GayJay
✰*Always missing you*✰
(Disclaimer: This is not at all advice, it’s more like how I see things… or a very productive rant? I don’t even know just don’t get on my case about it.)
I feel like a lot of people, when making female characters, feel kinda lost or feel as though they're only making female characters cuz representation and passing the bechdel test and yada yada yada… and it sucks too cuz it’s not like you’re sexist or anything, in fact, you yourself maybe a woman and you STILL feel this way. Maybe perhaps how we word certain things might imply that femininity is some add-on. Fe+male, s+he, wo+man, etc. The last thing anyone wants is to feel like their characters is just an add-on. So this is what I did when I was faced with the problem.
Get rid of words like man, boy, her she, woman, girl, and only think of two things: Femininity and masculinity. This is the platform we form character on, the roots that stem into their personality. Think of a teeter-totter. You can stand on one end, or you can stand on the other. You can balance in the middle, or not stand on it at all. I know this is just a metaphor for gender but hear me out: Characters are not automatically one of these genders.
I HIGHLY doubt advanced writers who make authentic characters started out with a character and thought automatically “Ah ha! This characters is MALE! ‘Tis the way of law, it cannot be undone.” They probably thought for a bit. They probably thought “he/him” at first but then thought “why not toy around a bit? What if this character was a woman?” That’s where the fun begins, children. Because now you can research, get out of comfort zone, and experiment all the while learning and having FUN. Make ALL your guy characters gals, and make ALL your gal characters guys. There are other writers who’ve written stuff down for you to read about making awesome girl characters just fricking DO YOUR RESEARCH.
In the end, you may not change that character into a gal, that’s fine. Some characters change more dramatically than others when going up and down the scale, but that’s not the point of this. Now, with the experience points you’ve achieved, you can write female character ON THEIR OWN. Bless the gods, could it even be possible? YES, the more times you do this, the more experience points you achieve, the more it becomes second nature. With time and practice, you’ll be able to understand her struggles just as well as you can with any other character. People gush over you about how well you can write authentic female characters and ask you how you did it.
Or maybe they won’t that’s fine…
It’s not like you researched hours on end putting blood, sweat, and tears for accurate representation or anything…
(little shITS)
(Side rant: I always feel like when people write female characters it was like, a LAST minute decision. They were all sitting around, drinking coffeeee and then “Oh shit, boss! We only got like… zero women! What could we possibly do!?”
And then the head honcho’s like, “who’s the weakest male character?”
“Uh, Frank?”
“Frank’s a girl now.”)
I feel like a lot of people, when making female characters, feel kinda lost or feel as though they're only making female characters cuz representation and passing the bechdel test and yada yada yada… and it sucks too cuz it’s not like you’re sexist or anything, in fact, you yourself maybe a woman and you STILL feel this way. Maybe perhaps how we word certain things might imply that femininity is some add-on. Fe+male, s+he, wo+man, etc. The last thing anyone wants is to feel like their characters is just an add-on. So this is what I did when I was faced with the problem.
Get rid of words like man, boy, her she, woman, girl, and only think of two things: Femininity and masculinity. This is the platform we form character on, the roots that stem into their personality. Think of a teeter-totter. You can stand on one end, or you can stand on the other. You can balance in the middle, or not stand on it at all. I know this is just a metaphor for gender but hear me out: Characters are not automatically one of these genders.
I HIGHLY doubt advanced writers who make authentic characters started out with a character and thought automatically “Ah ha! This characters is MALE! ‘Tis the way of law, it cannot be undone.” They probably thought for a bit. They probably thought “he/him” at first but then thought “why not toy around a bit? What if this character was a woman?” That’s where the fun begins, children. Because now you can research, get out of comfort zone, and experiment all the while learning and having FUN. Make ALL your guy characters gals, and make ALL your gal characters guys. There are other writers who’ve written stuff down for you to read about making awesome girl characters just fricking DO YOUR RESEARCH.
In the end, you may not change that character into a gal, that’s fine. Some characters change more dramatically than others when going up and down the scale, but that’s not the point of this. Now, with the experience points you’ve achieved, you can write female character ON THEIR OWN. Bless the gods, could it even be possible? YES, the more times you do this, the more experience points you achieve, the more it becomes second nature. With time and practice, you’ll be able to understand her struggles just as well as you can with any other character. People gush over you about how well you can write authentic female characters and ask you how you did it.
Or maybe they won’t that’s fine…
It’s not like you researched hours on end putting blood, sweat, and tears for accurate representation or anything…
(little shITS)
(Side rant: I always feel like when people write female characters it was like, a LAST minute decision. They were all sitting around, drinking coffeeee and then “Oh shit, boss! We only got like… zero women! What could we possibly do!?”
And then the head honcho’s like, “who’s the weakest male character?”
“Uh, Frank?”
“Frank’s a girl now.”)
, I've read your stuff before I joined rpn and thought you were real sweetheart. my brother and I have had a hard time getting back into anime/manga/Japanese culture because of a lot of sexist themes, it's so much worse especially since we grew up in japan. though, people like you really brings me back to the good days.
