Female Authors

[RobertLStevenson]

I write most of my stories from a first-person past perfect voice (e.g., ‘I watched her walk toward me, and I knew I hadn’t seen a more radiant woman...’), and from a male perspective.

I’d love to know some of y’all’s favorite female voiced authors in the same style, because I’m really working on portraying more realistic, empathetic female characters, and I’d love to learn more from their writing about how those authors describe their side of great sexual and romantic experiences.

Thanks so much for your help!

 

[vanmyers86]

There are any number of very talented female writers here. Poke around the Authors' Hangout and you'll find them.

You might try the "Ask A Woman" thread in the Story Feedback forum. A lot of us had fun with that one. Or check out the contest winners.

Also consider that men can write compelling female POV stories too, just as women can craft believable male voices. When it comes down to it, we're all people.

Good luck!

 

[Ginlover]

I have two published stories on here as 1st person female but one non erotic short story I wrote published on fanfiction was first person female cat. As a nod to over excited fangirls writing fantasies with someone else's fictional character (how many ways can Harry Potter get shagged) my cat narrator uses lots of romance tropes with and her identity as a cat is only revealed at the end.

Extract of the cat story

Without a word, he gathered me in his arms. I looked up at him adoringly as I instinctively reached out, probing around his eye.* With complete trust, he relaxed impassively under my touch. Then he dropped his head and lightly kissed the top of mine. I nearly melted.

"Hello, beautiful, I've missed you," he finally murmured against my neck. "It's been a tough few days."

I'd missed him, too - so much it hurt.* But right now my concern was for him, and I told him so. As I carefully scrutinised the black eye again, he smiled - not dismissively, but comfortingly.

"I'm fine, Cassie," he whispered as his fingers wound lovingly through my hair.* I buried my face in his strong, muscular chest, feeling his heartbeat and smiling.

Then, remembering his injury, I leaned back and scowled.* This time, he chuckled at my concern.

"I know, I know. I'll go put some ice on it."

I narrowed my eyes. He was playing me, and I told him how much I didn't appreciate it.

He sighed. "I'm sorry, I know you just care. It's just…" he trailed off seemingly searching for the right words. I nuzzled against his neck to let him know I was listening. It made him sigh softly again. "I guess I'm just not used to coming home to someone."

He kissed my nose. My stomach flipped and joyful butterflies danced inside me.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I write most of my stories from a first-person past perfect voice (e.g., ‘I watched her walk toward me, and I knew I hadn’t seen a more radiant woman...’), and from a male perspective.

I’d love to know some of y’all’s favorite female voiced authors in the same style, because I’m really working on portraying more realistic, empathetic female characters, and I’d love to learn more from their writing about how those authors describe their side of great sexual and romantic experiences.

Thanks so much for your help!

If you want believable female characters, at least ones that are believable to a woman, read women’s romances.

 

[HeyAll]

AltheaRose

https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/girl-power-1

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I have two published stories on here as 1st person female but one non erotic short story I wrote published on fanfiction was first person female cat. As a nod to over excited fangirls writing fantasies with someone else's fictional character (how many ways can Harry Potter get shagged) my cat narrator uses lots of romance tropes with and her identity as a cat is only revealed at the end.

Extract of the cat story

Without a word, he gathered me in his arms. I looked up at him adoringly as I instinctively reached out, probing around his eye.* With complete trust, he relaxed impassively under my touch. Then he dropped his head and lightly kissed the top of mine. I nearly melted.

"Hello, beautiful, I've missed you," he finally murmured against my neck. "It's been a tough few days."

I'd missed him, too - so much it hurt.* But right now my concern was for him, and I told him so. As I carefully scrutinised the black eye again, he smiled - not dismissively, but comfortingly.

"I'm fine, Cassie," he whispered as his fingers wound lovingly through my hair.* I buried my face in his strong, muscular chest, feeling his heartbeat and smiling.

Then, remembering his injury, I leaned back and scowled.* This time, he chuckled at my concern.

"I know, I know. I'll go put some ice on it."

I narrowed my eyes. He was playing me, and I told him how much I didn't appreciate it.

He sighed. "I'm sorry, I know you just care. It's just…" he trailed off seemingly searching for the right words. I nuzzled against his neck to let him know I was listening. It made him sigh softly again. "I guess I'm just not used to coming home to someone."

He kissed my nose. My stomach flipped and joyful butterflies danced inside me.

That's really cute.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I write most of my stories from a first-person past perfect voice (e.g., ‘I watched her walk toward me, and I knew I hadn’t seen a more radiant woman...’), and from a male perspective.

I’d love to know some of y’all’s favorite female voiced authors in the same style, because I’m really working on portraying more realistic, empathetic female characters, and I’d love to learn more from their writing about how those authors describe their side of great sexual and romantic experiences.

Thanks so much for your help!

I think the reason you may not be getting very many direct answers to your question, at least so far, is that it's an awful big question. If you turn it around and think of it that way, wouldn't it be a little daunting to pick some examples writers who write male characters well?

I think that if you could narrow the question a bit, it might help. Is there a particular aspect of female characters you're looking to capture? A specific situation maybe? I know I'm at a loss as to how to identify which female authors would best suit your needs because you've described your objective so broadly. There are just so many female authors who right good female characters. It's a pretty basic piece of the toolbox, so if a writer's female, a good writer, and writes female characters, it seems she would fit your criteria.

If you don't get a lot of responses, you might want to consider eliminating the past perfect tense requirement, and possibly the first-person narrator requirement. If what you're looking for is content and understanding, do tense and narrator matter? It doesn't sound like you're looking to emulate style. Third-person limited omniscient narration provides virtually the same information, but I think plain old third-person omniscient would also provide what you're looking for in many cases, depending on how "deep" (my word for it) the point of view is.

Just some thoughts that might help you get more answers.

 

[Abbafan]

If you want believable female characters, at least ones that are believable to a woman, read women’s romances.

Judging by the sorts of things a lot of the male writers have women saying and doing, I think they were going by what they've seen in porn.

Obviously, some are better than others, though.

 

[Bebop3]

I would take a look at the work of GirlintheMoon, NoraFares and MsCherylTerra.

They are tremendously talented (much more so than I) and usually write from a female POV.

 

[Voboy]

As a male that frequently writes from a woman's POV in FP with some success, here's what I do: for most of my female narrators, I imagine how I'd think and act if I were them, exactly like how I imagine how I'd think and act if I were my male narrators. In other words, for ALL my narrators, I use my imagination and write accordingly. It really is that simple. There's no trick or gimmick; it's all just writing.

Like vanmyers86 said in post 2, we're all just people. There's no magic alchemy here. There's no such thing as a "woman's POV" or a "man's POV," because two women or two men will see the world completely differently. Just write an interesting FP narrator, regardless of sex.

More generally, you can spend weeks here asking for advice on how to write something. I believe that time will be better spent actually writing something. Then post it and see how it does. It's the only way you'll ever really know whether readers find your female POV believable. You'll need to pull the trigger at some point; sooner might be better than later.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

As a male that frequently writes from a woman's POV in FP with some success, here's what I do: for most of my female narrators, I imagine how I'd think and act if I were them, exactly like how I imagine how I'd think and act if I were my male narrators. In other words, for ALL my narrators, I use my imagination and write accordingly. It really is that simple. There's no trick or gimmick; it's all just writing.

Like vanmyers86 said in post 2, we're all just people. There's no magic alchemy here. There's no such thing as a "woman's POV" or a "man's POV," because two women or two men will see the world completely differently. Just write an interesting FP narrator, regardless of sex.

More generally, you can spend weeks here asking for advice on how to write something. I believe that time will be better spent actually writing something. Then post it and see how it does. It's the only way you'll ever really know whether readers find your female POV believable. You'll need to pull the trigger at some point; sooner might be better than later.

He already has written and posted stories, though.

In some ways, I agree with what you're saying about a woman's point of view or a man's point of view. At least, I agree with it in theory. In practice, I can often tell whether a man or woman wrote something. When I pick stories to read, I don't really pay attention to who the author is. If female POV is pulled off well, it goes unnoticed. In those cases, I'm not wondering about whether the author is male or female, which is my preference as a reader, and, I imagine, what the author would prefer.

But, there are many times when I'll get partway through a story and think, "A guy must have written this." I'll scroll back up to check, and sure enough, it's almost always either an author who's obviously male, or an author with an ambiguous name. I'm not talking about stories that start sounding like a porn movie script. They're generally well-written stories that are just off when it comes to the female perspective. If they weren't somehow off, I wouldn't have become aware of it. So, even though there are plenty of men who write a woman's point of view well, writing well doesn't guarantee writing a woman's point of view well.

I think looking at examples is a great way to pick up on differences. I'd just need the question to be a little more directed to know who to recommend.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

There's some female POV stories where all the woman does is agree to what a man wants, which always jar slightly. Especially in BDSM stories where you'd expect a woman to be at least considering her safety, giving a passing thought to professionalism at work, her health, etc., it's very obvious when this doesn't happen. Female authors tend to cover those topics at least in passing, with allusions to doubt and feeling conflicted.

Bramblethorn's women feel exceptionally real to me - mostly lesbian stories so you get two characters in one story.
My stories are mostly female POV though the BDSM ones tend to skip characterisation until later in the story.

 

[SimonDoom]

But, there are many times when I'll get partway through a story and think, "A guy must have written this." I'll scroll back up to check, and sure enough, it's almost always either an author who's obviously male, or an author with an ambiguous name. I'm not talking about stories that start sounding like a porn movie script. They're generally well-written stories that are just off when it comes to the female perspective. If they weren't somehow off, I wouldn't have become aware of it. So, even though there are plenty of men who write a woman's point of view well, writing well doesn't guarantee writing a woman's point of view well.

.

This makes sense to me. Maybe it would be helpful to approach the subject matter by asking what, specifically, tips you off that the story is written by a man? What changes could the author make that would convince the reader that the story was written by a woman instead?

 

[jsmiam]

Back in online chat days on AOL (hey, we’re an old crowd here) when a 5 foot 11 and 120 pound nymphomanic model/professional women’s sand volleyball player who was really into anal sex and giving great oral sex would private message me and not want to waste time with that boring get to know one another business, I would sometimes ask “what’s an applicator?”, the perfect question that all women would know and few men would. (I was later straightened out by the lovely “Sam” though, I didn’t know about Adam’s Apple smoothing cream applicators until she came along. Ahhh, she was lovely.)

With the reality of this forum being a unique oasis where the elusive actual female authors are so very real, there’s still a big “how would you know” factor everywhere else. Asking here was a smart move, if you’re trying to really read and learn by reading stories authored by women.

There’s a pretty big subculture of readers hoping female authors are real too. That’s where it gets hairy. (Back/shoulder hairy. )

Whether that secret handshake should be revealed though is a whole ‘nother story. Maybe male authors learning to be better at pretending to be female authors is a bad thing?

 

[Voboy]

He already has written and posted stories, though.

...just off when it comes to the female perspective.

But what, really, is "the female perspective?"

I don't buy that as a construct. I think there are very likely to be a lot of women whose perception would match yours, but I believe there are many others who'd find your perspective to be foreign to theirs. Just as I'd never presume another man sees the world as I do.

 

[yowser]

But, there are many times when I'll get partway through a story and think, "A guy must have written this." I'll scroll back up to check, and sure enough, it's almost always either an author who's obviously male, or an author with an ambiguous name. I'm not talking about stories that start sounding like a porn movie script.

I knew I had got it right when I got a nasty comment on a story in LW (what else is there?) saying I was one sick cheating hotwife, and then later a retraction (rare!) saying, 'oh, I looked at your profile and you're a guy...'

An odd way to gauge success....

 

[jsmiam]

But what, really, is "the female perspective?"

I don't buy that as a construct. I think there are very likely to be a lot of women whose perception would match yours, but I believe there are many others who'd find your perspective to be foreign to theirs. Just as I'd never presume another man sees the world as I do.

My two cents (I wouldn’t dare Answer for anyone else) would be that part of it is a culmination of multiple cues added together. Slam bam thank you ma’am. Using the “c” word if an American. Excessive positions and biological references. Few settings/scenery/place references. Size mattering references. Appearance references. Inexperienced or inaccurate references with respect to the quantity and degree of female gushing on orgasm. Failure to acknowledge or discuss the female orgasm. Or pornstar styled orgasms.

Taken alone, just one of these doesn’t mean it wasn’t a female author. Add them up, I think it starts putting things in perspective.

I bet the ultimate trait to prove gender is “ability to score highly in romance. “.

P. S. If this double posts, it’s that a glitch glitched on me.

 

[Voboy]

My two cents (I wouldn’t dare Answer for anyone else) would be that part of it is a culmination of multiple cues added together. Slam bam thank you ma’am. Using the “c” word if an American. Excessive positions and biological references. Few settings/scenery/place references. Size mattering references. Appearance references. Inexperienced or inaccurate references with respect to the quantity and degree of female gushing on orgasm. Failure to acknowledge or discuss the female orgasm. Or pornstar styled orgasms.

Taken alone, just one of these doesn’t mean it wasn’t a female author. Add them up, I think it starts putting things in perspective.

I bet the ultimate trait to prove gender is “ability to score highly in romance. “.

P. S. If this double posts, it’s that a glitch glitched on me.

My wife calls her underwear "underwear." She insists with absolute certainty that no woman actually uses the term "panties."

Discuss.

 

[jsmiam]

My wife calls her underwear "underwear." She insists with absolute certainty that no woman actually uses the term "panties."

Discuss.

Good example. I think she has a point, even if I disagree that the number is zero.

If you listen carefully, far less women say it than we realize. However (don’t tell her I said this) I would disagree that it’s “never.” ;-)

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

This makes sense to me. Maybe it would be helpful to approach the subject matter by asking what, specifically, tips you off that the story is written by a man? What changes could the author make that would convince the reader that the story was written by a woman instead?

I'm afraid this isn't going to be very helpful, because often, I'm not consciously aware of what it is. I just suddenly become aware of it. After the fact, I'll occasionally go back and look at what made me feel that way, but there's no guarantee that what I notice when I'm looking for it is the same thing that made me think about it in the first place. There are times when I realize what it is right away, but it's usually more subtle than that.

Here are the types of things I recall that made me notice:

-Female partners who are unusually aggressive with their seduction/advances in ways that mirror the way men make advances rather than the way women tend to do

-Female partners who have no apparent motivation to provide context for sudden engagement in sexual activity. For example, the female co-worker who suddenly starts giving out blow jobs for no apparent reason and with no exploration of why she wants to do that.

- Male characters who display no emotional impact from intimacy, while the female character's emotions are clearly present or exaggerated.

- Characters who don't say please or thank you where appropriate during casual dialog.

- Every female character is either bisexual or bi-curious.

- Emphasis on a specific detail of particular interest to the author. For example, if the male character keeps talking about the female character's long hair, it produces an awareness that the author is a male with a thing for long hair. There's nothing wrong with that. It just creates an awareness. Giving both characters fixations could eliminate that, but I don't see what the point would be.

- Women are dressed like they just came from Frederick's of Hollywood, and are fully imagined, down to the stitch. We don't know what the men were wearing because their clothes either magically disappeared or were shucked off too quickly to warrant our attention. My personal take on it is that clothes do best with minimal description unless they play a specific role in the story, but if the author indulges in more detail, it's probably best to be even-handed with it.

- Comparison of a female character's body to a celebrity's body

-Female character's breasts, ass, or hips being described in terms of adequacy. (i.e. ample handful, abundance of flesh, wide enough to..., small enough to..., more than enough to..., just enough to..., meager, underdeveloped, adolescent, etc.)

-The male character catalogs prior conquests or describing his sex life in terms of number of partners, frequency, etc.

-The male character's narration includes a description of comments women have made on his performance

-Female characters who are chronically indecisive, unsure, wavering, and helpless in the face of normal daily life

-Female characters who are afraid of the big, bad, scary cock

-Bra size (Some female authors do it, too. The real giveaway is misunderstandings of bra sizes reflected by very large band sizes, when it's obvious the author intends to describe large breasts on a small frame.)

-Extremely specific physical descriptions, particularly of breasts or genitalia. This also applies to male anatomy. Male authors tend to spend a lot more time on this than women do. When female authors go all in on giant cock descriptions, it tends to be a story that's over-the-top porn, and I assume intended to read that way. With male authors, I'll see an awful lot of love shown to the male protagonist's cock, which is almost always a bit larger than average. If described as average size, it is generally accompanied by a description of some other stellar quality about it. If it feels like a penis talent show/beauty contest, it was probably written by a man. I'm making it sound like paragraphs of description, and it often isn't. It takes very little too go overboard.

There's also a qualitative difference in descriptions. Men tend to go exclusively visual with the description and tend to make the character's cock the standalone object of the description. That's not a great term, especially if you're thinking "object" in grammatical terms, but here's an example of what I mean.

Male description: "Her eyes were drawn to his thick, heavily veined cock, jutting proudly above his heavy balls."

Female description: "She curled her fingers around his shaft, exploring the way the velvety skin glided over the firm solidity within her grip." (Yes, that's terrible, but it's just a quick example demonstrating the visual versus non-visual emphasis.)

Female description: "The light played over the satin texture of his shaft, and it made her want to feel it rubbing against her cheek. She sighed and his cock throbbed in the wash of her warm breath, inviting her steadying grip. But it was his swollen tip that really caught her imagination, filling her mind with images of...[you get the idea]. (Also not a great example, but it demonstrates the difference between this is what the character's penis looks like, versus this is how the appearance of the character's penis makes her feel.)
​

-Anatomically inaccurate physical descriptions (although, oddly, I've found this occasionally from female writers, too.)

-Descriptions of the taste of male ejaculate that read like a milkshake is being guzzled. There's no reason she can't enjoy it, but it doesn't taste like dessert. Not that kind of dessert, anyway.

-Female character reaches orgasm without the stimulation that would make it physically possible. For example, a quick, hands-free rut up against an office wall that leads to the female character's mind-shattering orgasm. At least one. Maybe five or six. (It's not uncommon from female writers to skip the non PIV stimulation, but in those cases, it has more of a coy feel than a feeling that the author needs to do a little fieldwork.)


Having made the list, I'm even more convinced that I can't really identify what it is. Some of the things on the list are just examples of bad writing, although they do show up in stories that are otherwise good. I don't generally read poorly written stories, so if I'm coming across these things, it means they aren't just relegated to poorly told stories. The different approaches to physical descriptions are fairly good indicators, but I often realize it before I get to a sex scene, so there has to be something else. I think part of it may be that I occasionally see male authors using a bit of a heavy hand to introduce female perspective, but I'm just not sure.

I'd be extraordinarily grateful to anyone who can offer a take on common errors by female authors trying to capture the male perspective.

A couple of important caveats to this post:
(1) I'm just listing observations that keyed me in to an author's gender, in response to that question being asked. I do not mean to imply that all male authors do any of these things, or that female authors never do.
(2) The fact that an author's gender is readily detectable is not necessarily a flaw. It can be the result of flaws, but simply writing in a masculine voice isn't a problem. A definite voice can be a very enjoyable feature when it isn't the product of mistakes. Maybe sometimes even if it is.

[/LIST]

 

[SimonDoom]

My wife calls her underwear "underwear." She insists with absolute certainty that no woman actually uses the term "panties."

Discuss.

I know for a fact that this is false because I've dated women that say "panties" without being prompted by me.

I'd put it this way: While there is no one male perspective and no one female perspective, if you had a bunch of us do a blind test reviewing writing samples without knowing the gender of the author, my guess is we'd have a fair though not perfect record of guessing the author's gender correctly. Some would be obvious. Some would be subtle. I have no idea what the overall hit rate would be. But I think it would be fairly high.

 

[Voboy]

Good example. I think she has a point, even if I disagree that the number is zero.

If you listen carefully, far less women say it than we realize. However (don’t tell her I said this) I would disagree that it’s “never.” ;-)

Precisely my point.

If I was using her as a universal arbiter of how women perceive their underthings, I'd write it that way (and I did, a few times). I'm sure it lent versimilitude. But plenty of women absolutely do use the term panties. So doing it that way is fine, too.

I reject the idea that every woman has an infallible sense for how all women see things.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

But what, really, is "the female perspective?"

I don't buy that as a construct. I think there are very likely to be a lot of women whose perception would match yours, but I believe there are many others who'd find your perspective to be foreign to theirs. Just as I'd never presume another man sees the world as I do.

You are certainly not the first man to express his belief that he understands the female perspective as well as a woman.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I knew I had got it right when I got a nasty comment on a story in LW (what else is there?) saying I was one sick cheating hotwife, and then later a retraction (rare!) saying, 'oh, I looked at your profile and you're a guy...'

An odd way to gauge success....

That's hysterical! Nice compliment, in a hateful sort of way.

 

[Voboy]

You are certainly not the first man to express his belief that he understands the female perspective as well as a woman.

That's not even remotely what I said. Though you're proving my point well enough.