How can I write from a woman's POV?

Don't think of how "a woman" would react. Think of how your character would react.

First, you need to realise that women do not belong to one great hive mind, so there is no "what would women like to read in this portion".

Second, you've created a character, so what would be the natural reaction for that character?

There is no "what would a woman do in this situation". Every woman is as different to another as one man is to another man. Hopes, dreams, and aspirations are different. Personalities are different. Reactions to varied stimuli are different. What you should be asking yourself is: what would this character that I created do? Can she get past not only the accusations, but also the discovery that the person she loves (or loved) and trusted is not who or what she thought he was? You created the character; find out what makes her tick.

Seconding both Helix and Shadowwalker. Do not, do not treat her like some alien creature with unfathomable motives. Write her in a way that is true to who she is as a PERSON.

Maybe she would pull a knife from her secret vagina pocket and stab him?

As the others say, think of her reaction in the context of "a character", not "a woman". Men and women are different. Women and women are also different.

Remember that women are delicate, nervous creatures, like forest deer. We're bad at maths and logic, but we're amazingly intuitive. We love shoes and soft colors, and hate camping. Our needs and wants are entirely foreign and alien to anyone who lacks ovaries (aka regular, normal humans).

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Sorry. It's just that this very question has been asked so many times on AW, and other writing forums I've been on over the past few years, and it always baffles me. How would you write any character who's not exactly like you in every way?

Things to consider.

1. Women are people. While there are average differences between the genders (or between any two subgroups of humanity for that matter), they are far less than the differences that exist within each gender. Any individual is likely to fall away from the mean for their gender or to overlap with the other gender in many respects and

2. What kind of person do you need your character to be for the story you're trying to tell? What sorts of things would make her interesting? Make her that person.

3. Read books (in your preferred genre) written by women that have female characters. How do women portray women?

I always have to ask, why do men ask this question about writing women so much more often than women seem to ask it about writing men? Guys have mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives, lovers, female friends and so on. Don't your female friends and family members have things in common with you and have unique quirks and a wide range of behaviors? What are the women you know like? Trust your real-world experience.

AndreF said:

Would it be realistic for her to beat the hell out of him? Get a divorce? Spend some time getting things hashed out? Have make up sex? What would a woman do in this situation if she loved a man who thought what he thought (and had evidence that drove him to those conclusions). What would women like to read in this portion?

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Any of these might make sense, depending on how you developed that character up until that point in the story.

Ok, what would the character do, in your opinion? What is the character's personality? Is she an aggressive person? A shy person? An easily intimidated person? A person who can charm her way out of a situation? A diplomatic person? A person who would laugh it off?

Women, like men, are all individuals. One person may tackle him, another may freeze up, another may scream, etc. It depends on the person.

Think about characters you enjoyed, particularly the female characters. Are they all going to react the same in such a situation?

Just to throw out some examples of female characters:

What would Katniss (from Hunger Games) do? What would Bella (from Twilight) do? What would Ripley (from the Alien movies) do? What would Lara Croft (from Tomb Raider) do? What would Hermione (from Harry Potter) do? What would Sabrina (from the Teenage Witch series) do? What would Bayonetta (from the Bayonetta games) do?
What would Zelda (from Legend of Zelda), or Princess Peach (from Mario), or Samus (Metroid Prime), or Commander Shepard (Mass Effect), or the various Disney Princesses---

Okay, you get the picture? All of those characters are female characters. Do they act the same to you? Would you say they would act the same, if you stuck them into your story?

The answer is: No, they would not. They are characters with their own backgrounds, personalities, and hopes and dreams. Think about them as individuals. Even aliens act different from each other--unless they're a hive mind or are mind-controlled in some dystopian world or something, lol.

Edit: Forgot to add: What about real life women you know? How would they act?

I would probably run and lock myself in a room and call 911. I have friends who would definitely beat the hell out of him. I have friends who would quietly but firmly request a divorce, I have friends who would cry and freak out, I have friends who would be numb and heartbroken, I have friends who would want to approach it calmly and work things out, I have friends who would be turned on by the danger and jump his bones, probably.

All of us are women.

That should help/clear things up a bit.

It might be me, but I don't understand the scenario.

I think men and women are more similar than different. The main thing is that your character is acting in a logical way (unless she's mentally unstable) and in a way that's congruent with the character development you've set out as an author.

What the person who said "what would your character do" suggested. I've written from a woman's POV--Lindsay Versus the Marauders--and I didn't really think about the gender so much as her character. What would she do in this situation, how would she feel?

These questions--and others--you have to ask yourself, but to thine own made-up character be true. If she's a weak, retiring and shy type, she'd most likely freeze up, the ol' deer-caught-in-the-headlights scenario. If she's a cop or an ex-member of the military, her training would take over and she'd immediately twist the gun out of her husband's hand and level him (or try to). JMO...

Yes, women are all different but at the same time there's that indefinable thing sometimes that makes me realize/think something was really written by a guy. And I've seen plenty of editor guidelines that state they really don't like guys who try to write as gals, so I know it's not just me. Also, I recall several times through the years when a man has posted his work from a POV for critique and several of us women said that they didn't find the same things believable as a female voice. So I won't shoot down the question.

What I'd do is go ahead and write it, and as you do (if it's a novel) post it for critique. If several women tell you certain things don't ring true to them as a woman's voice, that's what to consider changing. Good luck.

Roxxsmom said:

Sorry. It's just that this very question has been asked so many times on AW, and other writing forums I've been on over the past few years, and it always baffles me..

I always have to ask, why do men ask this question about writing women so much more often than women seem to ask it about writing men...

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I wonder if it's because many women are used to reading male characters, since that is seen as the "default"? Or, many of us are used to dealing with sexism and wish to be treated as people? I don't know, but that's an interesting question, Roxxsmom.

It also doesn't help when there are many jokes in tv shows/movies/sitcoms and (even MG) books (usually with male characters) that make it seem like women/girls are hilarious, moody, or unpredictable aliens from Venus. "Girls, who can understand them?" Or "Who knows why girls/women do what they do?" or "Girls/Women are weird/moody/temperamental." *rolls eyes*

As an example of the male versus female thing. There are people on this forum (and others too), I've been interacting with for two years, and I honestly don't know yet if they're male or female in real life. I may think I know, based sometimes on their name or avatar, or things they say about their lives. But sometimes I discover I'm wrong.

I had this experience in WoW too. People I assumed were male or female because of the gender of their "main" character, but it turned out I was wrong. And one guy who had a male character, but I assumed he was female for a while, because, well, I don't know. Just the way he expressed himself in chat. I had an alt who was male, and a tanking class, and when I picked up, people inevitably assumed I was male. It was funny to be called "dude." Kind of fun, actually.

I haven't run across submission guidelines for an agent or publisher that say they discourage men trying to write as women, though I haven't looked at guidelines for romance publishers or any genre that is slanted towards female readers. I've read SF and F by men who do women characters just fine as far as I'm concerned (and yes, I'm a woman in real life, not a dog).

Actually, that sounds like it's skating dangerously close to gender discrimination. Imagine if Tor or Daw had in their submission guidelines, "Since most SF fans are men, we don't want any lady writers submitting SF stories, though we consider urban fantasy from women, since most urban fantasy readers are female," or, "We don't want any lady writers writing stories with male protagonists, because in our experience, they just don't do a good job of it."

Even if it were often true, wouldn't they be better off simply considering the manuscripts and rejecting the ones that were poorly done?

In my experience, when men screw up writing a female point of view, it's most often because they insert male gaze into it as a default perspective. For instance, a limited third narrative where the woman's small, firm breasts bounce as she walks across the room (don't usually think about my breasts doing this), or she draws her jeans over her long, shapely legs (even women who actually have long, shapely legs don't think of them this way when they're getting dressed). This probably comes from the fact that the male gaze is often the default presented in media that's aimed at both genders (like movies or TV, where the camera often lingers over a woman's body a little--or a lot--longer than it does a man's, or the rhetorical "you" addressed by voice overs is most often assumed to be male). It's easily fixed, though, once a man becomes aware of it.

Kate Elliot's essay "The Omniscient Breasts" does a good job of discussing this issue.

Fruitbat said:

Yes, women are all different but at the same time there's that indefinable thing sometimes that makes me realize/think something was really written by a guy. And I've seen plenty of editor guidelines that state they really don't like guys who try to write as gals,

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It's the subtle objectification in the voice.

Not kidding.

bunny-gypsy said:

What would Ripley (from the Alien movies) do?

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Nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

As the great sage Ashley Williams of Mass Effect put it:
"Men, women, aliens- we're all just animals."

Just in general, it seems logical to me that a person in this situation could react thusly:

AndreF said:

Would it be realistic for her to beat the hell out of him? probably not. She'd lose, since he's likely bigger and stronger than she is. Get a divorce? She'd think about that later, maybe, not now. Spend some time getting things hashed out? He just tried to kill her. She's going to get as far away from him as possible, unless she has reason to believe, really believe, he wouldn't try it again. But the way you've set it up, it sounds like he's in a rage and wouldn't be open to a reasonable discussion. Have make up sex? NO! Just...no. What would a woman do in this situation if she loved a man who thought what he thought (and had evidence that drove him to those conclusions). She'd be frightened, angry, bewildered, and very, very hurt.

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However. Your character may well have different reactions, based on who she is as a person and what she's been through up until this point. Any of those answers above could be the wrong one, for her and for the story.

The same way you write from the POV of any other character whom you are not.

Agree with the others. Treat your character as a character with their own thought processes.

Forget about trying to write like a woman or a man. I bet you've read novels where you didn't know whether the writer was a man or a woman - it doesn't matter.

Anna Spargo-Ryan said:

Maybe she would pull a knife from her secret vagina pocket and stab him?

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Aaaaaagh no no no
I did not need that sensation in my brain

Anyway, yeah, write her like you would any other character. It's totally possible - look at all the women writers who write believable male characters.

When Jack Nicholson was asked how he writes like a woman so well, in As Good As It Gets, he said: “I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability.”

Killer zinger well delivered, but BAD JACK.

We are all men and we are all women. Write your character. The reaction of your character should be realistic from the standpoint of your character, not based on whether that character has a penis or mammary glands. Situations cause reactions, not genitalia.

dunno
though it is sexist to say it, there are differences
women act one way, men another

Of course there are plenty of exceptions and it is not a general rule or anything of the sort and there is a lot of flexibility. Still, there are differences in how men and women -------------------------typically------------------------ tend to react under a given set of circumstances and authors really have to be aware of that. Doesn't mean they can't do differently, but there is always the "norm" to consider. And blasphemous as it is to say it, some of that norm is biologically based. Just my opinion. Feel free to scoff at it and call me names.

This question always puzzles me

You write them exactly as you do any character who is not you.

When you write a guy, the character's responses are not your responses, but their own, yes? (else you'd just be writing about yourself all the time). This is the same. You are writing about someone else and need to think what they would do in situation X. If this is as you say at the end of the story, then presumably your female character has shown the sort of person she is, and would now act accordingly


Personally I'd brain that sucker with a handy household implement the instant he called me a whore.

In my experience, when men screw up writing a female point of view, it's most often because they insert male gaze into it as a default perspective. For instance, a limited third narrative where the woman's small, firm breasts bounce as she walks across the room (don't usually think about my breasts doing this), or she draws her jeans over her long, shapely legs (even women who actually have long, shapely legs don't think of them this way when they're getting dressed).

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That is always a dead giveaway. When was the last time you read about a guying thinking about his long shapely penis as he dresses to the left?

gothicangel said:

First I would do something about the casual use of the words 'whore' and 'bitch.'

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For real. I don't have to read the book to know that I hate your main character, OP. Probably wouldn't be a big fan of you if I met you, either.

gothicangel said:

First I would do something about the casual use of the words 'whore' and 'bitch.' Secondly, if the genders were the other way around would such language result in a sexual double standard?

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I would have no problem with the language - as long as it was the character saying it and not the narrator. And I don't think the OP was using it other than as a description of what was being said by the characters.

pandaponies said:

For real. I don't have to read the book to know that I hate your main character, OP. Probably wouldn't be a big fan of you if I met you, either.

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Nothing wrong with hating a character. Why one would dislike the author is puzzling.