I ran across an informative video about female characters. It specifically concerned female video game characters, but it left me with some great points about writing a believable female character. I thought I would share some of those with you.
While he mentioned genetic differences that show up in story, he concentrated on something many writers forget. The societal pressure that shape their lives and reaction to the world.
Societal norms for females just as males are malleable, they are not inherent they are social constructions. A fully developed character reacts to the pressure, they chose to neither fully reject nor fully accept roles forced on them. Notice they do not fully reject these roles as the roles are part of their world. Nor do they fully accept them, your character male or female must stand apart form the crowd.
And as the story progresses, they change as circumstances change. We learn the reasons why they follow or reject certain norms. And hopefully at the end of their journey your character will come to their own conclusions about what society asks of them and how they should react to them.
No other story concerns the conflict of what society demands and what the individual desires more than City of Walls. And of the three children Ariana, the female lead, is the one who learns and grows the most.
The video originated on the "Extra Credit" segment of the Escapist blog.
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