Hello from Atlanta! I can’t believe it’s been a week since I blogged last – so sorry. I was in Melbourne, FLA for the first annual Deep Thinker’s Retreat. What fun, with a great group of aspiring author. I just fell in love with this group of ladies! Why? Oh, I’ll tell you – First, I live in the woods, and when I say woods, I mean tucked into a little hamlet in the snowy tip of northern Minnesota, where ice and snow clasp us in solitude for the better part of four months. Worse, I am an extrovert, so….well you get the picture. I shed my layers going south, met my friend, stood on the beach and shouted out a hallelujah! The retreat Filled that Empty Place….you could say […]
Read the RestArchive | February, 2010
She’s so Beautiful to me!
So – you’ve created a heroine with confidence, despite her flaws and fears, one who has a goal that will drive her through the story. But you need one last element of a Heroic Heroine – and that is… Beauty Your heroine needs a special kind of beauty, both inner and outer that only the hero can see/love. Something special, only hers. Maybe it’s her eyes, but also the way that she can look right through him and see what he needs. Or maybe it’s her patience. Maybe it’s her strength to see the good, or believe in the good. Beauty – what is it? An informal Warren family poll taken a couple years ago elicited very different responses: 16 year old boy: Someone who is smart. 13 year old […]
Read the RestGive her a Backbone!
Yesterday here at MBT we talked about your heroine’s fears and flaws and how they work together to create a heroine that becomes heroic. Today, let’s touch on another element that a heroine needs — Confidence. Just like we don’t like wimpy heroes, we don’t like flimsy heroines. Give her a sense of self that is confident, despite her flaws. It’s easy for a heroine to have flaws – mostly because we write about ourselves, and we all have flaws. So you need to work at putting confidence into your heroine, and giving her something she’s good at, that makes us applaud her. Often, that confidence rises in the end to allow her to do something that she has never done before. However, we need to […]
Read the RestI have my reasons…
Part two of of Creating a Heroic Heroine. Yesterday, we talked about how every heroine needs to have a goal – something tangible and specific that they are shooting for in the story. A goal is your target, and give you a place to aim for in the story. But, of course, we can’t let her get there, at least not without a struggle. Which means our heroine also needs a FLAW. We know women aren’t perfect. But we try, oh, we try. And the key to a great flaw is something that can be overcome – with the help of a good hero. It doesn’t have to be a huge flaw, maybe it’s a tendency to run away from her problems, or better, a tendency to push men out […]
Read the Rest
