Great article!! I’ve wrestled with this problem a lot when reading fiction.

Eowyn is such a compelling strong female character. I loved how Tolkien worked with that archetype without making her a brawny female who tackles the enemy and thirsts for blood and glory. Her climactic battle is won, in fact, because she IS a woman.

Thanks for addressing this tough topic!

Resounding THANK YOU.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I have to say, this is has been almost a agonizing topic for me. While all my girlfriends raved over the strong, brawny female protagonists portrayed on Netflix shows and in Marvel movies, I would sit quietly on the sidelines listening because I just neither ever cared for nor identified with those women.

I hope to see a surge of feminine charm return to modern fiction very soon!

The perfect article on female characters doesn’t exi—

Thank you so much for writing this. This hit all the right notes and pulled the issue into sharp focus. As I usually gravitate towards writing female leads, this article pinned down so many of the things I knew to be true but couldn’t articulate.

You’ve also made me start wondering if saying “strong female character” is nothing more than a bald insult to all physically “weak” girls and women? Is it just another way of shaming women for not being like men … another way of holding them to an impossible standard?

I appreciate the thought and work you put into this article, and I see the value in focusing on an individual’s traits that arise from their unique situation (a huge one of which is of course their biological sex) but it’s absurd to look at fantastic action genres, where men perform ridiculous and unrealistic feats as a matter of course, and say women can’t also do so.

Yeah, I’m tired of “haha the petite girl beat up all the swole dudes, no one would expect that, isn’t that hilarious?” 

That doesn’t tell me why I should be cool with male characters ignoring physical reality in action scenes while insisting on realism with female characters. 

Jael’s story could have easily been that of an arthritic old male slave. Vin’s an odd choice because she *does* physically overpower burly men over and over, which seems to go against your point, regardless of the method of acquiring that power, considering how often this trope is enabled by some magic or tech excuse. The audience reception to *Hunted* on Goodreads does not reflect a character readers had trouble connecting with. On the contrary, it tells me girls like seeing competent girls. 

Thank you for those trait thesauruses, they look really useful. 

But aside from them, I see nothing here but political call to apply realism to the physical power fantasies of women, because they shouldn’t be allowed to tread on the territory of men because they have their *own* place, separate but equal, and that it’s our duty as Christians to acknowledge that.

I absolutely LOVED this article! This is a topic that I especially find important.
One of my favorite feminine heroes is Fantine from Les Miserables. Her story was so heartbreaking… It took me a while to come to terms with it.
To me she’s so inspiring because she confronted situations that I find horrifying and gave of herself until it killed her out of selfless love for her child. She never faced death and glory… She faced a quiet degraded and slow death that resulted from the choices she made to try to save her daughter. I think she’s a really excellent feminine hero because of her sacrifice and the terrifying choices that she had to make… She was definitely flawed, but she was courageous and had a heart of deep, selfless love. This makes her a big hero of mine.

Wow, so many great thoughts and tips here! I have honestly never considered how important it is to portray a female protagonist differently from a male protagonist. But since I have a strong female protagonist in my current WIP, this article is very timely and helpful. I will keep this in mind as I continue to develop my character.
Thank you so much for this article! Since I discovered Story Embers a few months ago, it has really helped me in developing and improving my writing.

Oooooh, yeah. Thank you! I appreciate this construction.

Thank you. I can’t count the number of times I’ve argued back to a book or a movie screen because they’ve made the woman capable of beating up any man…so unrealistic. It makes me mad too because they’re ignoring all the wonderful things that make women special: their hesitancy to engage in physical combat, their emotional outlook, their ability to empathize, and their skill at helping in all categories of life! (Not that men can’t do them too, but these things seem to come to women better and more naturally). Anyway, it’s a topic I feel passionately about and wish to thank you for addressing it so well.

Thank you so much for writing this. I really appreciate and agree with all of your points. I wish real women would realize some of the truths you pointed out here. That they can’t compete with men in manly things. True feminism rising to the challenge with woman-like attributes, not proving to men that we can do exactly what they can do, because we can’t. I’d really enjoy seeing more content like this.

You should check out “Fight Write” by Carla Hoch. She has excellent info on writing female fighters realistically. Cheers!

OH MY GOSH THANK YOU, ROSE

As a female myself, I’ve been fed up with all the horridly over the top females in movies and media. This article both proves the points I’ve tried to make on many occasions, and helps me with my own character development.
As a Fantasy-writing pantser with no actual published books and still trying to find my place in the writing world, I struggle with making female characters so much that in most of my books, there are only a small handful of cardboard women alongside a horde of fantastically real male characters. This article has helped in ways nothing else could. Thanks again!