I know I have mentioned it before, but I am working on several WIPs. I have told myself over and over that I need to choose one and spend all my time completing it, then move on to the next. I have tried that repeatedly, and still I find myself working on one when something pops in my head that forces me to return to one of the others for a while. It is bad, because it is taking me a great while to complete the next book.
I mention this because I was reading, again, a running commentary on one of the online groups where once again everyone congratulated themselves on their hatred of the weak willed heroine and how they must all be strong and capable creatures or they will not read the novel. TSTL heroines were remarked on with regularity. The majority of these commentators had varying degrees of where the line stood as to what they were willing to put with from a heroine.
Let me start by saying that writing the perfect heroine is not an easy task. You can not please every one who will read your story and though I am a capable woman, and have managed to live my life in such a way that I can support myself with out depending on someone else, I am still fully capable of being a bitch and screwing the pooch with the best of them.
When I write, the story dictates who my heroine is and what her goal, needs and issues are. If I am writing an historical, I may want to have a forward looking female as my lead, but she must be true to the time period and the plotline. Sure I can make her angry with the world and how it is, so she fights against everything. Is that character you want for a romance novel. Seriously? She has to be true to the time and the existence she has lived. If it has been difficult for her, then that has to be reflected.
One of the reasons that I find myself jumping from one story to another is the females in the different stories. The Urban Fantasy has a very nifty kick ass heroine. She can be kick ass, because she is ancient and is the blood of the Sidra. Another story is a historical and my heroine has sacrificed much in her life and now she will find some happiness, but not easily. Another story in my urban fantasy world is an empath, who happens to be a director, she approaches things very different. She is strong in some ways, but clueless in other ways. And the last is a female shifter whose story is secondary to the two men. Sometimes a woman simply is and finds happiness in what makes those happy around her, does that make her a lesser person. Some of us must hold onto something with a firm grip and others let things come to them.
If we all wrote stories with the same female, strong, right minded and never screws up, how long would that hold your interest in a book. Don’t get me wrong, I love a strong female character, but I’ve never met a perfect one and that means that they make bad decisions and do stupid things. I often realize it was a wrong dumb headed move on my part within just minutes of opening my mouth. I don’t learn from it as much as shake my head.
I am enjoying being in the heads of these four very different characters. Now, I just want to close in and finish their stories.
Rhianna
