I find it funny when someone asks me how I write female characters. As though women were some foreign entity only ever glimpsed by the fortunate. Rare and unknowable. But they aren’t rare, are they? Women are everywhere. My mother is a woman. So are my sisters. Come to think of it, so is my wife. And my step-daughter. My publisher is a woman, too.
The question isn’t as simple as it seems either. How do you, a man, write female characters? It’s a bit of a trap. It kind of implies that not only would it be too difficult, if not impossible, for a man to write a female character, convincing or not, but that a man really shouldn’t be writing women period. On the other hand, I may be over analysing it. Sometimes we ask a question because we don’t know the answer. I’m sure there are men out there who see women as completely alien and can’t imagine what they’re thinking at any given moment. I think the accepted collective noun for such a group of men is a Morrison. A murder of crows. A Morrison of unimaginative men.
Both my recent books, The Girl on the Page and my new book, The Lessons, centre on the lives of female characters. This wasn’t my plan. I didn’t set out to write about women. I wish I had that much say in what I write. I write what bubbles up from within me. One of the narrators of The Lessons, Jane Curtis, a novelist, wasn’t part of the original concept of the novel. Her character’s role expanded as I wrote. Her voice was the clearest in my head. It was like meeting an interesting person at a party and getting to know them over subsequent accidental meetings, until a friendship develops and you find you’re arranging to meet up regularly. I came to know Jane Curtis over time.
But she isn’t real, you made her up, shouts a heckler from the back.
As I said, my mother is a woman. A very intelligent, strong willed woman with feminist principles. And I mentioned my sisters – both a little bit older than me, both big influences on me as a teen. The eldest was heavily involved with politics as a young woman, the other sister was very interested in having a lot of fun. Each liked dragging their younger but taller brother here and there, as protection. I was jammed into the backseat of cars full of young women and taken to parties, nightclubs and bars. I listened to their stories. I was trained to see the world through their eyes. My sisters told me what music to listen to, what books to read, what films to watch and, somewhat disastrously, what to wear. And all the while their friends taught me other memorable lessons.
As a result I was never one of the boys. I sought out the company of women. Still do. The better question to ask me would be, how do I write men?
I’ll admit, writing female characters does hold certain advantages for the novelist. The inequalities in society means there is conflict in every aspect of their lives. A necessary element of drama. In this life there is still so much for women to overcome, from the mundane to the monumental. In my first few novels, my protagonist Emma Benson battles against the suffocating sexual mores of modern suburban life. In The Girl on the Page, Helen Owen hits out against ageism in the arts, while editor Amy tries to find something to value in herself. In my new novel, The Lessons, Daisy Richmond is told she doesn’t know her own heart and is forced by her mother and aunt to give up on her first love.
An early draft of The Lessons was in the voice of a male character. But it was too like being in my own head. Artistically, I prefer to see life through the eyes of women. In The Lessons the reader gets to do both.
But that damnable question won’t go away. How do I write female characters? I don’t know. My wife is my muse. I read novels by women. Memoirs and histories, too. Writing The Lessons I discovered Cat Power and obsessed over her music. I have many female friends, I take an interest in their lives, and I listen to them.
How do I write female characters? Women are half of all life. How could I not?
Learn more about The Lessons here.
The question isn’t as simple as it seems either. How do you, a man, write female characters? It’s a bit of a trap. It kind of implies that not only would it be too difficult, if not impossible, for a man to write a female character, convincing or not, but that a man really shouldn’t be writing women period. On the other hand, I may be over analysing it. Sometimes we ask a question because we don’t know the answer. I’m sure there are men out there who see women as completely alien and can’t imagine what they’re thinking at any given moment. I think the accepted collective noun for such a group of men is a Morrison. A murder of crows. A Morrison of unimaginative men.
Both my recent books, The Girl on the Page and my new book, The Lessons, centre on the lives of female characters. This wasn’t my plan. I didn’t set out to write about women. I wish I had that much say in what I write. I write what bubbles up from within me. One of the narrators of The Lessons, Jane Curtis, a novelist, wasn’t part of the original concept of the novel. Her character’s role expanded as I wrote. Her voice was the clearest in my head. It was like meeting an interesting person at a party and getting to know them over subsequent accidental meetings, until a friendship develops and you find you’re arranging to meet up regularly. I came to know Jane Curtis over time.
But she isn’t real, you made her up, shouts a heckler from the back.
As I said, my mother is a woman. A very intelligent, strong willed woman with feminist principles. And I mentioned my sisters – both a little bit older than me, both big influences on me as a teen. The eldest was heavily involved with politics as a young woman, the other sister was very interested in having a lot of fun. Each liked dragging their younger but taller brother here and there, as protection. I was jammed into the backseat of cars full of young women and taken to parties, nightclubs and bars. I listened to their stories. I was trained to see the world through their eyes. My sisters told me what music to listen to, what books to read, what films to watch and, somewhat disastrously, what to wear. And all the while their friends taught me other memorable lessons.
As a result I was never one of the boys. I sought out the company of women. Still do. The better question to ask me would be, how do I write men?
I’ll admit, writing female characters does hold certain advantages for the novelist. The inequalities in society means there is conflict in every aspect of their lives. A necessary element of drama. In this life there is still so much for women to overcome, from the mundane to the monumental. In my first few novels, my protagonist Emma Benson battles against the suffocating sexual mores of modern suburban life. In The Girl on the Page, Helen Owen hits out against ageism in the arts, while editor Amy tries to find something to value in herself. In my new novel, The Lessons, Daisy Richmond is told she doesn’t know her own heart and is forced by her mother and aunt to give up on her first love.
An early draft of The Lessons was in the voice of a male character. But it was too like being in my own head. Artistically, I prefer to see life through the eyes of women. In The Lessons the reader gets to do both.
But that damnable question won’t go away. How do I write female characters? I don’t know. My wife is my muse. I read novels by women. Memoirs and histories, too. Writing The Lessons I discovered Cat Power and obsessed over her music. I have many female friends, I take an interest in their lives, and I listen to them.
How do I write female characters? Women are half of all life. How could I not?
Learn more about The Lessons here.
The Lessons by John Purcell
What if your first love was your one and only chance of happiness? In our lives, some promises are easily forgotten, while others come to haunt us with tragic results. From the bestselling author of The Girl on the Page comes The Lessons, a compelling novel about love and betrayal.
1961: When teens Daisy and Harry meet, it feels so right they promise to love each other forever, but in 1960s England everything is stacked against them: class, education, expectations. When Daisy is sent by her parents to live with her glamorous, bohemian Aunt Jane, a novelist working on her second book, she is confronted by adult truths and suffers a loss of innocence that flings her far from the one good thing in her life, Harry.
1983: Jane Curtis, now a famous novelist, is at a prestigious book event in New York, being interviewed about her life and work, including a novel about the traumatic coming of age of a young woman. But she won’t answer the interviewer’s probing questions. What is she trying to hide?
This is a novel about the painful lessons life has to teach us, about ourselves, about love, honesty and morality. Echoing novels such as Persuasion and A Room with a View and the memoir An Education, The Lessons is a striking and powerful story about the loss of innocence and betrayal and how much we can forgive – if we forgive.
1961: When teens Daisy and Harry meet, it feels so right they promise to love each other forever, but in 1960s England everything is stacked against them: class, education, expectations. When Daisy is sent by her parents to live with her glamorous, bohemian Aunt Jane, a novelist working on her second book, she is confronted by adult truths and suffers a loss of innocence that flings her far from the one good thing in her life, Harry.
1983: Jane Curtis, now a famous novelist, is at a prestigious book event in New York, being interviewed about her life and work, including a novel about the traumatic coming of age of a young woman. But she won’t answer the interviewer’s probing questions. What is she trying to hide?
This is a novel about the painful lessons life has to teach us, about ourselves, about love, honesty and morality. Echoing novels such as Persuasion and A Room with a View and the memoir An Education, The Lessons is a striking and powerful story about the loss of innocence and betrayal and how much we can forgive – if we forgive.