Strong FEMALE characters

I've seen a lot of "How do I write female characters?" or "I can't write a woman" or "What is a strong female character." Now I've done some reading up on this from other people and sites, to see what they have to say as well.

And all of our thoughts generally run along the lines of 'It's a character not a gender you're writing.'

That might make very little sense to you so I'll elaborate. A character is that. A character. You could give them a gender and the body parts to go with it, but it is still a character. Whether or not it is a female or a male character should be irrelevant. Nine times out of ten, if you've written a story about a male character, you could probably change the name and the gender and it would still work fine.

But we don't realise this.

Society has embedded in us that 'female characters' don't really exist other than to be there as a romantic interest or a piece of fleshy meat to show off. One prime example of a male role being given a female character is Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica. Some of you may not have heard of her/him but in the original series it was a male character. He smoked, played poker, got into fights, drank heavily, could out drink most others, was an excellent pilot, great shot, has an attitude, hates following orders all of the time. The female Starbuck in the remake series is exactly the same. She out drinks most people, smokes, plays poker and wins, gets into fist fights, has an attitude, will disregard orders, is an excellent pilot and a great shot. And it worked wonderfully.

Ellen Ripley from Alien (We've all heard of this film surely), I believe was meant to be cast as a male character up until the last minute where somebody decided "Let's make a it a girl actually. Keep everything, just change the name." And again, it worked. We have a kick ass female lead.

The point I am trying to make is that you don't always have to think about a 'girls' perspective. Just think about what kind of character you want. Do they smoke? Have kids? Have a mental disorder? Do they like to gamble? Drive a motorcycle? Not drive? Drink? Non-drinker? Believer of God? Atheist? Buddhist? Do not think about the character as a female but as a character. Imagine what your character would do, in character, and write it.

Gender shouldn't dictate what your character does or how they act. They may be a Femme Fatale or a romantic at heart, but male characters could fill those roles just as well. It works both ways.

So don't write for the gender, writer for the character.

Happy Writing.