5 STEPS TO WRITE BETTER FEMALE CHARACTERS

Here's some (hopefully) helpful advice on how to avoid a lot of the pitfalls that so many JRPGs and anime fall into with their female characters! Most of it's applicable to writing any character who seems "different" from you. It's easier than you think!

Step #1: Don't Think of Them as Female

A pretty good guideline to writing any character who isn't exactly like you, whether it's their gender, race, age, religion, whatever, is to stop defining them by that difference. A person is a person, just like you! The key to good characterization, above all else, is to get inside the character's head. If you begin from the starting point of "this person is nothing like me", you're immediately hitting a block in writing them.

The fact is, you probably have at least something in common with everyone you've ever met. While there's nothing wrong with basing a character on someone you know, in my experience it is much easier to just pick some random personality trait of yours, affix it to the character you're trying to write, and let them develop from there. If you're a guy and you want to write a female character in your story, please try not to just base her on the stereotypes or observations you've made about "female behavior". You'll get much further by basing some part of the character on yourself and your own experiences. Why would I say that? Because typically, women have a much easier time relating to the male characters in stories written by men...because they're written as real people, with fully-formed personalities, ambitions, flaws, and vulnerabilities. If you're a guy writing a story, I'm willing to bet that most of your male characters have some aspect of your "self" attached to them. Do the same with all your characters! No matter what gender, race, etc. they are, you'll get a much more complex and fascinating character if you draw upon your own inner depths rather than relying on tired cliches and tropes to prop them up.

Step #2: "Strong" Does Not Equal "Manly"

One of the unfortunate trends in modern media is the emphasis on creating "strong female characters" without understanding what that actually means. If you think it means "put girls in the story who speak like guys, act like guys, and might as well BE guys," then you're doing it wrong. A much better word than "strong" in this case would be active. A passive character's behavior is driven by events outside of their control, while an active character takes action and has their own goals and dreams that they seek to fulfill.

So if your female character is just a willowy damsel in distress whose only purpose is to get captured by the bad guy so the male lead has a reason to fight, then yeah, she's a boring passive character. If your female character only exists to provide pure, selfless moral support for the male lead when he's an emotional wreck, then she's also a boring passive character. You may notice that both of these hypothetical girl leads play into feminine stereotypes -- these are the sorts of characters that most people are sick of these days. So what's the source of the problem? Is it because they act too feminine? Should you flip it around so the female lead is gruff, tough and manly to counteract the stereotypes?

No! Not necessarily! Because you see, we're not dealing with a masculine/feminine divide here -- that's just more of the same sexist thinking that creates these issues in the first place. It's really a passive/active divide. Go and watch a few episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura or any other good magical girl anime, and you'll see that a female lead can be girly as heck and still be extremely compelling, strong-willed, principled, and heroic. Sakura Kinomoto wears tons of frilly dresses, gets bubbly and excited over cute things, and has a crush on an older boy, but she also kicks ass, takes names, saves the day, has a fiery temper and a strong sense of justice. She feels like a real, relatable character because she acts like a real girl in the third grade would act.

So if you're a guy trying to write a female character, don't be afraid to give them feminine personality traits! Just don't confuse "femininity" with "passivity" like so many people seem to do. Let's take a look at what happens when they really get mixed up!

Step #3: Don't Make Their Worlds Revolve Around a Guy

This one is pretty basic but it still happens like...a LOT in fiction. Even in romance books written by women (*cough*Twilight*cough*), there's a tendency to have the female lead's sense of self-worth and all her desires depend on the approval and ambitions of a guy. This is also very common in fantasy stories with a male protagonist, where the love interest girl's main role is to provide "moral support" like I was talking about in Step 2.

Obviously the protagonist's journey is the primary thrust of any story, but it usually makes for a more interesting tale when the other main characters all have their own problems to solve that don't directly involve the hero. There are tons of JRPGs and anime where the male protagonist has a "rival" who's also a guy, and the two of them work at cross-purposes because they want different things, or even the same thing, but maybe they eventually team up because they realize together they can achieve more than apart. Gee, doesn't that sound vaguely like the premise for a love story? Two people with their individual dreams, who come from different backgrounds, yet ultimately need each other to become their complete selves? But usually, the actual love interest of the hero is some girl with no clear goals of her own, who just stands around and cheers for the hero's success when they happen to be in the same room, worrying for his safety when they're apart.

Let me say it clear and loud: characters with no goals are boring, passive, and might as well be nameless NPCs. Give your female characters their own stakes in the story, their own reasons for standing up to the villain that DON'T involve the hero, and for gosh sakes, let them fight and accomplish things. You could just as easily have the hero's best buddy get captured by the villain than have the love interest be a damsel in distress. You could turn the trope on its head and have the female lead get captured deliberately as part of a brilliant plan to infiltrate the villain's lair. You could have the female lead slowly fall in love with the hero, but still have her own personal quest to fulfill. Heck, you could even make the female lead the hero's rival!

The point is, just like in real life, every character in your story should ideally be the hero of their own story. Nobody thinks of themselves as just the "love interest", and nobody wants to be an NPC. Give each major character in your story their own personal arc to go through, and you'll have a much more interesting, multilayered narrative.

Step #4: Not Every Girl Has to Fall in Love With the Hero

This is another one that speaks for itself, but it's everywhere in anime and most JRPGs. Every girl the hero meets, no matter what background she comes from, no matter what first impression he makes, somehow feels a sudden attraction to him and wants to have his babies wants to be "closer to him" and follow him around, abandoning whatever life she used to live before she met him. Now, there are pretty convincing reasons for why this would happen in a story, especially in an RPG -- the hero is controlled by the player, and the hero's journey is the core of the story, so it makes sense that supporting characters along for the ride feel a strong respect and admiration for the hero that draws them in and keeps them there. If the game has romance elements, there's that reason as well!

But having all the girls blush and swoon over the main character when they've known him for five seconds might be a bit too far. In real life, attraction at first sight is definitely a thing, but if your female character is a stoic mercenary who's seen the worst of humanity and shut down her feelings because of it, she's probably not going to get all shy and embarrassed just because the hero offhandedly calls her pretty...because, you know, a lady in that line of work would have fellow mercs sexually harassing her all the time, and her first response to someone flirting would be to put up defenses, not let her hair down.

Similarly, a princess who's been raised to be the heir to a throne will have an extensive education and insane amounts of pressure being put upon her to succeed and promote her country's welfare, with numerous suitors flocking around in the hopes of wedding her, so she's probably not going to get all starry-eyed over the first peasant boy who steps in to rescue her from danger. In fact, being "protected" by chivalrous knights and such is probably something she'd be very used to, if all the hopes of the kingdom are literally pinned on her survival. That doesn't have to mean she'd look down on the peasant boy or feel ungrateful, but he's probably not going to stand out as some extraordinary person at first glance when she's already got so much else going on in her life.

And that's the thing we keep coming back to, isn't it? When you're writing characters, no matter what age, gender, sexuality, or anything, they won't come across like real people if they aren't written as individuals who react and respond to things the way a real person would. You can certainly put in a convincing romance arc if the chemistry is there, but don't shoehorn it in as a power fantasy for the reader/player without making it feel "earned".

You know what I'd love to see more of, actually? Female characters who are attracted to the hero and don't feel embarrassed about it. Female characters who are smart enough to figure out their feelings without some silly "wh-why do I always feel so warm around him...?" Female characters who are confident enough in themselves to admit their feelings to the hero without repeatedly denying it and getting flustered till they accidentally reveal it. I dunno, I just think it's refreshing when people are honest and intimate with each other, it's usually a good sign they belong together.

But as long as we're on the topic of human behavior, I've got one more trope to dissect before we wrap this up...

Step #5: "Introverted" Doesn't Equal "Innocent"

We've all seen female characters, especially in anime, who are shy, sensitive, lonely, and sheltered beyond belief. They're "too good for this world", pure like an angel. They're also pretty unrealistic and (somewhat) unrelatable, especially to a modern internet-age audience.

Why do I say this? Well, don't get me wrong, having an arc where a character goes from being innocent to jaded (or at least wiser), having their eyes forced open to the horrors (or at least the realities) of the world, is a perfectly valid storyline because it's something we all go through as we grow up. It's the crux of most "coming of age" stories, whether the protagonist is male or female. But I also see so many female characters in anime and JRPGs who are inexplicably sweet, cute, pure and shy for no other reason than, uh...well, I think we all know the reason, don't we? Because this is a "fantasy" or "dream girl" for some guys. And that's totally fine! But if you want to take a "shy, clumsy" character and give them a little more depth and realism, I have tips for this!

First of all, if you happen to be an introvert yourself, I seriously doubt that you'd consider yourself an "innocent" person. Chances are, you've been kicked around a little, felt like you couldn't fit in, and you've spent WAY more time in your head than out in the "real world", mulling things over and cynically judging the behaviors of people who are more social and popular than you. Even if you're shy, you probably aren't "pure" by any stretch of the imagination, and you aren't likely to look at people through a naive, rose-tinted filter unless you've been seriously sheltered your entire life.

Young women who are introverted, just like their male counterparts, tend to grow up full of ideas and opinions. Introversion, by its nature, implies a sense of "self" that separates that person from other people, making them feel different whether they like it or not. In modern times, we have access to a wealth of information at our fingertips via the internet, and introverts these days tend to spend lots of time at home, surfing the web and absorbing information.

So the idea that a lonely, socially awkward high school girl in a story set in modern times would be completely clueless, naive and innocent in regards to human selfishness, technology, or even *cough*sex*cough* is pretty ridiculous, actually. I'm 21 years old and I can definitely assure you that most girls in my generation are very aware of all these things, and then some. You can make the argument that a story set in a JRPG-style fantasy world with no internet wouldn't work the same way, but I can make the counter-argument that if the women in your story don't act like the real women in your potential audience, you're missing out on a giant chunk of the population there.

If you want an excellent example of a social misfit written well, I'd suggest checking out an anime called WataMote about a girl named Tomoko Kuroki. Just be ready for a lot of bad memories to pop up from your own life!

Conclusion

Well, I think that's enough tips for one article! I hope that I've given you guys some useful stuff to think about, and I hope none of it came off mean or anything...I just really want to see more well-written female characters! One of these days, I might write an article about writing better male characters too! I certainly have some trouble with that sometimes...maybe I can teach myself a thing or two...

More than anything else, I hope this article demonstrates how important it is to put yourself in your character's shoes, no how matter how "different" they seem to be from you. You could take any of the character types I told you not to write and still make them feel real and convincing if you give them the right backstory and some motivations rooted in real human behavior. If you can see through their eyes, you can probably figure out what words would come out of their mouth and what actions they'd probably take! And remember, an active character is always more interesting than a passive one!


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Eee, thank you!! I was trying to think of what I could write for a first-time article, and I figured this was a topic I'd have plenty to say about and maybe it'd be useful to people >w<

I'm glad you liked it! :D
Nice article! Basic yet necessary! :D
I pretty much agree with all what you said so I don't know what else to say XD
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