strong, believable & *accurate* heroines

CWatts said:

...Always a challenge - how to write historical women without falling victim to what I like to call "Dr. Quinn Syndrome" (aka Hilary Clinton in a corset).

Like so many other issues with historical fiction, my answer is to look to primary sources. I am writing late 19th century so I'm reading up on period suffragists, authors and activists. One thing I like to do is pick a slightly older woman as a mentor/influence and another women from my character's generation. So for my Reconstruction-era freedwoman I am reading up on Frances E.W. Harper and Josephine Ruffin (and eventually Ida B. Wells, etc. for her daughter), and for my immigrant labor activist, Louise Michel/Elisabeth Dmitrieff and Victoria Woodhull/Lucy Parsons.

One of the key things I think is to avoid letting your heroine hew too closely to the present-day party line. Let her be wrong. This does not mean being submissive (though cracking under immense pressure with very little social support is, well, human), but it can mean giving her some accurate if somewhat wacky beliefs. For instance, a devout Christian with temperance leanings who's (hypocritically) judgmental of others' sexual morality, or an unrepentant Marxist who buys into Victorian spiritualism and can't stand Germans (then the largest immigrant ethnicity in the US).

Thoughts?

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I'm reconstructing the present party line as: loves Germans, is a repentant Marxist and doesn't care for Spiritualism: Christ, that's my mother.

I definitely agree with good women characters also have flaws and contradictions because all characters should have them.

My feelings about strong women in historical fiction are a lot like my feelings about strong women characters period. (Which this article sums up nicely.) Write historically-grounded, complex, interesting women, not strong women. Which means that you have to start with knowing your time period inside and out, knowing what beliefs and ideologies people would have held. And realize that even the most submissive, marginalized, downtrodden people have agency.

CWatts said:

One of the key things I think is to avoid letting your heroine hew too closely to the present-day party line. Let her be wrong. This does not mean being submissive (though cracking under immense pressure with very little social support is, well, human), but it can mean giving her some accurate if somewhat wacky beliefs. For instance, a devout Christian with temperance leanings who's (hypocritically) judgmental of others' sexual morality, or an unrepentant Marxist who buys into Victorian spiritualism and can't stand Germans (then the largest immigrant ethnicity in the US).

Thoughts?

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This is something I've been pondering in connection with my current project. I'm working on a novel set in the early 1930s, centered on the first birth control clinic in my state. One of the storylines in the novel concerns the relationship between the birth control movement and eugenics (forced sterilization of the mentally ill, developmentally challenged, etc.) Initially I assumed my heroine would find the tenets of eugenics morally repugnant, but the more I read from primary sources, the more I think her view would be neutral or even somewhat positive toward it. Everything I'm reading suggests that the majority of birth control supporters at the time also favored forced sterilization, so why should she be different?

So now the challenge is to show my character as a product of her time without making her too unsympathetic to modern readers (and I've got similar issues with regard to racism and homophobia). The approach I'm taking is to put her in situations that gradually cause her to question some of her beliefs, but I don't want to go too far and have her adopt a completely 21st century worldview either. It's a dilemma.

And speaking of women with agency... I've been spending a couple days a week at my local historical society, looking through the records of the Minneapolis Motherhood Protection League, which became the local branch of Planned Parenthood. It's absolutely fascinating to see how this organization evolved from a group of society matrons meeting in drawing rooms and discussing contraception over finger sandwiches, to a corporate body that sponsored clinics all over the state--the whole thing managed and staffed by women, for women. And yet they all refer to each other by their husbands' names. It's awe-inspiring and maddening, all at the same time.

Hmmm... Call me an idiot, but I don't see this as a problem of writing "historical heroines" but a problem of writing historical people. It's the million dollar question of hist fic: "How do you make them relatable and yet historically accurate?"

They will all have traits, opinions and make choices that we do not approve of. It is always a challenge to write such people and make them both relatable and perhaps sympathetic (if that is your aim). I have this problem with many of my (male) characters who have political and religious opinions I do not only not share, but that I also find rather repulsive in many ways. And yet, they still need to have them in order for the book to be believable in a historical context.

The only reason I think this so often ends up being about female characters specifically is because unlike men, they only come across to us in contemporary sources described from "without". They are rarely the ones holding the pen, and so they often come across as stereotypical and lacking agency, mere placeholders for characteristics projected onto them by the people in power.
That doesn't just go for women, though, but is also a question of class (think "medieval peasant" and you have the same sort of problem) and ethnicity (non-European, especially cultures without written sources). That doesn't mean that was all there was to these people.

A woman can display lots of individuality and agency within the framework of traditional femininity. Adapting to society's expectations of a woman doesn't make someone "submissive", and also, you can be submissive and still be personable and relatable. It's not always a matter of "how to not to make her traditionally female so people can relate to her" but sometimes it's about "how to make her traditionally female and still make her relatable". And that, I think, is no different from writing any 3D historical character: make her a fully fleshed person as complicated as everyone you know alive today while still being a character whose experiences are essentially those of a person alive hundreds of years ago.

Does that mean sometimes giving your character "unlikeable" opinions and traits? Hell yes. But that is something that writing is always wrestling with, and historical fiction in particular. We are writing about a foreign country populated by foreign people who nonetheless were exactly as human as you and me. If you give them our humanity, but not our experiences, I think that, usually, you are on the right track.

In short; give someone all the stereotypical "historical" traits and opinions you need to but then make sure to breathe life into him or her by trying to create a believable psychological profile from it. Hilary Clinton in a corset isn't a good idea, but neither is Barack Obama in breeches, and never fall victim to the popular modern stereotype of historical people as somehow dimmer and with less emotional range than us or think that a character needs to be Hilary Clinton to be relatable.

Yeah, I agree with everyone who has said that making complicated characters with complicated choices and complicated psyches is the ONLY way to be historically accurate (no matter the gender). No matter how clear the decisions seem to us--of course slavery is bad!--it wasn't nearly as obvious to people at the time. And never underestimate the power of self-delusion.

It's not only a problem with historical female characters, but with historical characters in general: they can become nothing more than a dumping ground for The Spirit of the Age. They act and think like "the average person". Except, no one believes in everything that is generally accepted in their own day-and-age. They agree with some things and not with other. It's stereotyping by time period, I guess.

But on the topic of heroines specifically: I'm sometimes afraid that I'll be accused of creating a "weak" female character if said character is anything other than a modern woman with modern sensibilities, as if that's the only definition of strength. It isn't.

[As far as characters being accurate and acceptable to modern tastes, I kind of cheated in my Antebellum WIPs. For the first WIP, my male MC is a Quaker and so is a modern-ish analogue. As for the prequel, two of the main characters are unrepentant slave holders, but they're unrepentant about their bad behavior in general (until one of them has a fall from grace). You aren't supposed to think they're good guys. You're just suppose to think they're interesting.]

Honestly? I'm not going to believe a story where everyone has the same prejudices as everyone else all the time. Prejudice comes in varrying degrees after all, even in the modern world. A character isn't less "realistic" because they don't hold a prejudice against Native Americans or Black people, but if you make them a sufferegist who also has no problem with immagrants of any sort. Then you well and truly have gone too far in the opposite direction. If they don't have a problem with Jews, blacks, NA, Queer people etc., pick one and make them otherwise normal for the time. I can gaurentee you can find a period accurate reason they don't hold whichever specific prejudice it is. Not everyone was the same after all.

ETA: I completely agree with Angeliz2k on the spirit of the age thing! That's what I myself was trying to get across, make them people. They don't have to be your stalk slave holder or whatever, because some treated their slaves with respect and dignity and not the stereotype we know today. They don't have to be a stalk racist because some didn't like Native Americans but thought Black people were hardworking, or vice versa. Some thought women should have the vote but not black people, and a fewer but no less still existing group felt all should have the vote regardless of race.

This all depends on if you are writing about your own characters or actual, historical people. In the latter case, your hands may pretty much be tied, at least if their opinions are well documented. Then all you can do is to try to put yourself in their shoes and try to understand how they work, whether you share their prejudices/opinions or not.

Side note: I have had a ball writing from the POV of people that are very different from me. There is a special high when you manage to make an absurd position that you originally find to be untenable come across as logical because it does make sense to your character.

Hmm, I have been developing ideas for a historical novel set in the antebellum South. Heroine is an abolitionist and into temperance. She is and isn't a Clinton-in-a-corset. It's universally accepted today that slavery is bad, but not that alcohol is bad, but at the time there were vehement crusaders against both. Heroine is born in the North, and has personal biases that steer her toward both attitudes, so I think it's believable.

The hero is a slave owner, and I was going to make him free his slaves. I couldn't see how I could make him likable otherwise, especially by her. I was going to make it not an easy thing for him to do; he has to struggle personally to be able to do what he thinks is right. But do you think it's more realistic if he keeps them but treats them well, going as far, e.g., as to educate them?

This is why creating complex characters is so important. Everyone alive today doesn't share the same prejudices, even among those who share the same social conditions. So, it's much more important to me to understand why a character has the prejudices that she or he does (and that this is believable in that particular time and place).

morngnstar said:

Hmm, I have been developing ideas for a historical novel set in the antebellum South. Heroine is an abolitionist and into temperance. She is and isn't a Clinton-in-a-corset. It's universally accepted today that slavery is bad, but not that alcohol is bad, but at the time there were vehement crusaders against both. Heroine is born in the North, and has personal biases that steer her toward both attitudes, so I think it's believable.

The hero is a slave owner, and I was going to make him free his slaves. I couldn't see how I could make him likable otherwise, especially by her. I was going to make it not an easy thing for him to do; he has to struggle personally to be able to do what he thinks is right. But do you think it's more realistic if he keeps them but treats them well, going as far, e.g., as to educate them?

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To answer this directly: there are actually some shades of possibility between freeing all slaves totally and keeping them all enslaved. Keep in mind, in many states it became illegal to manumit slaves. But in any case, some things could be done. Slaves could be given permission to live where they wished, worked as they wished, and keep their money (granted, this was at their master's/mistress's discretion, but it did happen). Sometimes slaves were allowed to simply leave (while at Monticello, the guide spoke about how a few slaves left the plantation, and no one ever went to get them back). Also keep in mind that there were probably very young, very old, and very ill slaves to be thought of.

I agree the biggest problem is *her* attitude towards him. If she's against slavery, she certainly wouldn't be interested in marrying him if he owns slaves. I know this would TOTALLY shift your concept for the female character, but might it be possible to make her ambivalent instead of vehemently against slavery? Perhaps she and he make the moral journey together. Perhaps he even gets to the point of hating slavery before she does.

I don't have a problem with this. The book I have on submission has a heroine who I feel is accurate to her time, while a *strong* female character.

Firstly, its wrong to think that the 21st century invented strong, independent-minded women. It didn't, you can trace it back to women like Boudicca, Livia (wife of Augustus), Sappho (Greek poetess) and even further back to the Ancient Egyptians. I did a lot of research into women of the early Christian Church and discovered that the Gospel of Paul is mis-read a lot of the time. Far from being anti-women he's biggest financial backers are women, and his first business partner is called Prisca (an exiled Jew.) That was how I created Antonia, out of the historical record not in spite of it. I also love writing my MC's sister Flavia (part Lydia Bennett.)

Still, it is true what you say. I can't stand Kate Quinn's heroines, lifted straight out of 21st century chick-lit and dumped in Ancient Rome.

CWatts said:

One thing I like to do is pick a slightly older woman as a mentor/influence and another women from my character's generation. So for my Reconstruction-era freedwoman I am reading up on Frances E.W. Harper and Josephine Ruffin (and eventually Ida B. Wells, etc. for her daughter), and for my immigrant labor activist, Louise Michel/Elisabeth Dmitrieff and Victoria Woodhull/Lucy Parsons.

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This is a very good approach, imo. Continue doing so would be my only suggestion. (I've read up on a number of exemplary women in history myself and it's been enlightening and helpful, even for contemporary fic.)

This article from CNN isn't relevant to historical fiction, but I think it touches on some of the issues with portraying women as heroes, so worth a read.

For example:

Peggy Carter runs up against sexism in her office, where she's relegated to fetching coffee and answering phones, but she goes on her own rogue action-packed missions, uncovering perhaps more than she bargained for.

"She's capable and strong, but what we haven't seen are the emotional and psychological consequences of losing the love of her life, of living in a male-dominated environment, of being a triple spy and making sure that people around her don't know who she really is," star Hayley Atwell said.

"That creates feelings of isolation in her."

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For a long time I struggled to make my ancient Egyptian FMC likeable and interesting and authentic. She is an uneducated peasant, which was my first challenge - how to make her smart but not intellectual? She wouldn't speak in the same sophisticated language as the girls she meets in the house of a wealthy city official, but I didn't want to make her sound like a yokel or simple.

Then there's the fact that she has limited agency - she is sold into slavery, has no control over the big decisions that affect her life, yet I didn't want her to be passive. In what limited ways she can, she makes choices and influences events.

Then there's her prejudices. She grew up in poverty because of the ten plagues, which ruined her family's livelihood and ultimately resulted in her slavery, so of course she hates the Hebrews. I'd find it odd if she didn't, since everyone else in Egypt does, and she has a very personal reason for it. But I wanted her thirst for vengeance to stop short of wishing them dead, because that would be against everything else in her nature, which is very caring and compassionate. I don't know if that rings true, or seems contrived, but it's just something that felt right for her. And in the end that's all we can do. Be true to the characters we have created, and hope that the psychological depth we have given them makes them believeable, even if they don't perfectly fit some perceived historical mould.

There have always been strong women. There have always been women who have to surmount problems of unimaginable immensity. Not because it's trendy, but because this is part of the survival of the human race.

Even slaves have agency, in how they deal with their situation, just as "free" people are, in many ways, confined by their life circumstances.

Therefore, for the writer, it's an issue of "what would be the voice for this strong, capable woman in the society I've created?" Not "could a woman in this society be strong, capable or active?"

Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Just a personal example:

My maternal grandmother was born in 1890 in rural Missourah. She had uncles who fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy. Her MIL's father was killed in action in the Civil War also fighting for the Confederacy.

But was she a racist? No. There was a song she'd sing with us while she played the piano. (By ear, since she didn't read music and had never had piano lessons.) The song we sang had the word "fellow." I learned after her death that the original word began with the letter "n." She changed it because she didn't think it was right.

She had 10 kids and raised them during the Depression. That takes strength. The grandmother-in-law who was widowed during the Civil War smoked a corncob pipe. And kept up.

Think of all the times the men have been off to war and the women have kept the farm going.

You bet women have always been strong. And no, they don't always think what they've been told to think.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

morngnstar said:

Hmm, I have been developing ideas for a historical novel set in the antebellum South. Heroine is an abolitionist and into temperance. She is and isn't a Clinton-in-a-corset. It's universally accepted today that slavery is bad, but not that alcohol is bad, but at the time there were vehement crusaders against both. Heroine is born in the North, and has personal biases that steer her toward both attitudes, so I think it's believable.

The hero is a slave owner, and I was going to make him free his slaves. I couldn't see how I could make him likable otherwise, especially by her. I was going to make it not an easy thing for him to do; he has to struggle personally to be able to do what he thinks is right. But do you think it's more realistic if he keeps them but treats them well, going as far, e.g., as to educate them?

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Freeing slaves without support could do more harm to those people than good. If they have no way of earning a living (for example, if they were elderly), it would be simply a transition from slavery to poverty.

On the other hand, keeping them as slaves leaves them forever on edge. What if he changes his mind? Or dies, and leaves them to someone not so open-minded? Or simply goes bankrupt, and they are seized as property?

Lots of questions, of course, make for lots of interesting things to write about. Perhaps your MCs can actually work with the slaves for the best solution to a situation neither side finds tolerable any longer.

I know - I had considered elaborate plans for him to set them up with a livelihood. Maybe some sort of subsistence farmstead on the western frontier, maybe emigration to Haiti. But I wonder if it's inappropriate for the era for a white person to put so much thought and effort into not only freeing, but establishing for the welfare of his former slaves.

morngnstar, he's already breaking the mold by setting his slaves free. I think the question isn't whether he'd put in the time and effort. If he wants to set them free, it's fair to say he's concerned for their welfare and wouldn't stop halfway. It would be utterly irresponsible for him not to consider what might happen to the people who were suddenly free.

A few things to keep in mind. Not all the freed men and women would want or need his assistance. I imagine some would be of the opinion that they could damn well make it themselves. Many slaves were skilled, so they could set themselves up as carpenters, smiths, dressmakers, etc. Some might not want to leave the place they were born and raised, and might wish to stay on as paid workers. Some might be unable to provide for themselves (the old, the young, the infirm); either they would go with their newly freed families, or the former master might offer to provide for them as he had before. And some might happily take an offer of land or money. Those who wanted land might be given a parcel of the plantation (this is similar to what happened in many places after the war--some plantations were divied up amongst the slaves). If the freed slaves want to leave America completely, I think Canada or Liberia (where many blacks were "colonized" to) would be likelier than Haiti (depends a bit on the time period).

And this would all require a LOT of money. The former master would have to take a good long look at his means. Maybe he *can't* provide for all of them. At the least, he would be a much, much poorer man. What's he going to do without slaves? Sell the land so that another slave owner can take over with his own set of slaves? Stay on the land and pay laborers?

Sorry, that was long. I'm interested in the period. There's lots to consider.

The first thing I think would need to be considered is the time period in which the story takes place. From there, consider what was 'expected' of women at the time (behavior, level of education, what they could expect from life). From here, you have what I consider your 'base state' for a female character template. At this point you can consider whether the character had any factors in their life that would make them more of the traditional strong female character. Are they more educated than other women (or even men) in their generation? Do they have a family that is more enlightened about a woman's place in the world? Or is their life more isolated where they would be more self-sufficient and wouldn't face as much pressure from society on what is considered appropriate from the individual?

Or did they have no such advantage and have to work completely from the ground up? However, I always found it a little odd when a historical feminist character just appeared from right out of the sky with no external factors influencing them to become this way.

So many of my feminist friends complain about stories where the heroine needs a man to help her carry out her great plans and save the day. I agree, this is annoying when the author claims their goal was create a strong female character. A historical character can still be considered 'strong' (if just within the context of her time period), you just may need to think out of the box for how she conveys this strength.

This is technically a fantasy story, but think about Daenerys from Game of Thrones. She's certainly a strong character, being based on Henry VII, but she does not display this strength in the traditional way of the warrior. She instead gains the love of her people and eventually, the loyalty of a freed slave army. Her strength comes from being a strong military leader, not someone who fights battles for herself.

I agree to some degree. I'm writing a historical mystery series set in turn-of-the-century California with strong female sleuths and I'm also keeping in mind that these women have to have the values and beliefs (as well as the faults) of women at that time and not of our times. I think it's tough to remember, but doing my research is the key.

On the other hand, I don't see a problem with creating exceptions to the rule too, as long as they are relevant to the story and within the context of their time, not our time. When I was doing my master's degree in English, my focus was on 19th and early 20th century women writers as well as social and gender history. I did a lot of research for my papers, not just about the actual literary works I was doing but also historical background and context. I found there were many more exceptions to the ideas and beliefs of the general public than I would have expected. So I don't think it's unrealistic to create characters who do have exceptions to the run-of-the-mill beliefs of their period. Again, the historical context must be considered and realistic, though.

For example, my main protagonist for my historical mystery series is a New Woman who has no desire to get married at this period and time in her life. This was not the desire of most New Women, who, even though they considered themselves independent, were still more interested in finding husbands and having families as their ultimate goal in life. But for my series, it is more pertinent for her to hold these beliefs. She is, of course, met with a lot of resistance, including that of her brother, to whom she is very close (that's what I mean by putting it into context - in today's world, people wouldn't be so resistant).

We are writing fiction, after all. Story must come first, not at the price of historical accuracy, but along with it. Otherwise, we would just be writing historical texts.

Djuna

I'm having similar issues with the MCs in my current WIP. Set in 1745 Ireland, part of the Traveller culture (Tinkers/gypsies). The female MC is married off by her father without her consent. Normally in this culture, females are given veto power, so to speak, but she's turned too many men down or driven them off with her shrewish nature, so now her father is putting down his foot. I'm struggling with how much (if any) recourse she would have. The male MC is chasing after them, hoping to spirit her away, but she is legally married already, so I'm trying to find a way (other than killing off the husband?) that he can do so based on the mores of the time.