Rants and realities

Yesterday I was watching the start of the second season of Sleepy Hollow. The show is goofy fun, with a great mix of characters, pseudo-history, and a charming pair of leads.

Usually I enjoy the show, but there are some scenes I feel really disinterested in; the ones with Ichabod’s wife, Katrina. Yep, I had to Wikipedia her to even remember her name.

It’s not a problem with the shows creators doing a poor job of writing female characters, because Abbie Mills is a fantastic person that I really enjoy watching. Her sister Jenny Mills, is even more tormented with a collection of kick butt skills, and attitude to match.

So the writers of the show can create great female characters, instead it’s the usual problem. ‘The wife.’

It’s a terrible tag. Think about it; in most shows or books, when there is a wife character, she is usually the one fans or readers complain about the most.

She’s the one whose scenes feel flat or forced. She always gets in trouble, and the hero has to drop everything to go and save her. She is either whiny, too perfect to be true, or has such a pitiful sense of survival that she should have been a Darwin Award winner.

As a wife myself, I’m a little distressed by this. For a moment I wondered, is there something inherently dull about being a wife? Does somehow becoming one make the rest of your life fall away? Do you lose all your common sense and become merely an appendage?

Luckily, I know plenty of fascinating, strong, and loving wives who show that is not true. Nope, unfortunately, it’s something about the way many writers approach writing wives.

Now, I’m going to point out that this could be said of any ‘side kick’ character—including a husband—but most often it does seem to be the wives that get this treatment.

So here’s how it begins…

When writing a male character, there is a statistical chance that at a certain age, he will have married. So the writers go, ‘ah he needs a wife.’

Ugh. First thing, by throwing that label on her immediately, is putting her into some weird mold of what a ‘wife is’. New flash darlings; wives are actually women cunningly in disguise. Frighting, huh?

Instead of just putting in a cardboard cut out of ‘the wife’ in your story, think about what sort of woman you want? She can be anything; any colour, have any job—but the one thing she must have is her own goals and aspirations. Yes, they can be family, but as a wife I can tell you I have ambitions beyond that too.

In other words, stop thinking of the wife in terms of the family alone. Where did she come from? What have her life experiences been? What are her faults? (Please don’t forget that one!)

Put as much effort into making her a character with fullness and completeness, as you did making her husband. (Again this goes for any sex, or any sidekick too)

Katrina Crane in Sleepy Hollow is also the McGuffin. She only exists to be the goal just out of reach for Ichabod. Now I love my husband, but I don’t want to be his McGuffin. I am his equal, and my back-story is in reality as complicated as his. Sometimes I will save his bacon; sometimes he will save mine.

Now things have moved on from last century, and writers—especially of genre fiction—have worked out, people do like strong female characters. However, in ‘the wife’s’ case that strength can…well it can waver…

Katrina, like many of the ‘wifey’ characters these days, has been built up to have powers of her own. When Ichabod is not around, she is a strong witch and leader of a coven. She can do spells and…stuff…

That all sounds cool, until Ichabod is near her, where suddenly she loses all those powers. Pffffttt, I don’t know where they go… This tends to happen with the portrayal of women, but in the ‘wife’s’ case it is almost endemic.

It does disappoint me, because I enjoy all the other characters in the Sleepy Hollow—and I hate feeling this way about a female character. The show has a wonderfully racially diverse cast, and a pretty equal percentage of male to female.

My favourite, Abbie Mills is a rounded person with back-story and character quirks—but then she is not hobbled with the almost cursed title of ‘the wife’.

It is the problem with labeling anyone with archetype, and I am hoping the Sleepy Hollow writers can bring Katrina foreword as her own, real character as the season goes on.

As a writer it serves as a reminder, to think in terms of people rather than simple placeholders. The wife problem is part of the wider, characters considerations, so I know if writers put themselves in the heads of wives, they will find their motivations and goals too.

So go out there, make full, wonderful, conflicted, powerful, diverse characters—and if you write a woman who is a wife, make sure that you show the world that wives are also people too!