The Problem With Strong Female Characters
Monday kicks off my first genre writing class for my MFA in Creative Writing. I chose the romance genre and our first discussion is around character. One of the readings was a 2016 blog post by Lisa Cron on what it means to have a likeable character.
The secret? Relatability.
In other words, your main character needs to be believable. And that right there is the trouble with modern strong female characters.
The latest box office tank of Supergirl seems to confirm this.
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You might be wondering what the problem is with strong female characters these days. Something is off, but you just don’t know what. I’ll tell you what: they don’t change. That’s right, there is nothing about the character that changes. We call that a flat character. And while it’s not impossible to make such a character work, something must change.
If we look at another superhero character, Captain America, we can see that Steve Rogers doesn’t fundamentally change. Rather, it’s his environment that changes. Cap remains who he is to his core, and that’s what makes his character great and admirable.
The problem in the girl boss era is that the characters not only don’t change, but we are given the message from the beginning that they are perfect just the way they are and it’s everyone else who is the problem.
This makes the character, especially a superhero or otherwise powered individual, unrelatable and uninspiring. If the character has it all figured out, why am I sitting in the theater for 2 hours going broke on tickets and concessions?
Take a look at the various incarnations of Spider-Man over the past twenty years or so. Peter Parker, an average nerdy kid, gets superpowers from a radioactive spider bite.
Not only does he need to navigate physical changes, he needs to get over his own misbeliefs about heroes and villains. In the end, Peter Parker has addressed his internal misbeliefs and changed to become a person worthy of having superpowers and saving the day.
Now, let’s contrast that to a variety of female superheroes/protagonists who didn’t have to “earn” their status. Examples include the live-action Mulan, Rey from Star Wars, Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel, and Galadriel from Rings of Power.
These characters merely show us girls and women who didn’t have to earn anything. They were born great and will continue to be great. They don’t really struggle. They are just girl bosses from the jump.
How relatable is that?
Just like you wouldn’t expect a main character to be perfectly passive to the point of never standing up for herself or having any agency, the opposite is just as bad.
In her book Story Genius, Lisa Cron tells us, “a story is about how the things that happen affect someone in pursuit of a difficult goal, and how that person changes internally as a result (p.17).” The internal change is what the story is really about.
The external dilemma (the plot) should change her worldview. Too often, strong female characters lack this. We get the feeling the female main character is never the one who has to change. All she has to do is realize the strength within her that has been hiding this whole time. Only then can she rule the world/universe/whatever.
We would never give a male main character that kind of storytelling latitude. Main characters, especially superheroes, need to be challenged. Every character must have a flaw. Too many writers believe the lie that if your character has no flaws, then the reader will like them more.
Dear writer: the opposite of that is true. And I would say a character with no flaws pushes the reader away from the story. That’s a surefire path to someone DNFing your work because of a poor reader experience.
So what’s a writer to do? Make your character relatable, not perfect. They must experience an internal struggle over the course of the story.
Frodo wasn’t the same when he started on his journey as when he ended it, and neither should your character. Here are some concrete steps to make your character likeable:
How to write a strong female character
1. She must have a weakness or flaw. Without this, the character risks becoming perfect and unrelatable.
2. She must show appropriate emotion. It’s okay for your female main character to be sad or angry. Lack of emotions does not make a character relatable.
3. She must have an internal misbelief. Overcoming this misbelief throughout the story is what makes her change for the better. Without this misbelief, there is no story.
4. Avoid toxic traits. Don’t give her the same traits deemed toxic in a male character. If it’s toxic in men, then it’s toxic in women.
5. Define your character arc before you write. This is true for pantsers and plotters. If you can’t identify the internal misbelief of your main characters, then you likely don’t have a plot. What you have is a series of events that mean nothing to the journey of the characters.
I don’t expect any of us to be perfect with this from the beginning. It’s going to take time and practice to make sure your characters are fully fleshed out and have a true arc.
Even Darth Vader has a character arc.
Don’t be afraid to make your female main character struggle, but don’t forget she must change over the course of the story. Her worldview must be challenged and changed. Without that, there’s no story.
That’s all for now. Keep showing up and living that writer life.
Until next time, happy writing!
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