Well Written Female Characters - in your opinion, what/who is a well written female character?

[Tragi-Chan]

Terry Pratchett was pretty good at female characters, and I particularly have Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg in mind. Both are strong, complex characters with plenty of flaws and quirks. The only issue I would have with Pratchett's female characters is that sometimes he could get a bit preachy with them.

 

[Salt Water Taffy]

Overly Sarcastic Productions has a good video on the topic:

Admittedly, a lot of the "strong female characters" in my life have really run together - they're all physically strong, emotionless women whose main attribute to their character is they kick ass. I've always had trouble relating to them because, well, I'm not physically strong or emotionless, and I don't have any desire to kick anyone's ass. To be honest, I don't think there's any women in real life who act like that. Even the women I know who are police officers or soldiers, they still have families and friends they care for, they enjoy things outside of their job, and even enjoy things that are traditionally feminine. Why is the strong female idea one that rejects all things traditionally feminine?

I think the problem is there is no everyman for women. There are no Average Jane women in most media. There's the Average Joe, who has personality flaws that actually effect him, doesn't get everything he wants, gets pushed around by other people, and sometimes (often in fact) makes poor decisions, just like everyone else. Women, perhaps because of the pervasiveness of feminism or the fear of offending feminists, a lot of the time is universally beloved, gets whatever she wants, is always the leader and always makes the right choice. The reasons there are more female Mary Sues than male Marty Stus is because people, whether intentionally or unintentionally, make female characters less flawed. A really strong female character should be one that makes poor choices, suffers from them, and learns from her mistakes.

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

Overly Sarcastic Productions has a good video on the topic:

Admittedly, a lot of the "strong female characters" in my life have really run together - they're all physically strong, emotionless women whose main attribute to their character is they kick ass. I've always had trouble relating to them because, well, I'm not physically strong or emotionless, and I don't have any desire to kick anyone's ass. To be honest, I don't think there's any women in real life who act like that. Even the women I know who are police officers or soldiers, they still have families and friends they care for, they enjoy things outside of their job, and even enjoy things that are traditionally feminine. Why is the strong female idea one that rejects all things traditionally feminine?

I think the problem is there is no everyman for women. There are no Average Jane women in most media. There's the Average Joe, who has personality flaws that actually effect him, doesn't get everything he wants, gets pushed around by other people, and sometimes (often in fact) makes poor decisions, just like everyone else. Women, perhaps because of the pervasiveness of feminism or the fear of offending feminists, a lot of the time is universally beloved, gets whatever she wants, is always the leader and always makes the right choice. The reasons there are more female Mary Sues than male Marty Stus is because people, whether intentionally or unintentionally, make female characters less flawed. A really strong female character should be one that makes poor choices, suffers from them, and learns from her mistakes.

I think Joyce Byers from Stranger Things is a good recent example of an everywoman character. She had a great balance between strength and vulnerability.

 

[Gloomydoom]

Elle Woods from Legally Blonde is one for intelligent female character. After her boyfriend broke up with her for not taking things seriously (or so he think,) Elle snap out of her laziness and work hard to earn a bachelor degree in order to be the best lawyer she could be. What I like about her is that she isn't emotionless the entire time when it comes to solution and she's one of the few characters were her femininity doesn't feel shove down in my throat. And it's kinda sad that when people think of "strong female characters" they'll always refer to their strength over intelligence.

Spoiler

just like everyone in this forum I hate social justice universe, but Amethyst does come in mind for a well-written female character. In the SU fanbase they always think of her as the joker of the group because of how undeveloped she is which to me she isn't. Outside of Steven she's the most extroverted one of the group unlike Pearl and Garnet and she's not afraid to be brash most of the time. And her message is kinda relatable when it comes to self-esteem and appearance. Simple message, but effective.

 

[friedshrimp]

The idea is for the characters to sorta feel real, and varied. Women aren't made up either of emotionless "Man with tits" female fighters (hello, MCU) or damsels in distress who scream at the drop of a hat. I also feel so many writers are trying to distance themselves from more feminine attributes, and instead idolize more masculine abilities, which is also another set of problems.

Instead, we can always change that a bit. How about we show the sergeant nasty character being a tough fighter, but also having a caring exterior outside of work? How about a feminine woman who isn't dumb or doesn't see the need to be competitive with the other girls?

Not all women are sweet, docile, angels, no; but they also aren't some bitches who slap you the moment you utter a "hello" at them.

I sorta feel this problem is more pervasive in media where there's a group as the leads and the men outnumber the women. The moment you add more girls to the team, you can play with different, varied personalities, and therefore get different results. And while I do think some characters can work well following some gender roles (so many of my favorite characters played by Pacino follow the "tough guy" role to the extreme, but they're wonderful), there's nothing saying we can't change that, and have good characters that shake up the status quo. Who says the class clown can't be a girl? Who says the good-hearted, pure character can't be a boy (Aang)? You just have to know what works for you and if the character has "potential".

Interestingly, back in the old days the X-Men comics had a number of varied, strong female characters. Rogue will forever be one of my favorite girls and I never felt her to be "in your face" about stuff, she was a girl that had issues, but went out and did her shit, and nothing about her was "oooh girls can't do this they must be demure" or "GRRRRL POWER!!!". She was great.

 

[MW 002]

Takiko Okuda from Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden

I went into Genbu Kaiden expecting her to become as every bit of spineless as Miaka Yuki from the sequel was, but instead I was pleasantly surprised.

She's one of those characters who, whenever capable of saving herself does so. She is truly a character I would say is brave, selfless and one with vision. Unlike Miaka, she put her relationship aside in favour of the grander goal: which was to save Hokkan from its ice age and to save the people within it using her wishes. She truly cared about the people of Hokkan, as evidenced by her sacrificing herself for their sake.

Speaking of her relationship, hers with Uruki is one of the few examples of a healthy relationship I can point to. They weren't overly clingy to each other and had identities of their own, while bringing out the best in each other when you view their relationship in retrospect.

Takiko's death at the end of the series made me bawl my eyes out; never have I felt so attached to a protagonist before.

I also think Casca from Berserk is another example of a good female character... before she became a potatoe

 

[Picklepower]

I really like Ro Laren from TNG and Kira from Ds9, (I know originally Kira in Ds9 was going to be Ro)

 

[melty]

Idk, there are kind of a lot now so it's like how do you list them?
My bf has a lot of opinions on ~strong female characters~, but basically he hates when the female characters try to act too tough to compensate for, well, being female.
I think well written female characters should mostly just be written like male characters...
I agree with @Kari Kamiya on Hermoine... idk I don't read a ton and when I do its a lot of old stuff with cringeworthy female characters. Older sci-fi especially. It's like a treat to find a female character that's actually compelling.
One I like outside of literature is Seven of Nine from Star Trek. On the surface shes basically "what if Data had tits?", but she's actually a really compelling character.

 

[beansntoast]

not to come of as a harpy feminist, but I'd like to see some of women's everyday life problems incorporated, like imagine you're having some badass fight for your life and you suddenly get crippling periods pains, or how the protagonist deals with this stuff in a postapocalyptic environment in general, it always gets ommited even though it would be a massive inconvenience in a real scenario. I've never seen that done before, probably because this might come off as "sexist", better pretend there are no differences or else the sjws will come for you

otherwise I can agree with most people here, the character has to be relatable, flawed, their motivations should be understandable (not necessarily agreeable) and so on

I feel like writers often go either for super gross ugly women or super feminine cool girls/ideal girlfriends and that there isn't much nuance inbetween. the female characters in a song of ice and fire are pretty decent and varied for example. from stuff I've seen pretty recently: Carol in the walking dead, the women in b99 are sympathetic, can't think of anything else atm

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

not to come of as a harpy feminist, but I'd like to see some of women's everyday life problems incorporated, like imagine you're having some badass fight for your life and you suddenly get crippling periods pains, or how the protagonist deals with this stuff in a postapocalyptic environment in general, it always gets ommited even though it would be a massive inconvenience in a real scenario. I've never seen that done before, probably because this might come off as "sexist", better pretend there are no differences or else the sjws will come for you

otherwise I can agree with most people here, the character has to relatable, flawed, their motivations should be understandable (not necesarilly agreeable) and so on

I feel like writers often go either for super gross ugly women or super feminine cool girls/ideal girlfriends and that there isn't much nuance inbetween. the female characters in a song of ice and fire are pretty decent and varied for example. from stuff I've seen pretty recently: Carol in the walking dead, the women in b99 are sympathetic, can't think of anything else atm

I think periods are rarely mentioned for the same reason the taco shits are rarely mentioned. It's a completely natural process but it's kind of gross to think of and does it really serve a point to the narrative?

We never saw Luke Skywalker poop so I don't see a reason why we need to know about Rey's bodily functions.

Otherwise I think you're totally right on how women characters are always shallow. Though your talk of flaws brings up another double standard. It seems when people say a female character should be flawed, they really mean she should be an incompetent bitch. Something about women in genre fiction always brings out people talking in extremes.

 

[beansntoast]

I think periods are rarely mentioned for the same reason the taco shits are rarely mentioned. It's a completely natural process but it's kind of gross to think of and does it really serve a point to the narrative?

I didn't mean that it would have to be graphic, like people in storys also get sick without the author describing how they barf and shit everywhere, but it's still portrayed as an inconvenience that has an impact on the story

and being in pain and uncontrollably bleeding once every month for a week would be a massive inconvenience without sanitary products and pain killers. I don't really care for that in modern setting, because there's stuff avaible to deal with that, so there would be no impact on the story anyway, but it kinda irks me in medieval scenarios, post apocalyptic ones and the likes

 

[Gloomydoom]

Speaking of female characters and actions (since you guys automatically think girls kicking ass without femininity is a bad character unless it's Ripley from Aliens but I diggress)​

I found a new page from tvtropes on how to write a female character and it's not that bad. Although this paragraph raises some questions to me. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SoYouWantTo/WriteAnActionGirl

• Having one really bad ass woman in your story, who can beat up all the menz, doesn't mean that your setting isn't a misogynistic crap hole. Lots of guys are surprised that their setting can be read as misogynistic just because every role for every woman can be summed up as "sexing or cooking", when they have that one badass Baroness Murderdeath who can murder everyone to death with awesome Baron-fu. One over-competent woman doesn't solve the rest of the problem. In fact, she kind of enhances it. If you want your setting to come off as an equal-opportunity Crapsack World (or whatever) make sure to have women serve in all sorts of roles, including militia guards and Lord Evilskull's Elite Ninja Kung-Fu Monks. Not to say that you can't design your setting as a misogynistic crap hole if that's the story you want to tell, but avoid doing it by accident.

In short, Tv Tropes thinks you're a sexist pig if you write one female character who can kick ass...I think.

 

[BurningPewter]

not to come of as a harpy feminist, but I'd like to see some of women's everyday life problems incorporated, like imagine you're having some badass fight for your life and you suddenly get crippling periods pains, or how the protagonist deals with this stuff in a postapocalyptic environment in general,

you might want to look into female action/adventure authors, Janet Evanovich, Laurell K Hamilton, Seanan Maguire, Kim Harrison type stuff. Altho I can't remember any specific mentioning periods.

edit - in fact, now I think about it, I think the werewolf genre (Kelley Armstrong. Patricia Briggs) often mention the time of the month as being a time the female main character gets hunted or whatever. Although I've only skimmed through 3 female werewolf books but i think they all mentioned it at one point.

 

[Fareal]

It's been a while since I saw Ginger Snaps but I have some vague memory that menstruation was a trigger for lycanthropy in that.

Anyway. Female protagonists who feel real. Margaret Atwood's entire output. Iris Chase and Elaine Risley aren't even that likeable, that's why they are so well written. They are too real to be nice.

 

[HG 400]

not to come of as a harpy feminist, but I'd like to see some of women's everyday life problems incorporated, like imagine you're having some badass fight for your life and you suddenly get crippling periods pains,

If you're having a badass fight for your life you're not going to be crippled by period pains. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug that lets you keep fighting without even noticing you just got your balls kicked into your pelvis, so I somehow doubt any woman is going to need to call time-out on a life and death struggle so she can crawl under the doona with a hot compress and a Gilmore Girls DVD.

 

[ES 148]

Little Miss Bossy was a well-rounded character who felt very real to me.

More seriously, Holly Short and Opal Koboi from Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl books always struck me as very interesting (although I haven't reread them recently).

 

[I-chi]

She-Hulk; dependent as purely on any other character as the one who writing her, but She-Hulk is a good enough example for me when it comes to thinking of a well-written fictional female character. Moreover, she's a great example of a female that is shown as being capable of kicking ass and being empowered by her situation without needing to be preachy about it; she is characterized as keeping a firm moral ceiling above her and could be said to be one of the most genuinely compassionate and willfully empathetic superheroines within the genre.

Spoiler: Comic Spergery

She's a fully educated lawyer who was distinguished prior to her transformation as being largely idealistic and well-intentioned, if somewhat lacking in the confidence and assertiveness that it takes to be able to bring her best to the courtroom without being 'woe is me' or insufferable about the difficulties in her job. Her change, because it's specified to bring out the more dormant aspects beneath the surface personality, brought out the strong-willed, feistier, and fun-loving woman she had it in her to be. The best written She-Hulk can crack'em almost as good as Deadpool, and flex her womanly muscle; but the core of what makes her character so interesting is that she's driven by her idealism regarding the law and the insurance that justice will be, SHOULD be, served fairly. She has fought many times not just for the rights of the disenfranchised, be they human or mutant; but even for those of villains who may have turned out to be legitimately mentally ill or who she felt the whole facts weren't being taken into account. Even when it may come back to bite her ( and it has ); or she underestimates her strength, or displays introspection enough to actually think about the consequences of her actions and opinions and learns from them down the line. The point is; between the realm of being a submissive, mewling piece of green flesh and a shrieking, perfectly crafted, harpy that'll bend your arm back and tell you to check your privilege; She-Hulk sits comfortably in the middle.

If writers want to write better females; they should be comfortable initially with the fact that much like writing men, you're not going to satisfy everyone. People still manage to think Shulk is just wank bait for subby men; there's really little you're able to do to change that without putting the character itself in jeopardy. The physical distinctions of a woman may play into her capabilities when compared to a man; but it should not be the entire focus of her character. Nor should gender be used to determine whether this man is ice cold and hard or this woman is bubbly, exuberant, and driven purely by her emotions. People are sick and tired of those cut-and-paste personality constructs; and especially now with females these days, you get a lot of cases where the only 'acceptable' ideal of a woman is either an extension of these tropes or a self-aware inversion of them. A mind that can think can be shaped by as many beliefs, opinions, morals, fears, anxieties, and instabilities as the next; A dick or a twat doesn't have to mean diddly for one having more of these than the other.

 

[KickyerArsene]

I'd like to throw something out that it seems the concept of 'badly written female characters' is more prevalent than 'badly written male ones', but I've actually noticed the same amount regarding medium.

A bad female character is pandering, aimed at what middle aged men think girls like; which is the case with most video games aimed at a female market, or things targeted specifically at a certain type of guy. Think Micheal Bay movie here or something along those lines.

But in my experiences, male characters can be written just as poorly or pandering-like in specifically female-geared media. For example, men in romance novels are very warped idealizations of what men really are, literally no different to me than the hot bikini model bimbo you might see in a guy's movie.
Sex is men's ideal, emotions are women's; both of which can severely distort how one writes any gender. Just food for thought.

Aiming your story and then twisting it to appeal to that demographic is what causes most of these problems. I'd say just focus on telling the story and don't worry who your audience is going to end up being. If it's appealing, no one will think twice about character genders or even the genre. I know I don't when it comes to my favorite stuff.

 

[admiral]

Neil Gaiman is pretty good with female characters, though he doesn't write them as main characters all that often. There was a transgender woman in one of his sandman comics that was done extremely well in an issue that was fairly female centric. The fact that she was transgender was acknowledged but not flaunted and she played very well off the 'barbie' character. I'm actually surprised that the character isn't talked about more on tumblr and the like, given how much they latch onto trans characters.

 

[Koby_Fish]

IMO Pippi Longstocking is a well-written autistic female character (though I don't think autism was specific in Astrid Lindgren's mind at the time)