How to Write Strong Female Characters: A Guest Post by Cassidy Eubanks
Okay! On Tuesday I posted all about the perks of having a writing buddy (and yes, I named it that because it sounded like The Perks of Being a Wallflower). Anyway, since in that post I introduced you guys to my cousin/writing buddy, Cassidy, I thought it would be fun for her to guest post on the blog. Enjoy!
Hi guys! Cassidy here. *waves*
Today I want to talk about a quickly emerging trend in YA
literature: female main characters.
And not just any type of female main character, oh no! Strong female main characters. Gone is
the damsel in distress of the past! No longer will the desire for a man to
sweep her off her feet be tolerated! Never again will a lady character enjoy
wearing dresses or lack the ability to beat up a man twice her size! Vulnerability
is unheard of! Crying is not allowed! Your main character must be a strong,
independent woman who don’t need no man, and shame on you if you write her otherwise!
Wait, wait, wait, back up a little. What?
See, the onslaught of strong female characters is great!
It’s wonderful! Except…
Weren’t they supposed to be female?
If your character hates wearing dresses, that’s fine. If
she’s been trained in martial arts and can take down a ginormous man, lovely.
If she is completely emotionally stable and doesn’t need to confide anything to
anyone, okay.
But these things are not what make a woman strong.
Too often, when writing ladies to be strong, we end up
taking strength and replacing it in
our heads with masculinity. Your
character doesn’t have to despise all feminine clichés to be strong. She can
love fashion! She can want to fall in love! She can cry when she wants to cry,
gosh darn it! She is a woman, not a
robot.
There are several types of strong female characters that
show up today in literature, but I’m going to zero in on the top three and why
each of them can be appealing to an audience, what makes them strong, and why
each of them can be a turn-off to your readers if done poorly.
1. The Tomboy (Or, Girl Next Door)
See Piper McLean (The Lost Hero,)
Sabrina Grimm (The Fairy-Tale Detectives,) Katie Weldon (Peculiar Treasures,)
etc. This is a big one. Like I said before, many writers are scared to give
their girls space to be girls. We see a lot of girls who abhor skirts and
dresses, can knock someone out with one punch, wear their hair up ALWAYS, can
eat their weight in pizza, and generally despise all others of their gender as
well as their petty dramas.
And that’s okay.
I love tomboy characters! I was a
tomboy when I was younger. I loved Ninja Turtles and playing sports. I was very
proud of the fact that I hardly, if ever, wore dresses. And you know why this
was?
I was primarily friends with boys.
I was homeschooled all the way
from kindergarten to high school graduation, and between the ages of five and
thirteen, I had two different sets of boys living next door. They, along with
my little brothers, were my best friends. They were the ones I saw every day. I
was surrounded by boy influences. Girlfriends never really appealed to me.
Sure, I had one or two at church, but in general, they weren’t my type of
people. They liked to talk about crushes and drama and American Girls. I wanted
to run around outside with the guys, whose social rules were far less
complicated.
Basically, it’s okay for your
character to be a tomboy, as long as she has a reason to be. Tomboys can be very appealing, because they can make
girls feel empowered, and their viewpoint is far more likely to be tolerated by
male readers than the heel-loving, prom-going girl viewpoint. But they can also
make girls feel like they should be ashamed of liking girl things, and that’s
where you have to be careful. You want to make girls proud to be girls, not
embarrassed of their love of twirling skirts and chick flicks. What makes
tomboys strong is that they’re not afraid to be themselves, even if it isn’t
the norm.
2. The Innocent Flower
See Juliette Ferrars (Shatter Me,)
Wanda (The Host,) Rue (The Hunger Games,) and Primrose Everdeen (The Hunger
Games.) This one is tricky. Oftentimes when writing profoundly innocent
characters, we take their innocence and translate it as naiveté, as something
that needs to be fixed. We turn our characters into blissfully ignorant saps
who cry at every dose of reality shoved at them, but our other characters
continue to shove these things in their faces, because eventually it will bring
them into the real world.
But that is not what innocence is.
Innocent characters aren’t usually
unaware of the world they live in. They aren’t usually uneducated in vulgar and
violent things. They often haven’t gone through life untouched by hardship or
loss.
Innocence in a character simply
means they have not allowed the evil in their world to scar them.
Your character’s innocence will
manifest itself in different ways. Maybe she doesn’t use vulgar language. Maybe
she doesn’t make inappropriate jokes. Maybe she makes an argument in favor of
the villain, because everyone deserves a second chance. Maybe she refuses to
kill, period.
Innocent characters can be
appealing to an audience because their goodness is refreshing. Especially in
dark books where many characters are struggling with moral dilemmas, the
innocent character can be a shining beacon through the shadows. They stubbornly
stick to what they know to be right and they don’t let anyone persuade them
otherwise.
However, like I said before, this
can easily be turned into a bad thing. If we take innocence and turn it into
ignorance or outright stupidity, we take that shining beacon of goodness and
turn it into a blinding flash of irritation. No one wants a character who is
completely unaware of (or unwilling to become involved with) the conflict going
on around them. What makes the Innocent Flower strong is their unwavering devotion
to doing the right thing, no matter how hard it is.
3. The Rebel
Similar to the Tomboy, the Rebel
is emerging as the #1 most popular strong female character type. See Katniss
Everdeen (The Hunger Games,) Tris Prior (Divergent,) America Singer (The Selection,)
Melanie Stryder (The Host,) Tessa Gray (Clockwork Angel,) etc. Basically,
whatever they are expected to do…yeah, they’re not gonna do that.
The pros about this type are
numerous. Rebels inspire us. They make us take pride in our innate human
freedom, make us want to fight for what we deserve. They make us want to be
ourselves and not care what anyone else thinks. In fact, if someone
disapproves, we go after what we want all the more.
The danger here is creating a
character that simply rebels for the sake of rebelling. A causeless rebel is just
a person who likes saying no. If your rebel starts rebelling against
everyone—for no real reason—she will soon end up on her own, with no allies to
speak of, and you know what your readers will say? “Serves her right.” They
won’t sympathize! Your rebel brought this on herself! She refused to play nice
with anyone, and now she’s lost her cause, her friends, and her safe haven.
Your rebel has to pick a side to rebel against, then work with the opposition
to that side to make her rebellion worth something. What makes rebels strong is
not their rebellion itself, but the firm convictions behind it. They believe in
something and they’re willing to fight for it.
There are many other types of strong female characters you can
write, but these are the three I see most often. What about you? What do you
think makes a female character strong?
So there you have it! Three fantastic archetypes for female characters and how to write them so they aren't horrible and flat. If you liked this post, make sure to check out the rest of the blog and subscribe! And for more information about the lovely and talented Cassidy Eubanks, you can find her on Pinterest, Twitter, and Wattpad.
"Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing." 1 Thessalonians 5:11
"Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing." 1 Thessalonians 5:11