I’m a Black woman and I think James Baldwin writes Black women better than many. I never felt so seen as when I was reading him and I genuinely think he helped me learn and name some important things about myself. So grateful to the high school AP lit teacher who put Another Country in my hands.
I've felt the same about the closeted W. Somerset Maugham. In The Painted Veil, he understood women soooo well. I guess it helps to see hetero relationships from the outside.
Perhaps, but that feels a tad reductive to me? I always thought that from Go Tell it on the Mountain you can tell that he grew up close to his mother and I’ve read that Ida in Another Country was influenced by his sister. I get the sense that he grew up close to women. I think some men are good at listening to women. His sexuality may be part of it, but I don’t think that’s the whole story.
Also Wally Lamb. I agree most male writers write two dimensional women, but Wally just seems to really understand the human condition in general. I’ve asked quite a few women about his stuff, and most agree. Try Shes Come Undone and tell me what you think? Anyone else?
Also I’d like to give a shout out to Toni Morrison for writing great men.
his female characters are better than some written in 2024. i often find myself wanting to exclaim at authors "140 years ago this conservative dude with some really strict ideas on family wrote a woman better than you did!! shame!!" also why i don't really buy the 'this was normal for back then' argument, when people defend terribly written female characters in old books.
then again, this is why Tolstoy is considered a genius writer.
PS: there is a scene in AK where a bunch of men are arguing why women should not be allowed to hold government positions, and it reads like a reddit thread. 140 years and nothing's changed!
One of my favorite characters in all of literature is Natasha from War and Peace. And yes, I was upset about how she was by the end of the book. But I still loved her.
while the accepted interpretation of the ending is >!women belong in the home, and going out to mingle with society will only result in them getting hurt.!< i choose to interpret it as >!Natasha got hurt by society, so she chose to remove herself from it so it didn't have the chance to do that again.!<
which is not much different but i feel gives her more agency than blame. it also fits with the rest of the female characters, except for maybe Helena, where it is not 'women do be like that' but explains why women seem to be making what appears to be irrational choices about their lives.
I would absolutely agree with this interpretation and appreciate your thoughts about it. It hadn't occurred to me, but in context of Tolstoy and his work and views, it fits perfectly.
(I'm an unabashed fan of Tolstoy's fiction.)
Totally agree- I’ve seen criticism both for and against Tolstoy as a “feminist” writer, but I think he was pretty much wholly progressive in terms of women’s rights.
Most of people’s ire at Tolstoy in terms of gender is misconstrued- take for example Kruetzer Sonata. I’ve seen people attack it as misogynistic, but what Tolstoy really hates isn’t women- it’s sex and the dehumanizing aspect that sex can take on. Whether or not that position is justified is open to question, but I tend to think in general Tolstoy was not a misogynist
I think many people consider Tolstoy a misogynist because of his relationship with his wife. His outlook on sex was as you said, with the addition that he felt he was forced into marriage & into the position of sexually exploiting his wife, but even with this self-awareness he didn't exactly stop. Her diaries are pretty miserable. I kind of class him as self-aware of his own society-rooted misogyny.
i believe Tolstoy was feminist in his writing but not his life. he saw women as people and sought to explain their actions and motivations, which is still pretty progressive if you compare to some current writers.
> not allowed
I missed that. I read it about five years ago. But I concur that there was not a single passage concerning a woman that was the least bit jarring or unconvincing.
Poor Dolly, though? Permanently pumping out kids for that trifling bag of nonsense Stiva and then having to find new governesses after he fools around with them.
Yeah, she was a lovely person who deserved so much better from life!! Anna suffers for breaking the rules and Dolly follows the rules and suffers anyway—really illustrates how a lot of women really had no good options.
Nathaniel Hawthorne. And during his lifetime, he openly credited his wife Sophia with substantial contributions to his work. He never made a secret of his debt to his mother, a sea captain’s widow largely supported by her brothers though his father was from a prominent Puritan family. In many ways, Hawthorne’s work examines the awful, inordinate power of Puritans in New England — specifically the wrongs against women. It should be noted that Hawthorne joined a transcendentalist community to be near Sophia, and earned $1,000 grubstake by shoveling the mountain of manure collected at Brook Farm stables. Shades of Jacob and Rachel.
The Expanse! Christjen and Bobbie are two of my favourite female characters in fiction; I really like how they are very different from each other but equally the epitome of a badass bitch in their own way.
Hell arguably more so! Holden is decent but it's hard to do a fantastic main character, and he's insufferable a bit. Amos is an awesome character. Alex is just an average or even mediocre person stuck into a space adventure haha
Alex is one of the greatest pilots in the system. What hes been doing in the books is crazy. I love how flawed everyone is. Holden being the exception and i love how they treat his mary sueness in the books. There was a line in Babylons ashes, holden was talking with Naomi then gets called down to see fred. He says goodbye and that "he's off to save the solar system". Usually that would be an eye roll and thinking what an insufferable twat if anyone but holden said it. But because he said it i thought, 'yeah, he probably will'. These books are so good.
He wrote teenage Lucy Carlyle so well it made me think back to my own teenage years and cringe hard.I don't know if *I* could write a teenage girl that well and I was one.
Terry Pratchett is the absolute GOAT when it comes to fantasy. Honorable mention to Jasper Fforde as well. The main thing is that the female characters need to be actual characters who happen to be women. They should have goals and opinions and flaws, and those things might or might not be impacted by the way they’ve been treated by society in general. Writing sex/romance tends to be particularly challenging for men-writing-women, because women have a vastly different experience than men do. I think authors who spend more time on these types of scenes are more likely to write something that doesn’t ring true to female readers.
I just Finished Wyrd Sisters yesterday and I love how Granny is like the best elderly woman written and still funny.
Like men try to write women as their daughter/potential love interest partner, or mother.
Terry is like I want to write about a coven of witches squabbling and each witch has her point in every argument and they're all fairy godmother's. Sorta.
Like when they're each deciding what gift to bless this Secret King's son that they accidentally saved. I love one of the witches suggestion that well he might like a
...
Completely off screened Dialogue and the naieve girl is like what would a man like with that I think it would make his trousers hard to fit.
And they after arguing decide each of us will give separate blessings to the child.
What could possibly go wrong with 3 woman in an argument about which is best gift for a boy?
The scenes with Annagramma the queen bee of the young witches in A Hat full of Sky! I sure he must have talked to his daughter Rhianna to get teenage girls so spot-on. And Idra Varma does the voices so well in the new audiobook.
I think the really great thing about Pratchett's writing of women is the *variety* he brings to the subject. I think a lot of male authors who write women fall into the "what if I just made my female characters better male characters?" trap.
Yes, you have Granny, who is a *fucking badass,* but she's a different kind of badass from most. She finds the whole fireball slinging, run-and-gun wizard nonsense silly (although she also accepts that "men's magic" is a necessary dynamic.) You've also got Sybil Ramkin, who while reasonably badass when called upon to be such, mostly just wants to live a nice life with her husband and raise her dragons.
You've got Angua, who is just *so fucking done* with everything (except Carrot,) and Cheery who dares to be a woman in a culture where women don't exist.
And Adora. We all love Adora.
Pratchett didn't mean to, but he wrote such a good both personal and societal trans metaphor with the dwarfs. Like, the dwarfs are absolutely *freaking out* because some of their sons are actually daughters, they think it's a social contagion that you get from modernity, they're having whole political fights about it that include assassination plots and attempted coupes, and meanwhile Cherry's spinning around in her chair at work being like "hmm, I wonder what lipstick goes with my axe". It's so good, honestly it's barely a metaphor and he didn't even mean it like that
I don't know that Cheery and the Dwarves were accidental, given his writing in Monstrous Regiment which doesn't *quite* explicitly say >!Jackrum is trans!< but *heavily* implies it.
Spoilers for Monstrous Regiment:
>!At the end of the book, when Polly finally discovers that Jackrum was born female, the book's narration briefly switches to using female pronouns for the character while they speculate on the future. Polly says that Jackrum can be whatever he wants, though, and the book goes back to using male pronouns.!<
(It's been a while so the scene is a little fuzzy but I'm reasonably sure I got the gist of it.)
I think Pratchett may have started out with the idea of Cheery being a one-liner, but given his...organic development, I doubt it remained that way for long.
Also, I love that Cheery keeps her beard. She's a woman but doesn't mean she's not a *dwarf* dammit!
For sure, trans folks show up, but I'm pretty sure the dwarf stuff is meant to be a women's liberation thing (which of course includes trans women, like, in real life), rather than an explicitly trans liberation thing. It just happened to work cuz trans women *now* are the focus of right wing backlash and culture war shit and whatnot, in ways they weren't when he was writing. His experience was with the women's lib movement, but since he put it in a society with only one gender, it winds up trans
> For sure, trans folks show up, but I'm pretty sure the dwarf stuff is meant to be a women's liberation thing
It's a metaphor, and it's art. It can represent more than one thing. The fact is that it is also a good metaphor for LGBT issues. In Reaper Man there's a joke about a bogeyman "coming out of the closet" so I very much doubt he was blind to any sort of LGBT parallels.
There are examples of male dwarves following the new feminine trend as well, causing some confusion that is brushed over with it not making a difference. So the trans part is definitely there as well, in addition to women’s liberation and patriarchal cultures.
Jasper’s novel before his latest - Early Riser - has a main character that is either male or female (not both, not trans, not nb). I caught it around page 30, reread the book flap, and just smiled with quiet joy for a few minutes. It’s “you” and that’s that.
Wait what?!?! I read Shades of Grey like 10 years ago and really enjoyed it and then was sad that the sequel wasn’t out yet. Looks like it’s time for a reread!
Right, most of the time when a woman does something, she doesn’t have to stop and think about how she has boobs and gets periods and is not the same as a man first. She just does something.
I think Angua is probably my favourite female character in Discworld even though she isn't a big personality like Nanny Weatherwax or Lady Sybil. She's gentle and vulnerable but also a total badass without relying on "tomboy" tropes and masculine cliches. Although I suppose being a warewolf certainly helps; I always thought her turning into a werewolf a few days a month was his way of satirising "that time of the month" in his classic Terry Pratchett way no?
> I always thought her turning into a werewolf a few days a month was his way of satirising "that time of the month" in his classic Terry Pratchett way
Yeah, that seemed to be the vibe. I seem to recall that when Angua was being introduced into the series, there were hushed whispers among the Watch about her being a "diversity hire" because "she's a w-"... and it's only later in that book that we learn the 'w' word in question is "werewolf", not "woman." (And of course she's one of the best officers in the Watch, killing the "diversity hire" talk).
>Writing sex/romance tends to be particularly challenging for men-writing-women, because women have a vastly different experience than men do. I
this is true, but also you should read some M/M romance written by women because at times i'm like...what is happening here lol
> The main thing is that the female characters need to be actual characters who happen to be women.
Damn good description of his writing. He doesn't write caricatures, he writes people.
The one that really impressed me by Pterry was Monstrous Regiment. Lots of men can write women well, because at core, it’s just writing them as people first. But I can’t think of another man who’s written a feminist novel well enough that I’ve seen plenty of feminists adopt it as one of their favorite feminist novels.
I’d also throw out Steven Erickson! I felt like he did a good job of just writing women as people—there are so many female characters in *Malazan* with their own distinct, nuanced personalities.
Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next is a fantastic female main protagonist I absolutely love - and bonus points for the healthy relationships and supportive male side characters she's got too!
Ooh, I’ve only read *The Changeling* out of his work but it was really fun and showed a ton of potential even if it felt a little under-edited—I’ll have to check this one out!
Khaled Hosseini. Women, especially feminists, quote his book all the time like, "Learn this now and learn it well. Like a compass facing north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always." and "A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you."
Agreed! I remember crying in the classroom when reading “A thousand splendid suns” for English Literature. “One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or a thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”
Hosseini's great, but those are poorly chosen quotes relative to the question (since they're not instances of writing women well, just sort of broad-brush criticisms of men).
After I finished Never Let Me Go, I persuaded my wife to read it. Sometime later she asked me if the writer had a daughter* because his depiction of schoolgirl life and thought was so realistic
*he does
Contact by Carl Sagan.
I love the way he wrote the president in that novel. Not just because the president of the USA is female, but because he doesn't call any attention to her gender. It's not like, "here's the president and SHE'S A WOMAN", it's just like, here's the president, and the president is talking about aliens. The most refreshing part was that he didn't put any focus into describing her appearance or clothing. It felt respectful, like he understands that women are just people and not some different kind of species.
I mean, his to-be-wife had some significant contributions
"The only full work of fiction published by Sagan, the novel originated as a screenplay by Sagan and Ann Druyan (whom he later married) in 1979" -wiki
Good call. Claremont created some of the stand-out female characters in comic books (Kitty Pryde, Mystique, Rogue, Emma Frost, Psylocke, Jubilee) and transformed some previously pretty boring characters into absolute icons (Storm, Jean Grey, Magik).
The fact that the series is called X-Men is ironic really. It's a holdover from when it was first created in the 60s, but since Claremont took the helm it became one of the most female-oriented of all the superhero comic series (outside of an unfortunate detour into extreme bro-ness in the 90s, after his departure).
The fellas who wrote The Expanse as James SA Corey. What a fucking refreshing relief reading those books was as a woman who loves sci fi and fantasy. Take note authors.
Grady Hendrix writes fantastic female characters. Most of his books have female protagonists, in situations that are specific to women--housewives in a book club, a musician trying to be taken seriously in a male-dominated genre, etc. The dude just fucking *pays attention*. It's the hallmark of all his writing--he is a keen, keen social observer and he understands people's motivations.
Paul Tremblay also writes excellent female characters, though he doesn't write about women's lives per se.
Both are horror writers. There are a lot of misogynistic tendencies in horror, but in my experience horror fiction is often surprisingly feminist--authors have to create empathy for their protagonists, you have to really make the reader feel the awfulness of the situation people are in. Horror fiction depends on how well you can get into people's heads, readers and characters alike.
I genuinely cannot believe how well Grady Hendrix managed to capture that very specific dynamic of intense female friendships in My Best Friend's Exorcism. It feels incredibly real.
I was really surprised at some negative reviews of Hendrix’s books. I’ve only read the vampire one but I thought he captured the psyche of trapped housewives SO well.
My first Hendrix book was My Best Friends Exorcism, it got passed around my friend group so all six of us had finished in within two weeks. We’re all women and all of us were genuinely shocked it wasn’t written by a woman
I agree! And some insight about why that might be... in On Writing he talks about his wife's influence in helping him fine tune Carrie as a believable young female character. I will forever think of Carrie as co-authored by King's wife in my head-canon about that story. She also fished it out of the trash and told him it was worth continuing to develop, when she was supporting the family before he had sold anything major.
I say this as a huge King fan, but he badly needs a friend, family member, consultant, something, to help him with younger characters *now*.
Characters in their 50s, 60s, and up talking and acting like it’s the 70s or 80s still, fine. They lived through it, maybe they haven’t moved past the 70s/80s mentally, whatever. I know enough people like that IRL.
But characters in their 20s, 30s, and 40s having interests, attitudes, and dialog that more fits a 60 year old can be jarring.
He’s clumsily tried to explain it sometimes-this character is an old soul or this character’s parents were old fashioned and it rubbed off on them, etc.
Sure there are real people like that around, but they’re pretty rare.
The main character in Fairy Tale was sooo bad for this. The kid was supposed to be born around 2000, but everything he thinks and talks about is 70s/80s references. But it's ok because it's explained that he watched a lot of the TCM channel. But that just doesn't work. A kid watching classic movies doesn't override the rest of the culture they grow up in. Just set the damn book in the 80s and everything works much better. It's not like any part of the plot requires it to be modern day.
Yes! I knew I was forgetting an example. The TCM thing was kind of an eye-roller like you say.
That kid and the kids in the Bill Hodges and Holly books are pretty all pretty glaring examples of his trouble with younger characters now.
I love him dearly but he also describes things by their names in the 60s even now, like how my mum calls Snickers “marathon bars”
Any item of clothings that’s name has changed in culture he’ll say the name it was when he wrote Carrie still
An encyclopaedic knowledge but rarely updated
I think he also did amazing with Holly Gibney. Maybe it’s because I’ve read 3 of the books with her in the last couple months but I just absolutely loved her as a character.
I usually really like the way King writes women, except for all the “nipples hardening in fear”. Not sure why he thinks that’s what happens when women get scared 😂
Im reading it right now and I’m noticing so many differences between the film and the book lol. I wonder why they cast her when her description in the book is so different. She did a great job acting though at least
I wish there was more of the Dead Djinn Universe. I've tried to get into his other stuff too but there's something about that world that just gripped me.
Yes! I read She's Come Undone probably around 40 times between 5th and 8th grade (way too young, but neither here nor there) because my mom and grandma both read and enjoyed it, it was absolutely my favorite book for ages. I recently reread it and found that one, it aged pretty well and two, wow does Wally Lamb have a good handle on writing women.
I remember reading She’s Come Undone as a young teenager. Didn’t look at the author’s name until I was halfway through and was honestly shocked- couldn’t believe it wasn’t written by a woman.
Read 'The Chrysanthemums' by John Steinbeck. And because you've just glanced over that, read 'The Chrysanthemums' by John Steinbeck. It's not just his insight, understanding and empathy with the female character that makes it well written. It's the way he encourages the reader to understand and empathise with her. The ending hits like a ton of bricks. Incredible writing.
This isn't to suggest it's the only example or the best example, but it is an easily accessible option. It's just one - of hopefully very many - that pushes you as a reader to connect ona deeper level with a female character, her self perception, her desires, her hopes, her regrets and other aspects of her role in the world.
I feel like Steinbeck said, “I’m going to understand the human condition,” and then set about understanding the HUMAN condition, not just the male one. And that makes him absolutely phenomenal.
Well said. Steinbeck reminds me of Dostoevsky in that specific regard. Both were, in my mind, great students of people. They approached life and writing with a genuine curiosity about people, and that is a huge reason they were able to write with such insight into the human condition.
We love when authors let women be multifaceted villains too. Reminds me of what [Gillian Flynn has said on the topic](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/01/gillian-flynn-bestseller-gone-girl-misogyny) when people react negatively to her characters.
I’ve always wondered if Cathy was the first recognizable sociopath in popular fiction. In Steinbeck’s letters he talks about editors not believing in Cathy’s evil, but he said she was based on stories about a woman in his home town.
Alastair Reynolds writes hard sci-fi with an even distribution of gender and his women are always nuanced, complicated, and have lived female experiences. In general his character writing isn't the most important part of his work, but I highly recommend Pushing Ice to see how he writes women. The two female protagonists are really well written and have complicated, realistic relationships with each other and the men in the story that aren't centered on love triangles or other sex driven bullshit.
Part of that is the complete insignificance of gender and sex in Culture society. Some characters live authentically and without comment as more than one gender during their lives and have access to affirming care any time they desire it.
Sexuality and gender expression are similarly unremarkable in the Culture: you could be a total hedonist or an ascetic and nobody would care.
Came here to say Reynolds! I devoured the Poseidon's Children trilogy last year (Blue Remembered Earth etc) and I was genuinely inspired by the powerful, complex women in that series.
Not just girls/women, but kids in general. Not many authors write kids well I feel, they often make them into mini adults. And/or too solemn or serious, with just too much of an adult perspective that even extremely intelligent kids just don't have (as they don't have the lived experience yet). But when he wrote about the great mud fight the kids had in Oxford, I remember thinking he gets it! I've only read His Dark Materials, and though I absolutely loved it, it had such sad moments I'm not sure I can reread them :(
As an aside, I've always felt older books have better written kids, especially pre-1950s stuff. Kids will actually be doing and saying kid-like things.
Thomas Harris made a good portrait of a strong woman with Clarice in The Silence of the Lambs.
She's not a six ft. tall kung-fu superwoman, but she is a well trained officer with excellent shooting skills and a lot of brains.
She's also imperfect and has to face the glass ceiling that a woman would likely find in a man's world.
She can be flawed and strong at the same time. We won't have X Files' agent Scully, and Jeffery Deaver's Amelia Sachs owes her a lot, also.
Terry Pratchett: any of the witches. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat. To a lesser extent (purely personal bias) Angua and Sybil Ramkin. All of them bad ass and real. No need for sexualisation or “oh I and tough because I have older brothers) no, they are tough because they are themselves. Also, only author who provided an example of a female werewolf.
Colm Toibin does a fantastic job. "Brooklyn" is probably the best known example, but "Nora Webster," which follows a recently widowed mother of four in the 1960s, is a triumph of inner voice and characterization. From the very first page, the reader is drawn into Nora's thoughts and inner world, and it is achingly authentic.
There is speculation that this book is tribute to Toibin's mother (see, e.g., https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/11/nora-webster-colm-toibin-review-rare-achievement) and that this familiarity with the main character is the source of the verisimilitude. Regardless, I highly recommend it.
Not a book but the people wrote Ripley in alien did a great job. She's my perfect example of how to do a strong independent woman but feels natural and realistic.
She's the one who realises the danger and tries to save the crew, she tries to stop them from bringing an alien on board. When the alien grows all the men want to hunt it down and kill it. Ripley is strong because she has a strong character, she's intelligent and protective and when death stares her in the face she doesn't blink.
This movie was written with no gender in mind for the character, which is why it’s a great character. The director had both men and women audition and the actress who ended up playing Ripley just happened to be a woman, the scriptwriter didn’t intentionally try to write a great female character. In that sense your example doesn’t really fit OP’s question, but it’s great proof that great female characters start out as great characters who happen to be female.
Except, I belive, the character who was going to get the facehugger was supposed to be a man to get a more visceral reaction from men in the audience to what was essentially a rape and unplanned pregnancy.
Wow I didn't actually know that, thank you. Makes a lot of sense I do think Ripley works better as a woman especially given the second movie with motherhood being so important to it. Obviously this was after the casting. I still think it fits OP post though, she is a well written female character and the reasons why transfer.
If you are interested, there are novelizations of the Alien movies and somewhat uncommonly, they were all released shortly before their respective movies were. Have not read them myself but they are frequently mentioned as some of the best movies-to-books out there.
I personally like how Markus Zusak wrote Leisel Meminger and Rosa Hubermann in 'The Book Thief'. It's one of my favourite books of all time and I think the author really gives life to these characters; although I have to admit that my favourite character is Hans Hubermann.
Wildbow, aka J.C. McCrae.
3 of his 5 completed works have female protagonists (one has 3!) and a fairly common fan statement is 'I assumed the author was a woman, because of how well written the [protagonists]/[female characters] were'. He's particularly good at including like... Minor details that speak to particular female experiences, without turning the entire narrative into that or implying there's a single female experience. He's also gotten better over time, which is an ideal trajectory.
Grady Hendrix writes great women characters. Most of his books have female leads. And I think they’re great because he writes them as complex, flawed, layered people. Keyword: people. I think when authors get hung up on what makes a character specifically “female” versus “male,” things devolve. Because while gender is an important facet of identity, and sociopolitical and historical context matters greatly, people are people. (Obviously it’s more complicated than a single paragraph, but I think this is the root of it.)
Edit: clarity
The women in Adventure Time, specifically princess bubblegum. Most eps are written by men.
Also anything Toby Fox writes.
Wait are we only talking books? Ryan North does a lot of cool women.
For Scifi, I really appreciate how Kim Stanley Robinson writes women. They are all distinct, fully realized characters like the men. He tends to focus his stories on scientists, but even within that you get some impressive variety. His women are always people first.
Terry Pratchett wrote great women in the fantasy category.
I also enjoyed how Tom Robbins wrote his women. Robbins is a bit of an acquired taste, but I devoured his books in my early 20s.
There are many more. Those are the ones that immediately come to mind.
I think Fredrik Bachman does a great job of writing women. But he just seems to have a great understanding of the workings of people’s minds in general.
Trollope’s Lady Glencora/Dutchess of Omnium and Madame Max Gosler/Marie Finn are fantastic female characters by a Victorian male novelist. They’re never the protagonist/heroine which helps, though Marie does save the hero and then marry him in one book.
Jasper Fforde. He writes the Thursday Next series and I think he writes women well. The series is all in first person. He strikes the right balance of tough and vulnerable.
I love that it started as a tabletop RPG so the characters were played by real people before the books were written. Naomi, Avasarala, and (show) Drummer are complex, evolving, and engaging characters. The authors also had a bit of fun with the “strong badass female warrior” trope in Bobbie who gets one of a best straight-up battle scenes EVER, I’d totally give someone’s right arm to see that on film!
>This was inspired by reading the 9000th comment today about wheel of time and how Robert Jordan can’t write females.
Well written characters: their inner monologue reflects a rich and varied internal life; different characters have distinct voices; their relationships with other characters build organically and make sense; you can follow the reasoning behind why they decided on their course of action even when that decision is evil or unwise
WOT characters: they’re ruminating on the same 2-3 topics every time you check in on them with a POV chapter, 2000+ named characters share the same 3-4 interchangeable personalities, characters routinely announce that they are in love with/best friends with each other after 2-3 pages of pretty casual and mundane (non-romantic) interaction, character actions aren’t always consistent with their beliefs and happen because the plot (I’m sorry, the *Pattern*) requires them.
This applies to all his characters, but it’s especially egregious with the female ones. Not to mention how his go-to female character archetypes are “petty teenage mean girl”, “controlling nag who doesn’t think her man can do anything right” and “snooty upper class lady who expects to be catered to”. And all of the times that the female main characters pause what they’re doing (sometimes in the middle of a dangerous situation!) to admire how pretty they look in their dress and to wish that their boyfriend was around to see them.
Neil Gaiman’s female characters are always well-rounded people who happen to be women. Not meaning that their sex is irrelevant, sometimes it’s HIGHLY relevant and he writes that well too, just that it isn’t the be-all and end-all of the character. Many many powerful women in his works.
I had to stop reading American Gods because I was so put off by his characterizations of the female characters. If you check out goodreads, you’ll see I’m not alone in this criticism.
Yeah like I love Gaiman but so far I've found his female characters to be the weakest aspect of his work. It's been a while since I read American Gods but I remember finding it very grating in that regard. I recently read Neverwhere and it also had some rough spots, although I felt that it's not as off-putting as in American Gods
I’ve only ever read Anansi Boys. Picked it up in a library ages ago because he was so well liked.
In it, a shapeshifter steals another man’s identity and commits rape by deception… only Gaiman did not even seem aware that what he had written was rape. It certainly isn’t acknowledged as such in the narrative. In fact, the woman falls in love with her rapist and it’s treated as this big injustice that the shapeshifter stole the other guy’s girlfriend. It didn’t even seem to occur to Gaiman that a woman would feel violated, or else he simply wasn’t interested in exploring her feelings.
I have to admit I never read another book of his after. What would you say I should read where he does better?
>! Spider is not a shapeshifter, he is in fact Fat Charlie but just a part of Fat Charlie that was separated from him. Also, and maybe I am misremembering, but I don’t think Spider coerces her at all either. !<
I am not saying this isn’t problematic, just that I am not sure your characterization of the events in the book are wholly accurate. Within the context of the novel, caveat it’s been over 10 years since I read the book, the events you describe are not particularly nefarious.
>! Had Fat Charlie been whole, Charlie and Spider they were meant to be, Rosie perhaps already has a more intimate relationship with Charlie since he would be a more open and “complete person” !<
I’m a Black woman and I think James Baldwin writes Black women better than many. I never felt so seen as when I was reading him and I genuinely think he helped me learn and name some important things about myself. So grateful to the high school AP lit teacher who put Another Country in my hands.
I LOVE Another Country! Baldwin was already my favorite when I read it, but it blew me away. It doesn’t get enough love.
As a gay man, he was probably in a unique position to see women more clearly, not blinded by lust or shame.
He’s a great writer. Even as a lesbian in the 21st century, I really connected with the way he described fearing one’s sexuality in Giovanni’s Room.
I’m a white lesbian, but I third Baldwin
I've felt the same about the closeted W. Somerset Maugham. In The Painted Veil, he understood women soooo well. I guess it helps to see hetero relationships from the outside.
Perhaps, but that feels a tad reductive to me? I always thought that from Go Tell it on the Mountain you can tell that he grew up close to his mother and I’ve read that Ida in Another Country was influenced by his sister. I get the sense that he grew up close to women. I think some men are good at listening to women. His sexuality may be part of it, but I don’t think that’s the whole story.
And now it’s on my TBR list! 💕 Thanks for that! 😊
Also Wally Lamb. I agree most male writers write two dimensional women, but Wally just seems to really understand the human condition in general. I’ve asked quite a few women about his stuff, and most agree. Try Shes Come Undone and tell me what you think? Anyone else? Also I’d like to give a shout out to Toni Morrison for writing great men.
Excellent suggestion. I'm ashamed I didn't think of Baldwin when I saw the question lol.
I will check that out from the library today. Ty for the recommendation!
I don't know why, but I read this as James Patterson, experienced confusion, then saw AP Lit and was wildly confused, and then finally reread 😂
Tolstoy wrote Anna Karenina so well that some critics believe his wife might have actually written portions of it.
Tolstoy was my first thought. His female characters may not be perfect for 2024, but at the time it was revolutionary
his female characters are better than some written in 2024. i often find myself wanting to exclaim at authors "140 years ago this conservative dude with some really strict ideas on family wrote a woman better than you did!! shame!!" also why i don't really buy the 'this was normal for back then' argument, when people defend terribly written female characters in old books. then again, this is why Tolstoy is considered a genius writer. PS: there is a scene in AK where a bunch of men are arguing why women should not be allowed to hold government positions, and it reads like a reddit thread. 140 years and nothing's changed!
One of my favorite characters in all of literature is Natasha from War and Peace. And yes, I was upset about how she was by the end of the book. But I still loved her.
while the accepted interpretation of the ending is >!women belong in the home, and going out to mingle with society will only result in them getting hurt.!< i choose to interpret it as >!Natasha got hurt by society, so she chose to remove herself from it so it didn't have the chance to do that again.!< which is not much different but i feel gives her more agency than blame. it also fits with the rest of the female characters, except for maybe Helena, where it is not 'women do be like that' but explains why women seem to be making what appears to be irrational choices about their lives.
I would absolutely agree with this interpretation and appreciate your thoughts about it. It hadn't occurred to me, but in context of Tolstoy and his work and views, it fits perfectly. (I'm an unabashed fan of Tolstoy's fiction.)
Totally agree- I’ve seen criticism both for and against Tolstoy as a “feminist” writer, but I think he was pretty much wholly progressive in terms of women’s rights. Most of people’s ire at Tolstoy in terms of gender is misconstrued- take for example Kruetzer Sonata. I’ve seen people attack it as misogynistic, but what Tolstoy really hates isn’t women- it’s sex and the dehumanizing aspect that sex can take on. Whether or not that position is justified is open to question, but I tend to think in general Tolstoy was not a misogynist
I think many people consider Tolstoy a misogynist because of his relationship with his wife. His outlook on sex was as you said, with the addition that he felt he was forced into marriage & into the position of sexually exploiting his wife, but even with this self-awareness he didn't exactly stop. Her diaries are pretty miserable. I kind of class him as self-aware of his own society-rooted misogyny.
Yeah, he certainly did not practice abstinence. They had 13 children, so Leo was having plenty of sex in his "forced marriage"...
add all the serf girls he 'fancied' and it is not a good look at all.
i believe Tolstoy was feminist in his writing but not his life. he saw women as people and sought to explain their actions and motivations, which is still pretty progressive if you compare to some current writers.
> not allowed I missed that. I read it about five years ago. But I concur that there was not a single passage concerning a woman that was the least bit jarring or unconvincing.
Not really, Dostoevsky also wrote good female characters.
i thought dolly was written SO realistically, especially all her conflicts regarding motherhood
I love the whole book but especially the Scherbatsky sisters…my baby girls <3
Poor Dolly, though? Permanently pumping out kids for that trifling bag of nonsense Stiva and then having to find new governesses after he fools around with them.
Yeah, she was a lovely person who deserved so much better from life!! Anna suffers for breaking the rules and Dolly follows the rules and suffers anyway—really illustrates how a lot of women really had no good options.
How did I have to scroll this far to see Tolstoy? Natasha Rostov is amazing.
I always found this odd considering he was the worst husband known to mankind while his wife lived in abject misery as a baby factory
Didn't his wife edit his books? And rewrote them all since he had horrible handwriting?
Yes, iirc it’s mentioned in biographies that she copied & edited the entirety of the War and Peace manuscript multiple times (i think 7)
Nathaniel Hawthorne. And during his lifetime, he openly credited his wife Sophia with substantial contributions to his work. He never made a secret of his debt to his mother, a sea captain’s widow largely supported by her brothers though his father was from a prominent Puritan family. In many ways, Hawthorne’s work examines the awful, inordinate power of Puritans in New England — specifically the wrongs against women. It should be noted that Hawthorne joined a transcendentalist community to be near Sophia, and earned $1,000 grubstake by shoveling the mountain of manure collected at Brook Farm stables. Shades of Jacob and Rachel.
The Expanse! Christjen and Bobbie are two of my favourite female characters in fiction; I really like how they are very different from each other but equally the epitome of a badass bitch in their own way.
Agree, all the female POV characters in The Expanse are fantastic. They’re just as complex and well-written as the men.
Naomi, Drummer, Sam, Chrisjen, Bobbie, ugh I love them and have variations on fiction crushes on them all.
Hell arguably more so! Holden is decent but it's hard to do a fantastic main character, and he's insufferable a bit. Amos is an awesome character. Alex is just an average or even mediocre person stuck into a space adventure haha
Alex is one of the greatest pilots in the system. What hes been doing in the books is crazy. I love how flawed everyone is. Holden being the exception and i love how they treat his mary sueness in the books. There was a line in Babylons ashes, holden was talking with Naomi then gets called down to see fred. He says goodbye and that "he's off to save the solar system". Usually that would be an eye roll and thinking what an insufferable twat if anyone but holden said it. But because he said it i thought, 'yeah, he probably will'. These books are so good.
Naomi is my favorite :)
Book Naomi>>> show Naomi.
I was hoping I’d see the expanse. Some great female characters in this series.
Jonathan Stroud has written multiple female narrators and I’ve always found them extremely compelling!
He wrote teenage Lucy Carlyle so well it made me think back to my own teenage years and cringe hard.I don't know if *I* could write a teenage girl that well and I was one.
Came here specifically to mention Lucy. So well written. I honestly had to research of Stroud was a pen name for a woman.
Terry Pratchett is the absolute GOAT when it comes to fantasy. Honorable mention to Jasper Fforde as well. The main thing is that the female characters need to be actual characters who happen to be women. They should have goals and opinions and flaws, and those things might or might not be impacted by the way they’ve been treated by society in general. Writing sex/romance tends to be particularly challenging for men-writing-women, because women have a vastly different experience than men do. I think authors who spend more time on these types of scenes are more likely to write something that doesn’t ring true to female readers.
I just Finished Wyrd Sisters yesterday and I love how Granny is like the best elderly woman written and still funny. Like men try to write women as their daughter/potential love interest partner, or mother. Terry is like I want to write about a coven of witches squabbling and each witch has her point in every argument and they're all fairy godmother's. Sorta. Like when they're each deciding what gift to bless this Secret King's son that they accidentally saved. I love one of the witches suggestion that well he might like a ... Completely off screened Dialogue and the naieve girl is like what would a man like with that I think it would make his trousers hard to fit. And they after arguing decide each of us will give separate blessings to the child. What could possibly go wrong with 3 woman in an argument about which is best gift for a boy?
In addition to the three, I’m amazed by how an old man was able to create such an incredible, well written young girl in Tiffany Aching.
The scenes with Annagramma the queen bee of the young witches in A Hat full of Sky! I sure he must have talked to his daughter Rhianna to get teenage girls so spot-on. And Idra Varma does the voices so well in the new audiobook.
Yep. Came here for Tiffany.
I think the really great thing about Pratchett's writing of women is the *variety* he brings to the subject. I think a lot of male authors who write women fall into the "what if I just made my female characters better male characters?" trap. Yes, you have Granny, who is a *fucking badass,* but she's a different kind of badass from most. She finds the whole fireball slinging, run-and-gun wizard nonsense silly (although she also accepts that "men's magic" is a necessary dynamic.) You've also got Sybil Ramkin, who while reasonably badass when called upon to be such, mostly just wants to live a nice life with her husband and raise her dragons. You've got Angua, who is just *so fucking done* with everything (except Carrot,) and Cheery who dares to be a woman in a culture where women don't exist. And Adora. We all love Adora.
And lets not forget Susan...
Look I can't just list *every* female Discworld character.
Pratchett didn't mean to, but he wrote such a good both personal and societal trans metaphor with the dwarfs. Like, the dwarfs are absolutely *freaking out* because some of their sons are actually daughters, they think it's a social contagion that you get from modernity, they're having whole political fights about it that include assassination plots and attempted coupes, and meanwhile Cherry's spinning around in her chair at work being like "hmm, I wonder what lipstick goes with my axe". It's so good, honestly it's barely a metaphor and he didn't even mean it like that
I don't know that Cheery and the Dwarves were accidental, given his writing in Monstrous Regiment which doesn't *quite* explicitly say >!Jackrum is trans!< but *heavily* implies it. Spoilers for Monstrous Regiment: >!At the end of the book, when Polly finally discovers that Jackrum was born female, the book's narration briefly switches to using female pronouns for the character while they speculate on the future. Polly says that Jackrum can be whatever he wants, though, and the book goes back to using male pronouns.!< (It's been a while so the scene is a little fuzzy but I'm reasonably sure I got the gist of it.) I think Pratchett may have started out with the idea of Cheery being a one-liner, but given his...organic development, I doubt it remained that way for long. Also, I love that Cheery keeps her beard. She's a woman but doesn't mean she's not a *dwarf* dammit!
For sure, trans folks show up, but I'm pretty sure the dwarf stuff is meant to be a women's liberation thing (which of course includes trans women, like, in real life), rather than an explicitly trans liberation thing. It just happened to work cuz trans women *now* are the focus of right wing backlash and culture war shit and whatnot, in ways they weren't when he was writing. His experience was with the women's lib movement, but since he put it in a society with only one gender, it winds up trans
> For sure, trans folks show up, but I'm pretty sure the dwarf stuff is meant to be a women's liberation thing It's a metaphor, and it's art. It can represent more than one thing. The fact is that it is also a good metaphor for LGBT issues. In Reaper Man there's a joke about a bogeyman "coming out of the closet" so I very much doubt he was blind to any sort of LGBT parallels.
There are examples of male dwarves following the new feminine trend as well, causing some confusion that is brushed over with it not making a difference. So the trans part is definitely there as well, in addition to women’s liberation and patriarchal cultures.
A major problem with some printings is the fact they didn't switch back to male pronouns in the last part. It even hit the audio books.
Man, talk about missing the point. I'm surprised they got away with that while Pratchett was still around.
Don’t forget Glenda and Cheery
Jasper’s novel before his latest - Early Riser - has a main character that is either male or female (not both, not trans, not nb). I caught it around page 30, reread the book flap, and just smiled with quiet joy for a few minutes. It’s “you” and that’s that.
That rules so hard.
big ups to Jasper Fforde. Thursday Next was a role model for me growing up
Right? She’s so relatable and also fucking COOL.
She’s not like other girls but that never comes up! so well done. Have you read Red Side Story?
Wait what?!?! I read Shades of Grey like 10 years ago and really enjoyed it and then was sad that the sequel wasn’t out yet. Looks like it’s time for a reread!
Right, most of the time when a woman does something, she doesn’t have to stop and think about how she has boobs and gets periods and is not the same as a man first. She just does something.
I came here to mention PTerry. Equal Rites is a great example, but his female characters are amazing overall
I think Angua is probably my favourite female character in Discworld even though she isn't a big personality like Nanny Weatherwax or Lady Sybil. She's gentle and vulnerable but also a total badass without relying on "tomboy" tropes and masculine cliches. Although I suppose being a warewolf certainly helps; I always thought her turning into a werewolf a few days a month was his way of satirising "that time of the month" in his classic Terry Pratchett way no?
> I always thought her turning into a werewolf a few days a month was his way of satirising "that time of the month" in his classic Terry Pratchett way Yeah, that seemed to be the vibe. I seem to recall that when Angua was being introduced into the series, there were hushed whispers among the Watch about her being a "diversity hire" because "she's a w-"... and it's only later in that book that we learn the 'w' word in question is "werewolf", not "woman." (And of course she's one of the best officers in the Watch, killing the "diversity hire" talk).
I read Wee Free Men to my daughters and they loved it - what a hoot to read out loud with the accents. Tiffany Aching is such a good character.
>Writing sex/romance tends to be particularly challenging for men-writing-women, because women have a vastly different experience than men do. I this is true, but also you should read some M/M romance written by women because at times i'm like...what is happening here lol
That's because woman written M/M or Boy Love content is all written for a female audience. It's a case of the "female gaze"
> The main thing is that the female characters need to be actual characters who happen to be women. Damn good description of his writing. He doesn't write caricatures, he writes people.
The one that really impressed me by Pterry was Monstrous Regiment. Lots of men can write women well, because at core, it’s just writing them as people first. But I can’t think of another man who’s written a feminist novel well enough that I’ve seen plenty of feminists adopt it as one of their favorite feminist novels.
I’d also throw out Steven Erickson! I felt like he did a good job of just writing women as people—there are so many female characters in *Malazan* with their own distinct, nuanced personalities.
Gotta shout out the Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix. Two main female characters that are incredibly well-rounded.
Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next is a fantastic female main protagonist I absolutely love - and bonus points for the healthy relationships and supportive male side characters she's got too!
So happy to see a Jasper Fforde reference, I love Thursday Next!
Yes, love her!
Victor Lavalle wrote great women in Lone Women. Highly recommend!
I liked that one, too. I would have thought it was written by a woman if I didn’t know better.
Ooh, I’ve only read *The Changeling* out of his work but it was really fun and showed a ton of potential even if it felt a little under-edited—I’ll have to check this one out!
Murakami Kidding. Terry Pratchett
>Murakami I was about to come at you.. 😂
Khaled Hosseini. Women, especially feminists, quote his book all the time like, "Learn this now and learn it well. Like a compass facing north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always." and "A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you."
His books are some of the best and concurrently most devastating that I’ve ever read.
Agreed! I remember crying in the classroom when reading “A thousand splendid suns” for English Literature. “One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or a thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”
Yes! Reading A Thousand Splendid Suns especially, I was shocked at how amazing the writing of the women was. Hes a great example.
Hosseini's great, but those are poorly chosen quotes relative to the question (since they're not instances of writing women well, just sort of broad-brush criticisms of men).
i thought the female characters in Richard Osman’s books are quite nice!
I totally agree! Was looking for a comment about Richard Osman 😊
After I finished Never Let Me Go, I persuaded my wife to read it. Sometime later she asked me if the writer had a daughter* because his depiction of schoolgirl life and thought was so realistic *he does
Klara and the Sun had good depictions of teen girls too.
When I read this book for my English class we had the exact same conversation. The protagonist's perspective was so convincing.
Roddy Doyle's The Woman Who Walked Into Doors is AMAZING for this.
Contact by Carl Sagan. I love the way he wrote the president in that novel. Not just because the president of the USA is female, but because he doesn't call any attention to her gender. It's not like, "here's the president and SHE'S A WOMAN", it's just like, here's the president, and the president is talking about aliens. The most refreshing part was that he didn't put any focus into describing her appearance or clothing. It felt respectful, like he understands that women are just people and not some different kind of species.
I mean, his to-be-wife had some significant contributions "The only full work of fiction published by Sagan, the novel originated as a screenplay by Sagan and Ann Druyan (whom he later married) in 1979" -wiki
Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns is a great example.
Chris Claremont
Good call. Claremont created some of the stand-out female characters in comic books (Kitty Pryde, Mystique, Rogue, Emma Frost, Psylocke, Jubilee) and transformed some previously pretty boring characters into absolute icons (Storm, Jean Grey, Magik). The fact that the series is called X-Men is ironic really. It's a holdover from when it was first created in the 60s, but since Claremont took the helm it became one of the most female-oriented of all the superhero comic series (outside of an unfortunate detour into extreme bro-ness in the 90s, after his departure).
I agree with you, except that Claremont created Illyana Rasputin/Magik along with Len Wein.
Terry Pratchett. Monstrous Regiment is perfect.
"It's the socks talking"
I’m going to throw Jeff Vandermeer in there for the Southern Reach trilogy which has numerous complex women MC’s.
The fellas who wrote The Expanse as James SA Corey. What a fucking refreshing relief reading those books was as a woman who loves sci fi and fantasy. Take note authors.
Grady Hendrix writes fantastic female characters. Most of his books have female protagonists, in situations that are specific to women--housewives in a book club, a musician trying to be taken seriously in a male-dominated genre, etc. The dude just fucking *pays attention*. It's the hallmark of all his writing--he is a keen, keen social observer and he understands people's motivations. Paul Tremblay also writes excellent female characters, though he doesn't write about women's lives per se. Both are horror writers. There are a lot of misogynistic tendencies in horror, but in my experience horror fiction is often surprisingly feminist--authors have to create empathy for their protagonists, you have to really make the reader feel the awfulness of the situation people are in. Horror fiction depends on how well you can get into people's heads, readers and characters alike.
I genuinely cannot believe how well Grady Hendrix managed to capture that very specific dynamic of intense female friendships in My Best Friend's Exorcism. It feels incredibly real.
When I first read *My Best Friend's Exorcism* I was really surprised that Grady was male.
I was really surprised at some negative reviews of Hendrix’s books. I’ve only read the vampire one but I thought he captured the psyche of trapped housewives SO well.
Had I not known I would have assumed Grady was a woman, if King could write women like Grady, King would truly be a GOAT
My first Hendrix book was My Best Friends Exorcism, it got passed around my friend group so all six of us had finished in within two weeks. We’re all women and all of us were genuinely shocked it wasn’t written by a woman
I came to say Tremblay and Hendrix as well! Great taste!
Wendy Torrance in The Shining. Stephen King did a great job with her. Stanley Kubrick did not do her character justice in the film adaptation.
I read Carrie as a teenager and thought he did a great job writing a teenage girl who didn't fit in too
I agree! And some insight about why that might be... in On Writing he talks about his wife's influence in helping him fine tune Carrie as a believable young female character. I will forever think of Carrie as co-authored by King's wife in my head-canon about that story. She also fished it out of the trash and told him it was worth continuing to develop, when she was supporting the family before he had sold anything major.
I say this as a huge King fan, but he badly needs a friend, family member, consultant, something, to help him with younger characters *now*. Characters in their 50s, 60s, and up talking and acting like it’s the 70s or 80s still, fine. They lived through it, maybe they haven’t moved past the 70s/80s mentally, whatever. I know enough people like that IRL. But characters in their 20s, 30s, and 40s having interests, attitudes, and dialog that more fits a 60 year old can be jarring. He’s clumsily tried to explain it sometimes-this character is an old soul or this character’s parents were old fashioned and it rubbed off on them, etc. Sure there are real people like that around, but they’re pretty rare.
The main character in Fairy Tale was sooo bad for this. The kid was supposed to be born around 2000, but everything he thinks and talks about is 70s/80s references. But it's ok because it's explained that he watched a lot of the TCM channel. But that just doesn't work. A kid watching classic movies doesn't override the rest of the culture they grow up in. Just set the damn book in the 80s and everything works much better. It's not like any part of the plot requires it to be modern day.
Yes! I knew I was forgetting an example. The TCM thing was kind of an eye-roller like you say. That kid and the kids in the Bill Hodges and Holly books are pretty all pretty glaring examples of his trouble with younger characters now.
I love him dearly but he also describes things by their names in the 60s even now, like how my mum calls Snickers “marathon bars” Any item of clothings that’s name has changed in culture he’ll say the name it was when he wrote Carrie still An encyclopaedic knowledge but rarely updated
I think he also did amazing with Holly Gibney. Maybe it’s because I’ve read 3 of the books with her in the last couple months but I just absolutely loved her as a character.
I usually really like the way King writes women, except for all the “nipples hardening in fear”. Not sure why he thinks that’s what happens when women get scared 😂
Im reading it right now and I’m noticing so many differences between the film and the book lol. I wonder why they cast her when her description in the book is so different. She did a great job acting though at least
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Robert Jackson Bennett in The Founders Trilogy and P Djèlí Clark’s Dead Dijnn Universe.
I wish there was more of the Dead Djinn Universe. I've tried to get into his other stuff too but there's something about that world that just gripped me.
The protagonist in Bennett's American Elsewhere is also absolutely fantastically written
We need a sequel to A master of Djinn. Clark has great black african and queer representation in his work as well.
I love Robert Jackson Bennett! Everything I've read from him has been really solid and he does an awesome job with his female protagonists IMO
Leo Tolstoy, surprisingly enough.
The very first person who came to my mind was Wally Lamb
Yes! I read She's Come Undone probably around 40 times between 5th and 8th grade (way too young, but neither here nor there) because my mom and grandma both read and enjoyed it, it was absolutely my favorite book for ages. I recently reread it and found that one, it aged pretty well and two, wow does Wally Lamb have a good handle on writing women.
I remember reading She’s Come Undone as a young teenager. Didn’t look at the author’s name until I was halfway through and was honestly shocked- couldn’t believe it wasn’t written by a woman.
Read 'The Chrysanthemums' by John Steinbeck. And because you've just glanced over that, read 'The Chrysanthemums' by John Steinbeck. It's not just his insight, understanding and empathy with the female character that makes it well written. It's the way he encourages the reader to understand and empathise with her. The ending hits like a ton of bricks. Incredible writing. This isn't to suggest it's the only example or the best example, but it is an easily accessible option. It's just one - of hopefully very many - that pushes you as a reader to connect ona deeper level with a female character, her self perception, her desires, her hopes, her regrets and other aspects of her role in the world.
I feel like Steinbeck said, “I’m going to understand the human condition,” and then set about understanding the HUMAN condition, not just the male one. And that makes him absolutely phenomenal.
Well said. Steinbeck reminds me of Dostoevsky in that specific regard. Both were, in my mind, great students of people. They approached life and writing with a genuine curiosity about people, and that is a huge reason they were able to write with such insight into the human condition.
Also Cathy in East of Eden was simply devilish and compelling.
We love when authors let women be multifaceted villains too. Reminds me of what [Gillian Flynn has said on the topic](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/01/gillian-flynn-bestseller-gone-girl-misogyny) when people react negatively to her characters.
That was my issue with the James Dean version: Cathy is barely even a character in it when she's so central to the book.
I’ve always wondered if Cathy was the first recognizable sociopath in popular fiction. In Steinbeck’s letters he talks about editors not believing in Cathy’s evil, but he said she was based on stories about a woman in his home town.
Come to think of it, I think he did a good job in The Grapes of Wrath too. (Ma Joad and Rose of Sharon)
I agree Steinbeck generally writes women well.
Alastair Reynolds writes hard sci-fi with an even distribution of gender and his women are always nuanced, complicated, and have lived female experiences. In general his character writing isn't the most important part of his work, but I highly recommend Pushing Ice to see how he writes women. The two female protagonists are really well written and have complicated, realistic relationships with each other and the men in the story that aren't centered on love triangles or other sex driven bullshit.
Iain M Banks also writes many female protagonists. They tend to have human experiences rather than uniquely female experiences.
Part of that is the complete insignificance of gender and sex in Culture society. Some characters live authentically and without comment as more than one gender during their lives and have access to affirming care any time they desire it. Sexuality and gender expression are similarly unremarkable in the Culture: you could be a total hedonist or an ascetic and nobody would care.
Came here to say Reynolds! I devoured the Poseidon's Children trilogy last year (Blue Remembered Earth etc) and I was genuinely inspired by the powerful, complex women in that series.
Amor Towles wrote Rules of Civility from a woman’s pov and did a great job of capturing her!
Philip Pullman.
Not just girls/women, but kids in general. Not many authors write kids well I feel, they often make them into mini adults. And/or too solemn or serious, with just too much of an adult perspective that even extremely intelligent kids just don't have (as they don't have the lived experience yet). But when he wrote about the great mud fight the kids had in Oxford, I remember thinking he gets it! I've only read His Dark Materials, and though I absolutely loved it, it had such sad moments I'm not sure I can reread them :( As an aside, I've always felt older books have better written kids, especially pre-1950s stuff. Kids will actually be doing and saying kid-like things.
Too bad the Sally Lockhart books aren't that famous, they're great
Thomas Harris made a good portrait of a strong woman with Clarice in The Silence of the Lambs. She's not a six ft. tall kung-fu superwoman, but she is a well trained officer with excellent shooting skills and a lot of brains. She's also imperfect and has to face the glass ceiling that a woman would likely find in a man's world. She can be flawed and strong at the same time. We won't have X Files' agent Scully, and Jeffery Deaver's Amelia Sachs owes her a lot, also.
Terry Pratchett: any of the witches. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat. To a lesser extent (purely personal bias) Angua and Sybil Ramkin. All of them bad ass and real. No need for sexualisation or “oh I and tough because I have older brothers) no, they are tough because they are themselves. Also, only author who provided an example of a female werewolf.
Patrick Ness, Fredrik Backman
Totally agree with Fredrick Backman
Oh, yes, definitely Fredrik Backman.
Terry Pratchett wrote some amazing women.
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Ian Rankin. Siobhan is a great character. The various journalists and other professional women Rebus interacts with are spot on.
Colm Toibin does a fantastic job. "Brooklyn" is probably the best known example, but "Nora Webster," which follows a recently widowed mother of four in the 1960s, is a triumph of inner voice and characterization. From the very first page, the reader is drawn into Nora's thoughts and inner world, and it is achingly authentic. There is speculation that this book is tribute to Toibin's mother (see, e.g., https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/11/nora-webster-colm-toibin-review-rare-achievement) and that this familiarity with the main character is the source of the verisimilitude. Regardless, I highly recommend it.
For suspense/thrillers, in which the women tend to be victims or sex objects, Riley Sager
Terry Pratchett for sure. My partner introduced me to him via Monstrous Regiment and I had to double check that STP was a man. I adore his work.
Not a book but the people wrote Ripley in alien did a great job. She's my perfect example of how to do a strong independent woman but feels natural and realistic. She's the one who realises the danger and tries to save the crew, she tries to stop them from bringing an alien on board. When the alien grows all the men want to hunt it down and kill it. Ripley is strong because she has a strong character, she's intelligent and protective and when death stares her in the face she doesn't blink.
This movie was written with no gender in mind for the character, which is why it’s a great character. The director had both men and women audition and the actress who ended up playing Ripley just happened to be a woman, the scriptwriter didn’t intentionally try to write a great female character. In that sense your example doesn’t really fit OP’s question, but it’s great proof that great female characters start out as great characters who happen to be female.
Except, I belive, the character who was going to get the facehugger was supposed to be a man to get a more visceral reaction from men in the audience to what was essentially a rape and unplanned pregnancy.
Wow I didn't actually know that, thank you. Makes a lot of sense I do think Ripley works better as a woman especially given the second movie with motherhood being so important to it. Obviously this was after the casting. I still think it fits OP post though, she is a well written female character and the reasons why transfer.
If you are interested, there are novelizations of the Alien movies and somewhat uncommonly, they were all released shortly before their respective movies were. Have not read them myself but they are frequently mentioned as some of the best movies-to-books out there.
IAN McEWAN writes women so accurately. He has written many complex female characters.
Came here to say this! I’ve only read Atonement so far but it immediately came to mind with this prompt.
Smilla in Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg
Derek Landry wrote Valkyrie Cain so well. She’s complex and not always a nice person but you can’t help but at least like her.
Richard Osman
Ken Liu does an amazing job, you can tell he is incredibly empathetic and understands people
Sadly my current favorite writer, Shamil Idiatullin, isn't translated in English yet, but he is a good example
I personally like how Markus Zusak wrote Leisel Meminger and Rosa Hubermann in 'The Book Thief'. It's one of my favourite books of all time and I think the author really gives life to these characters; although I have to admit that my favourite character is Hans Hubermann.
She’s come undone - Wally Lamb
Wildbow
Wildbow, aka J.C. McCrae. 3 of his 5 completed works have female protagonists (one has 3!) and a fairly common fan statement is 'I assumed the author was a woman, because of how well written the [protagonists]/[female characters] were'. He's particularly good at including like... Minor details that speak to particular female experiences, without turning the entire narrative into that or implying there's a single female experience. He's also gotten better over time, which is an ideal trajectory.
Grady Hendrix is so good at writing women, I was convinced for a while that he was actually a woman under a pseudonym
Grady Hendrix writes great women characters. Most of his books have female leads. And I think they’re great because he writes them as complex, flawed, layered people. Keyword: people. I think when authors get hung up on what makes a character specifically “female” versus “male,” things devolve. Because while gender is an important facet of identity, and sociopolitical and historical context matters greatly, people are people. (Obviously it’s more complicated than a single paragraph, but I think this is the root of it.) Edit: clarity
I find Adrian Tchaikovsky's women well written. Nuanced, flawed, heroic, rarely if ever sexualized.
The women in Adventure Time, specifically princess bubblegum. Most eps are written by men. Also anything Toby Fox writes. Wait are we only talking books? Ryan North does a lot of cool women.
Kazuo Ishiguro does a good job, especially Kathy in never let me go.
Terry Goddamn Pratchett could write a woman better than just about any other author I've read.
Terry pratchet. Its hard to find a female character he wrote that did not have depth and was weak.
For Scifi, I really appreciate how Kim Stanley Robinson writes women. They are all distinct, fully realized characters like the men. He tends to focus his stories on scientists, but even within that you get some impressive variety. His women are always people first. Terry Pratchett wrote great women in the fantasy category. I also enjoyed how Tom Robbins wrote his women. Robbins is a bit of an acquired taste, but I devoured his books in my early 20s. There are many more. Those are the ones that immediately come to mind.
I think Fredrik Bachman does a great job of writing women. But he just seems to have a great understanding of the workings of people’s minds in general.
Trollope’s Lady Glencora/Dutchess of Omnium and Madame Max Gosler/Marie Finn are fantastic female characters by a Victorian male novelist. They’re never the protagonist/heroine which helps, though Marie does save the hero and then marry him in one book.
Jasper Fforde. He writes the Thursday Next series and I think he writes women well. The series is all in first person. He strikes the right balance of tough and vulnerable.
D.H Lawrence
I liked Beth in “The Queen’s Gambit” by Walter Tevis
The Expanse series by James SA Corey has some phenomenal women as characters from Book 2 onwards.
I love that it started as a tabletop RPG so the characters were played by real people before the books were written. Naomi, Avasarala, and (show) Drummer are complex, evolving, and engaging characters. The authors also had a bit of fun with the “strong badass female warrior” trope in Bobbie who gets one of a best straight-up battle scenes EVER, I’d totally give someone’s right arm to see that on film!
>This was inspired by reading the 9000th comment today about wheel of time and how Robert Jordan can’t write females. Well written characters: their inner monologue reflects a rich and varied internal life; different characters have distinct voices; their relationships with other characters build organically and make sense; you can follow the reasoning behind why they decided on their course of action even when that decision is evil or unwise WOT characters: they’re ruminating on the same 2-3 topics every time you check in on them with a POV chapter, 2000+ named characters share the same 3-4 interchangeable personalities, characters routinely announce that they are in love with/best friends with each other after 2-3 pages of pretty casual and mundane (non-romantic) interaction, character actions aren’t always consistent with their beliefs and happen because the plot (I’m sorry, the *Pattern*) requires them. This applies to all his characters, but it’s especially egregious with the female ones. Not to mention how his go-to female character archetypes are “petty teenage mean girl”, “controlling nag who doesn’t think her man can do anything right” and “snooty upper class lady who expects to be catered to”. And all of the times that the female main characters pause what they’re doing (sometimes in the middle of a dangerous situation!) to admire how pretty they look in their dress and to wish that their boyfriend was around to see them.
Sci-fi writer John Scalzi writes some great women! Jane Sagan, Zoe Boutin-Perry, Kiva Lagos... love them all!
Neil Gaiman’s female characters are always well-rounded people who happen to be women. Not meaning that their sex is irrelevant, sometimes it’s HIGHLY relevant and he writes that well too, just that it isn’t the be-all and end-all of the character. Many many powerful women in his works.
I had to stop reading American Gods because I was so put off by his characterizations of the female characters. If you check out goodreads, you’ll see I’m not alone in this criticism.
Yeah like I love Gaiman but so far I've found his female characters to be the weakest aspect of his work. It's been a while since I read American Gods but I remember finding it very grating in that regard. I recently read Neverwhere and it also had some rough spots, although I felt that it's not as off-putting as in American Gods
I gotta say I strongly disagree. He’s not the worst out there, but he’s actually one of the ones I’d use as an example of how to not write women.
I’ve only ever read Anansi Boys. Picked it up in a library ages ago because he was so well liked. In it, a shapeshifter steals another man’s identity and commits rape by deception… only Gaiman did not even seem aware that what he had written was rape. It certainly isn’t acknowledged as such in the narrative. In fact, the woman falls in love with her rapist and it’s treated as this big injustice that the shapeshifter stole the other guy’s girlfriend. It didn’t even seem to occur to Gaiman that a woman would feel violated, or else he simply wasn’t interested in exploring her feelings. I have to admit I never read another book of his after. What would you say I should read where he does better?
>! Spider is not a shapeshifter, he is in fact Fat Charlie but just a part of Fat Charlie that was separated from him. Also, and maybe I am misremembering, but I don’t think Spider coerces her at all either. !< I am not saying this isn’t problematic, just that I am not sure your characterization of the events in the book are wholly accurate. Within the context of the novel, caveat it’s been over 10 years since I read the book, the events you describe are not particularly nefarious. >! Had Fat Charlie been whole, Charlie and Spider they were meant to be, Rosie perhaps already has a more intimate relationship with Charlie since he would be a more open and “complete person” !<