Lately, I've been seeing a lot of lame female protagonists. By lame I mean that they don't do anything. They sit around and wait to be rescued. They whine, they moan, they complain, but they don't get up off their asses and make decisions about anything . They don't act - they are acted upon. (My undergraduate classes in feminist theory are snickering in the back of my head. "See," they're saying. "We told you!") Look, if you're going to have a woman as a protagonist then I had better be able to understand her. This is not the same thing as "liking" her. I'm not a big fan of the "Your Main Character Has To Be Likable" school of thought. I think "likable" in that case is a stand-in for "relatable." I have to be able to relate to your female protagonist.* One of the ways that a lot of writers do this is by making their female protagonists "kick-ass." This is cool. I like the K
Jay Montville's Blog