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The female character flowchart

After a discussion yesterday about the Bechdel test, which came from this 1985 comic by Alison Bechdel, I checked my WIP, "Goodbye Grammarian". I'm happy to report that there are indeed:

1. Two (named) women...
2. ... who talk to each other...
3. ... about something other than a man.

Originally applied only to films, the Bechdel test would seem to be impossible for a novel to pass if that novel is told from a male first-person POV. However, if the man is present in the scene but does not participate in or direct the conversation between two women about something non-man related, I'm going to deem that acceptable.

By the way, the "named women" thing is apparently to avoid "female character buys a cup of coffee at Starbucks, thanks female barista who tells her to have a nice day = PASS".

Anyway, wondering about your own female characters? Here's a handy flowchart from www.overthinkingit.com:

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===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

3 comments:

  1. Too bad the chart is full of trope labels.

    TVTropes is not a good website.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I always thought the named-character thing was because, by enormous margin, unnamed characters are minor roles. So before they can have a substantial conversation, you have to hit the prerequisite for two substantial female roles in your work.

    I was pretty happy about passing it with a male POV in my novel last year. This year, with multiple POVs in the next novel, I've utterly smoked the test. It's not really a good test - is Milk a bad movie because gay guys talk to each other all the time instead of women? - but it's something worth thinking about, as women are still frighteningly underrepresented in substantial roles in mainstream film, and in plenty of strains of fiction.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was first led to this line of thought because Neil Gaiman tweeted about one of the Sandman books failing the test. Every character in the book was a cat. With no women, FAIL.

      The test is certainly open to interpretation, but time spent arguing the fine points isn't nearly as important as recognizing the need for strong female characters.

      Delete

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