Making Lovable Female Characters

Why are so many female characters such garbage? Annoying, selfish, ungrateful--and yet those in their stories seem to love and respect them.

"What a woman!" When she pulls apart a gun he needs because she can't handle weapons of cruelty--then she'd better shut her mouth, because witty shouldn't be cruelty. She better not opt for a bow and arrow, either, because those really hurt.

"I can respect that" with a stupid grin on his face after she gives a spiel on modern sentiments--which, by the way belong to a small percentage of the population--in a time period where that didn't exist.

"That's some woman!" Because she slaps him for saving her stupid life--ingrate, die already.

Ever want to work with someone like that? What five-letter word comes to mind instead? Men and women both hate her.

How about a complete wretch bringing up old news in a time and place where that issue didn't exist? Or in a time and place where that would have gotten her raped and murdered? Or in a time and place where that was totally impossible because of the mind set?

You want to make a lovable female character, let's start out with NOT making her a billboard for petty ideas. Women have enough to deal with without being objectified further. What women deal with is far more than catcalls and men trying to be sexist to them.

Those things are around, but they're more like annoying flies and not an all-encompassing woe. Not all women deal with those things, either. If I read about a woman being cat-called, I couldn't relate. I've never been cat-called, not even when I was working in my tribe's casino. Reading about a recipe gone wrong, I can relate. Not everything is men versus women.

Women are misunderstood. Their writers don't understand that she thinks differently, that she has to accommodate for her smaller size and that she's physically weaker than a man. A woman approaches situations differently.

If you want to see that difference, compare men's volleyball with women's volleyball. Go watch baseball and softball. You can see the difference. Strength, endurance, mind games, tactics, all are different. Ways of throwing the ball. How sets pan out.

My brothers' had a good perspective. In women's volleyball, the women hit that ball back forth for a long time and it's all nice. The men throw bombs at each other.

Both are fun to watch. One is not better than the other. That's what writers mistake. Belittling and weakening men to make the woman look good is an insult to the men and an insult to the woman. They're telling her that she can't hold her own because she's a woman. They don't appreciate her divine nature. They don't like who she is. They hate her feminine gifts.

A woman is love. Not sex. She's family oriented. She takes care of those she loves. This is her core, notwithstanding whatever personality or adventure you give her. Destroy that core and you get a selfish wretch that nobody likes. Destroy that core and she's nothing. She has no depth.

I once ran across a magazine warning their writers that if their female character was protecting a child or had a love interest, that they would reject the story without considering how good it was. She had to be a big blah with man powers because her woman powers were weak.

Why did Ellen Ripley from the first two Alien movies work, but flopped in the last ones? She could kick butt. It's because they took her core away. Why did Sarah Connor from Terminator 1 and 2 work, but fall to pieces in the others? She was totally cool and badness unleashed, especially in the second movie. So what happened? They took her core away. Both were turned into little men.

I suppose this magazine would have rejected these iconic stories because the women in them were family oriented. Friendship oriented. Their hearts were open. Both at some point protected a child.

A woman loves men. She thinks they're hot and really cool. She enjoys watching them be cool. She gets crushes on them. Her heart beats to his voice, especially his singing voice. When he does something kind for her, she runs to her friends and tells them in ecstasies about what he did. Do women like John Wick or that She-Hulk thing more? John Wick, of course.

Women are silly and funny, but you have to catch them on their own turf, not try to turn them into little men with mannish jokes that don't even come off funny from a man's lips. Rachel Lynn from Anne of Green Gables is funny. Those ridiculous characters from the Jane Austen books are funny. There are numerous female characters in Anime who are funny.

Women, if anybody cares to really look at them, are cute. Not as in hot and sexy cute--there's been enough of that--but cute, like the first seasons of "My Little Pony." Like Nezuko from Demon Slayer. Little gestures of happiness far different from a man's. Things that please her are different from a man's, and it's not "She loves shopping and he doesn't." Some women hate it, but now it's become, "She hates shopping because she's a little man." You can't make her a little man if you're going to have a female character people love.

Many women enjoy shooting guns, hunting, watching football and sports, and eating junk food. In none of these do they enjoy it as a little man. They enjoy it as a woman. Just because she likes these things doesn't make her heartless and cruel. It means she's unique.

Also--GIVE HER A CHARACTER ARC. Give her weaknesses she must deal with or overcome. Give her a past full of human emotion. Women are emotional, not arrogant sex toys with stupid messages written across their selfish foreheads. She doesn't have to have the man's job to be great. She doesn't have to be a scientist to be smart. She doesn't have to have that wrung out idiom of "She kicks butt!" all over her. Is there no human being behind that phrase? Usually not, and no personality worth mentioning, either.

Let your female character learn and grow, to become something great--not already great with everything handed to her. Make her work for it like everyone else. Make her battle her obstacles. Throw in everything that twists the emotions into a million directions as she battles to win her inner demons and disabilities. Let it be deep and worth something real.

I can go on and on, but I suppose there is one sure way to be able to make your female character loveable if you're having trouble. Remember her as a daughter of God and all the good that goes with it. Loving, caring, sweet, gentle, humble, self-sacrificing, unselfish, funny, cute, responsible, thankful, uncomplaining, and full of faith.

She can be tough without carrying a shield. She can be vivacious without being a slut. Her strength is different. Hers is caring for the sick on long horrible nights. Hers is bearing children in excruciating pain. Hers is self-sacrifice and love where it is hard to love. Her strength is inside, stalwart, unwavering, resilient.

You want a tough woman, turn to the stories in your own family--your grandma, your great grandma, your mother, your aunts, cousins, great aunts, your ancestors, or stories of real women during wartime, the pioneer days, days of American slavery, women among the Native Americans, those during the Great Depression, those that worked and suffered for something more than "my life is so hard because of cat calls, even though I'm filthy rich and could never endure anything harder than a broken dishwasher."

All these evolved around their family.

Destroy the value of a family in her story is to destroy her.

Remember what a woman is: a daughter of the Most High God. What does Heavenly Father value in her? And you will have a lovable female character.