Writing a really good character is hard to do sometimes. Just think about it. The characters have to be fleshed out with journeys and changes and they shouldn’t feel static and boring, unless that’s the writer’s intention. But you know what? Our writers seem to have perfected their formulas…specifically, when it comes to male characters.
Yeah, for female characters, we still have a long way to go. But if you do want to know how to tell if you have a decent female character right in front of you, just check this list out!
She has more motives than getting a husband and/or having kids
Notice that we said “more motives” than “motives other than” because, while some people do want to get married and have kids, that’s never anyone’s entire purpose in life. People (and, yes, for the skeptics in the back, this category includes ‘women’) have many more things they want to do with their lives, even if they’re silly.
So, obviously, if a female character literally does nothing but want to get married or plan her life around having kids with NO other purpose, then that means that her characterization may just need to be tweaked.
She is not ALL good or ALL bad
You know what we get when a female character, generally, is so perfect and good that they’re basically an angel? Yeah, a boring character. And when a female character is too maliciously evil (for no reason or motivations), they might just appear cartoonish. What we want is to add a little more fodder, a little more dubious traits, so we can get a grey character.
Why? Because three-dimensional characters actually feel well-written and they’re the closest to real people.
She exists to be more than a moral compass
So here’s the thing — in a lot of Egyptian movies (usually, the ones where the male lead is an anti-hero or a reformed bad guy), the moral compass (AKA the person telling us right from wrong) is the female lead. Because all women are good and pure and made of candy. But jokes aside, this is pretty regular and there are a lot of characters who play the voice of reason.
But what we do wrong is that we make the Moral Compass Woman be as incredibly perfect as she can be…to the point where she may actually be an angel or an android, rather than a person.
She ACTUALLY has agency
You know how you sometimes watch a movie and there’d be a devastating plot or a love triangle or something and the female lead who all of this is happening to literally does nothing about it? She doesn’t try to fight the devastating plot point to save herself (or whatever it is) and she doesn’t actively participate in the love triangle — no, she lets herself be an object rather than a subject.
And, yes, for all intents and purposes, that’s not only demeaning, it’s actually pretty boring because you’ll keep yelling at her to actually DO something through your screen.
She’s more than a sidekick
Yeah, pretty basic, isn’t it? We know, we know — a movie or a show usually has a lead and the lead has two really close side-character friends and all but the difference between a female side character and a male side character is that he gets the chance to actually grow and do something and, you know, feel like a real person. She, on the other hand, only comes to life when she helps the hero or the plot move along.
