Romancing Females in Fanfiction

 



How do you guys feel about females in romance fanfiction? (Discounting homoual fanfics, since I don't read them).

I've seen so many stories where the male character is an and the female character just tolerates everything until the male decides he wants to change because 'she's not like other girls.' They have their place, don't get me wrong. Sometimes you just wanna read these kinda stories. These stories are hot because your bias is there, he's rich and a totally yummy bad boy. Not so much of female rights available here, but hey, it's only a story and we're all guilty of taking pleasure in reading them.

Sometimes there are vain attempts at creating a female character with a voice, an attitude and a whole lot of badass. Not sure if 'feminism' is applied here or the character is just rude.

I find a lot of female leads in fanfiction annoying. I've never really come across a memorable female lead character be she an OC or an idol. I've never fallen in love with a female character. They just aren't admirable, enviable and sometimes not even likable. We tend to swoon over the male leads but never the females. Perhaps they're not created to be loveable. Maybe they're just dummies/filler characters use to embellish the males (an arrow shot right into the heart of feminism).

Funny thing is our bias supposedly falls for this dummy/filler when there's nothing remotely attractive there. Yes, she could be the most beautiful thing to ever grace the earth, she may be the alpha female that's been missing from everyone's lives but she will be forgotten because actually, there wasn't much to her in the first place.

In fanfiction, it's harder to create an OC. She's a character cut from scratch whereas idols come with their own set characteristics (as seen on the internet). We already have preconceived opinions and feelings towards idols. OC is new and needs a bit of work. She's acceptable but not exactly notable. This isn't to say OCs are crap, or to diss writers who pen them. The real challenge may just be to spend some time fleshing out an OC so she doesn't get left behind in the storm of y biases. That doesn't excuse writers from using a female idol and scapegoating. Develop. Your. Characters.

A good cheaters tip to mask badly written main characters is: have cool side characters. They are distracting. They show up least expected. No one will ever suspect that that one deaf, singing grandma who can't hold a tune was added to make up for the lack of substance in the main characters.

 

 

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theluckyone #1
Ow, this got me thinking about my oc... I'm a jerk. Thanks for knocking some senses into me! And yeah, I agree to everything you say.
predilection #2
I think so too. You have a point. It's hard to fall for the female lead as much as the male lead but there is one I think that the female lead id admirable. At least to me.

Brownie and Blondie by Golden101. It's a SehunxOC story and of course we would swoon over Sehun and in this case his twin brother also but the girl isn't that bad either. To me she really has her own character and she isn't the two type of OC you would find dominating AFF which is 1. The innocent, naive, selfless and unknowingly beautiful that make the bad guy or not thinks she is different and fall for her and 2. The badass, rude, supposely independent and unknowingly beautiful that make the guy bad or not thinks she is different and fall for her.

Try the story out. XD
ineedmyglasses #3
Hey there,
I think you have some really good points here and I, myself, have ran into my fair share of the fics you've described and cringed at the female OC's characterization (or lack thereof). Here are some fics you can check out where the female OC's aren't so lackluster, but have their own autonomy without it being infringed on by the male leads:

Of Lab and Love Songs - nyamnyamnyam
Chasing Rainbows - loviet
Rules of Deduction - loviet
Experiment 11 - Calliope11
27 reasons why guys - undergroundmuses
Irony - get2herheart

Of course, this is only a fraction of what I have to rec, but I think it's a good start.
:)
Lidashen #4
I think this depend on the writer, and what they have read before. What influence them before they started to write. Because most of the writers on here are female fans, they idolize their male idols a lot, and so they would write them in a cool way. The female lead/or the person opposite from the Male lead that we targeted are somewhat of what we perceive ourselves. Some writers don't see themselves as going badass, some do, but the definition of badass changed depend on the person.

It isn't that hard to write a cool OC, female lead. I don't remember who it was that I read, don't remember which author it was, but the question asked: How do you write such cool female characters? His answer, "I write them like I write male characters, then give them female name." Subconsciously, all of us already perceived gender a certain way. So when we started to write for them, we applied what we were taught, perceived when there was nothing different but just anatomy differences. When we go out of this idea of how a female lead should act, we don't need to mask it with side characters. And cut back on how cool / badass the male lead is and you'll get a good balance.
sunlightsparkle90_ #5
I agree and some are over used and cliche
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