Demystifying the Realistic Female Character

As a writer, I struggle with writing realistic female characters. I've never received explicit criticism for writing an unrealistic female character, but as soon as I write a character with ladyparts, I am immediately self-conscious. Is she promoting a stereotype I failed to recognize or didn't even know about? One of the oldest rules in writing is "Write what you know," and I don't know the female experience.

But I also I don' t know what that authentic female experience is supposed to be. It's comforting to know that many of the big writers don't, either. Steven Moffat, the current showrunner for Doctor Who and creator of the new Sherlock, has been largely criticized for his female characters. The popular episode "Blink" in which countless viewers can never look at weeping angel statues the same way again (or look away for that matter) is frequently lauded for its low-budget (even by Doctor Who standards) attempt at horror through simplicity and tricky editing. But the main character--not the Doctor or his companion--catches flak for zero development. Nivair H. Gabriel describes the character as "Moffat's embarrassingly flat narrator . . . whose lack of complexity has earned her a place of honor in the annals of Mary Sue." The author then points out another symptom of Moffat's writing broadly across other Who episodes, "It's the way women are written as if they have absolutely no control over what happens in their life at all--and they're fine with that." I don't mean to place Doctor Who on a pedestal of high quality writing, though there are some strong episodes for sure, and there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Moffat is a consummate misogynist. He remains a successful and popular writer, regardless. But the shortcomings of male authors don't stop there.

A fantasy novel I just began called Gardens of the Moon, part of the Malazan Book of the Fallen Series by Steven Erikson, has its share of criticism for female believability. In a review for Fantasy & Science Fiction, Charles de Lint gives credit where credit is due: "Mind you, there are a lot of characters, each with a fascinating history and story, and it takes some time getting to know them all and keeping them straight." The series is no Martin-esque feat of character birthing, but approaches the sheer volume of speaking bodies without sacrificing characterization. But then de Lint calls Erikson out on "the lack of any believable female characters." Indeed, the book is rife with female "stoic warriors, assassins, and mages . . . , courtesans, or in one case, a young girl possessed by gods and turned into a killing machine." While I've only made it about 150 pages in, I've encountered only a handful of female characters, including the one female character de Lint does praise: "Except for one strong female lead, the mage Tattersail, there's no distinct female perspective to set the female characters apart from their male counterparts." And I agree, Tattersail does outshine the other female characters. But I find it difficult to describe her perspective as distinctly female. She is female and her perspective is distinct, but I wonder if that's all the author meant or if he desired a perspective unique to the female experience.

George R. R. Martin, the man behind HBO's Game of Thrones and the books that inspired them, has been complimented from several sources for his ability to write realistic female characters. In an interview with The Telegraph, Jessica Salter argues that "the secret to his appeal" is that the book series A Song of Ice and Fire--on which Game of Thrones is based-- "has an army of female fans clamouring for his next installment." Salter writes, "Martin's women are more three dimensional," and offers up five distinct female characters who are strongly characterized in the books. He admits that he's "never been an eight year old girl," but nor has he "been an exiled princess, or a dwarf or bastard." Tapping into his own humanity is what makes his characters believable: "I just write human characters."

But is that sound enough advice? I want to believe it, but I'm still leery about my ability to write a female character. Truthfully, I've only written two as protagonists. The first was in a short story that could use plenty of TLC, but the latter was in a screenplay I penned as part of an independent study. Originally, the protagonist had started out as a male character, "Murphy." But at one point, I asked myself, "Why is Murphy male?" I then proceeded to change the character to female because I had no compelling argument to support Murphy's maleness. I had about 30 pages of a post-apocalyptic road movie written up and then went in to perform a sex change on Murphy. I changed pronouns. I described her as having long hair. Her named remained Murphy. I even toyed with her first name being "Charlotte" but that she was called "Charlie" by those who knew her, but then I remembered Eddie Murphy's brother's name is Charlie. I think I did okay. She was a hard-ass and I did nothing to sexualize her. My instructor for the independent study course made no critique of Murphy being unrealistic, but I still worried that Murphy was little more than a man in women's clothing. I worried that Murphy was not distinctly female. I still worry.

But then, should that be my goal? Should I go for the distinct female? Or should I go for the distinctly female? Or should I divorce myself from gender at the basic level and go for the human? Writers, what are your experiences? My fellow male writers, do you struggle? Or do you think you have it?