The trick to getting it right might well be to just let decent female writers write female characters. Heh, at least then if we still get the same, it their fault!!!!
I realize you say "decent", but well... Twilight.
> Heh, at least then if we still get the same, it their fault!!!!
Not really. One of the points that feminist theory makes is that patriarchy is internalized. This is a difficult ground, because it risks becoming paternalistic, but there is non-gendered evidence of the same effect: Stockholm syndrome, for instance, especially in cases of domestic abuse.
The problem isn't that women aren't getting what they want; the problem is that women are seen as wanting qualitatively different things. This is true to some extent, but we've exaggerated and stereotyped the differences so much that we forget there's a gigantic overlap between "what women want" and "what men want".
The protagonist and her love interest were in a role reversal. She was the warrior, and the male was the doctor/caretaker. However, the rest of the setting follows traditional gender roles, although nobody seems to think it's particularly strange that the protagonist was a female warrior.