Help me write from a feminine POV?

[Innocynce]

Basically I realized how I write girls is pretty wrong.. Like, yeah, if a character has "this" personality or is in "this" situation, then it's alright...it's alright, but during scenes and stories that are normal life circumstances: I feel that I've been doing something wrong.

My female characters might be OK and I might be overthinking.. but I realized that there was something missing when looking at any story I like with female leads, especially those written by a woman. I thought it was just me being paranoid until I saw memes of exactly how different male and female interactions are in things written by: males versus how the same interaction can be seen differently when written by females. The final piece of evidence that something is indeed very different when I learned that apparently the Mangaka who wrote Berserk spent time reading manga made for girls to make sure he gave accurate psychological...emotional(?) responses and understanding for his characters.

So yeah, could any girls help me out? Um any tips would help, or if you want to know specifics: I can tell and show you exactly what's going on/why I feel I should ask for help with this

[AmysGames]

I feel like most of those "men writing women" memes are about the writer being blatantly sexist, which I think it's fair to assume that you aren't doing that, lol.

My personal opinion is that it's better not to overthink it. I genuinely don't think that much about my characters' genders when writing them unless it's relevant to the plot in some way. As long as you're doing your best to write likeable characters, most people aren't going to call foul.

[annascarlson]

I don't know exactly how you write girls/women so I can't give specific advice.
But when writing think of the character as a human first and gender as something that is secondary.
The interaction between men and women can be colored by her earlier experiences with different types of men. There are so many things that affect how she will react to a man. Is she very small and is intimidated by men? Have men always treated her well? Does she see overly charming men as romantic or does she find them tacky?
For example, I have grown up in cultures where the norm is that men and women should be treated equally and I have never been harassed by a man on the street.
In my daily life I treat men around me as my friends, my husband as my best friend. But I would probably be cautious if I was alone with an unknown man.

If you give some examples of your writing and what is bothering you maybe people can help more.

[minamii]

I totally agree with Anna and Amy. Just write a person, and don't worry about gender too much. Women like men, are on a wide spectrum of personalities. Don't be afraid to give your female characters masculine characteristics, or make them silly, or weird. For example, my MC for my series Dead Body Girl (Kari) is very rough. She cusses a lot, she calls people "Dude", she's rude, pushy, lazy, and kind of a slob. But she also likes putting on nail polish with her friends, cuddling with plushies, and dressing up her cute baby sister. I think as long as your characters have depth and aren't one dimensional, you should be fine.

[PeteLensing]

I might be overthinking.

yes and I think it´s the biggest mistake a writer can make.

Write the story exactly like you would want to read it.

[jwabeasley]

I remember stressing out about this a bunch as a young writer. There's a ton of conflicting advice out there!

My solution to that issue has been to write my women characters with personalities roughly similar to that of women and girls that I know IRL. I do this with my male characters, too. You don't have to do it 1:1 with them, and you can mix and match as needed, but the basic personality - body language, reactions, general attitude, ways of relating to the world - are based on real people from observation.

When you translate to fantasy or sci-fi, the circumstances might change but the base personalities of the humans involved won't change. If I write a story about women warriors, their personalities will largely reflect those of the women soldiers I've known. Whatever role you have, there is a real person who has a personality suited to that role.

After that, it's the basics for any character - What does she want? What does she fear? How does she solve problems? What's her cultural background?

"But I don't know any women IRL!" Unless you're Mihailo Tolotos, I bet you've known a few. Just go hang out in a public place (like a coffee shop, a mall, a carnival, a boardwalk, subway, whatever) and quietly observe the people around you. It's just like learning to draw people from life, but for writing.

[Innocynce]

Thanks for the help, I only just wanted my next serious story's protagonist to be believable. The last time I did a female protagonist, she was fun and funny: but it was from parodying many other characters, and so it so happen to work out.

@annascarlson
How I usually write girls is ..kinda how it has been suggested here: character first, and initially not too much thought into which gender they are in most scenes. But in doing that, I THINK I default to "traditionally male" reactions sometimes.

To explain it better:
Guy characters have individual personalities but when displaying more extreme emotions, they would naturally default to stereotypical male protag behavior (Can be violent, hungry very often, some are VERY frisky, ect)

Girl Characters would have individual personalities but when displaying extreme emotions it's a 50/50 thing for them to keep their personality, or immediately do what I feel comfortable writing: stereotypical male protag behavior. This is sometimes in spite of it being strange for that her to react this way.

Then to answer: "if you give some examples of your writing and what is bothering you maybe people can help more"
I feel most of the girls I write who are protagonists and/or part of the main cast will slowly become more masculine. Like, probably with Tomboys it was like whatever.. But with ones that aren't; I probably think "What would I do?" in some protag situations, and slowly she starts doing "cool dude things" I would like to do if I was in the story, or directly copying a male protagonist from another series. It's sometimes not permanent, but it can be REALLY bad.

The worst scenario was a supporting character, who was OK at first.. But when she taken out of the action and not doing steretypypical anime behaviour, and parts called for her to be more introspective; I ended up writing her so badly during this that she seemed like she suffered some type of lobotomy, and could barely put together coherent sentences.

And in the previous book it was extremely easy to do these kind of scenes from a male and tomboy perspective, but as soon as I tried a completely feminine perspective: there were no words that came to mind.

Also I'm making this way too long, so I'll emphasize the reason I asked for help: like I mentioned my next thing's protag is a girl. The setting is supposed to be light horror, so all the characters actually has time to make decisions as it's not going to be constant action, ect... I want her decisions to make sense and not unintentionally be exactly or similar to all the males in the cast: as these surround her crush, who is actually already dating someone, how she react to her new friends (male and female) , how she reacts to pretty much everything..... At most I got that she acts Tsundere, because she was a orphan and is used to having to be on guard, her crush is the first person who she could be mostly herself with. She also is contemplating leaving that area to start fresh though because he's dating now, but doesn't want to abandon her friends.

And that's it... I feel like as soon as I start writing her she'll be a stereotype or clone one of the guy character...

[annascarlson]

Since you are already very aware of the problem, maybe just get down to writing and ask yourself throughout if her behaviour makes sense. After a while it should flow more naturally.
An alternative is to really immerse yourself in your character and pretend to be her while writing. Really imagine everything through the filter in her eyes and mind.