How Many Women Characters Are in Your Book?

March is Women’s History Month, though I actually don’t like these types of events.  They exist because history and even present doesn’t always recognize people outside of a select group.  I remember one time, when I was in the military I was talking to one of of the NCOs.  He was African-American, and he lamented that it would be a long time before he saw an African-American President of the United States.  I told him that it would happen before a woman became President.

You know how that came out.

To look at the high levels of politics and management, and even to look at books, it doesn’t look like there’s many women out there.  I find far too many books where there’s only one woman character.  Even a book with 100 characters, and 99 are men.  How exactly is this reality?  It’s like history months.  We’ll recognize one to sell the books, and everything else will be status quo.  And by the way, we’ll put in skintight leather, too, because the men are the important readers, not the women.

Okay, that may not be accurate, but that’s the impression I keep getting.  And it’s made worse when the lone woman character tends toward masculine and immature.

I want my women characters to be smart.

I want my women characters to be savvy.

I want my women characters to be mature within range of their age.

I want my women characters not to be sex objects.

And especially, I want there to be more than one woman character in the book.

Is that too much to ask?

–

My short story “A Soldier’s Magic” appears in the anthology The Darkness Within, available from Indigo Mosaic Publishing.  It features two women soldiers who have to make a tough decision to save a lot of people.  There are three women in the story.

 

When All Your Characters Are Seated Around the Dinner Table

Sometimes the strangest things will trigger a trip to Muse Land.  I go to a critique group called the Cat Vacuuming Society once a week.  We were talking about another story and a dinner party was mentioned.  I started thinking about all my characters attending a dinner party.  What would their reactions be if they were seated together?

Since I’ve been playing around with visual note taking, the result was this:

Screen reader translation:

The top of the page has “CVS,” 15 Feb, 2015 as the title.  A seated striped cat is the left.  A rectangular table is drawn below that.

At the head of the table: Ruby.  She the queen, so she’s on the throne.  It’s hard to see, but prowling at the table next to her is her cat, Vog. There’s a pair of cat ears and eyes peeping over the edge of the table.

To her right (and I really had to think of this, since I had to reverse it in my head) is Keymas, the main character.  He’s the invisible man.

Next to Keymas is his sidekick Olive, who is thinking “I’m going to spill food all over me.”

Separate from everyone else is Keymas’ father, Miles.  He’s present but doesn’t care.

Across from Miles is La Gras, the antagonist.  He doesn’t want to be here = growl.

Silas, the museum curator, is next with, “Party?  I’m ready.”

And last is Cyrillia, the goddess of parties: “Party?  Time to have fun!”

 

Does Gender Influence How a Character in a Novel is Portrayed?

I’m wandering on over Unleaded Fuel for Writers to with a post on how gender affects characters.    Here’s a preview:

Sometimes finding books with good women characters is really hard.  I’ve spent a lot of time in the bookstore scanning the shelves for stories that I wanted to read.  For a while, I even read romance novels — Harlequin Intrigues mostly because they had action and mystery, too — because it was so difficult to find much.  I’d also look at the covers of fantasy novels for pictures of women.  But then I’d have to flip to the summary to see if the book actually featured a woman.  Sometimes the publisher would put a woman on the cover to get the guys and then she’d be nowhere in the story.

Then there’s the current trend of having a female protagonist because — news flash — women buy books!  It’s most noticeable in Thriller, where the writer often pairs the protagonist with a male sidekick.  Am I ecstatic about this, given all the difficulties finding books?  Read more on Unleaded Fuel for Writers.

 

The Idiocy of Women Characters

One of the most frustrating things for me as a reader is that it’s tough finding books with women characters who are competent.  We get ones who are smart-mouthed and can’t go a day without insulting ten people; or seem to be smart and then blunder into trouble for the sake of the plot; and then there are the idiots.

That’s the book I was reading.  It’s a typical religious thriller — search for the lost relic, cryptic ancient clues, and murder.  The protagonist is a woman, and she has a male sidekick.  They spend the rest of the book trying to stay alive and find the relic first.

In an early scene, a gunman spots them in a museum and tries to kill them.  The characters flee, but they end up boxed in at a bad location: the restrooms.  Sidekick thinks fast and suggests they go into the ladies room.  What does the protagonist do?  Screech at him about not being allowed in the ladies room.  Not once, but multiple times.  She seems more worried about a man in the ladies room than a man trying to kill her.

I finally had to put the book down because the protagonist continued to be an idiot, while the sidekick got all the stuff the protagonist should have been doing.  I’d like to say this was the exception, but it’s hard for me to find an adult action book where the woman is reasonably competent.  Most of the times, she’s lucky she doesn’t get herself killed because of what she does, and there are plenty where she qualifies as TSTL.  We have women fire fighters, women police officers, and women soldiers, all in situations where they have to be competent because lack of it can mean death.  Yet, in an action novel, a lot of these women not only do nothing to even help themselves, they often make things worse.

And who are the worst culprits?  The male writers generally have trouble making the woman competent.  The TSTL tends to come from women writers.

It makes me wonder if writers feel like they’re somehow devaluing the intelligence of the male characters by making the female characters smarter.  In terms of the story, I’m all for making ALL the characters smart.  It just makes for a better story conflict with worthy characters.

What’s your pet peeve about the way women characters are handled?

 

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Posted by Linda Adams on January 9, 2012 in Linda Adams

 

Is Character Change Always Necessary?

04 Nov

The first time I posted a query for critique for Miasma, the first question I got asked was, “What’s your character arc?  How does your character change?”

Hmm.

I didn’t have a character arc.  While the circumstances changed, the characters did not change.

“How can they not change?” the critiquer protested.

That I had to think about, too.  Was it a problem?  No, it was true of the kinds of books I like to read.

There’s comfort in getting a book in a series and having something expected.  When I bought a Clive Cussler book, I always knew I was going to get a cocky, patriotic character who would do the right thing because that’s was who he was.  That was part of the fun of those stories!

Conversely, some of the biggest failures in books for me as a reader have been when the character changed too much.  I came into the book expecting X type of character, and they changed out of that and into something that I didn’t buy the book for.

So … do you want change with that book or no change?  Tell, tell!

 

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Posted by Linda Adams on November 4, 2011 in Linda Adams

 

Characterizing a Queen

29 Jul

I ran across a discussion recently (sorry, could not find it again) that mentioned how royalty is often presented in books.  The king or queen is often corrupt, arrogant, or haughty.  This was something I picked up on when I was reading fantasy books, and I wanted to steer clear of it.  I’m in Washington, DC, so it’s very easy to get exposed to a very different viewpoint on what senior leadership is like — just even by reading the daily newspaper or listening to the radio.

So when I created my character for the Queen, I wanted to do someone who didn’t fit into the traditional role of the royalty that we usually see in books.  She’s not corrupt or haughty — she’s essentially a politician and a businesswoman.  A type A personality who knows what time it is to the minute and dresses in a suit.  She probably spends most of her days in meeting after meeting after meeting.

But, being in DC, I’ve also seen what politics do to women.  There was a lot of discussion that popped up about women candidates, especially during the last election.  One of the most notable things was that men got reported on what they said (or muffed up) or did; women got reported on what they wore.  The women often couldn’t experiment much with clothes because if they went outside of Washington Black/Gray Suit, they would either not be viewed as one of the boys or get blasted in the press for wearing something different.

So my Queen has to have a hard edge because she’s essentially herding cats — the Chiefs, the press, the leaks.  That created its own problem, which was that a hard edge might make her into unlikable.   I still remember one suspense novel I read where the author tried to have a female character be “one of the boys,” and she turned into the nastiest heroines I’ve seen.  My Queen is a secondary character.  Since she likes the main character, those scenes with him are where I soften her up a bit.  He’s one of the few people she doesn’t need to project a particular image with.  But when she’s got a crisis at hand, she’s right on top of it, seeing the big picture of how it all fits together and keeping people on track.  She’s also willing to seek out experts to give her advice.  The main character in the story is unofficially her Magic Adviser (which just means she doesn’t want to advertise she has one, since the press would not be polite on this).  If something happens that looks like it might be magic-related, she consults with him for his opinion.  If there’s a magic disaster (which is, of course, the case in the story), she looks for his guidance on what she needs to do to ensure the safety of the country.

 

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Posted by Linda Adams on July 29, 2011 in Linda Adams

 

Characterization in Page Turners

27 Aug

I was flipping TV channels and tuned into the current GI Joe cartoon.  I’d seen the one from 1985 and enjoyed it because they’d done a decent job not only with the story, but also with the characterizations.  The new one though–little characterization or story.  Just lots of action.

Action alone doesn’t make a page turning story.  I like action-adventure, but there’s been stories that I’ve been downright bored with.  Lots of action, but no characterization.  One thriller I read had such undeveloped characters that I had trouble remembering who was who.  I kept having to stop at each scene change and think, “Is this the guy who hates his father or the guy with the troubled past?”  Lots of action, but it was kind of hard to follow when I had trouble remembering the main characters.

Granted, plot-driven stories have a character who follows a specific course dictated by the story.  It allows writers not to characterize, but when they don’t, it makes the story forgettable. 

On the other hand, even a little bit of characterization goes a long way.  It puts a face on the story and adds an element of risk.  It also adds a bond to the reader, to make them part of rooting for success.   Some of the more successful plot-driven writers include Lee Child and Vince Flynn.  The characters have a strong sense of themselves and what they will do and won’t do.

Any other plot-driven authors who do a good job with characterization?

Yo, Joe!

 

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Posted by Linda Adams on August 27, 2009 in Linda Adams

 

Strong Female Characters

06 Jun

When I was growing up, there was little for girls to read other than Nancy Drew and nurse stories.  No action novels.  If a girl was in an action novel, a boy was the lead, and the girl essentially huddled against the wall, hands over her mouth and didn’t do anything to help herself.

Fantasy, mystery, and then urban fantasy broke new ground with women who didn’t stand around and wait to be rescued–they helped themselves.  I tried to incorporate some of this element into a thriller, because it’s still, unfortunately, lacking in that genre.

OCD. Vampires, and Rants, Oh My! addresses some things I’ve noticed in mystery, but more so in urban fantasy:

On the other hand, and more frequently an issue in recent fiction, is the strong female character who, instead of impossibly kicking everyone in the head with more force than anyone else on the planet, becomes a confrontational, abrasive jerk.

The last “kick butt herone” book I read was like that.  It was a new series I hadn’t seen before, and I won’t go past the first book.  The character spent most of the book insulting people just because they were there.  Not only that, instead of dealing with the fact that many women can’t do the same things as guys, the writers avoid the problem entirely by making the character nearly invincible.

I so dislike the insult humor that when I did my urban fantasy, I went out of my way to avoid it altogether.  The main character is out in the public eye, his every word being recorded and interpreted by the press for hidden meaning.  He is regularly accosted by fans and paparazzi.  But he never, ever insults anyone and always tries to stay respectful.  And while he does have a few things that help him out in times of trouble, they also have some major flaws built in so that he can’t use them that much.

I want to see the characters get out of a problem because they’re smarter than a very smart bad guy, not because the writer made them invincible.  It makes for much better storytelling.

–

L.M. Adams

 

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Posted by Linda Adams on June 6, 2009 in Uncategorized

 

Plot-Driven vs. Character-Driven

18 Apr

I’ve had a realization over the last few days.  I’ve always thought of myself as writing character-driven books, and I’ve realized that I’m actually plot-driven.  I think I confused characterization with character-driven, and they’re not the same thing.

Consider this from Tameri Guide for Writers on Plot-Driven:

A plot-driven story captivates readers or audiences through the excitement of events. The characters are important, but the action takes precedence.

That description fits the thriller genre perfectly, and certainly fits some urban fantasy.  Even a detective novel would be plot-driven because the readers are coming in to see the character solve the mystery. 

This is what Tameri had to say on Character-Driven:

Character-driven stories rely on interesting characters and their responses to situations. While the situations arise from the plot, readers or audiences remember the characters.

On one of my previous projects ( a thriller), the story was set during the Civil War.  A Federal army officer was off on his own agenda, but he had to stop a fellow junior officer named Babcock who knew too much.  Very briefly, I considered a scene where the major orders Babcock’s regiment to come after Babcock, using a lie the soldiers believe.  Babcock realizes that, and he’s caught in the position of knowing his men will kill him to follow orders or to kill his own men for following orders based on a lie.  That never got past the thought stage because it would have been a distraction in the action-based story.  Now I undertand why it didn’t fit.  Action in the story took precedence, and such a direction would have been a distraction for what I wanted to do overall with the story.

 

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Posted by Linda Adams on April 18, 2009 in Linda Adams

 

Characters Description Boring?

15 Apr

Describing character always seems to be a hot topic among writers.  Some people describe all their characters and try to get the description in up front.  Others are adamant about never using any description and leave it up to the reader to picture the character.

I like seeing character description.  Usually if it’s missing, I find the description and the narrative lacking in general.  It’s like the description adds a bit of sparkle to the book, and it’s the ones that sparkle that gets me to read another of the author’s books or to buy the book.

I think some people stay away from character description because they think it’s a boring vital statistic description–height, weight, hair color, eye color.  I even participated in a description workshop where the teachers were convinced that was the only way to describe characters.  The truth is that I can’t tell you the height, weight, hair color, and eye color of any of my characters–not even the main character.  But I describe every one of them, even the walk-on characters.

Which is a lot of characters.  I have 22 named characters, plus the walk-ons.  That’s why I don’t come up with the vital statistics for each one.  It’d be too time consuming and would tend to make everyone sound alike.  Instead, I tend to hit one or two important details.  The details vary.  It could be a basic description, like what they’re wearing and how it plays into their characterization.  Or it could be a metaphor.  With omniscient, I can use the narrator to bring in a detail about their life that we wouldn’t know in first or third.  As I’m writing this, I’m thinking that I haven’t used smell as a description, so I could have someone wearing distinctive perfume or colonge, use too much perfume or colonge, or smells like cigarette smoke.

I also try to do something else with the description besides simply telling the reader what the character looks like.  Sometimes there’s a little humor, or a bit of characterization (particularly useful when doing a walk-on role on a character who returns later).  Maybe even a bit of backstory.

Character description doesn’t need to be a boring list of vitals!

 

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Posted by Linda Adams on April 15, 2009 in Linda Adams

 

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