Strong Female Characters

What do you think of when someone says “strong female characters”?

I always thought it was a female whose characterization is strong, however I was reading this article, where author Sophia McDougall seems to take issue with females who are strong. In fact, she insists that the former interpretation is being conflated with the latter and females are now being written as fighters in place of actual characterization.

I have to admit, the examples Ms. McDougall cites are accurate. But those examples are also from movies rather than books, and face it, Hollywood isn’t exactly on the ball with progressive female characters in leading roles (certainly not without a male counterpart). Hollywood writes formen because they say women can identify with male characters obviously it’s impossible for men to try to identify with females.

But are books the same? There are some that are. THE HUNGER GAMES series features a female lead who is not physically strong, but still an exceptional fighter with her archery skills. She also has some other characteristics, but Katniss is very much a “strong female character”. But let’s look at another book, the post-zombie-apocalyptic FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH. Main character Mary is not a fighter by any means, is involved in a love quadrangle, and spends more time than she should worried about her relationships with the male characters. She is also strong willed, stubborn, resourceful, and emotional. She is a real person. Well, you get what I mean.

What say you about strong female characters? Do you know of any strong characters who aren’t necessarily strong women?

Snark

Before I actually start talking about today’s subject, I have to say that I find the word “snark” really odd looking. It’s like sound you make when you’re blowing your nose.

I…I think weird thoughts sometimes.

Anyway, snark. In particular, snarky characters. In even more particular, snarky teenage protagonists. Although I can’t think of any off hand, I’ve heard this is a common trait for YA main characters and it’s both overdone and uninteresting. This of course ties my insides into a knot because I have a snarky MC.

I can understand why people might be turned off by yet another sarcastic MC, especially in the first person point of view. The thought is that the snarky voice is used so much because it’s an easy way to sound like a teenager when in reality you’re in your thirties and have three children under the age of eight.

But for me, it wasn’t about trying to sound like a teenager. My character’s sarcastic because, as anyone who has read any of my blog posts knows, I’msarcastic. Shades of snark show up in all my characters, especially my main characters, and not just the YA ones either. For me, part of crafting voice is using my own way of talking and thinking, which in my head is ninety percent complaining and making fun of stuff. And if I changed the snark in COLLAPSE, for example, I think it might lose something.

Is that true? I’m not sure, but it definitely merits thinking over. And yes, I’m going to finish with some questions. What do you think of the sarcastic teenage voice? Do any of you have examples of snarky main characters in fiction (YA or not)?

The Action Girl

My current WIP is, for once, not Post-Apocalyptic. It’s just regular Apocalyptic. The main character is a seventeen year old named Cassidy and she’s only about seventy five percent sure she’ll live to see eighteen.

As I’ve been writing her story, one thing has become increasingly obvious about her: she’s not soft, not particularly nice at times and most of all, not girly. On a scale from Bella to Katniss, she’s definitely on the Katniss side of things, perhaps even more so. She doesn’t have a cute younger sister to take care of, either.

It makes me a little nervous. What if readers don’t connect with her? I totally think she’s awesome (well, for the most part; she has her problems, believe me) but I’m not buying the book. People might not like someone who stifles their emotions and can be cold and calculating. She may not be boring, but who wants to read about someone they don’t care about?

Still, I’m not going to drastically alter her personality since without it, pretty much nothing would happen. Cassidy is the driving force behind most of what happens because she is driven, fierce and she won’t sit around waiting for problems to solve themselves. I’d hate to lose any part of her.

 So what are your thoughts on the matter? Do you have any characters you’re worried people won’t empathize with?

Lessons from the Classics

I was reading THE GODFATHER the other day and it occurred to me: this book does a great job of using (and even abusing) the “rules”. One of said rules being the gratuitous use of quotation marks.

The inciting incident (Don Corleone getting shot) doesn’t happen for twenty pages. The first chapters are entirely devoted to backstory about the mafia, especially the Corleone family, in New York. Yet it works. The real importance of these chapters is in the showing of the power and reach of Vito Corleone. Honestly, about half of it could be cut without affecting the story. But the whole of the work would still suffer. No, we don’t need to hear about the depravity of the movie producer, but somehow it adds something to the infamous horse-head-in-the-bed scene.

Most of the rest of the book is full of backstory, too. Yet it doesn’t drag and rarely feels like backstory. Every character that is introduced receives at least a page that delves into their histories, minutia of detail to show us who they are and why they make the decisions they do. Every minor character has a story to tell and we hear about it.

A lot of people call it a romanticizing of the mob and they aren’t wrong, but they’re missing the point of writing. All of us writers wantpeople to sympathize with our characters. The Godfather happens to pull this off. Murderers, sociopaths, people who use intimidation to get what they want…these aren’t nice people. But Mario Puzo makes them easy to feel for. By following along their lives, we can root for the protagonists to win, even though they’re just as bad as their foes.

Thoughts? What classics have you learned from?

Websites for Writers

I stumbled across these editing tips by Tracey Neithercott a while back and thought they were excellent. Then I reminded myself to write down the name of the blog so I could share it and not be plagiarizing anything.

This is some great advice. Editing can be such a struggle for me. Oh I’m good at recognizing problems with the plot and figuring out which words I just use too much. But there’s so much more to do to make my books readable, let alone publishable.

I really loved the bit about highlighting verbs and circling metaphors. I think there would be quite a large amount of yellow in my book : ). Also smart is the suggestion to read the book through for every—repeat, every—character. Thinking of each one as a main character (albeit one who doesn’t need every moment told) will help develop them and the story. If you can’t create someone who is a character and not a plot device, then out they go.

Any self-editing tips you want to add? What do you do in order to develop each character?

Writus Interruptus

Yeah, I don’t know any Latin. Sometimes I just put something up there because I like how it sounds.

Anyway, what I’m here to talk about is jumping back into a story after a break (taken willingly or not). It can be hard! I’ve had so much going on lately, that I haven’t been able to write with any consistency (only two days last week—bad!). However, I don’t want to lose momentum on the story because a) I really like it and b) I really want to finish it. So what’s a writer to do?

Easy. Well, maybe not easy, but you know what I mean. Keep the momentum going! On days where I wasn’t able to write, I did smaller things that involve the story. One day, I worked on a query letter. Obviously, it's not to use right now. I just made it to crystalize what I want from the novel.

It was also helpful to do some world building. I wrote a little about the MC and learned more about her in the process—it should make for some interesting additions. I also wrote some random scenes that I have no idea where to put yet. They were just random bursts of words to keep the fire going.

The whole point of this is: when you can’t get into your story, for whatever reason, don’t let it leave your mind. Keep working on the ancillary pieces: outlines, queries, synopses, characters…whatever. Just do something every day. It will be that much easier to get going again when the time is right.