I'm not trying to sound dumb whenever I ask this. How do you write women?

[Guest]

I kind of know the answer, but I'm looking for how to write them in a social setting. My horror novel has mostly girls in it.

[Tyler]

Write there psychology first, their looks are purely that. Once you know what they think and do their looks will represent that. A mechanic will never look like a lawyer.

For realism, you just gotta make them feel like a woman to the readers. Everyone is different. There are tomboys, very feminine, conservative, libertarian, and so on.

Don't just make them pretty purely to be pretty. Otherwise you'll get boggled down in details. Simple is more, let the reader imagine what your imagine. Because no one will imagine the woman you have in your mind.

Good luck.

[Amiel]

Sorry, that posted too quickly. I was going to add: read books by female writers, ask opinions of your female friends and peers.

[Amiel]

You can't go wrong with writing them the same way you would men. There ARE differences resulting from the different pressures applied to women, but it's very, very easy, when you're trying to write about this aspect, to reveal your own lack of knowledge. Meanwhile, there is nothing that men do that women don't also, sometimes, do. If you're in doubt, go with what you know.

[Kelly]

The only thing I will say is that if you comment on a woman’s profession, you do not need to put the word “female” before it. She may be female and a police officer but she does not need to be known as a female police officer. No one calls a man who is a police officer a male police officer. They should both be known simply as police officers. Gender is not part of a job title.

Sorry for the rant. I just read a book that did this and it irked me.

[Faith]

Don't worry about the fact that the character is female. Just write them as you would any other character. Then, when you're done, if you're still worried, have a female friend or critique partner check for anything that sticks out as unnatural. Do that a couple times and you should be much more comfortable!

There are specific cultural differences in behaviour that can be generalized depending on setting and circumstance, but that will vary, so if you have questions for a specific scene you might get more helpful answers.

[Heidi]

I based my characters “loosely” on people that I know in real life. Pulling their personalities and traits into my characters. So when I write, I just think “how would so-n-so react to this situation?” And base it roughly on that.

[Hikesin]

First... It's important to remember that there is no standardized type of woman. Some of us are feminine social butterflies. Some are reclusive bookworms. Some are outdoorsy. Some are dare devils. Others are cautious and afraid of spiders.

It is more common for women to talk more openly with eachother than men do. We are more likely to ask lots of questions and share our problems and emotions with our girlfriends than men typically do with eachother. That is probably the most common difference between men and women, but it isn't true for all of us.

Age matters too. Young women are very different from middle aged or older women.

Know your characters as individuals.