father ascribes to the principle that emotions are just thoughts, and therefore not real. This could be an interesting direction to take.

This discussion is fascinating, by the way. I haven’t really thought about this all that much in the context of my own writing, so it’s a good thing to bring up. I think the closest analogue of going outside stereotyped gender boundaries for my own WIP relates to the king and queen of my fictional country. The king is the emotional, tender (to a certain extent) one, while the queen is savvy and pragmatic. (Among other things, I wanted to deconstruct the idea of the evil queen- she’s not even misunderstood, but just doing what she thinks is necessary.).

I think it’s also important to consider how other characters view that character and how they view themselves. A lot of people think that the queen’s an unfeeling bitch (the female protagonist among them) and that the king is weak. They probably don’t see things the same way. This is probably what somebody else said at some point, but if you portray it as being normal for that character, and address what’s necessary to address, then I don’t think it’ll be all that strange for the reader.

Oh, and I, too, would like to know what Beldam’s reading. :)

Hope those answers to the questions helped you get more of a handle on how to portray her. I know they were fascinating for me to read.

Must admit, the first thing that occured to me was OMG ZOE IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with Firefly, but just in case, I’m putting out there.

Whoa, I can’t believe people read that ultra-long post! You guys are awesome.

I honestly don’t see why there has to be an explanation for the absence of a softer side in a female character.

In my mind, having a softer side is practically synonymous with being human. Not everyone knows how to show their softer side, and not everyone is allowed to, but I think it should exist. If a person is capable of caring about anything at all, then that softer side is there because being soft is what gives you the ability to give a damn in the first place. And people who are completely jaded and utterly incapable of giving a damn…just doesn’t seem like a healthy way to go through life.

I guess that scenario was meant to stand in for any bad situation that could happen to someone she cares for so…

Precisely! You shouldn’t only imagine things that are going to go into your book—imagine all the stuff that has happened, or might happen because it gives a better rounded character. The kitten one (or any animal, really) is great for just this very thing. Also, it’s fun imaging your character outside the set piece you’ve created for them.

My father ascribes to the principle that emotions are just thoughts, and therefore not real.

Your dad sounds like a badass conversationalist.

Beldam, every single one of your characters sounds awesome.

Why, thank you very much! :D I do try.

And in answer to your question about what I read the answer is MANGA. Honestly, though, I probably couldn’t name any of the books I’ve read this stuff in since most books I’ve read leave a sort of vague impression on me but not enough for me to remember anything about them, which is why when I try to fill out ‘favorite book’ lists on websites, it takes me like an hour to remember what I’ve read to begin with… I’m one of those people who can only remember things through recognition. Also, I read a lot of stuff on the internet which I tend to enjoy more than genuine books, but to most people internet stuff doesn’t count, alas. Further, I learnt pretty much everything I know about writing from reading manga—yeah, it makes no sense, but there you go. Dialogue, charactization and pacing, even subject matter, were pretty my born from reading lots of shoujo manga.

When I read books afterwards my style tends to become like that book’s, and then it changes back, and in the process I don’t learn very much. One book I remember reading, The Book Theif, has a wonderful style that I really wanted to emulate, but nothing came of it at all and I don’t think any of the stuff I might have learnt really stayed with me. Oh, hey! There’s a book with a strong female character, and a much sweeter male character! The main character, a young girl, gets adopted by this husband and wife, and the husband is a sort of gentle and somewhat indulgent man, but the wife is much more likely to bring down the hammer when necessary, though she isn’t necessarily heartless. For instance, one scene which I recall because it was what caused me to fall in love with the style of the book, has the woman realizing the girl, Liesel, I think, has explicitly disobeyed prior instructions by sending a letter out to her parents, and gets a return letter saying they’re deceased or some-such. As punishment for going out and doing it in the first place, the woman starts hitting Liesel with a spoon—it was the 30s, you know—and when she’s done she looks down at the girl and whispers, “I’m sorry, Liesel.” Which was such a great way of establishing duality in a character—militant, but also capable of expressing sympathy for someone who’s just found out their family is deceased. I really liked that scene.

The Art of Manliness

Wulf, you’re awesome. This site is like the coolest thing ever. Although I am male, and may therefore get more out of it than most women. :P

It’s basically one Marine’s crusade to reestablish standards of decency and chivalrous behavior among American males.

@Sen – Any chance you’ll post some of your story as you work on it? I’m curious to see how you develop your character.