There is a notion of the kick ass woman. She is strong, perhaps even muscular. She is a natural leader, tough, and quick-thinking. We’ve seen her in movies like Alien (1979) and Resident Evil (2002).
I’ve never identified with her.
A meme caught my attention the other day. It showed Negan from The Walking Dead (2010-) and Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad (2016), both brandishing their signature bats. “Some people look cool holding a bat” read the meme. “And then there’s Wendy.” Below is Shelley Duvall, the bat limp in her hand as she is menaced by her fictional husband in Kubrick’s version of The Shining (1980). It’s funny, harmless really. Yet, it bothered me.
Wendy Torrance, in both the novel and the film (and I’m well aware there are vast differences) is a real person. She is not a kick ass woman. She is authentically navigating through her husband’s alcoholism. She is a mother, scared for her child who is displaying disturbing abilities. She is stretched thin with worry, and then pure horror.
She is not styled up like Harley Quinn and she certainly doesn’t hold the maniac authority of Negan. Wendy is real. She, and this is the pill no one wants to swallow, is all of us. She screams, she makes some poor choices, and her complicated past predicts her future.
Wendy is the authentic sort of woman we need in horror media.
While depicting women in horror films is as equally as important, my expertise is rooted in fiction writing. And this focus seems particularly appropriate as women truly birthed the gothic. While men sought edification through the writing and deconstruction of poetry, women, in great part, cultivated the gothic novel.
I was fifteen when I read Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier. A gothic masterpiece, Rebecca is based on one of the most influential female gothic novels of all time, Jane Eyre.
For the first time I saw a character I identified with in dark literature. I had been used to reading about kick ass women, an improvement over the slut-shamed, paper thin women of the films I often watched (and I say this, acknowledging there were many authentic women in horror film at the time), yet still not right.
In Rebecca, the main character, symbolically lacking a name, is meek. She is young, worried, and unsure of herself. Her past colors her present, and yet, she wins. She doesn’t command every room she enters, she’s not inherently strong. Rebecca changed my life. It injected me with a powerful cocktail of complicated woman meets gothic terror. And imbued with the knowledge that I didn’t have to be Ripley to navigate through horror.
This pursuit of authentic females in horror literature has become a professional touchstone for me. I seek it out in what I consume, but also in what I create. I’m also a believer that character should come first, before you mentally sketch out your plot. When I teach writing, whether to kids or adults, I reiterate this principal.
Reject archetypes
The first step in truly committing to writing real, complicated women in horror literature is the rejection of the archetypes we have all grown up on. The kick ass woman isn’t real. Wendy Torrance, fighting through her weakness, protects her son. That is kicking ass. Jane Eyre, poor and quiet, braves displacement from her only home in order to live by her principles. That is kicking ass. Women, like all humans, are a sum of their parts. They are at once scared, weak, brave, guilty, and more. The virginal final girl is another easy trap to fall into. Be careful to not put a woman on a pedestal because she’s “not like other girls”. This cattiness can reduce your work, making it appear as if you value one woman over all others.
Construct a past with culpability
Women are often victims. Whether it be abuse from their spouses, a single stranger, or society at large. It is a true aspect of our lives, which is a rich soil from which to create. And your character being a victim is okay in the construction of your fiction. While an archetypal kick ass woman may never let herself be bullied, an authentic female character, has perhaps, had to survive through abuse or harassment. But, here is the tricky see-saw that must be balanced: your character has to have a culpability in her past. Of course women are not responsible for their own abuse, or victimhood. But there must be a choice they’ve made, or a succession of choices, that were misguided. That were inextricably human. This can range from the mundane to the extreme. In my short story “A Flash of Orange” in my collection Twisted Reveries, Louise relied too heavily on her husband. So, when he leaves her, she is left scared and unable to do the most commonplace tasks. She was a bit spoiled and never had to take out the trash, which leaves her in a state of arrested development. While Louise isn’t a bad person, she is human. And she has room to grow. So when she is kidnapped and abandoned in a rural, icy landscape, she is forced to develop, to learn, to combat the instinct to let others save her. A more extreme example would be the character of Daphne in my novel Her Dark Inheritance. As a teenager, Daphne wasn’t paying attention as she backed out of the driveway. She accidentally killed a young boy. While other factors were at play, Daphne holds culpability. She made a mistake, one that has actually happened to people, and it is her choice if she will let it help or hurt when she is faced with the horror of the novel. It is absolutely integral to your female character that she is responsible for something in her past which reverberates to the present. She can be a victim, too, but don’t forget that she has the ability to make choices, and as humans we will undoubtedly screw at least a few of them up.
Let her be unlikable
There is a sequence in my novel, Her Dark Inheritance, when Daphne’s immaturity bubbles to the surface. She yells at a person trying to help her, and stomps off like a petulant child. One beta reader wrinkled her nose at this interaction, suggesting I remove it because it made Daphne seem whiny.
Instead, I saw this is a compliment, as Daphne should, indeed, seem whiny. Why? Because she is supposed to be human.
Before my children were born I coached myself into trying not to curse. It never lasted, and my seven year old announced the other day that I’m the “swearer” in the family. It’s true. I also have a red hot temper (only ever activated by my husband) and I’ve been known to slam a door or two in my time. I can also be lazy and judgmental.
I’m not perfect, and I refuse to ever write a perfect character. Yes, this is a balance. In a novel, not as much in a short story, your main character must be inherently good. They must have relatable intentions, and ultimately crave decency. Gillian Flynn is a recent master of this phenomenon, not being afraid to make her female characters unlikable while still making the readers root for them. It is something you’ll have to tweak and play with, but is ultimately fundamental in making your women authentic. Whomever your main character is, she shouldn’t always have a clever thing to say. And perhaps she can be ungrateful, greedy, or selfish. We all have flashes of these moments, and historically this is more allowed in male characters than female. Allowing our women characters to reveal these truths is a rebellion against this inconsistency.
Horror is a place of a high stakes. It is rife with possibility for complicated, relatable female characters to burgeon. As purveyors of horror for a new generation, I encourage you to find strength in authenticity. Wendy may not look menacing in her corduroy jumpsuit, holding that bat with a trembling chin, but she’s the hero of her own story.
Award nominated horror and suspense author Meg Hafdahl was raised in both British Columbia and Minnesota. A member of the esteemed Horror Writers Association, her female driven horror stories have been produced for audio by The Wicked Library, and have appeared in anthologies such as Spider Road Press’ Eve’s Requiem: Tales of Women, Mystery and Horror. Her first short story collection, Twisted Reveries: Thirteen Tales of the Macabre was released by Inklings Publishing in 2015. Twisted Reveries Volume II: Tales from Willoughby arrived in 2016, and Meg’s debut horror novel, Her Dark Inheritance, was released in March 2018. She is also the co-host of the podcast Horror Rewind as well as a regular contributor for Spider Mirror Journal. Meg lives in Minnesota with her husband, two young sons, and a menagerie of pets.
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