Readers love a good female character— and publishing companies love them too. But even the best authors sometimes find that writing female characters can take a little more effort than the male counterpart. And if they’re not careful, the women characters fall flat. 

 

Two Mistakes to Avoid

Our women characters can be written poorly when there are inconsistencies. These inconsistencies can happen in two ways.

First, when women are inconsistent compared to men— meaning that women face problems, judgment, and expectations that men don’t have to face. 

And second, when women characters are inconsistent with themselves. This means they have traits in the beginning that are suddenly missing when they face a problem. Sometimes they suddenly have a weakness we didn’t know about.

 

Ask Yourself: Would a man have this problem?

My example of these issues comes from the movie Cars. Cars is a great movie, and it has a great plotline, but there is one scene in Cars where, despite the high-quality writing throughout the rest of the story, they fall into some cliches that weaken their female character, Sally.

 

About halfway through the movie, there is a scene where Sally and Lightning McQueen have a conversation. Sally invites him to stay in her Cozy Cone Hotel.  This is the start of their budding romance. However, as Sally is leaving the conversation, Lightning catches a glimpse of the bumper sticker beneath her spoiler. He points it out, and Sally is embarrassed, and sputters out a remark, “Oh you saw that?” Then she bumps into a bunch of cones, where one lands on her head, and she quickly backs into her garage to escape.

 

The whole scene is only two minutes long, but it contains both inconsistencies mentioned above: 

 

First, Sally has a problem that men don’t have to worry about. In this scene, Sally is very embarrassed about her tattoo. But have you ever met a man, or read about a man, or seen a man in a movie who is embarrassed about his tattoos? No woman has ever said to a man, “Hey, is that a barbed wire tattoo around your bicep?” And had the man reply with an embarrassed, “Oh you saw that?” And then awkwardly tug down his sleeve. But in this scene, when Sally’s tattoo is pointed out, she’s absolutely mortified that lightning McQueen would see it.

 

This would not have happened if the roles were reversed.

 

Ask Yourself: Are the female’s characteristics consistent? 

 

This scene has behaviors that are inconsistent with Sally’s character. Sally is a car, so it seems a bit silly, but she is a strong female character. She is a lawyer– so she’s highly educated. She’s well respected in her town and is a community leader. She owns her own business, the Cozy Cone Hotel, and she has undergone a lot of personal development prior to the movie taking place. Throughout the movie, Sally had been witty and sarcastic and had put Lighting McQueen in his place several times. But the moment he spots her tattoo, she’s clumsy, bumping into things and fumbling for words. The more realistic response from Sally would be “Eyes off my backside, Stickers.” That would be much more consistent with her character much more than the fumbling, bumbling, idiot whose brain turns to jelly the second a man speaks to her.

 

Two More Problems with Sally

 

There are two more issues with this scene I would like to point out in relation to writing women respectfully.

 

This scene perpetuates unhealthy relationship standards. What this scene says is: When a man likes you, he will shame you in some way, perhaps labeling it as teasing, and if you like the attention, you’ll be too flattered to speak. You won’t tease him back, you won’t flirt, you won’t put him in his place— you’ll be quiet and coy and flustered. No matter how intelligent or confident you are.

 

Also, Sally’s interactions in this part of the film are problematic because it shames women for their bodies, particularly their sexuality. Sally’s bumper sticker is essentially a tattoo on her lower back, or as we refer to them,  a “tramp stamp.” And, tongue in cheek,  we all know that if you have a tramp stamp, you probably have a history of being promiscuous and you need to be embarrassed by this today. 

 

The message from this scene is that nothing is more mortifying as a woman than when the guy you like catches an accidental glimpse of your midriff. The problems women face are much more complex than that. Good authors find a way to represent them with depth, compassion and honesty. Sally can have a tattoo. She can love her tattoo. It can be something she finds beautiful and meaningful, or it can be something that just makes her feel sexy. And when someone discovers that tattoo, she can form an intelligent response as she was able to do in the past. She can tell them she loves it. She can show them her other tattoos. She doesn’t have to be embarrassed. And even if it is a tattoo that she regrets, she can explain that in a way that doesn’t make her sound inferior to the male character.

 

Lightning McQueen has a history of a questionable moral background, and there’s no shame, no accountability, or judgment from the female counterpart.

 

Sally Was Too Good for Lightning

The downplaying of Sally was probably not intentionally done. This scene where Sally invites him to stay at the hotel is instrumental to the story— it’s where Lightning and Sally first show a connection— some mutual interest. But there’s a problem. Sally is way too good for lightning, and even the kids are going to know it. The writers needed to “knock Sally down a few pegs” so to speak, and the easiest way to do that was to shame her for her body and her sexuality. 

 

“See,” it says, “Sally’s not such a goody two shoes.” “See, she’s got a wild side. She could fall for someone like Lightning McQueen…” While I agree that something needs to happen to show some sort of compatibility for the relationship to be developed, there are a lot of alternatives.

 Here is an example of what could have happened— what if it’s revealed that Sally has some quirky interests— maybe she is a huge fan of Michael Jackson or collects comic books. Then we can say the same thing— see, Sally’s not so up-tight— she’s human after all— and she could fall for someone like Lightning McQueen. 

 

Another example is — What if it’s revealed that she has a weakness not related to her body. Maybe her Cozy Cone is rather cluttered. Or maybe she’s way behind on paperwork. She could have some dark family secret, or she was fired from her previous job.

 

Or! Here’s my favorite idea— maybe Lightning McQueen catches a glimpse of something that indicates that Sally is a huge fan. It could have been revealed that while she appears all tough and no nonsense, inside she’s secretly been fangirling the whole time! This is far more fun, far more consistent, and it doesn’t shame her for her body.

 

All of these are ways that will make their relationship seem possible– and none of those include shaming her body or her sexuality. It’s more consistent, and it’s more entertaining! It adds a deeper level to our characters.

 

Characters Need to Have Weaknesses

 

The best characters have character development, even if they are side characters like Sally. For the character to develop there needs to be a low point in which to develop from, but it’s too frequent that the women’s low point. The point they develop from is based on her body. Either she is too promiscuous or too prude, based on the media’s judgment. Other examples are she’s too underweight or too overweight or too pretty or too plain. When you are writing a female character ask yourselves these questions. 

 

1. Would this problem, judgment, explanation, question, or expectation be demanded from a male?

 2. Is the character’s reaction to a certain problem consistent with her previously shown strengths and weaknesses?

 3. And, for the sake of all the women in the world who want to read about real women— Is the character’s problem based solely on her body, her beauty rather than on something internal, deep, and meaningful?

 

Keep those questions in mind, use them as a guide to craft your characters, and you’ll be able to create someone with a level of depth has been missing in media for a long time.