nanowrimo_lj | (no subject)

Alright I'll come right out with it. I'm a male *chauvinist pig. Well not really, but I found as I was making my list of important characters that they were all male with the exception of one female. I've got Tolkien syndrome. I'm just not good at writing females or making them realistic. So, gals (and guys who can think like gals, I guess), my plea is for some ideas of good female character traits or tips about writing women so that I don't turn my story into one huge sausage fest.

I should probably give a little background to this story. Modern supernatural setting, there's a secret global organization that isn't entirely moral about their methods of killing the 'underkind' of the world, namely vampires, werewolves, and other such fabled beings. Vampires are the result of a virus that was on a comet that struck in the Arabian desert in present day Mecca that infected and spliced its DNA into human hosts. Werewolves are believed to be the sons and daughters of Caine. Then there are the Atlantians, and my reason for needing female writing lessons, they're an alien race that crash landed on Earth all those long years ago and being warlike took over the city of Atlantis until the locals tried to revolt. They sank the city to protect what was left of their technology from getting into the rebel's hands. They're a female ruled society and subsist by sucking out a person's life essence. Pretty nasty folks with some high tech stuff. They will be the later antagonists. Alright, that should be enough of a background.

I just don't want to write the helpless young maiden or the girl who has to prove she's just as badass as the guys. I just can't think up anything without it falling into those stereotypes. Any help at all would be appreciated. I don't necessarily want names and full bios, but a few general tips and ideas would be helpful and appreciated. Thanks in advance.

--I believe this is an acceptable post but being my first time to post here I wont balk if it gets deleted. I did read the rules but I'm paranoid like that.