I’ve been a diehard fantasy fan all my life, but I am so constantly frustrated by series like WoT and Night Angel that simplify women or use them to make men look cooler. I wrote these a while ago and thought I’d share. Would love additions!Do your female characters have inner struggles/ identity journeys or emotional developments that have nothing to do with motherhood or romantic love?Are your female characters as complex as their male counterparts?One in four women has been raped. The rape scene you’re thinking about including could very well alienate, traumatize, or lose you the loyalty of a big chunk of your potential audience. Knowing this, do you still think it is essential to the plot? Are you using it to create a meaningful motivation and essential piece of the story, or are you just trying to create a general aura of evilness for this (rapist) character or this world? Could something else work instead?Are your any female characters single dimensionally morally pure or single-dimensionally seductive sex pots? Do you have madonnas and whores?If we know your character’s breast size, do we also know what her face looks like and at least three facets of her personality?If your (male) hero has a love interest or, especially, TWO, have we as readers seen enough evidence to justify that love? Have we seen growing intellectual connection, mutual respect, etc . , or is this just adoration from afar? Are you using female characters as foils to make your male characters look cool?Have you considered drawing from aspects of real women you know—like capturing your mom’s propensity for taking new neighbors under her wing or your friend’s struggles feeling comfortable working in a male-dominated field?Do you have characters whose gender doesn’t matter? Could they be women?Do you have opportunities to ground your female characters in ways that make them feel relatable rather than idealistic? (E.g. body hair/acne, coping with societal pressures, identity crises, family obligations warring with dreams, depression or other mental health issues etc.)Are you sure your understanding of a an experience in the female body (like pregnancy or periods) is accurate? Have you asked at least one and ideally multiple women who have gone through that experience to read it and confirm that it is?If you have a hero that we’re supposed to like and be rooting for, how does he treat the women in his world?
Niggers tongue my anus
lmao is this bait? the kind of females you describe are the kind that give men the ick because those struggles are fake masks and filters designed to prove that women and men are somewhat equal in their struggles, and this is fantasy you are talking about lmao, a genre that is designed for extreme idealism, why would anyone want to read about the struggles of a karen in a fantasy, this is why no one watches netflix slop because it overdoes this trope
>>24993532>11 questions I wish male fantasy authors would ask themselves before publishingAlready from the title I know this whole post is just bait.Get a life dude.
>>24993563>dudeI haven't been a "dude" in years
>>24993532>I’ve been a diehard fantasy fan all my life
In my fantasy series OP is raped. It's a smart move because it alienates literally no one, everyone cheers for the rapist
One thing I've learnt is that a novel can never have enough sassy black women
>>24993532>a woman is speaking
>>24993532The sort of person who would unironically type this all out is the same sort of person who scolds themself for committing wrongthink
>>24993532Bitch please, even my book told from first person male POV passes the bechdel test.My only issue with female characters is that I have too many of them… it's like with drawing, drawing men is just less appealing.
>>24993650Maybe stop drawing unappealing men then
>>24993567So inspiring xis
>>24993550Why do I keep seeing still gifs, such as this one, getting posted? Aren't gifs supposed to move? What's the truth behind them? There's gotta be something going on........
>>24993532>Do your female characters have inner struggles/ identity journeys or emotional developments that have nothing to do with motherhood or romantic love?>One in four women has been raped. The rape scene you’re thinking about including could very well alienate, traumatize, or lose you the loyalty of a big chunk of your potential audience.Okay, which one is it? Do you want realistic female characters that deal with REALISTIC struggles or do you want fluffy tales where neither abuse nor violence ever befall them?
>>24993917>He doesn't see it movingAnon...I think you need to go to the doctor soon.
>>24993532All great points. I wish I’d approached it more analytically when I was writing. I think I instinctively strive to write all characters well, and to “think beyond the boob” so to speak, but breaking it down like this really helps with the framework of character development and maybe can reveal places where it needs to be shored up a little more.I remember my wife asking me (years ago) why female pov character x didn’t show up in my book for several chapters and I excitedly explained to her how character x comes in later to subvert tropes and take over certain aspects of the plot and she was unimpressed.“Great plan. Are women going to stick around to get there if the first several chapters are male povs?”So I did some rearranging. Instincts don’t always get it right by themselves.
>>24993959You better have copypasted this from reddit
>>24993959Glad I could help! Good luck on your writing!
If a book has female characters I instantly drop it.
>>24993567decent bait5/10
>>24993532Evrybody's always concerned with what the men are doing, but never question anything the women do. Male author writes a poor depiction of a woman? Misogynist incel chud. Female writes a poor depiction of a man? She's just drawing from real-world experiences with shitty men, and the average man is hardly an example of manhood, and this is really the patriarchy's fault.
>>24993987The only example where women consistently suck at writing realistic men is the Romance genre, and too few men read it to bother complaining
>>24994238Name one man written by a woman or redditor in any genre. Women and redditors can't relate to men, they have no clue what motivates actual men with masculine tendencies beyond muh dick.
>>24993987Nobody takes women seriously, and you just stated one of the many reasons why.
>>24993532The rape isn't used to "create evil aura" it's to titillate male readers. Same with most movies tv shows where it's depicted, it's there to turn men on. Just read how it's written and it tells you what it's there for. I'm aware there are some written differently but the bulk of the rape in media right now is there because "sex sells".
>>24993532I read minotaur milking farm, 50th shades of gray and twilight to write my female characters
>>24995428OkGive 5 examples if its so common.
the more authors care about not upsetting people like you, the worse their stories are. I want to read authors who don't give a fuck about your woke politics.
>>24993532my novel only has one implied rape scene, and its between a 12th century Dutch monk and a robot being operated by a genderless alien
>>24995428>it's there to turn men on*women
>>24993532Great questions. I will now write a fantasy story answering all of them in the most offensive way possible
>>24993532Why would female characters have depth that women don't?
This was copied from Reddit wasn't it?
>>24993532>Are your female characters as complex as their male counterparts?If only women were as complex as males... Have to side with the Greeks on this one. Sorry.
>>24993532
>>24995450truly enlightened
>>24996581Alright, well she's right about a few things. We really should know personalities before boob size. Boob size is only mentionable if the character isn't given an honest name and stays a page in the story and no more.For that matter, rape is a really stupid thing to inject into a story. It just doesn't work 99% of the time.
>>24995450>its between a 12th century Dutch monk and a robot being operated by a genderless alienYou're playing a dangerous game. Roko's Basilisk dictates that a future AM-like AI will do the same to you if you're not careful. I mean, if that's not your master plan that is.
>>24996585>We really should know personalities before boob size.What is this even referencing? Does Sanderson really?Rape is great, it's hard to find a better symbol of true danger, your will being irrelevant. A threat isn't real unless it rapes. A barbarian type meant to evoke animalistic lack of reason isn't that unless he rapes, even if we're supposed to empathize with him.
>>24996705>Does Sanderson reallyI've never read Sanderson so I have no idea. And no, rape usually comes off as fanfic and there for the author,not for the character.
>>24995428I know of a book where the rape and the subsequent revenge in the final volume goes hard. Its not one of those "i spit on your grave" rape and revenge fantasies, either. Its not titillating, its gut wrenching to hear the desriptions in therapy, and the breakdowns thrghout therpy before it starts helping are something else. Its like being kicked in the gut reading it. At the same time, its not all men taking the revenge and killing people. One of the female MPs, was "rape bait" and killed perps. and she ends up being one of the scarier characters. She kind of replaces the normal trope of the cold blooded killer in most novels. So, trope-destroying books exist. Its just not the norm.
>>24995432jodie foster's rape, the accused. I spit on your grave (alt title, day of the woman)" " " " " (remake years later, lol)The last house on the leftMonica Belluci's rape scene is infamous, I forget movie titleThe sporanos, he points a loaded gun at his wife's head for blowjob fun as a marital aidnext to rape, the tied up damsel in distress trope, is the most popular. Its prctically the same thing.Lethal Weapon I, the daughter's rape is implied.Sudden Impact (clint eastwod dirty harry movie)rape/ tied up damsel in distress, is so common its ridiculous
>>24996585>For that matter, rape is a really stupid thing to inject into a story. It just doesn't work 99% of the time.a brutal cold rape lets you know the bad guy is *really* a cold blooded bastard, and he's a seriously bad guy you hate. It akes the MC going after him more heroic. IN books, its taken to another whole level. I remmber one crime novel I read, they're after a criminal who also happens to have a hobby of rape. he shows polaroids of female victims that resisted? The woman is screaming holding her hand out to tiwards th camera... and her *hands* are cut *off*Yeah, he show these to any woman he likes? Rapes them anywhere and everywhere. They *do* what he want, they don't resist, and they wot go to the cops. When they finally kill him? You cheer.
>If we know your character’s breast size, do we also know what her face looks like and at least three facets of her personality?Sounds like a waste of ink to write that stuff down.
>>24997070It's just gross. If you have to resort to rape for villainy it's just not clever or impactful. It makes him lose aura because then he's just a low level slime ball that loses control of a certain impulse, but not in a way that is alien enough, because sex feels natural, but he comes off like a beta for not being able to get it voluntarily. If it's a woman villain then yes it could work but the dynamics are entirely different.
>>24997418>His doesn't feature femdom rapeNGMI
>>24993550Fpbp >>24993532OP you’re a fucking faggot and stop shitting up the board with dogshit bait
>>24997418look at you. attempting to control, through shame, what is stylistically correct. Man bad guy rapes = le bad. Woman bad guy rapes = le good, and so "different". Fuck off. The market speaks for itself. Woman does female gaze = le good, and so brave and daring. Man does male gaze = le bad, ugh, so low brow. I cn do this all day. Male novel has boob bait on cover? Objectification. Female novel has "dude, where's my shirt" on the cover? Oh, its different. Its so thin and flimsy.
>>24997541I can't understand what you're trying to convey, other than anger. A very, very confused anger.
>>24997428recs for that?
>>24997552NTA but read more or leave my board.
>>24993567'dude' is a unisex noun to me, dude
>>24997418>lose auraThis is an unc board, get out
>>24993556>lmao is this bait?What do you think, retard? Its literally a reddit post.
>>24993650====== THE ANTI-BECHDEL TEST ======Everyone knows the Bechdel-Wallace Test. But it’s not enough just to ignore it. You need to head firmly in the other direction:>The Anti-Bechdel (Tier 1)To pass this, the work must simply fail the normal Bechdel Test.>The Anti-Bechdel (Tier 2)Work must have no more than one female character. (With two, even if they don’t talk to each other, the possibility is always there.) Said character cannot appear in any scene on her own. (CCTV footage has confirmed that when a man leaves the room, a woman will simply sit motionless with glazed eyes like Arnie in T2 when they take his CPU out.)>The Anti-Bechdel (Tier 3)Work has no women. Male characters are permitted to mention or discuss women in relaxed moments between important scenes. (Example: Patrick O’Brien, ‘Master and Commander’.)>The Buddhist MonkWork is entirely woman-free, and no male character ever talks about a woman, or about women in general. (Example: Ernest Hemingway, ‘The Old Man And The Sea’.)>The Sexy DishwasherFemale character exists to serve her husband’s domestic needs. She can have dialogue as long as it is restricted to a) food preparation & b) asking about his day. Her tone should be upbeat; her grammar and vocabulary simple and straightforward. (Polysyllables should be kept to a minimum; hypotaxis, abstract reasoning etc are a definite no-no.)>The Wages Of SinWork features a female character who spouts inflammatory and unsound feminist rhetoric (“women should have the vote”, “women should be taught to read and write”, etc). She comes to a gruesome end and goes unmourned by the other characters. BONUS POINTS: Her demise is shown to be the inevitable result of her foolish revolt against the proper order of things.>The Wages Of Sin (Redemption Edition)Work features a character heading down the WoS path who sees the error of her ways and reforms to a sexy dishwasher just in time. BONUS POINTS: Her enlightenment is brought about by a sound spanking from the M.C., or perhaps by being slung over his shoulder and carried down the street kicking and beating her little fists futilely against his back while the townspeople cheer. (Example: William Shakespeare, ’The Taming of the Shrew’.)
>>24996565lol
>>24998041Hahaha gotta wonder what a Rule 1 violation is?
>>24993532>like capturing your mom’s propensity for taking new neighbors under her wingWhat did she mean by this?
>>24996585>rape is a really stupid thing to inject into a story. It just doesn't work 99% of the time.Normally I don’t respond to bait posts but this one could made useful as a springboard for The Official /lit/ Rape Chart. The problem will be restricting ourselves to a mere one hundred examples. A few to get things going:— BEST POEM FEATURING RAPE PLUS MASSIVE UPFRONT PLOT SPOILER:The Rape of Lucretia (William Shakespeare)— BEST POEM ABOUT RAPE WHICH ENRAGES FEMINISTS BY SUGGESTING THAT THE RAPIST DOESN’T GET WHAT HE WANTS EITHER:Deceptions (Philip Larkin)— BEST POEM INVOLVING DOZENS OF ACCOUNTS OF GODS DOING WHAT THEY DO BEST, I.E. RAPE:Metamorphoses (Ovid)— BEST STAGE PLAY FEATURING THE QUINTESSENTIAL ‘WOMAN SCORNED’ FALSE RAPE ACCUSATION:Phaedra (Greek mythology; Seneca, Racine)— BEST STAGE PLAY IN WHICH RAPE-PLUS-MUTILATION IS AVENGED BY THROAT-CUTTING PLUS CANNIBALISTIC COOKING:Titus Andronicus (William Shakespeare)— BEST STAGE PLAY IN WHICH A DELUSIONAL FADED SOUTHERN BELLE IS BROUGHT DOWN A PEG OR TWO WITH A GOOD DOSE OF RAPE:A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams)— BEST SHORT STORY CALLED ‘RAPE! RAPE!’ IN WHICH A HOT BABE IN A TIGHT DRESS WIGGLES PAST THE NARRATOR ON THE STREET SO HE FOLLOWS HER TO HER APARTMENT AND RAPES HER, EXACTLY AS SHE WANTED HIM TO:‘Rape! Rape!’ (Charles Bukowski)— BEST NOVEL INVOLVING RAPE PLUS HUMOROUS PIG IMPRESSION:Deliverance (James Dickey)— BEST NOVEL CENTRED AROUND A RAPE WHICH NO-ONE HAS EVER REACHED BECAUSE IT HAPPENS AFTER NINETEEN HUNDRED PAGES OF INDESCRIBABLE TEDIUM:Clarissa (Samuel Richardson)— BEST SOUTHERN GOTHIC NOVEL IN WHICH A RAPIST REDNECK SHERIFF IS CURED BY A PLUCKY BLACK FEMALE PRISONER WITH A RAZOR:Harry Crews, ‘A Feast Of Snakes’— BEST ETHNOMASOCHISTIC BLEEDING-HEART LIBERAL NOVEL IN WHICH A NOBLE SAVAGE IS UNJUSTLY ACCUSED OF RAPE BY A WHITE NYMPHO SLUT:A Passage to India (E. M. Forster)— OTHER BEST ETHNOMASOCHISTIC BLEEDING-HEART LIBERAL NOVEL IN WHICH A NOBLE SAVAGE IS UNJUSTLY ACCUSED OF RAPE BY A WHITE NYMPHO SLUT:To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)— BEST BLEEDING-HEART LIBERAL NOVEL IN WHICH A SOUTHERN GOOD-OL’-BOY IS TRAUMATIZED BY (AMONG OTHER THINGS) MALE RAPE BUT SAVED BY A WISE AND WONDERFUL JEWISH LADY PSYCHOTHERAPIST:Pat Conroy, ‘The Prince Of Tides’— BEST NOVEL FEATURING THE VEXED ‘IS IT RAPE IF SHE’S MERELY MILDLY UNEASY AND THERE’S A MASSIVE POWER GAP?’ QUESTION:Tess of the D’Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy)— BEST NOVEL FEATURING STATUATORY RAPE:Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)— BEST NOVEL IN WHICH THE PROTAGONIST CELEBRATES HIS FIRST WEEK LEPROSY-FREE WITH A VIGOROUS IMPROMPTU RAPE SESSION:Lord Foul’s Bane (Stephen Donaldson)— BEST NOVEL FEATURING A CHARACTER WHO HAS A SIDE GIG GETTING PAID TO RAPE WOMEN, AND THAT’S THE LEAST DISTURBING THING ABOUT HIM:Hogg (Samuel R. Delany)— BEST NOVEL FEATURING RAPE BY CORN-COB:Sanctuary (William Faulker)
>>24998192Holy fuck, this board is still worth visiting lmao.I'll be recommending these books to the women I know.
>BEST NOVEL FEATURING RAPE BY CORN-COB:>Sanctuary (William Faulker)We're there any other nominations?
>>24993532This sounds difficult and complicated, I guess I won't include any female characters in my story.
>>24998192I have been roundly beaten. You proved your point. Maybe the number of failed attempts far exceeds the working attempts. The unceremoniousness of it often feels like it's not even a plot point, it's just the author hallucinating.
>>24998450>Maybe the number of failed attempts far exceeds the working attempts.To be fair if you took ALL books the 99% figure might not be far wrong. I just automatically filter out everything that isn't semi-decent canon-ish stuff.It's easy to forget how much crap gets published.
>>24998375my diary desu
