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"The biggest mistake in writing female characters is confusing strength with masculinity." 👏👏👏👏👏 LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK All of your videos are well thought out and insightful, but I really appreciate this one. Of course you're not the first to do so, but it's still refreshing to hear a man speak on this topic with *genuine* understanding. Anyon who believes this isn't still an issue either isn't paying attention or doesn't know as much about women as they think they do.
Thank you for the kind feedback - I'm glad that you think I touched upon this topic in an appropriate way. I was wary about doing it at all due to the gender difference, but I also want to make videos about dwarves etc. and I'm not that either - so I figured, I might well give it a shot and gauge the reception 🙂
@@TheTaleTinkerer Oh yeah! No, this is definitely one of the best takes I've seen on this topic. You not only clearly understand the issues, but you've created actual, actionable steps for people - and gave a great example. All your videos are fantastic. I always stop to watch as soon as I see them come out. Absolutely one of my favorite channels. (I've been writing since I was 8yo, so nearly 4 decades, and I still learn things from you.)
Yeah, this is a major problem with common overly PC writing. They reject feminine traits as weak and accept masculine traits as strong. While there certainly are a lot of traits that fit those criteria, there are absolutely strong feminine traits and weak masculine traits. This is why "strong female characters" often end up rather masculine.
@@AnotherDuckIt's a multi-faceted problem, I think. Definitely in overly PC writing, as you've pointed out. It's also an issue because 'feminine' traits aren't often seen as valuable, and 'physical' strength is also seen as the default. I think the other issue is the stereotypical "strong female character" that has been masculinized is also often sexualized. And it's not that there anything inherently wrong with that. But there is so little representation of women in general comparatively (and of course, even so much less for non-binary and gender fluid people), that when you only have like one female character and she's a badass warrior, it just becomes reductive. There certainly are women like that! My own sister was, at different times in her life, a firefighter, an EMT, an airplane mechanic, a Hell's Angel (biker), a train engineer, and a scrappy fighter who would come home with her knuckles bleeding after someone said something to her at the ATM. Lol But she also LOVES animals to the point that she would sacrifice her own life for a dog and is an avid romance movie watcher! But the point is that there are spectrums of personalities and examples of what it means to be strong, but we only seem to get one version.
This is good, as long as you aren't falling into the trap of certain characteristics being the default. This is like me saying "I just write characters, and some of them happen to be Black/Asian/LGBTQ." Etc. The background of each person will color their experiences and decisions in a way that will absolutely differ than someone else of a different background in similar circumstances. To ignore this is to ignore a huge part of the authentic human experience. Just as skin color isn't makeup, bodies of different sexes and genders are not something you can just swap out like a set of clothes and expect it to fit. There *will* be differences.
@@zanzaboonda When I created my character cast there was a situation where I was stuck. I had a princess and a guy who caused a lot of trouble to my main character. I merged them to one male character with no royal title. The princess archetype simply didn't worked. That forced me to rewrite a lot, but the character is now a major part of the story and fits perfectly. There are some more characters I changed organically. Sometimes because of the narrative, sometimes because I wanted a character who is fun to be around.
@@limbo3545 Combining the two sounds like a great choice! And I love characters that are just fun to be around. That almost always makes for a good reading experience.
When it comes to the sexualization of characters male or female... I suggest to keep it limited if the story is in third person, universal point of view. I read a book where the author kept on refering to the male mcs abs and his graceful step which eventually got annoying. If the story is told from the point of view of a character then it's more understandable because a character would feel attraction to a man or woman of their interest.
I generally find subjective opinions in the narrative to be annoying. It's fine if it's from the characters, or if the narrator is explicitly one of the characters, but if the one narrating isn't the PoV character, just don't. Now, this also goes for details you'd only think about from a specific subjective mindset, like having a thing for some body part or another, even if they're described objectively.
@@TheTaleTinkerer I had only read the first three books, long before the show. By the time the show came out, I didn't even know there was a fourth book, and didn't remember the books very vividly until I started watching the show. I really enjoyed the actress and character in the show. I feel like the show dramatized her storyline better, and the actress really brought the character to life. The show did some characters better, and other worse, I think.
One of the best ways to write compelling female characters is to banish forever, into the darkness, the detestable "Smurfette Principle" -- only one woman in a large cast of characters. Not every "Smurfette" is a bad character; Leia Organa, from the original Star Wars trilogy, managed to be a compelling character even though she seemed to be the only young woman in the whole galaxy (although she's pretty much the only positive example of this trope I can think of). However, more often than not, the "Smurfette" suffers from being the sole female representation in the story, so that "Girl" -- whatever that happens to mean -- becomes the most important, sometimes the only important, facet of her personality. Having more than one important female character gives a writer a chance to showcase them as unique individuals with flaws and complexity rather than a hollow representation of "Girl."
Having more female characters also makes it easier to remember to write them differently, as you don't want characters who're the same regardless of gender.
Despite no mater how many times I hear points like this, every time I see the mainstream applications of female protagonists, I get reminded how important repeating these points are. Thank you for the detailed breakdown for how to write female characters.
@@TheTaleTinkerer I like writing female characters, so hearing those points was definitely helpful. It's like an anchor in case I get lost in the sauce of writing plot and other things.
I wrote an outline and a few chapters built on an archetype I called "The Mother". Her newborn was the heir to the throne of a kingdom in ruin after the king died and his son went about starting a murderous coup. The system of inheritance is based on the Kievan Rus' "rota" system. So the title was meant to pass to the king's brother, who died in a war, so instead passed to the brother's son. The mother is the wife of the king's brother, and is forced to go on the run to protrct her life, and her son's. The issue I ran into was that I couldn't find enough to write about with her as the sole perspective, so I thought about doing a Song of Ice and Fire thing and have several main characters that I switched between. . . After the second time I messed up the continuity, I kinda shelved the project until I could remake the outline to account for the additiinal characters, so I didn't write things out of order, chronologically.
Have you considered side quests for the protagonist that might relate to her past, somehow still tie into the larger narrative and thereby allow you to dive deeper into the that single POV character? 🙂
Sorry, this comments a long one... Perhaps add more characters, this will help you create stories for the mother to experience. You could have a handmaid who loses faith in their chances of survival due to the harsh conditions and some lost lives, so she leaves or betrays the mother to ensure a better life. How would the mother treat others for their selfish behavior when her life and her son's life is put in danger? Especially when it comes to someone like the handmaid who was more vulnerable. Or the head guard, the mother's trusted advisor, has to choose between performing his duty or betraying her for the good of the realm which is in turmoil. Are they perhaps in love with each other? Or did she have complete trust in him due to his previous loyalty? And now doesn't know who she can trust. Or a priest who is part of the conspiracy against her and leads them directly into an ambush. Is she religious? Would this affect her faith or her trust in the human aspect of the religion? Or you could have a noble arrive, who is sent to help her by sympathetic family members and her acceptance could create further turmoil, causing each of the noble families in the realm to choose sides, likely starting a civil war. Would she accept this outcome? Lastly, you could have her choose to make harder decisions due to desperation, such as taking a life, stealing food from the vulnerable and poor, or leaving loyal civilians to perish so she can escape. How does she see herself and those around her for making these decisions? Also, do you know how the story ends? Does she surrender and face execution or does she start a civil war and wins the throne for her son? Or something else?
@@presleybaldwin3756 give her insecurities about being a new unexperinced mother, unsure if she can keep her baby alive, let her be dependant on the help of the old royal nanny whose loyalty she cannot be completely sure of...
In my story (sci-fi) nyra starts as a stereotype (Girl in distress utterly broken) gets kidnapped/saved and learns to live the alien monsters because she sees a better life with them then with the humans on her planet. She will push herself into the role of a diplomat for the monstrous aliens as their representative. This will force her to develop further skills. In the sideplot there is caverra shy but powerful her family chooses to stand against her morals this causes her to side with the opposition but for that she must learn to speak up for herself and kill. The strength of nyra lies with diplomacy and strategy. Caverra will develop to a skilful mechanist. Since male noxar (the aliens) are incredibly rare so she faces no discrimination there even though both noxar she is around are male. Caverra is an exemption in her society since she is a mech pilot, something usually reserved for men.
@@TheTaleTinkerer there is. Noxar are nice to their kin but not afraid to crush everyone in their path if enraged. One of them slaughtered himself threw a city. Since they are functionally immortal they are constantly searching for purpose. One of them sees nyra as something he can care for keeping himself sane, so he is nurturing to her but if someone were to harm her there would be no save place in all eternity from his wrath. But you can view all factions as morally grey. The actions they take is made from experience and trauma. My book is like 20% (408k characters this far) done. I ll get you a pdf once I m done. For now I can offer a teaser text as well as the prologue. If curious I ll send that in advance.
I don't write fantasy stories but this has plenty of adaptable lessons on making characters more deep and impactful in the fictional world so I'm happy to have seen this.
When it comes to writing, there is a lot that can be used beyond the boundaries of fantasy writing, yes. I'm just trying to focus on exactly that to be more focused as fantasy writing is what I love. I'm very glad to hear though that you as a non-fantasy writer still found valuable things in the video. Really appreciate the feedback 🙂
I…disagree with this. Some argue a complex character is based upon the quantity of relationships that character has in the story; I wholeheartedly disagree. I believe the complexity instead comes from the quality of them. If an MC has fifty interactions with fifty different characters but they act the EXACT SAME in every one, then that is not complexity; that’s just bloat. A bloated character does not multi-faceted make. In terms of Gwen, out of all the relationships presented here, the only interaction that had some action of personality difference was her being crafty enough to deceive the royal in spilling more info during their secret meeting. That was truly engaging; Gwen, so far being inherently helpful and good, has the opportunity and more importantly capacity to show another side of her, that she is willing to take advantage of someone using skilled knowledge she’s gained. I also would say suffering, conflict, tragedy make not just great female characters, but just great characters. They add value to the action presented; they force characters to choose and sacrifice, and face fears, and show what they are willing or unwilling to do for their goals. That type of injection of value into the scene makes the reader also find investment in reading it; without it we just have Mary Sue’s everywhere and hodge hodge on the nose surface level writing. Granted, this vid I was not meant to go into character depth, but to show common tropes amongst “strong female characters” and show easy ways to avoid them. I get that, I’m just saying easy doesn’t always mean good.
I have a strong female lead that is very beautiful and feminine (for lack of a better term) who cares very much about her looks. That said, she is intelligent and a powerful necromancer (yes, I need to watch your video on that). Who, while not ignorant of her attractiveness, doesn't primarily utilize it. She focuses more on her mind and arcane talents. Plus, she has two brute force body guards (also intelligent in their own right) who assist her. But, their relationship is purely professional (friendship at most).
@TheTaleTinkerer True, usually when "beauty" is implemented, it's usually that the girl uses it to her advantage. Or feels no one take her seriously. In this case, I'm using it as a bit of vanity to her personality. But, leaving it at that. While she's smart and powerful. I try to have magic have limits. So, I try to balance that out with other characters that are heavy hitters. So that I don't fall into the trap of "magic fixes everything."
So basically, just write interesting character who happens to be to be female, not the other way around. Seriously much of this advice can apply to male characters as well.
Great video, you made some good points here, especially on actual diversity, many writers don't share that advice. To add to your advice on over-sexualized characters, it would entirely depend on the story and genre whether it's appropriate or not, think Miranda from Mass Effect 2 or Black Widow from Iron Man 2. They had good reasons to act the way they did and they were great additions to those stories. So there is a time and place for those character types.
This is why I'm writing about two brothers instead. But I do want to write about one of my favorite female characters eventually. I have several personalities for my girls: Serious and stoic, fun loving and cool, sweet and loving, and goofy and playful, just to name a few.
Great video with a lot of good advice and practical examples. I expected a video that was basically just, "create a good character," but you included several points to consider and avoid that do take gender into account. One aspect to highlight is the difference between using sexist tropes, and writing a sexist setting and characters. Also, I like Gwen's story. Sounds interesting. I relate strongly with that mediator role she takes on top of being a healer.
Thank you for the kind feedback - and yes, a lot of this does relate to characters in general. Which is sort of one point as well - to focus on creating three-dimensional characters overall, regardless of gender 🙂
@@TheTaleTinkerer Yeah, gender is a character trait, most of the time a key character trait, but it's not the character, and he or she should have more key traits.
All characters, regardless of gender should be well written and complex. This video brought ACOTAR to mind. SjM tried so hard with Feyra but she was such a ball of cliches and girl bossed in ways that didn't make sense. The plot armor and insta love was THICK. She wasn't written well.
Excellent video with valuable advice and discussion. But the video is just so difficult to watch with the Stormwind banner taunting me in the background. Lok'tar ogar!
@@TheTaleTinkerer- With a character like Gwen, you could go a hundred different directions with her, and make for engaging storytelling in almost all of them. But the direction in this series of events just seems so perfect and tight at each step/stage. Generating conflicts and obstacles, while also having clear-cut goals, but also with some things left up in the air in such a way that... it could take a long while to resolve them (in a good way.) Like it's perfect fodder for a TV show, much like Merlin or something. It just seems neat/clean cut in the places it needs to be with plenty of room for episode-to-episode arcs. Shorter episodic stuff, with longer through-lines that... as demonstrated, can last "years" or seasons. My own work never feels that clean/tight in this early of a stage. But I feel like with how you laid it out, it would be *easy* to write Gwen's story. Like it almost writes itself. For me, finding the best path forward is hard. Any of them can or could work. I just never know what the "best" one is. And I have no idea how to sort that out. Maybe it's my ADHD in the way. I don't know. But I spend tons of time second-guessing *everything* ... and I really need and want to NOT do that anymore.
@@tearstoneactual9773 Thank you for the in-depth reply, I really appreciate it. Regarding your explanations, I usually do like the process of outlining quite a lot, because there is a sense of structure, logical thinking and planning involved - which suits me quite well. So, these made-up stories for the videos are basically mini-versions of such outlines. The rest then is just adding story beats that help emphasize whatever point I'm trying to make in that moment. I'm trying to incorporate mini stories a bit more to see if people like them and get more value/understanding out of the video because of them. For an actual novel, I'd feel there still would be much to do here to straighten things out but I'm glad to hear you already felt it was quite solid 🙂
@@TheTaleTinkerer - That's great and all, but that doesn't explain, at all, the *how* you got those results. Did you use an LLM to help you? Was it off the top of your head? Pounding your head against the wall for hours?
@@tearstoneactual9773 All of it actually 🙂 I usually start with an idea and throw around some of the major beats, then use LLMs to build around/check for concsistency, then go back and change a few things again because I often find - while it is majorly helpful as a step, at least to me - that LLMs tend to add problems I would have not. The end result is then usually something I can read through myself with ease as a plot line/arc without having questions like "What about..." come up 🙂
Hey! I love the content and think it's helpful. Just one concern, since your channel is growing and you might actually see this, I think the AI is a net negative for you. I'd much rather see stock images and video like you had with the warrior in armor. Seeing it is just off-putting within a creative sphere. Obviously this is you're show, and you do what you want, just thought I'd say it.
In my experience, it is not hard to write a well written female protagonist. In my grimdark fantasy novel, the protagonist is an elven princess who is bisexual, who goes from good to evil
Do you have any tips for writing non-human characters, especially if they don't look human? So far, I'm outlining a fantasy race that is essentially bipedal reptiles who are intelligent and have dexterity (comparable to humans). This fantasy race gets powerups from sunlight. I like the idea, but writing individual characters is so hard.
It isn't the very next video, but I should have a comprehensive "race worldbuilding" video planned for next month. That will hopefully be something useful for you 🙂
Sadly, these types of bland tropes have become the majority of modern fantasy/romantacy. The Genre is growing stale and boring. Too much gate keeping and focus on stupid stereotypes is ruining fantasy: I'm tired of Mary Sue's that are down bad for a warewolf, or a sniveling farmer boy that earns NOTHING on his journey...
@@grondhero Not many anymore. Now, it's mostly strong, independent women lusting over vamps, werewolves, or billionairs. In some magical academy. The few reluctant hero stories that do arise are almost always flat, formulaic, and boring. Regardless. Women in fantasy have become nothing more than self insert smut, while male authors are forced to take up pen names just to be considered for publishing. 🤔
@@TheTaleTinkerer The Sangwheel Chronicals by Marie M. Mullany. For old school: The Novels of Tiger and Del & the chronicals of the Cheysuli are extremely under rated! Anything by Mercades Lackey ofc. Alicia Rades has a decent modern approach on magical academy fantasy that I've come to enjoy. Maybe I'm just aging out of the genre, but it's rare to find quality fantasy/romantacy now days imho. They still exist though!
Within half an hour, you've created a character who's more interesting than anyone Amazon has created with the billion dollar budget that went into Rings of Power.
.. eh, I don't think you're WRONG necessarily. Strength shouldn't be confused with masculinity. But is it so strange that women want to read about female characters who are similar to the male characters we grew up reading about in fantasy? Conan is cool. Conanette isn't necessarily any less cool than Conan is just because she isn't a man, you know what I mean? Writing a powerful warrior woman is by no means a fault.
Too often women in modern games/movies/books are strong and powerful because people say they are.. not because there is any valid reason for them to be.. 99% of women in a smack down drag out fight.. will loose to 90% of guys.. this is just physics and basic science. The Wheel of Time is a perfect example of strong women done well.. In this they utilize different strengths that women typically have over men, and in other things (magic based) there are REASONS why a woman can out strength a man more than "I am stronk Woman i winz"
Sometimes you have to reverse-engineer things, you don't always get to pick. Just "writing genderless" doesn't always work and sometimes you're a man "stuck" creating a female. In such a situation... Well its easy to see how what tale tinkerer is saying here STILL needs to be explained in 2024. We're still getting bad writers that make it all the way to the big screen with no clue how to craft a female character (cf star wars, captain marvel, rings of power, to name only the big ones). Hell, watch some anime and it'll become obvious that this lesson still needs to be taught.
@@swehumorofficial It's a bit more complicated than that. This can work in some instances (like Ripley in Alien), but someone's lived experience in their own body is going to be different from whatever you personally feel is a default starting point. Unless there is total equality of e.g., all genders and races or even species in your fantasy world (unlikely and would arguably/probably be boring), someone being a woman or Black or LGBTQ or an orc or what have you is definitely going to have a different experience and, therefore, outlook on life. If we use contemporary society as an example, it is *much* more dangerous for a woman to walk on a street alone at night than it would be for a man, and nearly any woman will make different decisions and/or be more cautious because of it. Who you are colors everything you experience, believe, and do. Otherwise it's just playing dress up.
@@zanzaboonda I'd prefer not to limit my characters, their experiences and perspectives by something so trivial as their gender, and certainly nothing so utterly inconsequential as this bland world we live in. I always write my characters first, complete their stories, their relationships, their personalities and their dialogues, and then assign them a gender last of all - if I even do that! Coming to think of it, most of my protagonists are genderless, their gender being a completely irrelevant factor to their actions and experiences, unless matters such as identity and sexuality are a major theme of the story. Side note: your perception of contemporary society may be factually mistaken. The National Council for Crime Prevention report that lone men (especially in the 16-25 age range) are more likely to be victims of crime than lone women, regardless of the time of day.
@@swehumorofficial Gender is absolutely NOT trivial - even for genderless characters (depending on the construction of societies in your world). And citing generic statistics is disingenuous and misleading. Yes, men are more likely to be victims of crime, but they are also FAR more likely to be involved in criminal activity, especially violent crime. How much of that is gang activity vs robbery vs rape vs homicide? Etc. Does it include sexual harassment? Women are far more likely to feel unsafe, which will absolutely color their experience as a character. Even heat map studies will show that women are constantly analyzing different areas for threats vs men. Women are also more diligent and cautious and tend to walk in groups or with romantic partner when walking at night. So that limits the lone victim statistics. It sounds like you are just looking for an excuse to be willfully ignorant, TBH.
@@zanzaboonda Gender absolutely is trivial, for me and for every person - fictional or real - I have ever empathized with. Indeed, I do not believe I have the ability to empathize with those who believe in gender division. I cannot write characters I do not empathize with. Of course, if you want to look into more specific criminal activity, the National Council for Crime Prevention has statistics for that as well. For example, lone men are far more likely to be robbed, whereas women are somewhat more likely to be raped (though sexual harassment overall is quite equally divided between men and women). As for who commits the crime in question, it does vary somewhat depending on the crime itself - again, I have provided a rather indisputable source that you can easily look up yourself. As for feeling unsafe, I would like to know what relevant sources you have for women feeling more unsafe than men, as it contradicts both well-established statistical surveys and my personal experiences living in Sweden. Sounds to me like you are just looking for an excuse to spout sexist stereotypes. Besides, why should any writer ever bother with what is more likely, especially in another and completely separate world where contemporary society is of no relevance? Higher likelihood means higher predictability, which might lead to a boring story.
Ive noticed that there is quite a difference in sets of problems that men and women excel in over the other. Whether or not it is biological or social conditioning i do not know. Men seem to be better at solving rather tactile issues such as engineering and similar fields whereas women are better at solving complicated interpersonal problems that most men would wither ignore or be blind to. As always there are exceptions as evidenced by the entire history of humanity.
