8 Ways Your Writing Reveals that You Don't Understand Women

11 writing courses at Bookfox Academy

Timeline:
0:00 Intro
0:28 Making Women Incapable
1:36 Ignorance of the Physical
3:08 Attractiveness as Sole Measure
5:10 Lack of Story Involvement
6:51 Lack of Psychology
8:32 No Agency
9:30 Stereotyping Women
10:56 Cliched Female Description

[ramonarobot]

I’m watching this as a woman, hoping I got women right lol

[viniciusdeoliveira]

I asked a woman friend of mine how to write women in a way that makes people notice they're well written. She said "Write a character like any other, eventually make her glad that her clothes have pockets"

[rocky_wang]

1:50 “She has never washed blood out of her clothing before” 😂 As a male human being, I laughed so hard at this point

[zibingotaeam]

Everytime someone brings up Reese Witherspoon, I remember that stupid pun
"Did you hear about that stabbing in Hollywood recently? Reese whatshername got killed."
"Witherspoon?"
"No, with a knife."

[vibinginthecorner]

I'm a woman. I agree with all of this and I'd like to add something. Women do worry for their safety, especially when we're alone. However, we don't necessarily go around thinking about it in an explicit way. It can be subtle. We are so used to constantly managing our safety that it becomes routine second nature.

Your character's internal dialogue might not be literally worrying about her safety. It could be that, while she is thinking about other things related to the plot/scene, she is routinely engaging in certain habits. For example, when she enters a parking garage at night, she looks all around to see if anyone else is lurking. She puts some pepper spray in her purse. She keeps her hand over her drink at the bar so no one can slip something in it.

She tells her friend she's going out on a date, giving the friend details like the guy's name and social media handles, maybe his license plate number or where he works. Anything the police could use to identify him. She tells the friend to expect a text from her by 10PM. If the friend doesn't get the text, she knows something is wrong and can pursue the matter.

Personally, I rarely worry about my safety in terms of conscious thoughts. However, I am *constantly* vigilant. I have numerous habits designed to keep me safe. I am always aware of my surroundings, doubly so at night/when there aren't a lot of other people around. In a sense, I do worry. It's just that the worry is so ever-present and integrated into my psyche, I don't even think about it.

If you want to create a sense of creepiness or doom in the scene, show how dangerous the setting is, show the character is feeling anxious, or show the personality of this specific character as someone who worries a lot, you could have her thinking conscious, top-of-mind thoughts about her safety.

But if you want the character to present as relaxed and carefree, or very confident or brave, you could skip those thoughts but still have her taking routine, habitual actions designed to keep her safe. Both of these are realistic and believable, because each woman is different and we each feel differently at different times.

Think of it this way ... when you put your seatbelt on, are you gripped with fear? Are you consciously worrying about getting into an accident? Probably not, but you put the seatbelt on anyway because you understand the dangers of car accidents.

I really loved this video, and I'm looking forward to the one on writing men!

[imapotato]

2:50 The ovary jiggle physics quote is DIABOLICAL

[Mèl]

Women and men are people. And people are all different. The single biggest mistake writers make is not writing their characters as unique individuals regardless of their gender.

(edit, clarification : what i meant was that individuality was important, not that it was everything. While, of course, you have to take into account your character's gender, it shouldn't be the core of your character's identity. It matters, obviously, but who they are matters more.)

[thedoctor]

the line “she had never washed blood from her clothing” could easily be fixed by adding “ that wasn’t her own”

[benedixtify]

A big problem is using a woman's hair color as a description of her personality. Screenplays do this too often.

[rachelstratemeier]

About number 7:

I can see how someone would make the mistake of writing their female characters as caricatures if they only like female things, but I feel like that's a "writing chracters" problem and not a "writing women" problem.

I am a woman who really doesn't like too many masculine things. Although this isn't everyone, we do exist, and we're not unrealistic.

If you write a fleshed-out character with motivation, I think they can be interested in anything and come off fine.

[dekhrahahoon]

I know personally a very attractive woman, just turning 40, who goes to and lives in foreign countries where she doesn't know the language and lives in low quality areas. I asked her about personal safety. She said, in a very careless tone, "Those things don't happen to me." Maybe foolish, you say? She's done it for two decades without incident. So these odd attitudes do exist in real people, just make sure if you want to write a character like this, that others around them express appropriate surprise and/or concern.

[einahsirro]

I would add that, particularly in historical fiction, women who can take lovers freely and never seem to get pregnant accidentally are very suspect.

[ngun]

As a woman I don't have periods mentioned, but that's because I genuinely have no idea when I should mention bodily functions.

[HousekiMitai]

What I find funny is that my story is deeply based on how Ghibli does women, so I never really ran onto those problems. I absolutely love how they are so charming in their own way. Like how Chihiro is so resolute about going on a journey to save her parents, or how Sophie shows her affection towards Howl by helping him with his castle organization and curse. The way they portray those characters is absolutely awesome.

[GraupeLie]

Another thing that really annoys me: not every woman is qualified to help another give birth, nor is everyone with a uterus automatically into babies or wants to have any.

[yoav]

I feel like half of it comes down to "don't be weird, don't act like a pervert who writes porn, and don't disrespect your characters" 🤣

[ngun]

As a woman sometimes I do walk at night and not think about it. But when i hear a noise or something odd happens that's when I would think about it.

[angelaharris]

Dropping in as a woman to say that not all of us enjoy being social butterflies and talking small talk with other women. I am quite happy in my solitude most of the time and find small talk tedious and exhausting, and I am not alone in that. Women like this are a minority, but we do exist and so portraying all of us small talking social butterflies is just another kind of stereotypical cliche.

[lynnhathaway]

One reason why I like British shows and movies more than American is because the British ones have more realistic looking people.

[skulls.n.guns.]

The "Tauriel Test" should've been the "Galadriel Test". Galadriel is a _canon_ female character whose job is to protect Lothlorien, and she's explicitly shown to be good at her job.