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.
Careful. That's personal... attack, even.
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.
How can I write from a woman's POV and I'm not a woman.
I know you can build a character and have a character respond to how said character should respond but there are things that no matter how well a character is built and they respond within their perimeters it's still unbelievable.
For instance I have a young wife married to a man for five years. Her husband is the cautious type, not a party person like she is*i.e friend's birthday party: he's at home while she's there or Holiday events and friends and family*,he's kind of a nerd and avoids confrontations at all costs. While he does avoid confrontations he is quite capable at defending himself and her if need be something he proved once when someone tried to mug them. He also stays in shape so isn't a fat slob. It's his kindness and warmth that draws her in to him she feels safe around him.right off, I'm not sure about some of your premises. He could be fat and not a slob, for example, and his kindness is one thing, except you paint him as an aloof dick in the line just before. These things make me feel as though you're working from a situation, and trying to stitch together Frankencharacters where the parts don't all match. THAT is going to hang you long before forgetting to mention tampons is
Well at the end of the story her husband confronts her, clad in blood covered and bullet riddled combat armor her husband, presents her with evidence of what he thinks proves her infidelity and acts of treason against their government. if you have no breadcrumbs along the way or anything to hint at this, you're gonna have a bit of a plausibility issue if suddenly supernerd shows up looking like he auditioned for The Expendables, and where will this evidence of cheating and treason come from?Not only is she a cheating whore she's a spy that used him to get top secret access codes from a black ops division she never knew existed. clearly nobody knows....that said, if you are of the opinion folks only cheat when they are "cheating whores" I suspect you're going to have trouble writing your "whores" convincingly
While trying to make sense of all of this she soon finds her self staring down the barrel of a weapon and hearing the words "Goodbye bitch" come out her husband's mouth. Then the faint click of the weapons mechanisms moving to eject a round that isn't there.big, BIG problem here. She'll hear the sear trip, or pin and/or hammer fall, but no, she won't hear the eject. Because if he has a semiauto or automatic weapon, the eject is tied to the cartridge going off. No flying boolet, no ejection mechanism tripped. And if he was holding a pump shotgun, he'd rack the slide to drop a round INTO the chamber if it wasn't already, but not as part of pulling the trigger; that would be silly at best
Thankfully for her the situation get's sorted out. er....I am old-fashioned. Which means for me, if someone tries to shoot me, which your paragraph above suggests, stuff does NOT "get sorted out." There are some breaches of trust I find hard to close, and a "sorry, this was quite the mixup, huh?" isn't going to plausibly cover my near-murder
Would it be realistic for her to beat the hell out of him? yes, perhaps the most realistic of anything I've seen thus far, sadly. That sounds harsh perhaps, but you maybe need to think through how plausible some of your stuff is. Get a divorce? yesSpend some time getting things hashed out? possibly, but what are you gonna hash out? "Honey, do you really, REALLY promise to never try to shoot me in the face again?" Have make up sex? wow...in what fucking world? No wonder so many women revile the male idea of makeup sex, it seems to be "I fucked up, royally....wanna touch my penis to make up for it?"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?
If I read a book where a woman's husband called her a "cheating whore" and a "bitch" as he threatened to shoot her and put her in terror of her life, and if she later had make-up sex with him, I would never pick up another of that author's books.
For me to feel anything but disgust for the husband, there would have to be a ton of evidence framing her for adultery and espionage and treason and jaywalking. And even then, if the first thing he does after discovering such evidence is to insult her and try to (or pretend to) shoot her, he's not redeemable for me. I am really not a fan of men who fly into blind rages and women who enable these.
So many of you said write true to your character and a few you understood that even though I write true my character would it be true to women. That's why I ask these things. I can write all day long what is true to my character but if isn't true to women and those that character is based on then it won't mean a thing.
So many of you said write true to your character and a few you understood that even though I write true my character would it be true to women. That's why I ask these things. I can write all day long what is true to my character but if isn't true to women and those that character is based on then it won't mean a thing.
Oh yeah there is a lot of evidence a lot. You forget that this takes place at the END of the story.
I think that at this point man or woman both would want her to die.
If all this happens in the last five paragraphs, why did you ask whether it would be realistic for her to talk it over or have make-up sex with him? Surely there wouldn't be room in the last paragraph or last line for anything more than a brief mention of what she did in response.But I say again this scene happens at the END the END of the story not the begging, not the middle, the freaking, as in the last five paragraphs.
can I just say, in my best Renee Zelweger voice, "You had me at 'cheating whore'"?
what would a woman do? You have to understand women aren't a uniform group--some take midol and some prefer aleve when they cramp, for example, and some like to spend their husband's money on shoes, while others prefer massages.....
look, there's lots of issues below, and we'll go through them, but the trick to writing women is to either never, ever write about a premenstrual woman, because they're crazy as shit, or alternately, to write anything you want about women on the rag. Anything. Because they're not even rational, thinking animals at that point, just mindless, angry, ice cream-eating blood-wenches.
ok, sarcasm aside, a few thoughts before we start:
1. you're very young, very single, or very trolling, or possibly a combination of those three.
2. I know more than a few women who have cheated. You can break them into two camps: A) those who cheat for the same reasons men do, like adventure, selfishness, grass-is-greener, living alone in a two-person relationship where the other is largely unavailable, etc. and B) women who marry a guy who believes all women are incapable and unexplainable waifs, and after two years, or twenty, they give up trying to change that guy. Which isn't all that different from men who marry women who assume they're mouth-breathing dickbrains, and then cheat.
the bottom line is women aren't radically different from men.
what she'd decide will depend on the woman, they aren't a monolith.
Well I planned to have all that done at once. The moment he confronted her to get revenge was the moment that someone else he knew and trusted came in stopped everything.As for the rest of the events you described, I wouldn't want to read about these two staying together for any length of time if the husband has now become "twisted" to the point where he tries to murder his wife (and where the wife can't even save herself, but must wait for someone else to do so).
What if he didn't try to kill her? But cuffed her placed her on a transport and personally delivered her to an intelligence detention center and when they get off some intelligence agent who did a lot of homework can clear things up? Even though the evidence is damning she (his wife) isn't the one behind it. The only thing that happens to the wife is that she gets cuffed, confronted with mountains of evidence, and brought to an intelligence center?Would it be realistic for her to beat the hell out of him? yes, perhaps the most realistic of anything I've seen thus far, sadly. That sounds harsh perhaps, but you maybe need to think through how plausible some of your stuff is. Get a divorce? yesSpend some time getting things hashed out? possibly, but what are you gonna hash out? "Honey, do you really, REALLY promise to never try to shoot me in the face again?" Have make up sex? wow...in what fucking world? No wonder so many women revile the male idea of makeup sex, it seems to be "I fucked up, royally....wanna touch my penis to make up for it?"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?
Well I planned to have all that done at once. The moment he confronted her to get revenge was the moment that someone else he knew and trusted came in stopped everything.
What if he didn't try to kill her? But cuffed her placed her on a transport and personally delivered her to intelligence detention center and when they get off some intelligence agent who did a lot of homework can clear things up? The only thing that happens to the wife is that she gets cuffed, confronted with mountains of evidence, and brought to an intelligence center?
But that doesn't change my point. He's twisted to the point where he's ready to murder someone and she seems helpless to the point where someone else has to save her. I wouldn't want to read about these two either talking it over or kissing and making up (even if it's within character for this woman to have sex with a man who was ready to kill her).
Makes me wonder why he didn't go to that intelligence agent in the first place, with all the tons of evidence.
That's the thing. If it's something that can be cleared up quickly, then the husband doesn't look good for not taking this route in the first place. It can also make the intelligence agent look like a deus ex machina. On the other hand, if it's something that takes a great deal of time to resolve, then it prolongs the story (in possibly an anti-climactic way) and may shift the focus from the husband and wife to the intelligence agent.
Then again, almost anything can work if it's written well, so hopefully that's the case here.
I don't think it would unrealistic for things to be worked out. You're saying he was acting on supposedly good information and about some pretty cold-blooded actions, and for me, it's perfectly reasonable for a woman to look at that once the initial anger/fear/whatever emotion is gone, and not only understand what happened, but be willing to try to get past it. As long as it didn't happen immediately and/or easily (as in 'make up sex'), it wouldn't bother me. One of my personal pet peeves with to many female characters on TV is that they react emotionally at first (perfectly understandable) but then refuse to change their mindset when the facts are presented. That, IMHO, is just as sexist. It basically says women in general cannot tone down the emotions enough to act rationally.
But let me ask you this. Forgetting everything I wrote. What would be true to women if the wife learns that he laid his life on the line to save her? Would a divorce still be logical because he lied about his past? Would she not want to be around him?
In my role as the Representative of All Women, I'd divorce him because he sounds like a bit of a dimwit to me.
hth
But let me ask you this. Forgetting everything I wrote. What would be true to women if the wife learns that he laid his life on the line to save her? Would a divorce still be logical because he lied about his past? Would she not want to be around him?
But let me ask you this. Forgetting everything I wrote. What would be true to women if the wife learns that he laid his life on the line to save her? Would a divorce still be logical because he lied about his past? Would she not want to be around him?
I see what you're saying. I was looking at again this morning and thought meh. If my character at one time was ready to lay down his life for this woman it would need to take a lot more than what I have (even though if were someone else other than this wife.)
I certainly understand your point about it quickly being resolved and I meant by that was the agent doesn't hit a few buttons and go "see you're wrong" but instead shows up with a mountain of data and .....
But let me ask you this. Forgetting everything I wrote. What would be true to women if the wife learns that he laid his life on the line to save her? Would a divorce still be logical because he lied about his past? Would she not want to be around him?