Image created using illustrations from Pixabay.
The chick lit / romance genre presents an incredible opportunity for writers when it comes to portraying the lived experience of many different kinds of women.
Traditionally, only picture perfect female protagonists were to be found between the pages of this kind of story. A sort of identikit woman, a vision of what society thought men were meant to find attractive. She’d be slim and slender with a perfect complexion, always. A bit shy, until the right man comes along to cure her of that. And she’d be a virgin… or a woman with very little understanding of how to achieve sexual satisfaction. He would show her that too, you see.
I’m not going to suggest that women like this don’t exist – of course they do! Many of us have come close to being this person, especially in our younger years when we were still looking to others to show us the way instead of looking inward to find ourselves. But it’s a well worn story and quite a limited one. Considering the fact that every woman in the world is unique (as is every man) new, less heard stories are well overdue.
Gratefully, a shift has already very much started, with more writers selecting alternative characters and viewpoints to explore every day.
Through such stories, we can explore some important ideas surrounding womanhood. Below are some tips based on my own experience for writing a romantic heroine (or any character really!).
Inner Journey. Arguably, the most important relationship any of us will ever have in this life is the relationship we have with ourselves. We are the only constant in our lives from the moment we are born until the day we die. We are on a journey with ourselves as well as with those we choose to have relationships with. If you’re writing a romance, ensure your central character has an emotional journey besides the whole finding love with someone else thing. Consider what the next step is in your character’s personal journey at this point in their lives, what is standing in their way, how this causes conflict within their new or existing romance and what the character will need to achieve to take the next step in their personal journey.
Physicality. Our attitudes towards beauty and physical appearance play a significant part in how we live our lives. Perhaps largely due to the incessant media focus on how we look, particularly how women look. Take this opportunity to create a physically realistic character, rather than a could-be supermodel. Moreover, think carefully about how you want to handle this element of being human in your story and the message you want to convey. There are so many positive messages you can weave into a story that will help the reader examine their own attitudes towards physicality. How about the idea that beauty is subjective and everybody will fall in love with something a little bit different? That being comfortable with who you are and how you look is more important than living up to an untouchable ideal on the front of a magazine. That beauty and youth aren’t as strongly correlated as the television adverts would have us believe. Or that women can be sexually confident and sexually attractive. Just a few ideas. As well as making a more compelling story, exploring this issue sensitively offers writers the opportunity to help readers see their own beauty more clearly. N.B. Please don’t fall into the trap of creating thin model-like characters who are always cruel or unkind. People who are thin / traditionally beautiful also have issues of esteem / confidence and self respect to deal with. They are also people on a journey and don’t have it easy just because they have fabulous genes. In summary, try not to write women into categories – create individuals.
The Man-Hating Myth. A lot of writers, particularly in romance, have traditionally gifted their female characters with a hatred of all men. This is a lazy narrative shortcut to conflict and often means the characterization of the romantic heroine is lacking. To create a character who views all men as a threat isn’t very nuanced or responsible. Arguably, most if not all women view the world in a more complicated light than this. There are many possible relationships we might have with men they are not just lovers, but sons, fathers, stepdads, uncles, brothers, grandfathers, work colleagues, classmates, friends and the list goes on. The idea that a woman would see men who fit into all of these categories as a threat doesn’t ring true. There are some exceptions of course, some survivors of abuse may be very distrusting of men but even then there are often degrees to which they trust the different men in their life. This kind of portrayal is particularly troubling if the female protagonist is shown to be strongly feminist through her man-hating. Feminists do not, as a rule, hate men. Some feminists ARE men. There are many ways of conveying that a character has a feminist disposition without resorting to the man-hating shortcut. So let’s get creative.
Women as Competition. Very closely linked to the last point, but another shortcut to conflict that is often used in the romance genre is pitting one woman against another, particularly if the affections of a romantic interest are at stake. In these circumstances, we understand, the female protagonist is always very nice and the woman who is her love rival, is not. We know ultimately that the ‘other woman’ is going to be revealed for the nasty piece of work that they are and the female protagonist will end up with her prize. Just like the man-hating outlined above, there is a lack of nuance and responsibility here. Both the female protagonist and the ‘other woman’ are reductive. We don’t get to understand the underlying motivations of the ‘other woman’. She’s simply a cardboard cut out antagonist to create a bit of drama between the central couple. It also promotes the idea that women should compete with each other for the affections of men, do we really want to keep promoting that idea? Many enjoyable stories out there use this shortcut, but if you want to go one better try making the ‘other woman’ likable and the female protagonist not likable, try putting the two women in a situation where they have to work together despite their rivalry and see what happens, make the root cause of the jealousy between them not the romantic interest but some other factor, or explore a relationship where two women who LIKE EACH OTHER (a radical thought, I know) fall for the same person and have to work through the conflicting loyalties.
Mistakes. Let your romantic heroine make mistakes. Let her do some ‘unlikable’ things. You do not have to give the impression as the author that you approve of these unlikable acts. The tone of your writing and the way in which you resolve the story, will tell the reader all they need to know on this score. But allow your romantic heroine to be a human being. Not just to drive the plot forward, but also to portray natural, human reactions to a situation. Most of us would like to react to every situation perfectly, but sometimes deeper urges or emotions get the better of us. The truth of who we are doesn’t lie in never making any mistakes, it lies in how we fix them. So don’t feel you have to write a character who is the perfect role model for women in the traditional sense. In some respects the perfect role model for women, and indeed any person, is one who takes ownership of their failings and mistakes and does what they can to repair any damage and make up for the missteps of the past.
I hope these ideas are of use to you. If you want to discuss any of these ideas further, tweet me.
Helen writes erotic historical romance novellas. You can find out more about them here.