# Men writing female characters (advice needed!)



## monemi (Jun 24, 2013)

WolfeGang said:


> Goes to show that height isn't everything.
> 
> Well in particular I've been juggling between the INFJ and ISFJ in my current work, and there's an ENFP/INFP in yet another project . It's collecting dust somewhere along with the other partly finished works.  I have intimate knowledge of the ISFJ since I've been around them all my life, though I have a natural N-bias when it comes to lead characters which nudges me towards the INFJ, a type with significantly different functions. It doesn't help that they are extremely difficult to read, being both introverts and intuitive feeling types.


Well, you know lots about ISFJ. Why not make your first attempt on a type you are very familiar with? You should have a firm grasp on expected behaviours and choices right?


----------



## WolfeGang (May 5, 2013)

monemi said:


> Well, you know lots about ISFJ. Why not make your first attempt on a type you are very familiar with? You should have a firm grasp on expected behaviours and choices right?


 It only seems logical. Oh yes, Guardians are the types I know best besides the Rationals, being one myself and all. It's funny how the mind works: I've known this for a long time, but I still try to ignore it. It's like knowing that running on ice without proper footwear will cause you to slip and fall, but you decide to try it anyhow (who knows, maybe you'll get away with it this time). Foolish and childish mind.


----------



## Eudaimonia (Sep 24, 2013)

WolfeGang said:


> Female friends are lacking, so that leaves the eavesdropping option available to me. However, if been thinking about drafting a questionnaire that I may post here on PerC for female members to respond to at leisure, so that again is another option to consider. Off the top of your head, what type of questions are you referring to in particular? Open-ended questions? For instance, "how would you react in XYZ scenario?" That kind?


Yes, open ended questions to get the feel of a conversation and start a verbal flow. You could do the XYZ reaction, but I was more refering to a person to person conversation that you have in mind in a contextual situation from your story. The questions would be based on your story (in a way), so I didn't have anything specific or formulaic in mind. You are such an NT. Haha!


----------



## WolfeGang (May 5, 2013)

Scruzz said:


> Yes, open ended questions to get the feel of a conversation and start a verbal flow. You could do the XYZ reaction, but I was more refering to a person to person conversation that you have in mind in a contextual situation from your story. The questions would be based on your story (in a way), so I didn't have anything specific or formulaic in mind. You are such an NT. Haha!


Hmm...open-ended questions that are contextualized within the framework of my story, correct? So they would have to be story specific while being general enough that a respondent can answer in an open fashion, allowing me to gain a better understanding of her thought processes. My mind's a blank at the moment without some kind of illustration or example. Maybe you could provide one for me? If not, don't worry about it. This gives me something to mull over for the next few days. Is that sufficiently INTPish for you?


----------



## Eudaimonia (Sep 24, 2013)

WolfeGang said:


> Hmm...open-ended questions that are contextualized within the framework of my story, correct? So they would have to be story specific while being general enough that a respondent can answer in an open fashion, allowing me to gain a better understanding of her thought processes. My mind's a blank at the moment without some kind of illustration or example. Maybe you could provide one for me? If not, don't worry about it. This gives me something to mull over for the next few days. Is that sufficiently INTPish for you?


Very sufficient indeed, darling. "What would you say if I came over to help you stay warm on this cold damp night?" would be an example. Don't know what you are writing, so it would be hard to give a more solid reply. Heals clicking to the beat of a clock down the shimmering wet streets of Glasgow at night. She stops and before the shadow can reach her side of the pavement. She reaches down into her boot for her dagger. Haha... I really haven't a clue. Do you have much dialogue in this story? You can try to attack a woman to see what she might do or say. Any stranger will do. NO no! Just kidding. Of course, I'm going to have to sign off now before I get into more trouble.


----------



## monemi (Jun 24, 2013)

WolfeGang said:


> Hmm...open-ended questions that are contextualized within the framework of my story, correct? So they would have to be story specific while being general enough that a respondent can answer in an open fashion, allowing me to gain a better understanding of her thought processes. My mind's a blank at the moment without some kind of illustration or example. Maybe you could provide one for me? If not, don't worry about it. This gives me something to mull over for the next few days. Is that sufficiently INTPish for you?


While I agree with Scuzz's idea in theory, attacking strange women would be very illuminating, you could just ask what they would do if a stranger attacked them and give some context. Or for instance, if you want to know their response to odd people; you could ask how they react to grown women making silly faces at them out of a passing car window. I've done this with my cousin, peoples reactions are hilarious. The best reactions are the guys that pull silly faces back.

The idea, match up the situation you're putting the character in and ask them what they would do.


----------



## WolfeGang (May 5, 2013)

monemi said:


> While I agree with Scuzz's idea in theory, attacking strange women would be very illuminating, you could just ask what they would do if a stranger attacked them and give some context. Or for instance, if you want to know their response to odd people; you could ask how they react to grown women making silly faces at them out of a passing car window. I've done this with my cousin, peoples reactions are hilarious. The best reactions are the guys that pull silly faces back.
> 
> The idea, match up the situation you're putting the character in and ask them what they would do.


I see. So essentially I'd construct questions that would pertain to the character-centric plotline situations, in order to get a gist of what "W-type" women would do in situation XYZ and why.


----------



## Word Dispenser (May 18, 2012)

WolfeGang said:


> Hello fellow writers and enthusiasts of PerC. I am an amateur fiction writer experiencing difficulty creating well-rounded and believable female protagonists. If I failed to mention it, I am a man. Being an INTP, I find it really challenging to see the world from the perspective of Feelers, which incidentally happen to comprise three quarters of the female population. Thinkers are much easier to understand, but as I writer I can't stand the thought of limiting myself only to Thinker women. Hence the dilemma which I've generated for myself. How can a man go about creating female characters with depth, namely Feeler women, when he doesn't truly understand the mindset of such women? Any advice would be much appreciated.


The best advice I can give you, my friend, is practice.

Reading a lot everyday, and writing a lot everyday. 

You admit you're bad at writing women, and that's a great start. Now all you have to do is just go for it. Write yourself a short story, or just a page or two from the perspective of a woman (POV doesn't matter).

Then, what do you do, you may wonder?

At that point, you post your work up at the art gallery threads, or a writer's forum (Literature forums is a good one.)

When you post your work, ask for critiques, and let your readers know explicitly that you have trouble writing from a female's perspective.

BAM. Critique-time. This is my favourite. It's like honeyed nectar dripping from the words. Eat them up as such. Allow it to flow through you and strengthen your resolve.

Once critiques are given, keep them in mind, and work hard, practice hard, and play hard. But, don't bite down too hard. It's not good for your molars.


----------



## Aya the Abysswalker (Mar 23, 2012)

Try to talk to some women and ask them about themselves and analyise female characters you see as believable ones.

This might help too Home Page - Television Tropes & Idioms


----------



## Word Dispenser (May 18, 2012)

AyaSullivan said:


> Try to talk to some women and ask them about themselves and analyise female characters you see as believable ones.
> 
> This might help too Home Page - Television Tropes & Idioms


I love that site. Be warned, you'll be stuck for _days. 

_I want to write myself a Magnificent Bastard. Pretty sure one of the ENTPs has that as a username on here, lol
@Magnificent Bastard did you get that name from TVtropes?


----------



## Aya the Abysswalker (Mar 23, 2012)

Word Dispenser said:


> I love that site. Be warned, you'll be stuck for _days._


I know that. I've been reading the Tropes for JoJo'z Bizarre Adventure like a madwoman.


----------



## WolfeGang (May 5, 2013)

Word Dispenser said:


> The best advice I can give you, my friend, is practice.
> 
> Reading a lot everyday, and writing a lot everyday.
> 
> ...


 Great suggestions! Currently, I am experimenting with first-person POV (i.e. memoirs) in order to get a better feel for the internal world of my female characters. In this proves to be successful, I'd certainly be willing to post something online in order to receive feedback, as long as its useful feedback allowing me to make the necessary adjustments and modifications. Looks like I have some writing to do.


----------



## WolfeGang (May 5, 2013)

AyaSullivan said:


> Try to talk to some women and ask them about themselves and analyise female characters you see as believable ones.
> 
> This might help too Home Page - Television Tropes & Idioms


Oh yes, how I could I forget about TV Tropes.


----------



## WolfeGang (May 5, 2013)

Whoever said I would be spending a few hours a TV Tropes was correct. Haha, I am finding it however both enlightening and depressing. It's humanely impossible to avoid them all.


----------



## Magnificent Bastard (Sep 22, 2010)

Word Dispenser said:


> I love that site. Be warned, you'll be stuck for _days.
> 
> _I want to write myself a Magnificent Bastard. Pretty sure one of the ENTPs has that as a username on here, lol
> @Magnificent Bastard did you get that name from TVtropes?


*hands up* You got me..


----------



## Vic (Dec 4, 2010)

Talk to women. Pay attention.


----------



## android654 (Jan 19, 2010)

WolfeGang said:


> Hello fellow writers and enthusiasts of PerC. I am an amateur fiction writer experiencing difficulty creating well-rounded and believable female protagonists. If I failed to mention it, I am a man. Being an INTP, I find it really challenging to see the world from the perspective of Feelers, which incidentally happen to comprise three quarters of the female population. Thinkers are much easier to understand, but as I writer I can't stand the thought of limiting myself only to Thinker women. Hence the dilemma which I've generated for myself. How can a man go about creating female characters with depth, namely Feeler women, when he doesn't truly understand the mindset of such women? Any advice would be much appreciated.


Good characters are not a composite of traits based on statistics. The key to writing compelling women is the same as writing compelling men--write good characters. Start by understanding who the character is as a person and all things that follow will compose itself properly. Do not think that certain characters need to be something because they are female, or black, or crippled, or french, or whatever other minute detail that works as a descriptor on a superficial level. Focus on them as people, employ a little "method writing" and you'll craft three dimensional characters.


----------



## somnuvore (Sep 27, 2013)

You're over thinking it; this is the same thing my INTP best friend does, he feels intimidated when he has to write female characters, and especially so when he has to think from the female's perspective, because he believes men and women are completely different with completely different minds.

You have to focus on simply writing a believable person; there are some women who fall into a stereotype, and some men, but unless you're intentionally writing about a person like that, you should focus only on the personality, the soul of the being, and worry only about gender from the PoV of _another_ character, as the person themselves will almost never pay attention to the fact that they are one gender or another (at least, I never think about myself being male, except when it's explicit, such as now )

So simply toss away your preconceptions that females are any more difficult to write than males; there is no male perspective or female perspective, no male personality or female personality, there is only how the person is reacted to by others.

With all that said, you should still study people and see if you can identify the differences in personalities; since you're an INTP, you already know what life looks like through your own eyes, but try getting into the minds of other people to understand why they act in the ways they do, what really drives them, what makes one person energetic and another somber, why justice matters to one person but ethics to another, etc.


----------



## WolfeGang (May 5, 2013)

somnuvore said:


> You're over thinking it; this is the same thing my INTP best friend does, he feels intimidated when he has to write female characters, and especially so when he has to think from the female's perspective, because he believes men and women are completely different with completely different minds.
> 
> You have to focus on simply writing a believable person; there are some women who fall into a stereotype, and some men, but unless you're intentionally writing about a person like that, you should focus only on the personality, the soul of the being, and worry only about gender from the PoV of _another_ character, as the person themselves will almost never pay attention to the fact that they are one gender or another (at least, I never think about myself being male, except when it's explicit, such as now )
> 
> ...


This was helpful, thanks. I suppose I'm simply overthinking as I have a tendency to do. All of this is more or less the result of me "wrestling with my demons" with regards to subconsciously ingrained stereotypes. Ironically, it is thinking about these very stereotypes which paralyzes me. Perhaps then I should try to forget them altogether, and simply focus on personality as suggested. Writing the characters that I _want_ to write versus trying to emulate those that I have observed...perhaps that is the key. Ti wants it all to plausible though, which I believe is the crux of it all.


----------



## myexplodingcat (Feb 6, 2011)

@WolfeGang:

These are traits that are more exclusively found in women. Most of them are more prominent in Fe types, since that's what you said you were looking for. They're little differences; they may be totally irrelevant, but you might want to think about them depending on the subject of your novel. You might find a few of these interesting to use, but if you totally missed them, it probably wouldn't hurt your writing. Female characters are pretty similar to male characters.



Women are more likely to use gossip as a weapon than men are. Fe users in particular, if they so choose, have immense power to manipulate their social circles--whether benignly/helpfully or to get revenge. Of course, we also get terribly confused by this sometimes, especially Thinkers. (On the other hand, Thinkers are far less likely to give a crap.) And when women do use gossip as a weapon, it shouldn't be heavy-handed--female conversations are more nuanced and subtle. You're not trying to look like you're launching an attack; you're just poisoning someone's reputation from behind the curtain.

Because Feeler women know the power of social circles, acceptance can be seen as more important, and rejection carries more meaning and may make them more upset. Men who know them and who may not see this meaning can be terribly, horribly confused by this. Thinker women aren't immune to this, either, especially when acceptance vs. rejection determines whether someone's going to get in our way or not.

There are some things that guys take more seriously than gals do, too. Women are typically less insecure about being seen as passive or uncertain. They don't get embarrassed if they aren't athletic like guys do.

Women vent. Sometimes a girl just needs to yell her problems at somebody, and she does it in order to make herself feel better, rather than because she wants that person to fix her problems. We also like to find people with the same problems and complain about them loudly to each other (these conversations typically end up being pretty hilarious, especially if the women involved are witty). We're also more likely to be able to sympathize well with people we've never met than men are, although that's a less consistent one.

Women can be just as competitive as men, although over different things. You know what I mean... that one "catty group" of forty-year-old ladies that materializes pretty much everywhere, and then one of them gets a new couch or something and the others immediately have to top it somehow or get new couches, too. It should be noted that this isn't a constant, but it does happen.

Women, rather than suppressing their emotions, try instead to take control of them. (Those are two different things.) They acknowledge their feelings and deal with them more often than guys do, or they choose to channel that mental energy.

Female bragging is typically more subtle than male bragging. Our power plays are different, too--women will patronize in order to put others down or express their standing, whereas guys tend to use dominant body language instead.

Speaking of body language, females are pretty much a zillion times better at reading it than guys are. It's just a thing. One of those differences in how we're wired. Some women naturally pay more attention to it than others, though; this has a lot to do with conditioning. A girl who grew up needing to always know whether her parents were angry at her, or which of her classmates are currently on drugs and dangerous, for example, will naturally make far more use of her knowledge of body language than a girl who's spent most of her life being homeschooled.* A girl who's spent a lot of time feeling deathly insecure will also quickly learn these skills. Of course, there are also those who are just gifted with good social skills. I'd recommend that you read "The Definitive Book of Body Language," available here. The Definitive Book of Body Language: Barbara Pease, Allan Pease: 9780553804720: Amazon.com: Books

Not every woman needs or wants a boyfriend, but even those who aren't typically focused on romance will fantasize once in a while. But women are more likely to fantasize about the romantic aspects, and being with someone who cares about them, rather than, y'know, what guys sometimes like to fantasize about.



If you're unsure about something, come back and ask.




*This is why my mom is the one who spots other people's body language, and I'm the one who analyzes it--and also why I tend to judge people on their words rather than their appearance... which might make me a fairer judge of character in some ways, but also makes me more gullible, because I'm not looking for body language signs that let me know when someone's lying. It also makes me more empathetic with strangers on the Internet. Consider the depths of how your characters express each of these traits, and make sure they make sense for that character's background. If you've got a woman in some sort of cutthroat political scene and she can't read body language, I'll wonder why she hasn't been assassinated yet.


----------



## monemi (Jun 24, 2013)

Anaïs Nin: '_We don't see_ things as they are, _we see_ them as _we are."


_I don't agree with a lot of the above.


----------



## WolfeGang (May 5, 2013)

myexplodingcat said:


> @_WolfeGang_:
> 
> These are traits that are more exclusively found in women. Most of them are more prominent in Fe types, since that's what you said you were looking for. They're little differences; they may be totally irrelevant, but you might want to think about them depending on the subject of your novel. You might find a few of these interesting to use, but if you totally missed them, it probably wouldn't hurt your writing. Female characters are pretty similar to male characters.
> 
> ...


 I appreciate the in-depth response, though certainly there are things that you listed that I don't necessarily agree upon (i.e. women's greater emotional maturity). On a whole, I find the list helpful in highlighting the stereotypical peculiarities of Fe women (esp. Fe-dom and aux), though I must insist that my intention is not to write stereotypical characters; quite the contrary, these are some of the very things that I am interested in dispelling, though it certainly helps to have them in front of me. 

On a completely different note, I must say that I relate to your tendency to judge people by their words and actions instead of their appearances and body language. Arguably, I am not very adept at reading body language, tuning out my supplementary sensorial input when listening to someone speak. This happens when I go into Ti-mode. Show me and I will observe, speak and I will listen, but do not expect me to do both at once.


----------

