Single, female protagonists

I'm fine with the idea of Katniss being a lesbian, but IMO she was more asexual/aromantic than anything else. She never seemed really into either one and kind of only settled down with Peeta out of a desire for stability/the knowledge that *he* loved *her*, I thought.

Well, you have to consider that once the work is out of the writer's hands, it's going to become whatever it needs to become for the readers. This is actually a phenomenon I'm studying for my dissertation, the notion of creators making a text (narrative or story or whatnot) and what consumers do with that. This isn't the age of passive audiences anymore. This is a remix era where we have fanfiction writers "playing" in the world of another author and doing things with that world (and with characters) that they want to do. Much of that is homoerotica or the "shipping" of characters that are not brought together on television/in books/in movies. Or, it's a Supernatural fan creating a spliced video of Dean-and-Castiel moments where they introduce a homosexual relationship. Slap on some suggestive music and you have something different from the original vision.

I can't fault a single person for re-molding a narrative and creating something different. This is the digital era where the world is considerably smaller. If my gay friend can't find gay superheroes on television, well, he can write some fanfiction to better match his own identity. And producers (meaning writers and creative powers-that-be) can either accept this, or they can completely push back against it and continue to plant flags of "intention" in their work.

Joss Whedon, for example, encourages people to write fanfiction within his narrative worlds. Others do not, perhaps wanting more control over the delivery of meaning. I don't necessarily agree with the latter. Once your work is out there, it's out of your hands, imho.

WhitePawn said:

I'm glad I started this thread

@Bunny I made my protag's primary relationship one with a fellow she grew up with, a brother in everything but blood. You can have bouncy bickering without sexual tension.

I was thinking of Sherlock at the mentions of "asexual" so hit the tropes link for "asexual" to check out their thoughts on Sherlock. They disappointed me by referring to the Watson/Holmes bit as homoerotic. I don't see that. Even in the Downey/Law movie I saw a bromance, nothing erotic. To me this just another example of the push to put romance where it doesn't or shouldn't exist.

Another reference that bothers me to this day is in re to the character of Katniss Everdeen. I adore her, and Collins for writing her. Essentially, a couple discussions likened the reasons for her practical demeanor to that of a latent lesbian, hence her disregard of both male love interests. I call BS. Practical is the key word here. Katniss is busy. Period. She has no time to put down her bow and devote herself to either guy, which is a very real approach...just not one in keeping with the present need for embraces in front of sunsets with dramatic orchestra music cascading in over the top. How is this assessment of Katniss not similar to the resentful accusation of being gay from a guy to whom a hetero woman expresses disinterest?

Again though, same insidious source. The societal push for everyone to hook up, especially girls.

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Umm I'm sure you don't mean it to come across that way, but it sounds like you're saying someone who is asexual cannot form romantic attachment to someone. That isn't the case, asexual just means an absence of sexual attraction not emotional or romantic actraction. Someone can be homoromantic, panromantic, biromantic etc. A person can also be both asexual and aromantic. Ace is a continum just like any other orientation.

CrastersBabies said:

Sure, why not? But the question here is this sense of a woman being defined as "strong" only because she refuses marriage and partnership. I don't agree with that. It kind of suggests that those who do enter into partnerships are less strong. Or not strong at all.

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It's fairly common for there to be romantic tropes where a character (often female) proves her strength by choosing her own love, rather than going with an arranged marriage (or the guy everyone assumes is best for her).

Defying expectations is a pretty common trope in fiction, but it may be that many readers find the romantic arc to be satisfying to navigate. Lots of tension, conflicting desires and all that. Plus some nice, tingly scenes.

Also, character change and growth are expected in stories. A romantic arc is a means of doing this--especially if the growth and change is related to "letting people in" or "trust." One is at their most vulnerable in romantic attachment, so it's a convenient way to show a character changing with regards to his or her own vulnerability.

And the problem with having a romance izzle out at the end is that it can feel like it was, in hindsight, a red herring. Why spend all this time on something that didn't go anywhere? It can be about expectations, however. I didn't expect anyone to end up happy in Abercrombie's books, because, you know, grimdark. He's all about subverting the standard tropes and expectations of the genre, not because it's any more realistic for everyone's romantic aspirations to fizzle than it is for everyone to be happily paired off with the person they'd hope for from the beginning, but because that's what he's about as a writer. It's his niche, so to speak.

And I wouldn't say his characters were happy with the way their relationships ended up (well, except maybe for Glokta, and of course Jezal was too stupid, probably, to figure out that his wife had been coerced into bedding him and hadn't really had a change of heart).

If every writer did this, it would become as stale and predictable as if everyone was all HEA without any sacrifice or cost associated.

Not arguing that every story must contain a romantic arc or a HEA for every couple, just thinking about why they so often do (and for reasons that are not always sexist).

It's also possible to show a failed love that teaches the character something important about themselves, or ends up being something they must sacrifice to achieve their greater goal (thinking of the His Dark Materials). Then a failed romance doesn't feel like a red herring, but is far more poignant. But the fact that it was important to the character is part of what makes the way it ended up significant. Failed or not, a romance was still important in the story, which isn't quite what the OP was getting at.

I think she was implying that she'd like to see more stories with female characters for whom love just doesn't matter period. Again, an asexual or aromantic character who resists pressure to conform to an expected norm could be very interesting. But how (in the case of one who was sexual but not romantically inclined) much I liked her might depend on how she treated other people. One reason aromantic people get a bad rap sometimes is that they forget that most people do tend to fall for people with whom they have relationships. It's not something they really understand (except to find it annoying) any more than a romantically inclined person can really understand why someone can feel both friendship and sexual attraction for them, yet not fall in love (or even fully understand the vagaries of chemistry when a romantically inclined person with whom they're having a relationship loses interest and falls for someone else).

Since most of your readers have had their heart broken at one time or another, such a person may lose sympathy if they come off as callous. I think this would be an issue that needs dealing with in such a story.

The standard way to deal with this (with male characters) is to make the women they sleep with non people. The reader never sees their tears or heartache, because she's just vanished from the next scene, chapter, or novel, never to be seen again.

I think I'd find a female character who just went from one superficial sexual conquest to another without ever caring for any of them to be as annoying after a while as male characters who do the same thing in fiction (aka James Bond). It might score some novelty points early on, but there'd be a point where I'd begin to wonder where this was going. But of course, there are ways to care about others that are not romantic, per se. This could be shown too.

My understanding is that in UF (which I rarely read), there are a fair number of female protagonists who have multiple lovers or go from one temporary relationship to another.

I have seen characters who are a bit "flirty" (and go through multiple partners) work at times. Captain Jack Harkness, for example (from the Dr. Who world). But he's more playful and totally open to relationships with any gender or species. But there is a chord of his humanity in there as well that you see. A glimmer. I never get that with Bond. I just get that he's met some hot babe in a gown, and of course he's going to nail that. Because it's a conquest. There doesn't seem to be much joy in it.

I honestly don't see why it matters. It's like women in the 1980's wearing shoulder pads to look more like men for the business world. Women are different than men, they act differently and think differently. They will be represented differently in novels. It's better to actually represent characters like they really are instead of trying to make everyone seem the same, or else we get things like shoulder pads.

I tend to write MCs with active sex lives, but not steady relationships or marriages. I find written them more fascinating. I am a married woman; so perhaps, there's some longing to be on the other side again.

I like to see variety in women. We don't fit one particular mold, and the more others see that aspect, I hope they realize the truth of it.

Bolder said:

It's like women in the 1980's wearing shoulder pads to look more like men for the business world.

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Interesting theory, but not sure I buy it. 80's fashions were a throwback to 40's fashions, where women also wore shoulderpads. Purely as a fashion accessory, shoulder pads make a woman's hips and waist seem smaller.

I personally never had an issue with it, but maybe it's because I simply enjoy the romantic relationships in fiction, so I always find some couple/love interest for the MC to root for. I don't think it's degrading or bad for females to end up with someone, I don't think it takes away from their personality, I don't think it's unnatural or overdone. I prefer they end up with someone, and I'd say the same for the guys.

I don't care how many people she sleeps with on the way, or if those mean something or not, if it's true to her character. But I've noticed one thing - it's rare that a major/lead female character has a looser approach to sex and relationships and IS NOT the 'tough as nails' type to go with it. And I don't like reading about those toughies, I used to, but I think I got simply fed up with them

Jamesaritchie said:

Those are all things SOME real women would do, and naturalist to only SOME women, certainly not all, thank God.

Real women do get married. Real women do avoid sleeping with more than one man. Real women are unslefish, and real women do marry for love.

Same with men. Of course, when a man sleeps around in a novel, aren't the women he's sleeping with sleeping around, too?

If that's the kind of female protagonist you want, write her. It's not to my taste, but you can't please everyone. I happen to like male protagonists who are good guys, too.

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+1 for this.
People are varied in real life, so why shouldn't book characters be varied? OP, you can and should write a book with your MC. Should every other, single, female character be like your MC? Well...we need some of those loyal, stay-at-home-moms too.

As long as one trope doesn't outweigh the other. A mixture of different characters is great.

The word "bromance" was coined to describe an emotionally intimate relationship between heterosexual men. It happens all the time. In fact, that's what I think True Detective was about, if you've seen that show. So romantic =/= sexual any more than sexual = romantic. And you can be in love without being either romantic or sexual. Human relationships are complicated.

That said, most people (not all, obviously) have sex, romance, or feel themselves to be in love at some point in their life, if not for most of their adult life. It's the reason why we continue to exist as a species, after all, that drive. That's not to say we aren't also deeply socially conditioned to believe we have to have that in order to be fulfilled. It's tough to parse out exactly what's going on when you have feelings like that.

My MC is in love with a completely inappropriate person. She has a sexual relationship with a different person, but realizes he's just a proxy for the other. In the end, she's with neither of them. Too often (all too often) these sorts of love-related choices end with the character choosing one or the other. I was a little disappointed in Katniss for that reason. I really thought she would choose neither.

I'm still quite young to say for sure, but I deeply identify with the aromantic label, and it's refreshing to see stories where romance is not there just because everyone has to have a romantic partner. I'm fine with romance but as long as it brings something else to the plot like major character development or an unexpected plot development.

That said, books with no romance for the main characters are my favorite. They don't need to be aromantic exactly, but sometimes romance just doesn't fit the story and it's great when authors sense that and don't try to force something that is unnecessary.

I'm still a sucker for romance but I don't think it should be required.

Persei said:

That said, books with no romance for the main characters are my favorite. They don't need to be aromantic exactly, but sometimes romance just doesn't fit the story and it's great when authors sense that and don't try to force something that is unnecessary.

I'm still a sucker for romance but I don't think it should be required.

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I'm writing a story right now and it's at 70k and there's no romance in it yet. It's not on purpose, it just turned out that way and I rather like it. It would feel forced if a relationship started taking over the plot. But I must say, after I realized there were no relationships in my story, I started looking for similar books that don't have relationships. They're tough to find.

There's just so much else going on, there isn't time for a relationship!

Blinkk said:

I'm writing a story right now and it's at 70k and there's no romance in it yet. It's not on purpose, it just turned out that way and I rather like it. It would feel forced if a relationship started taking over the plot. But I must say, after I realized there were no relationships in my story, I started looking for similar books that don't have relationships. They're tough to find.

There's just so much else going on, there isn't time for a relationship!

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My WIP is the same! My MC doesn't have time for a relationship. She is too busy just trying to survive. Romance might come into play towards the end but not for at least 75 - 85%. It's a fantasy adventure story at its heart. Her love is focused on her little sister and surviving to be able to get home to her. The rest of the series will probably have some romance but not yet.

Blinkk said:

I'm writing a story right now and it's at 70k and there's no romance in it yet. It's not on purpose, it just turned out that way and I rather like it. It would feel forced if a relationship started taking over the plot. But I must say, after I realized there were no relationships in my story, I started looking for similar books that don't have relationships. They're tough to find.

There's just so much else going on, there isn't time for a relationship!

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Most of my stories are like this (perhaps because my life is mostly like that): fast paced and with no room for romance. Some of them have romances but they are usually a catalyst for world changing events so it isn't like I'm putting the romance in just because.

Kudos to you, though! I'm glad that I have found like minded authors

I read a post by a member of this community (a new person, I think) who said that her(?) MC frees herself from a bad relationship by breaking up with her boyfriend at the end. So the reverse of the usual pattern...

Spiral Jacobs said:

The word "bromance" was coined to describe an emotionally intimate relationship between heterosexual men. It happens all the time. In fact, that's what I think True Detective was about, if you've seen that show. So romantic =/= sexual any more than sexual = romantic. And you can be in love without being either romantic or sexual. Human relationships are complicated.
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The bolded bit is mine.

Exactly! It's the concept of unconditional love. Much as I love my Sherlock slash fanfics, I do see the relationship in both the most recent incarnation of the show and the original AC Doyle versions as the ultimate bromance.