You've all heard about strong female characters. The ones that "break out" of some sort of shell that literature had been holding them in. They're strong and brave and smart and a host of other things, and personally, I love reading books with strong female characters.

However, there are a lot of people who don't seem to know what exactly a "strong female character" is. Just because a girl can fight and lift weights doesn't make her strong. No, she could cry about a dead ladybug she finds on the sidewalk and still have potential as a strong female character. A character's strength isn't measured by how physically or emotionally strong they are, but how well-written they are. How fleshed-out they are. How complex of a character they are. How realistic they are. A strong female character isn't strong because she can beat up all her male friends. She's strong because she seems like an actual person, even if that person is the most girly of girls.

Anyway, I found this super good article about some cliches to avoid, from ourwriteside.com. I think it's pretty helpful to highlight some ways that "strong" female characters can flop. It's important to know what not to do before you can learn to really make your character soar, so let's get into it!

It seems like everybody these days is trying to write "strong" female characters. In and of itself, this is a great thing. Women are strong and should be perceived that way, but now writing a strong female character has become its own stereotype. So how do we write truly strong female characters, the ones we look up to and love? Let's take a look at some clichés to avoid.

• She hates all things girly. Dresses? Yuck. Forget fashion, doing your nails, and make up. This girl is the anti-girl and a cliché. Liking "girly" things is not a weakness and not the antithesis of a strong character. She can like skirts and still be strong. One good example of this dynamic is Vin from the Mistborn series. She lives off the street for most of her life and feels strange when she first wears dresses as she passes for nobility, but she also finds that a part of her loves the dresses and dances. And she's still a super strong character.
• She's inexplicably good at "guy" things. Changing the oil in her truck? Check. Hand to hand fighting? She'll take you down. But it's a mistake to equate strong with "masculine." It also doesn't always make sense for your female character to be a pro at these things. Don't give her a random skill just to seem strong. One good example of having skills that make sense is Tris from Divergent. All the skills she has she gains from her training in Dauntless, so each skill makes sense as she masters it. She's not just given skills at random, she earns them.
• She's a trophy. If you replaced your female character with a sexy lamp, would the plot change? If not, you need to rethink your character. She should never be a prize to be won or a trophy for another character. Give her a goal to work towards and have her act and affect the plot. Give her agency within the story. One good example of this is Hermione from the Harry Potter series. Hermione affects the plot in major ways and is a main character. She's never there just to be a love interest to either of the main characters.
• She has zero personality aside from a troubled past. She's closed off and a bit of a jerk when she's not kicking ass. She's also cliché and unlikeable. Make sure to give her a personality and keep in mind that showing emotions is its own kind of strength. She's human, not a robot. One good example of this is Annabeth from the Percy Jackson series. She's had a troubled past but she doesn't let it change her into an unsocial and closed off person. She has a personality and a good one at that.

Remember that your character is a human first. A complex, flawed human that should be a fully fleshed out character. Who are your favorite strong female characters? What about them do you love so much? Share below and happy writing.

Helpful? I though so. These are definitely some things to avoid when writing your strong female characters.

So, where does all this confusion come from over strong female characters? Obviously, there is some. Until a few weeks ago, I, too, thought that a strong female character had to be physically strong. But you can't let the word "strong" confuse you. It's there to mark a difference between well written characters and poorly written characters. A girl could be physically strong and still be a weak character if that's her only defining trait. A strong female character is one who makes her own choices, even if they're bad ones. She has agency in the story, meaning she doesn't just let it happen to her, but she gets up and does something about it. She has emotions and personality, just like any character. Like the article said, your character is human first. If you write your characters like humans, you're on the right path.

A lot of you are probably hoping that I'll give you a set-in-stone way to write strong female characters. Unfortunately, that doesn't exist. There is no sure-fire way to create a strong female character. Why? Because every character is different, regardless of gender. Every character has different and weaknesses and goals. What you need to do is identify those, and make sure your character seems realistic. I've got another article from nownovel.com that I'd like to share. It's very helpful, as well, talking about what we can learn from strong female characters that already exist.

Gone are the days where female characters in novels tended to be simpering, dependent and virtual cardboard cutouts. To celebrate the strong – but also the not-so-strong, the complex and vivid – women in fiction, this week we're talking about 7 great females characters and what they can teach you about better character writing.

However, before examining the character development of strong female characters, it's important to define what is meant by a strong female character. Writers have grappled with this definition and cautioned that it is important to allow a strong female characters to have weaknesses. Developing a strong female character doesn't simply mean creating a protagonist who defies prescriptive gender expectations. It means developing a character who is well-rounded and real. Most importantly, perhaps, a strong female character is one who acts rather than one who is acted upon by societal and other pressures that revolve around her sex or gender.

The female characters below all exemplify good character development:

Writing characters who have a strong sense of self: Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

We can reach back to the classics for one of the novel's earliest strong female characters. Jane Eyre survives an abusive childhood, first in the home of the family charged with caring for her and later at a boarding school, only to find herself working for a man who has his own complex and disturbing relationship to women [no spoilers here].

One of the most remarkable aspects of Jane as a character is that she is, in one sense, a victim of circumstance, of the time and place into which she is born and her station in life, and yet despite that she seizes agency and makes her own choices even when those choices are very limited. This begins with her rebellion against her cruel relatives, continues in her care for her fellow students in the abusive boarding school and culminates in her rejection of Mr. Rochester.

A lesser writer than Charlotte Bronte might have written a similar book in which the same series of incidents unfolded and showed Jane as passive in the face of those incidents. Yet it is her resilience, her determination in the face of suffering and her own sense of self that stands out in this novel. The lesson from Jane Eyre is that your character will be engaging and interesting if she has the agency to choose her response to things even when that response changes little or makes the situation worse, as is often the case for Jane.

Other strong female characters also find a way to thrive in gender-regulated societies:

Isabel Allende's generations of vibrant women

Critics have described Chilean author Isabel Allende's novel House of the Spirits as a kind of woman-centred companion or response to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, which foregrounds the historical experiences of mainly male characters. Allende's novel examines the lives of women amid upheaval wrought by men, but it is always the three generations of women that provide the vibrant core of the novel. Clara Trueba is the matriarach of the tale, but her daughter Blanca and granddaughter Alba are just as strong.

Unlike some of the other female characters discussed here, all three of the Trueba women are strong characters and strong women who defy oppressors in more traditional ways. However, their commitment to causes such as education and health care are shown to be ultimately more effective in securing change than the revolutions the men carry out.

The lesson from the Trueba women is that strong female characters do not necessarily have to refuse or abandon all characteristics or roles seen as traditionally 'female' or 'feminine'. For these women, these roles actually turn out to be the most effective ways for them to remain strong and bear up under the suffering they endure.

The heroine's journey: Lauren Olamina and Octavia Butler's Parable novels

In her classic science fiction novels Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, author Octavia Butler gave her character a disability. Because of a drug her mother took when she was pregnant, Lauren Olamina suffers from a condition known as hyperempathy in which she feels whatever a living thing near her is also feeling. However, in most other ways, Lauren's character arc follows one that is traditionally depicted as predominantly male. She becomes a leader for her people and founds a new religion.

There has been some criticism of Joseph Campbell's study of the hero's journey as a distinctly male construct. Lauren's character arc from a teenage girl to the leader of a new society demonstrates that there are no character arcs or paths of development that need to be reserved exclusively for male or female characters.

When developing your own strong female character, there is no reason she cannot command an army or rise to a high position of influence just as a male character might. It's always good to remember that you can write the world you want, not merely the world you have.

Some female characters are so memorable that fans feel they should have been the main characters in their books:

Brains over beauty: Hermione Granger

Many readers of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter fantasy series love Hermione even more than Harry. Hermione is probably the smartest pupil in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and she's also loyal and brave. But she isn't perfect. She can be a know-it-all. She talks too much. She is sometimes bossy.

Hermione's negative traits are as essential to her existence as a strong female character as her positive traits are. In a world where girls are often assumed to have the most value if conventionally beautiful and adept at social interactions, Rowling created a girl who is described in the books as somewhat less than beautiful and often socially awkward. Yet Hermione remains one of the most beloved characters of YA literature.

The lesson from Hermione is that it is important make sure your strong female character has flaws, and it is even better if, as is the case with Hermione, some of those flaws are inextricably connected to the characters' strengths. After all, the reason Hermione is a know-it-all is because she very often is the smartest person in the room or the only one who is correct about something. If Hermione is bossy, it is because sometimes the people around her need to be bossed.

The unlikable heroine: Katniss Everdeen

Some readers find Katniss Everdeen a hard character to like. However, Katniss lives in a hard world that only gets harder as the Hunger Games series goes on, and it is that hardness that saves her. Katniss is also a reluctant heroine. She steps up to fight in the first round of hunger games to save her sister and the second time because she has to. Katniss does try to protect the helpless, but she does so on an individual basis. She has no desire to become to face of the revolution and is pressured into the role.

Katniss possesses many characteristics that are thought of as traditionally male, and to some degree, she was criticised for characteristics that would be much less likely to be singled out if male characters had them. Whether or not Katniss is entirely likeable — and plenty of readers adore her — the lesson for writers here is that they should focus on writing people first and genders second.

Katniss would have been a very different character and the Hunger Games series a very different set of books if their author, Suzanne Collins, had felt pressured to make Katniss worry about her looks or fret about boys. A second lesson is that authors should be unafraid to make their protagonists into characters who are sometimes difficult to relate to, as real can be.

A change of view: Cassie Maddox in Tana French's The Likeness

Tana French's character Cassie is a particularly good example. The reader first meets her in the crime writer's first novel, In the Woods. Cassie is the best friend and colleague of homicide detective Rob Ryan, but the novel is written from Rob's point of view. When we next meet Cassie in French's second novel, The Likeness, the story is told from Cassie's point of view. Therefore, we get a fascinating look at character development from two different angles. A further complication is that Cassie spends much of The Likeness pretending to be someone else.

Cassie is well-developed as well. A policewoman, she exhibits courage and intelligence, but the challenges she faces in The Likeness uncover unexpected vulnerabilities.

The women of speculative fiction: Margaret Atwood and Offred

Margaret Atwood's unknown narrator in The Handmaid's Tale is another fascinating example of how a writer can develop a strong female character. Because the dystopian world Offred lives in is so restrictive, Atwood does not have access to many of the usual tools a writer might use to develop character. However, she manages to develop a character who rebels in small ways under oppressive and degrading conditions.

The narrator known as Offred remains nameless and we learn very little about the typical aspects of her life that we do with other characters. From reading her story, we can learn how to develop a strong female character without access to information about things like friends, career and leisure time activities.

Writing strong female characters is a matter of understanding that these characters should have weaknesses as well as strengths. By reading the stories in which the characters listed above appear, you can study the variety of approaches that writers use to develop characters and get a sense of the diversity of fully realized female main characters that exist.

I'd also like to cite my own characters as examples. Astra, Wren, and Colette are all strong characters, at least in my opinion. Astra is headstrong and loyal, and often finds herself in dangerous situations because of those two things (see the climaxes of both the second and third books). She's the main character, and though sometimes all she can do is react as things happen to her (see the climax of the fourth book), she does all she can fight back when possible.

Wren's strength as a character might not be as obvious because Astra feels so protective of her, and through her eyes, Wren can sometimes seem helpless. However, that's not the case. She's still (in the fourth book, spoilers!!) coping with the horrors of her past, and somehow surviving. She chose to run away from her family, even if it was only a small action that brought that about. She was forced to do some very awful things, but she's moved beyond that. She's retained her kindness and innocence through it all, even if she's still scared, and none of those things make her any less of a strong character.

Colette is also strong, though she's much less emotionally open than the other two. She's closed off, but it's with reason—she grew up with her mother, who basically didn't care about her at all. Any child in that situation would eventually learn to stop crying and start hiding what they felt. But she's a genius when it comes to spells, and she truly cares about her friends, no matter how indifferent she tries to act.

Those are some examples of how vastly different your strong female characters can end up being. It all depends on how their personalities have been shaped by the past, the things around them, and who they are. There's no secret formula to having an instant hit with readers. Make your character relatable and realistic, with positive and negative traits that make sense and balance each other, and you're on your way!

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How was that? Helpful? What are your thoughts on strong female characters? Have any favorites in literature or fanfics? Let me know in the comments, and tell me if there's any question or topic you want covered!