Can a Man Write a Female Leads? Why not? Ms. Rowling wrote a boy’s story. The Wall Street Journal ran an article just last week about women writing under male pseudonyms when writing male characters. Why couldn’t I write a female protagonist in a thriller?
I love female leads in thrillers. I’d been working on one for years. I spent months honing a full novel featuring her. When I thought I was ready, I sent my first draft out to beta readers. Wow. What a learning experience! She received a great reception among men—but was universally panned by women.
I analyzed the data and compared it to the lessons I’d thought I learned from writing short stories about her. I did some research, made some minor adjustments, and received a much better reaction the second time out. What was the difference? What would a man write that unintentionally turned off women right away?
First, here are the lessons I had already learned during a brief stint writing short stories that appeared in writers groups and webzines:
- Women read a lot into an author’s name & gender. Women were less critical when I submitted a story under a genderless or feminine pen name (Terry James, Jamie James, etc). And significantly less critical when I used a feminine name (Barb James, Julia James).
- Men do not like reading a woman protagonist in the first person. They just can’t get inside a woman’s head. Must raise the homophobia flag or something.
- Men and women have different expectations of female protagonists. They expect male protagonists to start kicking ass based on their assessment of the danger at hand. Women, apparently, are expected to think it over, talk about it, try to avoid the conflict, then throw an uppercut.
I had learned those lessons and thought I understood how to write a female lead. Yet I blew it on my first draft of the novel. Why? Because little things end up meaning a lot.
1) IMAGE: Women readers have to identify with a woman protagonist (no other gender combination has this problem, just women reading about a female). Now, this is a thriller and thrillers always have fight scenes. If you know anything about fighting, you know that the simple physics of weight is why boxers are separated into weight classes. A 5’2” woman is never going to beat up several 6’ guys no matter what form of Krav Maga or Muay Thai, or whatever fighting style she employs. She might get one guy but the rest she’ll need to shoot with a gun. So, wanting a touch of realism, I included my heroine’s height and weight at a realistic level.
Big mistake.
I had virulent reactions from women readers. So I did some research. Temperance “Bones” Brennan is not described in any of the novels I read. Nor is Kay Scarpetta. Interesting, no?
That led me to the question: What size are beautiful women in real life? Heidi Klum, former Victoria’s Secret model, is 5’ 10” and 135-140 lbs. Serena Williams, tennis star, is 5’9” and 150 lbs; Gold Medalist Claressa Shields is 5’ 8” and boxes in the Middleweight* division of 165 lbs or more (mind you, Claressa is super fit). But list those dimensions in a book and female readers go ballistic.
I’m not stupid. I dropped the description and my heroine found a much warmer reception. Now she is only referred to as ‘tall’ and ‘toned’.
How much do you think a heroine should weigh?
2) ACTIONS: Women readers don’t like to read about violent women. One of the most violent men in literature today, Jack Reacher, has a fan base that is 65% women. Yet those same women would turn up their noses at a Jane Reacher if she were equally violent.
While there are terrific examples of violent-capable heroines in thrillers, they tend to be a great deal less violent than any male counterpart. Take my favorite heroine for example: Zoe Sharp’s Charlie Fox. Charlie resorts to violence only as a last resort and always with a sense of guilt that lasts for many pages after the action. Jack Reacher will run through a bunker killing everyone in sight without a second thought and women will eat it up. But a heroine is expected to be selective, sparing the worker bees. What do you think—Should a heroine kill everyone in a conspiracy or only the leader?
3) KINDNESS: Even on the second round, women beta readers said something was missing that kept my heroine from reaching them. No one could put a finger on it. Since thrillers don’t have a lot of overt sex or fashion shopping, I had to fish around to make the character do something that would distinguish her as feminine. I came up with a few random acts of kindness. As fate would have it, the three acts of kindness my heroine completes in the story were based on real life actions I’d actually witnessed—done by men. Hey, but it worked. The next group of beta readers identified with her and noted that she was ‘thoughtful’ and had ‘good instincts’. Do you know a thriller heroine who takes time to help others?
What do you see as the significant attributes of an ass-kicking heroine?
Peace, Seeley
*Note that Olympic authorities were way ahead of me on this one. Even in Women’s Boxing there is a weight-perception issue: There is no such thing as “Heavyweight”. They start at flyweight, proceed to lightweight, and end at middleweight.
