If all this Bechdelling has you thinking about making some of your supporting characters women, but you’re not absolutely sure how to execute it well, fear not. It’s easy.
- Give the woman characters a sexually neutral place in the story. Who she’s having sex with, or wants to, or who wants to have sex with her, exists outside the main story parameters.
- Give the woman characters an active agenda. Her motivations spring from how she wants the situation to resolve. She will provide conflict and/or support in accord with those motives. Observe rule 1.
- Give the woman characters a unique way to contribute. A soft heart, a hard head, specialized knowledge, unusual experience, a hard-won ability. A trait that exists to propel the story rather than appeal to the protag.
This shift in thinking about story makes women characters intrinsic to the plot rather than decorations or props whose victimization exists to motivate the protagonist.
It’s a good shift in thinking. It is fresh and modern, and not least, profitable.