Strong Female MC Issues

AutumnKQ · May 23, 2013

I'm stuck. I'm having a hard time with my protagonist and I think I really need a little help figuring out how to diagnose what's wrong with her. We're in "Act 2" of the book, but I still have like 20k to write before the midpoint, when she hits her turning point.

She's supposed to be a strong female lead. She's a teenage orphan and cares for a younger girl who is sick and needs medicine to live- they both lost their parents at the same time. They live a life of poverty, barely surviving. Until the inciting incident, she was able to stay true to her values and still help them survive, but now she's forced to work with people she hates in order to get medicine and food.

Her main emotions seem to be fear/ anger with regard to everyone, except for the girl she cares for, then it's mainly fear/love. She has an interesting ability where she can feel other people's emotions when she touches them. Maybe I need to play up that ability more.

I'm finding myself wanting to write the scenes with my other POV character - male mc / love interest, because I'm bored with hers. His scenes are loaded with interpersonal conflict and some "high society" living so far. It's not that her scenes aren't interesting-- her scenes have lots of different types of conflict and action. The stakes are extremely high. But she has no time for much humor or outside interests or anything, she's too busy surviving. She's also stuck in this horrible run-down setting underground and I'm sick of writing scenes in these rooms, but she's stuck there unless she's on a mission.

My male POV character is this elite person in society who is shunned by his peers because he has a shameful medical condition. He wants his father's approval and he keeps making really huge mistakes. He's sarcastic and has a drinking problem at the moment. His stakes are so much lower (he thinks), but I adore writing his scenes. Maybe because he's such a screw-up?

I need to fix this because during the first draft I didn't like my protag, either, and when I went back and studied it, it turned out to be because she was totally passive and everyone else was always doing things for her. People are still helping her, but most of her decisions have been active ones.

Any help with how I can sort this out? Techniques / ideas? Maybe someone else can see something obvious I'm missing.

Kerosene · May 23, 2013

Give them a common goal.

It really sounds like you have two stories, rather than one. I would say give him or her a goal, but to tie together both of their stories, give them a common goal where they will eventually meet at, or conflict with each other while getting there.

ClareGreen · May 23, 2013

It could be because he's getting to live while all she seems to be doing is surviving. What are her long-term goals - her dreams, her hopes, her desire for her future - and what is she doing to aim towards them?

AutumnKQ · May 23, 2013

WillSauger said:
Give them a common goal.

It really sounds like you have two stories, rather than one. I would say give him or her a goal, but to tie together both of their stories, give them a common goal where they will eventually meet at, or conflict with each other while getting there.

Oh yes, they are very intertwined. He's supposed to be hunting down the members of the group she's now working for. He was hunting her down earlier and they were trapped together for a few chapters and established a connection. They came into conflict right now again and I want to write from his POV and I know it's because I'm annoyed with her. She has the most to lose in this scene. It probably should be her POV. So far even their dialogue has been lame. ;-\

ClareGreen said:
It could be because he's getting to live while all she seems to be doing is surviving. What are her long-term goals - her dreams, her hopes, her desire for her future - and what is she doing to aim towards them?

Maybe. It does seem that way. The only goal I know she has is healing the girl she cares for. She just wants a place to live and food to eat. That's a pretty crappy dream, but life where she lives really sucks and she doesn't expect anything to change (and learning she needs to help create change is part of her character arc.)

ClareGreen · May 23, 2013

AutumnKQ said:
Maybe. It does seem that way. The only goal I know she has is healing the girl she cares for. She just wants a place to live and food to eat. That's a pretty crappy dream, but life where she lives really sucks and she doesn't expect anything to change.

She needs more goals than 'stasis'. Everyone has hopes and dreams, and generally the worse reality gets, the more people dream. If she doesn't expect anything to change, doesn't dream of anything changing and doesn't act to give herself the chance to achieve change, then she's simply going through the motions of life. Static. Passive. Boring.

Little Anonymous Me · May 23, 2013

Her main emotions seem to be fear/ anger with regard to everyone, except for the girl she cares for, then it's mainly fear/love. She has an interesting ability where she can feel other people's emotions when she touches them. Maybe I need to play up that ability more.

She seems a bit limited in her emotions. I understand that she's going through something awful, but perhaps this is one of the things causing the hangup? A character that's just a depressed ragemonster isn't terribly fun to write, IMO

But she has no time for much humor or outside interests or anything, she's too busy surviving. She's also stuck in this horrible run-down setting underground and I'm sick of writing scenes in these rooms, but she's stuck there unless she's on a mission.

Humor is how most people survive awful things. She doesn't need to be Wanda Sykes, but humor is a coping mechanism.

Hmm...I think your male MC might be your true protagonist. To me, you seem to be much more connected with him. I recommend making a list about your FMC. Write down all her traits. If it's really short, see where to expand. If it's a decent length, go through and see what you don't like and how you can change it.

YMMV, of course.

Kerosene · May 23, 2013

AutumnKQ said:
Oh yes, they are very intertwined. He's supposed to be hunting down the members of the group she's now working for. He was hunting her down earlier and they were trapped together for a few chapters and established a connection. They came into conflict right now again and I want to write from his POV and I know it's because I'm annoyed with her. She has the most to lose in this scene. It probably should be her POV. So far even their dialogue has been lame. ;-\

So what's the Female MC's goal?

I'd agree with Little Anonymous Me about the male sounding to be your Main MC, because his life interjects with her life and you talk mostly about his goals/motivation/actions, rather than hers.

Have you thought about making her a major character (as apposed to a main)? Or cutting the female MC altogether?

I'd go with the one that would intrigue/entertain you more, because you should use yourself as a measurement of what the reader wants. If you want to read/write his story, the reader will probably want to read his over hers.

Polenth · May 23, 2013

You've described her as having no emotional variance and never thinking about anything. Give her some depth. Let her laugh at something even she doesn't expect. Give her goals, likes, dislikes, and the things everyone else has. Give her something that's completely opposite to what might be expected from her personality, because people aren't that consistent.

Also, if she is trapped in a few rooms for most of the day, having to keep quiet, she's going to have a rich internal world. There's not much to do other than think in those circumstances. Having her not think about anything because she's surviving is odd, because people don't really work like that.

As far as scenes in a room go, if nothing happens in that scene, and you really want a scene from that character there, make something happen. She's only sitting there doing nothing because you set things up so she has nothing to do. You control her world, so you can throw a spanner in the works.

sohalt · May 23, 2013

Well, of course it's always more fun to write about character with a sense of humour. Are you absolutely sure she can't have one? (And no, I'm not terribly convinced by the "her life is just too hard"-angle - gallow's humour, anyone? Or look at Jewish humour for example).

I understand that you won't want all your characters to sound the same, but consider that sarcasm is not the only form of wit (and sarcasm itself can come in different flavours - compare a more flashy, grandiloquent version relying heavily on hyperbole to a more muted deadpan brand relying more heavily on understatement). Surely your FMC is more the no-nonsense down-to-earth type? Now, give her the right kind of foil - someone airheaded and/or pompous to occasionally deflate = voilà, wit.

Tyrion and Stannis don't share the same kind of humour but I think they can both be pretty hilarious in their own way. Stannis may get fewer zingers than Tyrion, and I'm not sure he's in every case necessarily aiming to be funny, but his relentless bluntness certainly has humourous effects. And it does earn him quite a lot of fans.

kuwisdelu · May 23, 2013

It's night and she can't sleep. She could be doing something. Something useful. But she's too tired. She doesn't want to move. She wants to close her eyes and wake up in a different world. Her and the girl she's caring for. But she knows that won't happen. Either way, she still can't sleep.

What does she think about between now and dawn? What do you think about between now and dawn?

You're her. She's you. Stream-of-consciousness. Go.

AutumnKQ · May 23, 2013

Little Anonymous Me said:
She seems a bit limited in her emotions. I understand that she's going through something awful, but perhaps this is one of the things causing the hangup? A character that's just a depressed ragemonster isn't terribly fun to write, IMO
Humor is how most people survive awful things. She doesn't need to be Wanda Sykes, but humor is a coping mechanism.

Hmm...I think your male MC might be your true protagonist. To me, you seem to be much more connected with him. I recommend making a list about your FMC. Write down all her traits. If it's really short, see where to expand. If it's a decent length, go through and see what you don't like and how you can change it.

You're right... Hmm. I think the way she judges people is somewhat amusing. Maybe I'll have her do a bit more of that. When I give her a chance to be opinionated, she expresses strong black and white opinions. I like them for the truth they tell, though she'll have to learn to see shade of grey in her moral decisions.

I'm going to try writing down her traits. I just had the idea to make her musical. She used to love going through her family's "files" (all the history / culture she had access to where she is.) - Maybe she loves music and misses the files, which were left in her parent's quarters, which she lost access to. Maybe I'll write some songs for her or something. I'm a singer so I can connect with her through this, I think.

I hope he's not my protag!

Polenth said:
You've described her as having no emotional variance and never thinking about anything. Give her some depth. Let her laugh at something even she doesn't expect. Give her goals, likes, dislikes, and the things everyone else has. Give her something that's completely opposite to what might be expected from her personality, because people aren't that consistent. Love this.

Also, if she is trapped in a few rooms for most of the day, having to keep quiet, she's going to have a rich internal world. There's not much to do other than think in those circumstances. Having her not think about anything because she's surviving is odd, because people don't really work like that.

As far as scenes in a room go, if nothing happens in that scene, and you really want a scene from that character there, make something happen. She's only sitting there doing nothing because you set things up so she has nothing to do. You control her world, so you can throw a spanner in the works.

Great advice! Thank you.

WillSauger said:
So what's the Female MC's goal?

I'd agree with Little Anonymous Me about the male sounding to be your Main MC, because his life interjects with her life and you talk mostly about his goals/motivation/actions, rather than hers.

Have you thought about making her a major character (as apposed to a main)? Or cutting the female MC altogether?

I'd go with the one that would intrigue/entertain you more, because you should use yourself as a measurement of what the reader wants. If you want to read/write his story, the reader will probably want to read his over hers.

I had a hard time deciding who my protag was. In my first draft, the split was nearly 50/50 scenes. It's close to 60/40 now, with protag having the most. My plot lines are so intricately connected it's ridiculous. I feel like there would be no story without the two of them and their relationship. Or it would be lame without one of them...

sohalt said:
Well, of course it's always more fun to write about character with a sense of humour. Are you absolutely sure she can't have one? (And no, I'm not terribly convinced by the "her life is just too hard"-angle - gallow's humour, anyone? Or look at Jewish humour for example).

I understand that you won't want all your characters to sound the same, but consider that sarcasm is not the only form of wit (and sarcasm itself can come in different flavours - compare a more flashy, grandiloquent version relying heavily on hyperbole to a more muted deadpan brand relying more heavily on understatement). Surely your FMC is more the no-nonsense down-to-earth type? Now, give her the right kind of foil - someone airheaded and/or pompous to occasionally deflate = voilà, wit.

Tyrion and Stannis don't share the same kind of humour but I think they can both be pretty hilarious in their own way. Stannis may get fewer zingers than Tyrion, and I'm not sure he's in every case necessarily aiming to be funny, but his relentless bluntness certainly has humourous effects. And it does earn him quite a lot of fans.

A foil! That's what I need! Her only foil so far has actually been main male MC, but they only meet at crucial plot points, unfortunately, in this book.

I love Tyrion. And Jon Snow. And I really love the character of Daenarys. She's awesome. (Stannis and his wife with their dead preserved babies creep me out and make me sad.)

Dryad · May 23, 2013

It sounds like you find her rather flat. Dig deeper and give her more facets. I agree with the fact that when you're really low all you want is food and shelter, but still it's part of human nature to dream, and by having her dream you can foreshadow future possibilities.

You might find this blog entry somewhat inspirational. The kernel of what the writer says is that it's easy to pigeonhole people, and we as writers shouldn't do that.

AutumnKQ · May 23, 2013

Dryad said:
It sounds like you find her rather flat. Dig deeper and give her more facets. I agree with the fact that when you're really low all you want is food and shelter, but still it's part of human nature to dream, and by having her dream you can foreshadow future possibilities.

You might find this blog entry somewhat inspirational. The kernel of what the writer says is that it's easy to pigeonhole people, and we as writers shouldn't do that.

What an awesome post! Thank you for sharing that. It sent me off blog hopping to read other relevant posts.

Chasing the Horizon · May 23, 2013

This may not work for anyone else (I write heroic fantasy and our characters are supposed to be special), but I have a rule that all MCs must have done something amazing and exceptional BEFORE the book starts. And the more unlikely this accomplishment, the better. It doesn't have to have any great bearing on the actual story, but by putting this big, strange event in their past, I have a starting point for getting combinations of character traits that are unique but still have an internal logic. Because it's the unexpected-but-strangely-logical combinations that make memorable characters.

For example, one of the MCs in my next book used to work as the first mate aboard a mercenary ship--in a culture where men aren't typically allowed to be in command positions aboard ships or work with mercenaries. He's not even doing that anymore when the story starts, but I know he DID do it, so I know there must be some really interesting stuff beneath his stoic, rule-following exterior.

So now your character is an orphan struggling to survive. But maybe she was something really special BEFORE that. Maybe she was a child-prodigy musician, or murdered someone, or had built your world's first electric light bulb in her carriage house right before all hell broke loose.

Wiskel · May 23, 2013

AutumnKQ said:
She's a teenage orphan and cares for a younger girl who is sick and needs medicine to live- they both lost their parents at the same time. They live a life of poverty, barely surviving.

What role does your young, sick girl play in the story? other than being a "I'm a good person for caring" badge for your MC, or a plot point for you to force your MC into situations she doesn't want to be in?

If you want a foil for your MC, what about her? Two young people with nothing to lose can raise a lot of hell together if they set their minds to it.

AutumnKQ said:
now she's forced to work with people she hates in order to get medicine and food.

Says you!

Maybe your MC is fed up with you making her work for people she hates and wants to be stealing and manipulating her way to getting medicine, and maybe some money and decent food while she's at it.

Maybe she needs to rebel against you and do her own thing. You may not know fully what she wants, but you do know what she DOESN'T want.

Craig

slhuang · May 23, 2013

First of all, I like everyone else's suggestions.

Okay, now. My first thought when reading your post . . . FORGIVE me if this is incorrect, but I'm throwing it out there just in case it helps! In your thread title you describe yourself having "Strong Female MC" issues (rather than "Character Issues" or "Protagonist Issues") and in your intro you introduce her as "She's supposed to be a strong female lead" rather than, "She's supposed to be a strong/engaging character."

There's this . . . thing, people do a lot, which is try to write women as Strong Female Characters (tm) rather than as People. And a lot of times those female characters end up less interesting, because we're so afraid to give them interesting faults since we want so badly for them to be Strong Female Characters. Rose Lemberg did an excellent write-up on this. She talks about how we so often allow men to be all kinds of different people -- flawed, irascible, unthinking, anti-hero types of people -- and so often we feel restricted by well-intentioned feminism to write our women as Strong Women. And they end up far less interesting, and rather one-note.

Anyway. If you don't think this is the issue then ignore me.

But the phrasing of your post made me squint, so I thought this might be worth bringing up. If you do think this might be part of the problem, maybe try to stop thinking of her as a Strong Female Character and try thinking of her more as this complicated person who happens to be a woman?

Hope this helps.

Debbie V · May 28, 2013

Why does she care for the girl? What would she be doing if that girl weren't there?
Why does she hate the people she's working for? What other options does she have? Why hasn't she followed another course?
What makes her values important to her? Some people only give them lip service. How does she feel about the compromises she's had to make?
Humans need more than food, water, shelter, and warmth to live. We need other humans. Give an infant all the rest without human contact and watch it fail to thrive. Surviving isn't enough. We need more. What does your character need? Does she know it's missing in her life? How does she feel about that and what does she do about it?

There can't be only fear. Adrenaline runs out and exhaustion sets in. Exhausted minds drift. Where does hers go?

If you don't know the answer to these questions, ask her.

Dave.C.Robinson · May 28, 2013

From your description, this character's main emotion seems to be fear; the problem with this is that fear doesn't usually signify strength. I would suggest putting some effort into how she overcomes her fears, use that to demonstrate her strength.

Round her out.

This may sound silly, but it's a technique I used to use a lot in roleplaying games when I had to come up with a character (complete with personality) quickly. Build the stereotype and then invert it. In D&D I used to build fighters who hated swords. In an online RPG that involved a lot of time with people interacting in a bar, I refused to use the word sip to describe my character taking a drink, ever.

It really doesn't matter what, but apply a limit and work to that.

In one novel, I have a very important secondary character, and one way I keep her voice distinct is by avoiding contractions. It's not just that she doesn't use them, but I don't use them in any scene from her POV, but I do in the MC's POV.

Strong Female MC Issues

AutumnKQ

Kerosene

Your Pixie Queen

ClareGreen

Onwards, ever onwards

AutumnKQ

ClareGreen

Onwards, ever onwards

Little Anonymous Me

Kerosene

Your Pixie Queen

Polenth

Mushroom

sohalt

kuwisdelu

Revolutionize the World

AutumnKQ

Dryad

AutumnKQ

Chasing the Horizon

Blowing in the Wind

Wiskel

practical experience, FTW

slhuang

Inappropriately math-oriented.

Debbie V

Mentoring Myself and Others

Dave.C.Robinson

... with the High Command