321. How to Write Strong Female Characters with Shaylin Gandhi

Author Shaylin Gandhi discusses the nuances of strong female characters, how their stories have changed over time, and details how you can incorporate them into your own writing.

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Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the author-focused podcast that takes a whole-person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. The phrase "strong female character" comes up often in the writing community, but what does it mean and how can we create this type of character without making her into a stereotype or so strong that she never develops past page one? Contemporary and fantasy romance author, Shaylin Gandhi is known for her compelling and nuanced female leads, and she's here to help us explore this topic.

Jennia: Thanks so much for being here and congratulations on your recent release!

Shaylin Gandhi: Thank you so much! I really appreciate it.

Jennia: Before we move to the questions, what would you like listeners to know about you and your latest book?

Shaylin Gandhi: Like you said, I write romantasy and I write contemporary romance. I have one book out in each genre. Once Charmed, Twice Cursed is my romantasy. It's sort of an angsty Princess Bride.

Jennia: Oh nice!

Shaylin Gandhi: Yeah (both laugh). And When We Had Forever, which just came out in December—

Jennia: And which is so good, just so people know! (laughs)

Shaylin Gandhi: Thank you! I really appreciate it. Yeah, it's about a young widow who discovers her husband was keeping secrets and in the process of unraveling, she collides with his estranged identical twin brother. Drama ensues.

Jennia: Yep (both laugh). And it's fantastic drama.

Shaylin Gandhi: Whole lots of drama (laughs).

Jennia: So what do you think is the most popular definition for strong female character?

Shaylin Gandhi: I think it comes down to agency and that this is kind of the evolution that we've seen in female characters over the past 20, 30 years, especially in romance. Is that the female characters are being given a lot more agency. And to me that's where the definition of a strong female character begins.

Jennia: Mhm.

Shaylin Gandhi: Whether she is doing things for herself and this is a book about her shaping her own life, or whether she's just reacting to the things that are happening to her. Because I do think there's a difference.

Jennia: Oh, for sure. Can you give an example of what you would see maybe in a typical romance 20 years ago with the female character versus now, just to give listeners a more concrete example?

Shaylin Gandhi: So I used to read a lot of historicals when I was younger, in my 20s. And I think that's kind of emblematic of a lot of the romance arcs during the 80s and 90s is that there were these women who were in not great circumstances, but they didn't really have the means to change them. And usually the story centered around a man coming in and saving the day and you can even kind of see it in Disney movies, I think are also a good example. When I was a kid, I was watching Cinderella and movies where the prince comes and saves the princess. And then now it's evolved to things like Brave, I think is the one where she's—

Jennia: Oh with Merida? Yeah.

Shaylin Gandhi: Yes! And now the princesses are out there saving themselves. And I think that literature and romance has kind of evolved along that same line.

Jennia: Right. And it's more of a choice then, too, on her part to fall in love and to take this man. Because she doesn't have to take this man. It's not a need for him to rescue her and save her. Yeah, as soon as you said Cinderella, I started thinking about all the different plot points in there. And are these things that she's actually choosing or are they things that happen to her?

Shaylin Gandhi: Right.

Jennia: Even with the dress, it's not necessarily her doing so much as the mice doing it or the birds doing it and finding things. And the fairy godmother. And then the prince goes out to find her, not the other way around. Right.

Shaylin Gandhi: Yep, yep. It's a whole bunch of people swooping in to rescue her. And these days I think the stories are more about the princess rescuing herself.

Jennia: Right! Yes. And I love that, too, and how rescuing doesn't have to be like that physical rescuing so much as even that internal strength they're finding or that definition of the self. And okay, what do I really want versus what expectations were put upon me that I'm now fighting against? Because we don't really see that in a lot of the earlier stuff either.

Shaylin Gandhi: Yes! Yes (both laugh), definitely.

Jennia: So why do you think some strong female characters come off as unlikable? Because we do see this come up a lot in reviews or even on Reddit threads—

Shaylin Gandhi: Mhm,

Jennia: —where they'll just say, like, "Well she's just too harsh" or, "She's too brash," or maybe she doesn't have enough nuance to her personality.

Shaylin Gandhi: Mhm. Yeah, I don't know if this going to be a popular answer, but I feel like there's probably some internalized misogyny still that's lingering a little bit. Because the truth is that male character characters can get away with a lot of things that female characters cannot.

Jennia: Mhm.

Shaylin Gandhi: And a lot of times the same things that people are complaining about in reviews that made them disike a female character, if you flipped it and gave it to the MMC (main male character), he would be brooding and sexy and strong (laughs)—

Jennia: "Yes, we love your tragic backstory!" (laughs)

Shaylin Gandhi: Yeah! Yeah. But I think there is something still inside us. We've made progress, but we still have some ways to go where we don't react to the same features in a female the way we would with a male character.

Jennia: How does this influence your own work, then, when you're making a female character? Do you have any of this in mind about, "I want this to happen to her" or, "I want her to do this," but then do you ever feel like you need to pull back a little bit because of possible reader expectations and reactions?

Shaylin Gandhi: Mhm. I do. And I rely a lot on beta readers because as an author you just never quite know how your character is going to come across. You can aim for something, but it doesn't always end up that way. I tend to build my female characters around a specific arc. So I start with a lesson that I want them to learn. And then I give them a flaw, like a very obvious flaw, and I start them off in this place where they need to learn this lesson—they start off believing the opposite. And I think maybe sometimes that can be—that obvious flaw can be misinterpreted (laughs)—

Jennia: Yeah.

Shaylin Gandhi: —as being imperfect, or unlikable, or one of those things. So I do tend to rely a lot on beta readers. And I always send my manuscripts out to several people that I trust, and then I look for commonalities and feedback. If a bunch of people say the same thing, you know, "This came across this way to me," and, "She seemed jealous here, she seemed selfish here," then I'll take a look and I'll dial it back because I do tend to write it really strong in the first draft. And then as I go through edits, I scale it back and try to make it a little more subtle. But you don't always hit the goal (both laugh).

Jennia: No, but that is interesting, too, because I think it does show that we might have these ideas of what strong looks like, or what a real person looks like. But how that might then not match up what is being presented to readers or how they're seeing it.

Shaylin Gandhi: Mhm. Yeah, because all of my female characters start out flawed. And I think, actually, what maybe is different in my definition of a strong female character is that I view a strong female character as one who is willing to grow and change.

Jennia: Ahh, yes! I love that.

Shaylin Gandhi: Yeah! It takes a lot of courage to do that—

Jennia: It does, yes!

Shaylin Gandhi: —It's hard to do in real life.

Jennia: Right!

Shaylin Gandhi: And I think that's what I write about. I write about women who are learning and changing and bettering themselves, and that requires them to start off in a place where they have room to do that.

Jennia: Mhm. No, I totally agree. Because that is something—It does require a level of bravery because you have to step out of that comfort zone. But you also have to be brave enough to look at yourself and say, "Okay, here's what I could probably work on. Here's how I'm holding myself back." Because that does really feel hard to acknowledge that and to verbalize those flaws or those character traits that maybe aren't getting us where we want to be. It's so much easier to say, well, if this hadn't happened to me or if this person hadn't done this. Yeah, that's great. I love that so much.

Shaylin Gandhi: Right, yeah. You have to be willing to be critical of yourself, which is very hard and something I'm terrible at in real life (both laugh)—

Jennia: Well, that's why we have fiction (laughs)

Shaylin Gandhi: —which is why I write books about it.

Jennia: Yes! It's a form of processing through that.

Shaylin Gandhi: That's my therapy! (both laugh)

Jennia: Well, that actually goes into another question that I had which was, can you explain why strength isn't limited to physical strength? Which we sort of did. But I just wanted to see if you had any other thoughts on that or explain why that is?

Shaylin Gandhi: Yeah! I do like the physically strong characters. I think everyone likes to read about the assassin female character. She learned sword fighting or archery and she's really good at it. But to me the heart of it is, who is this person inside? What are they learning? How are they progressing throughout the story? How do they take the events from the story and allow themselves to be shaped by it? And that's what I'm most interested in. And that's what I tend to write about. Because I think that is a unique kind of strength.

Jennia: Mhm! Do you have an example you're willing to share from your own writing where this took place even just on a smaller scale before it culminated in everything that will happen in the conclusion?

Shaylin Gandhi: So I had one about Once Charmed, Twice Cursed. She starts off as this sort of pampered, privileged woman. She has luck magic that has made it so that she's never had to really work or try for anything in her life. Her whole desire is to be normal. And so she spends the book trying to decide whether she's willing to let go of this magic that's allowed her to have such an easy life. And she knows that being normal means that she has to get rid of all that. She has a way to lose her magic, but it means that she's going to have to learn how to work for things and try. And she's never put herself out there. And so the whole book was, for me, just an exploration of that and following her journey toward that decision. And how she rationalized to herself every step along the way and how she finally found the courage to do what she wanted and to go out into the world as somebody that was suddenly on an even playing field with everybody else—which she had never been before.

Jennia: It makes you think of another thing, which is their goal, motive, conflict. Do you think that that differs for a strong female character versus the female character who doesn't have agency or as much agency?

Shaylin Gandhi: Yeah, it does. It does. I think that even in those old ones, it was always really clear what they wanted. But it was less about us watching them take steps to figure out how to get to that goal and more about random things happening (both laugh) that then conveniently got them closer to that goal. Whereas I really enjoy the more modern take on it where we get to watch women engineer their own lives. And I think it involves a lot more of an internal reckoning than—

Jennia: Ahh.

Shaylin Gandhi: —than it used to. I can't say what Cinderella learned, really. She ended up (laughs)—She ended up with the prince. But is she really that different at the end of the story than she was in the beginning? I don't know that I come away with a strong sense of that. Whereas with more modern stories and more recent stories, I think you can often paint a really clear picture of how this—

Jennia: Right. Yeah.

Shaylin Gandhi: —person has changed between the first page and the last

Jennia: Right. Not just married, unmarried—

Shaylin Gandhi: Yeah! (both laugh)

Jennia: —which is the change we see, not anything internal to that person. You're so right. Yeah.

Shaylin Gandhi: Exactly. I like when it's—when the character arc is tied to the completion of the goal. This person has to change and become better in order to get to where they want to go. That's what really gets interesting to me is the interplay between the character's internal state and them achieving what they want to achieve.

Jennia: Yeah! Could you talk more about that? Or even if you can think of an example, not even necessarily from your own writing, but a book you've read or a movie you've seen where that happens? Something that's just really stuck with you?

Shaylin Gandhi: Yeah, I'm most familiar with my own stuff because that's the way that I tend to think about my own work. In When We Had Forever, Mina starts the story kinda with this assumption that it's too late to start over. She's already done a lot in her life. She's been married, her marriage ended. And in her mind, that's where she's at, and she made the choices she made, and there's really no starting over. But then throughout the course of the book, I really tried to force her to (Jennia laughs) reexamine that belief. Because the whole book, for me, despite it being a romance, it was about how it was really never too late to shape your own destiny. And that's what I wanted her to learn. And I feel like she finally got to it on the last page (both laugh).

Jennia: Yes. And then there comes agency again—shape your destiny. Don't wait for somebody else to come do it for you!

Shaylin Gandhi: Yeah! Yeah, she made a lot of choices early on that were all revolving around other people. And she needed to learn to make choices that revolved around herself.

Jennia: Yeah. But especially, though, early on, too, she's so much younger. And so I think, too, that also helps because then you have that growth with time is something you see in this one too. So a lot of it, especially, like, in the first chapter or two, you can think, okay, well she's very young, you know, of course she's going to go do this. She's going to be more easily swayed by whatever. She's still following what a friend wants her to do, or her mom wants her to do, or whatever it —

Shaylin Gandhi: Mhm.

Jennia: —so much. Yeah, because I think that's something that is so common for so many of us where we haven't yet developed our own sense of self strongly enough to say, okay, well what do I want to do? Or even that risk of pushing against what somebody else hopes that we'll have in our lives or what we'll do.

Shaylin Gandhi: Mhm. I completely agree with that. And I think I lived my whole 20s that way. And (both laugh) it was something that was important for me to write about because I feel like that's one of the biggest lessons I've learned in my life. And that's sort of where that book came from—

Jennia: Ohh, okay.

Shaylin Gandhi: —that I just wanted to express that. But yeah, in my 20s I was so concerned with what people thought and what everyone else wanted and all the expectations being placed on me. And I wanted to please everybody, make everybody happy. And I think that's a very real—

Jennia: Yes!

Shaylin Gandhi: —pressure especially that women feel.

Jennia: Oh, for sure.

Shaylin Gandhi: And so I wanted to write about that. And I wanted to write about someone moving past it.

Jennia: I think that's one reason it's not just relatable, but that it does make her strong because she does start to see that even for herself. And you see it even kind of fairly early on where it's just like, do I really want to go into this house? Do I really want to be in this situation? No, I don't. Do I really want to get into this car with so and so? Yeah, I do. (both laugh)

Shaylin Gandhi: Thank you! I'm glad you read it that way. I've had a couple reviews where people said she was really unlikable because she didn't stand up for herself. And I thought, "That's kind of the point." (laughs)

Jennia: Right! (laughs) Yeah, I really do think a lot of us—especially if we're older and we're able to look critically back at ourselves in our early 20s. And you do see a lot of those decisions you made that were not necessarily decisions you wanted to make, but you felt compelled to make them for whatever reason. And that's how I read her. That's also why you see so much character growth as she changes and as she ages and then as she has the experiences that she does.

Shaylin Gandhi: Thank you. I'm really glad you read it that way! Thank you! That's how I was writing it.

Jennia: That is my professional editor opinion, so (both laugh).

Shaylin Gandhi: I'll take it!

Jennia: So to everyone who didn't read it that way—no (both laugh).

Shaylin Gandhi: I mean, I get it. You know, every book is different. You take what feels true for you.

Jennia: Exactly!

Shaylin Gandhi: All I can do is write what was true for me.

Jennia: Yes. So true. And then filter through our own perspectives and the way that we've lived and experienced life, and then how we view it, and then how that affects how we view other people, including characters.

Shaylin Gandhi: Yes, completely. And so it ends up being a different book for every person—

Jennia: Right? Yes! It might even be a different book if they read it 10 years from now and they have a completely different point of view or understanding of how life and people work.

Shaylin Gandhi: Yes. Isn't that wild? I will read things that I loved when I was a kid and I will read them again now, and I will love them for completely different reasons. And I will realize I missed this whole thematic piece—

Jennia: (laughs) Yes!

Shaylin Gandhi: —in this book. I only have the capability to understand it now. I was a different person when I read it the first time. I got something out of it then. I got something totally different out of it now. And it's wild because it's the exact same words on the page—

Jennia: Yes! Exactly.

Shaylin Gandhi: —That's so cool.

Jennia: It's like I see a lot of that cheeky humor that Dickens uses, and I completely missed that when I was a teenager, so (laughs).

Shaylin Gandhi: Ahh, yeah. Yeah. The Last Unicorn, which is probably my favorite book of all time by Peter Beagle. And it was made into a kids' movie when I was a kid, which is strange because it's not a kid's story. But there's a lot about it that was compelling for me as a kid, and then now as I read it as an adult and I realize that it's about lost chances and not living your life to the fullest and regretting it later. And all that went over my head (both laugh) when I was a kid. But I loved it anyway.

Jennia: Well, getting back to the overall theme, but one of the questions I had, too, was, why do you think we need to do away with that dichotomy of weak versus strong?

Shaylin Gandhi: Yeah, I don't feel good about necessarily putting a judgment on it. I prefer the stories where people grow and change, but everybody's different. Everybody's looking for something different out of their reading and their media. So I think I'm gonna write what I like and whatever people want to read and whatever people gravitate to, whatever resonates for them is great. I find myself, now, as I'm writing more, I don't dislike books anymore (Jennia laughs). And that might sound strange, but I don't—

Jennia: Yes! I'd love to hear more about this.

Shaylin Gandhi: —I don't dislike books anymore. I will come to the conclusion in my head that it wasn't written for me.

Jennia: Mmm.

Shaylin Gandhi: I'm not the audience for this particular book. But somebody will be, which means it's a good book for that person. So even if I put it down and don't come back to it—I don't know, I've just stopped thinking about things as good or bad. It's either it's for me and it resonates or it's for someone else.

Jennia: No, I definitely think that's fair. Because we even see in reviews, too, where people will start the review with, "I don't like this trope," or, "I don't like this subgenre," and then they give it a two- or a three-star review. Well, you just said why—(laughs)

Shaylin Gandhi: Why did you read it if you—(laughs)

Jennia: Right! Yes. If you, admittedly, knew ahead of time that you don't enjoy this or you're not likely to enjoy it, maybe that was a sign that you should have put that book down and found something that was more to your taste. Instead of writing this—

Shaylin Gandhi: Yes! Say it louder for the people in the back!

Jennia: —terrible review? (both laugh)

Shaylin Gandhi: Yes! Yeah. And so I think some people have trouble separating what they like from what's objectively good or not. But I see it a lot differently now that I write.

Jennia: Yeah, that makes sense. So why do you think there's been an increase in demand to see strong female characters?

Shaylin Gandhi: I think it's just reflective of our changing times. I think women have a lot more agency in the real world now than we did 20 years ago, 30 years ago. And so we want to see that mirrored in the stories that we consume.

Jennia: Yeah, I completely agree. So if you had to give another author, let's say, one top tip for how to write a strong female character, what would it be?

Shaylin Gandhi: You know, I would just say don't . . . Don't be scared to make her however you want. I most recently wrote a romantasy and I had a very sweary female lead and I got some pushback from it on people (Jennia laughs). Like, "No woman should swear this much!" I was just like, if he was a guy you wouldn't be saying that, so . . . I don't know that just what is what felt right to me and so I just went with it and it'll land with some people, others it won't. Some people will think she's too sweary, but I think just lean in to whatever feels right. You can dial it back when you have your betas look at it. But I think the first draft should be a place where you can just let everything off the leash (both laugh) and then decide later if you overdid it or not.

Jennia: Well, do you have any upcoming projects or events you'd like to share?

Shaylin Gandhi: I have a romantasy probably coming out this summer.

Jennia: Exciting!

Shaylin Gandhi: It's a dark, gas-lampy gothic setting kind of deal. It's a little bit like One Dark Window vibes, but if she fell in love with the monster. And then I have a contemporary coming out in December. And that one is about a girl who moves back to her hometown and a guy from her past woos her with these beautifully written love letters. But what she doesn't know is that he's paying her high school boyfriend, who never got over her, to write them.

Jennia: Oh! (Jennia laughs)

Shaylin Gandhi: Yeah! I'm really excited about that when it comes out on December 9th.

Jennia: Yes, that one does sound exciting. I'm gonna read it (laughs).

Shaylin Gandhi: Thank you!

Jennia: I'm probably going to read both of them, actually. But anyway.

Shaylin Gandhi: You know, I appreciate that.

Jennia: Well, thank you so much for this insightful conversation and for giving us more books to add to our TBRs!

Shaylin Gandhi: Yes, I know. I'm sorry (laughs)—

Jennia: No, that's not anything to be sorry about!

Shaylin Gandhi: —if it's anything like mine (laughs).

Jennia: We celebrate that! We don't apologize for it.

Shaylin Gandhi: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on!

Jennia: Well, thanks again!

Jennia: And thank you for listening, and be sure to check out the show notes for additional information, including all of Shaylin's links. And then please join me next week when Becca Kinzer will share how to include sensitive topics in romance. Thanks again!