/lit/ - Literature

A good male character who happens to be a girl.

bagina.

>>7261998
Big boobies

>>7262000
I thought about this too, but can we even call that character female? I'm struggling to think what set of qualities would make a great woman different from a great man.

>>7261998
Mostly this >>7262000
If it's a period piece, do take into account the way a woman would feel in those surroundings.
Hell, even today.
>Be at college. Quick nap in car/parking lot. Random dude tries the door.
Does that sort of thing happen to guy?

Also this >>7262011

>>7262000
not realistic enough

>>7261998
A mute.

>>7262016
It seriously depends on the story and it's period in time.
>but can we even call that character female?
Femininity/masculinity is pretty much all social norms. Manufactured behaviorism's. If this is the way your character acts, fine.

Walk as one for a few weeks. Don't have to tell anyone. don't have to sway your hips. Just act it out in your head.

>>7262032
>gender is a social construct
- /lit/

>>7262032
>Femininity/masculinity is pretty much all social norms
kek

>>7262000
no

>>7261998
>What characteristics such character should have?

realism

IIRC the women in war and peace were pretty well done. been years since I read it though

>>7262037
>>7262038
>Noobs
Either of you better not be OP. If so, you should just fucking quit.

>>7262041
>the women in war and peace were pretty well done.
This. But ONLY if OP is writing about Russia in the 1800s.

>>7262042
So i guess the French Revolution was a purely economic event and the Second World War was ONLY a result of nationalism, any other edgy pseudo intellectual half truths you'd like to add?

>>7262053
I found them pretty universal

Sorry for my bad English, I'm not a native speaker.

>>7262023
I'm trying to think how would a woman feel and act in certain surrounds, but I want her to have something that makes her stand out from other women without detaching her from being a woman. Writing her as a male in a female body seems so... easy.

>>7262032
You have an well thought point, but what I have in mind is how far could I stretch her femininity without trespassing the boundary between it and masculinity.

>>7262041
>realism

Exactly what I'm looking for, but how? It's not a period piece, and unfortunately I don't remember the characteristics the women in War and peace hold.

>>7262082

Hey. Male in a female body anon here. It's only a good heuristic for removing the bullshit that arises from writing a character as a gender before their actual character.

For a boy, you would stop and figure out what they value, what their past was like, how that formed their beliefs, what their home life is like, what their goals are, how they relate to the other characters, how that illustrates your themes, ad fucking infinitum. A ton of critique pieces I've read treat female characters as women first, like Madonnas or whores or prizes, which is exactly the kind of trainwreck you would expect. I don't mean you should ignore their femininity. I just meant that you need to think of them as a person before you think of them as a gender.

>inb4accusationsoffaggotrybyr9kescapees

>>7262082
>how far could I stretch her femininity without trespassing the boundary between it and masculinity.
It's all been done before. Read up.

>>7262114
Oh, but I already thought of those. What I think about, with disquiet, is if my character actually resemble a woman or just appears to be a caricature a man would write thinking that's what a woman is. Maybe I'm just looking too deep into it.

Any suggestions of modern works that have women you think are well written?

>>7262122
I'm going to read it. Thanks.

>>7262082
>Exactly what I'm looking for, but how?

observe women you know and look for common patterns

>>7262150
But that only teaches me about how they would act in day-to-day situations.

What's is plausible and not about how a women would react in certain situations. Faced with a certain situation, what would they focus on, how would they react?

Waiting for a friend to lose a loved one, for example, or be faced with a life threatening situation is simple not plausible.

>>7262082
>stretch her femininity
kek, pic related

I think the key to making a woman interesting, at least, interesting to men, is to give her a variety of masculine traits, yet still retaining certain aspects of femininity, the ones that drive us nuts/appeal to us.

Certainly also, you should make her clever. Doing this probably will already make her seem masculine. In fact, I think, a lot of the greatest female authors (austen, woolf) seem to play off this a huge deal. austen particularly seems obsessed with the boundaries between emotionality and reason, and on how they should be properly navigated. Her intellligent female leads seem to spend half the book taking the piss out of retarded, histronic women and likewise they also seem to possess an enduring appeal/fascination to men

She should be mysterious, and have rare feminine qualities. "The way she looks reminds you of a queen playing card, as she is still in mid-air, lost in her higher sentience." "You're looking all around you at the blurs of colour that're edging their way through the air, little by little, when suddenly, you're left star-struck by the fair, who greets you with a surprising "Boo!", before laughing cutely away". "She walks on forward, turning her head slightly to catch you out of the corner of her eye, mysteriously, as if to say 'watch this'"

>>7261998
Man's core motivation is sex, woman's is being desired

>>7262139
Femininity is just about looking proper. You can say and do anything as long as you do it in a proper manner ;)

>>7263122
>>7263116
You know nothing about writing.

Merkel, Cyrus and your mom are basically the same person.

>>7261998
I am not a post-structuralist or third wave feminist, I think the idea of smashing gender structure in literature ruins characterization and is one of the reasons that I dont enjoy contemporary female fiction, as it is always about breaking boundaries of gender and race.

That said, for me, a well written female character has to have aspects of the classic female types

Matron
Virgin
Maid
Whore
Mother
Wife
Chaste Lover
Daughter
Widow
Worker

And plays games either in their transition between the types, or how their situation is effected by their type, even within a contemporary schema.

For instance, in Flaubert we see the transitions between daughter/wife to whore or lover, or the transitional periods between.

In classical lit, we seem Roman women trapped within the schema of type, with Lucretia for instance refusing the transition to whore by death, and the Sabine women refusing the transition to whore by accepting that of wife.

In contemporary lit, the "strong" woman deals with crisis while functioning/transitioning between types, a good example of which is Pynchon's Bleeding Edge (while not a great book he does an excellent female protagonist), which is a professional woman being pulled in all directions, of worker, whore, mother, daughter, and protag.

This is out of my ass, so please tear it apart.

>>7262114
That's all well and good, but a balance is needed. While some qualities are genderless, such as ambition, intelligence or lack thereof, physical fitness, regard for the past and so on, you need to recognize as a writer that males and females are conditioned by society to respond differently to situations. For example, imagine a regular boy coming across a dead raccoon, and imagine a regular girl doing the same. How would each react?

>>7263155
Both take a picture with cellphone.

>>7263159
Hahaha
>Smiles in jest

The state of the world today, I swear.

>In Nomine Dei Nostri Satanas, Luciferi Excelsi

>>7262114
>Male in a female body
So if we hooked up would I be gay?

>>7261998

>inb4 reason and accountability

>>7263159
Right that was a shit example, it's been a while since I've been a kid and I have yet to have any of my own

>>7263176
Only if you want it to be

>>7263190
It might be hot in the moment, but then afterwards I can tell myself that you are just crazy. Its like my perfect relationship.

>>7263182
I think when you make such examples you pull up your own imagination of how boys and girls act. I have seen little boys cry at the sight of the dead animal as well as boys who put sticks up a dogs ass. The same way with girls who poke a dead snake lying on the road as well as those who get scared.
A person is at its base a person. Some are more open to the influence of society, some are not.

Make a good character that is not defined by their sex.
Now make them female.

Making a good 'female character' would be another thing entirely.

>>7263205
But I hear you talk as if good fictional characters exist in a social vacuum, where they are just composed of atemporal human values and none of the prejudices and concepts of their time which I think is limiting

If a good character is a person, a real person in fictional form, then they have to act like real people do, and that generally involves holding on to preconceptions and habits that real people have

>>7263199
Pls be in Londinium

>>7263248
Yes, I agree - it's a matter of balance like you said. I think I misread some of your post the first time.

>>7262000
Bad idea: the post

>>7261998
1. a well-written character
2. that is also female
Good luck OP

>>7261998

A well written, FEMININE, character, is someone who can understand and manipulate context.

Well written masculine characters, on the other hand, are masters of Content.

It's easy to write Female characters, when one understands that women see the world horizontally, while men see the world vertically. And although each person may be different, the "genders" themselves are quite clear cut.

Feminine/Masculine are modes of reasoning and being. They are kind of complimentary opposites. Both are good (although women are better than men at what they do.)

For the Misogynists who can't understand women (IE: half of you,) this video is pretty terrible, but accurate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNKIjLLZMWs

Straight out of a fantasy story.

>>7261998
flighty
immature
hedonistic
exceptionally cunning

Intelligent
Nihilistic
and with a wicked sense of humor

>>7263702
Don't poison the well faggot.

A well-written female character is psychologically full. Their views and thoughts come from a real place. There is no essential difference between a well-written female character and a well-written male character. A female character can have almost any characteristics you would write for a male character, but keep in mind that by virtue of being female they have experienced a different world than your male characters have.

There are plenty of writers who write female characters well, all of whom just write characters well in general. Try reading Woolf, Austen, Joyce, and Shakespeare, or Zadie Smith, Jennifer Egan, or Kazuo Ishiguro if you're looking for good modern writers.

>>7261998

I do not think they are very different; however, there are, of course, some differences.

>They tend to find children and kids more amusing and cuter.
>They are not as competitive as men are; they do not need to show off like med tend to do, although they compete in a quieter way among themselves.
>They like to feel protected and secure: they like to be hugged, to be embraced, and to fell arms around them.
>They seem more down to earth, less concerned with daydreaming about fame and power.
>They tend to suffer more with low self-esteem and do not brag as much as men do.
>They love sex as much as men do; sometimes I think they have even more sexual appetite than we do.
>They tend to talk more about their own personal problems and toughts with other women. Men do it too, but not as much as women do.
>They do not give as much importance to physical beauty as we give; women are more attracted to male personalities and status that offer safety and protection.


Those are just some things that I have noticed all those years, but in the end, every person is a person, and women and men tend to be quite similar.

>>7262189
extrapolate you fucking dumbass

you don't know how guys will act until they act either

>>7263922
Best reply ITT tbh

>>7263922
>Shakespeare
>knowing how to write women
kekked

>>7263989
you're triggering my feels anon

>>7261998
A personality.

>>7264231

why?

>>7264252
lengthy lonely period of my life has driven me to reading things like that: psychological generalizations about women.

I also lurk girls-only subreddits and 8ch fem board because I can tell when a girl is typing, gives me a feeling of inner warmth. not of course only enough to live on bread alone, but the words of others borrowed secondhand can suffice, as well as brief reminders of interior subjective difference like your outline there

but my joy is a little melancholy; it could only be so great because tfwnogf. that's why

>>7263139
That's exactly the kind of post I was looking for. Thanks, anon.

suckign diks

>>7264290
damn anon i almost cried

>>7261998
Lady de Winter from The Three Musketeers.

You know, a ruthless psychopathic killer motivated by greed, vanity, and sadism.

Really depends on what you want to write. If you want to write something heavily archetypical, your work is basically done. Just read a ton of books with women and conglomerate their traits together until you got the character you want. If you want to write something that's true to life, especially relating to the contemporary or whatever period you're writing for, you're going to have to understand how people think. Basically stop being autistic.