I grew up with comic books, cartoons, and fantasy novels, so the concept of the female protagonist was a little skewed.  They were the busty battlers (Wonder Woman), the agile acrobats (Teela from He-Man), or some type of spellcaster that usually required some level of rescuing every few storylines.  That’s if they were even in there at all.  Not to bad-mouth the master, but I don’t remember any female members of the fellowship of the ring. No, I do not count Legolas because he has pretty hair and soft-looking skin.  Still, I somehow came out of these influences with a big appreciation for the female hero.  Maybe I wanted to fill a void that I saw or jump on a bandwagon because the female hero of fiction isn’t as rare a creature as it was during my youth.  Either way, I do have to credit my female characters with setting a certain emotional standard in my books.

My favorite female character to write is Nyx who I recently introduced in the Prodigy of Rainbow Tower sneak peek.  In her debut, she is threatening, extremely powerful, and obviously short-fused.  A lot of female characters seem to go this route with me, but that might also be because my wife is the original Nyx.  That’s an entire story in its own, so I’ll save it for Nyx’s origin post on Thursday.  Anyway, the thing that happened with Nyx is that she turned out to be the most faceted, fluid character I had written up to that point.  Luke had courage, rage, depression, and a few others, but Nyx had such a wider range when I let her run wild. She set the standard for my other female characters that would have a tough outside, but be able to have scenes of sensitivity that would range from crying scenes to ones where Nyx would passionately talk about something.  This also translated to my male characters.  I found that I was more willing to have them cry or be moody since Nyx, a character I deem to be incredibly tough, would have those moments.  I think I accomplished a balance of powerful with a fragility that makes her both dangerous and precious as a character.

I remember a few people in my writing classes who would write a female character as whiney or over-sexed.  Many writers didn’t have any female characters at all.  It was rather disturbing to listen to because they never had the male characters act that way.  The few times there was a story with an all-female cast, it was a drama or a romance.  There was also an odd undertone of ‘men suck’ in those stories that I always felt was safer to ignore.  I can’t say I was any better back then, but I do remember swearing that I wouldn’t treat characters of a certain gender any worse than others.  This might be why Luke and Nyx save each other several times and it isn’t just one always saving the other.

Here is where I no longer know what to say because I always worked to have female characters that could hold their own. I never really liked the damsel in distress because I never understood the point.  I always imagined that she wouldn’t be much use after she was rescued beyond housework, which didn’t make for a strong, powerful character.  I think part of me feared that I would make a character like that and wake up to a mob of angry women on my lawn.  That mob would probably be lead by my wife.  Maybe I was raised to find more interest in female heroes because they were so rare while their male counterparts kind of blended together.  Either way, I like writing female characters because there seems to be a greater range that I can do with them than the males.  Probably a society thing, but I’m too busy and tired to keep thinking about it.

How do other writers portray their female heroes?  Or how do avid readers prefer their female heroes?