LEARNING TO WRITE STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS

“I know you won’t believe me, but the highest form of human excellence is to question oneself and others.”

Socrates

I never planned to write this blog post until one of my granddaughters asked me, ‘What was the hardest part of writing this book?’ I surprised myself when I answered – writing strong female characters.

When I asked my wife what she thought my answer to our granddaughter’s question was, she guessed it was figuring out the plot since it’s somewhat complicated. But I don’t consider that the most challenging part because it was so much fun doing the research and coming up with the ideas for the story, despite the dozens of rewrites I went through.

It also wasn’t learning how to write a novel. Of course, I had a steep learning curve. My first efforts were, as my wife describes it, disappointing. I even had moments where the feedback I got was embarrassing (e.g., one person said he was confused on who the antagonists were – that’s a pretty big miss.) But I didn’t consider learning how to write a novel the hardest part either because I knew that I had a lot to learn before I started. Plus, it was rewarding to see my improvement.

So, what was my answer? It was writing strong female characters. My youngest daughter especially was surprised at the answer because I was a single parent of four kids for years (two boys and two girls) where I got to understand some of the frustration’s women have of:

- Trying to find clothes that fit women, even when they’re standing in the middle of a huge mall. I still vividly remember taking my oldest daughter jeans shopping for the first time. After hours of shopping, we found exactly two pairs of jeans that fit. Of course, several months later, the same brand and same style didn’t fit. Aarrgghh….

- I got excited when I bought a new washer and dryer – something I could never have imagined.

- I got to learn about periods, birth control, sexual pressures girls go through, and so on.

- I was also at West Point when the first women enrolled in the academies. I got to see a tiny portion of the learning curve the military went through. Looking back, I am shocked at how little the government and science knew about women’s issues.

- And that’s just a small part of my learnings.

So, I thought I was pretty enlightened when I started writing my series. But over and over, my female beta readers, especially my wife, pointed out how specific passages read from a female perspective. At first, I thought I had pretty strong female characters. After all, I gave my female characters most of the magical powers in the series. I also wrote the women as being smarter and far more educated, in general, than the male characters. But, too often, they were followers, not leaders. At other times, the concern was that I made the women sound weak. For instance, in The Palantir, there is a scene where I had most of the Druids getting seasick during a storm at sea. To me, it was okay because I get seasick on a calm day less than a couple of miles away from shore (I can’t even look at the Viking or Octopus rides in amusement parks). But, because I modeled my protagonist’s cast-iron stomach after my younger son, I didn’t think about how women might perceive it as thinking I was saying they were the weaker sex. I changed that scene by adding the Vomit Comet data, which shows that seasickness happens to most people in rough conditions.

I was happy to make the changes and surprised when I discovered that making the female characters stronger made it easier to fix plot holes in my story. It also allowed me to have a greater range of perspectives and a more interesting story. So, I felt especially proud when I got the following feedback from a young female beta reader.

“I read a lot of books with female protagonists, and they’re usually very selfless and loyal and, in some cases, awkward. I feel like having women with a bad attitude towards the well-meaning main character was refreshing in a way. And while Alex is a boy, he’s not super proud like a lot of male protagonists, and when he’s talking to girls it doesn’t make you cringe for him. I really like that.”

One last thing on the topic. My favorite character in the series happens to be a girl. She started as a minor character, but her growth arc and backstory have caused me to change her into one of the main characters.

The picture below is of my youngest daughter and international book guide in Tikal, Guatemala. She’s one of my real-life inspirations for writing strong female characters.

My daughter/travel guide in Tikal, Guatemala