I started reading a great book last week and about a third of the way through a thought hit me: What if THE HEROINE was THE HERO and THE HERO was THE HEROINE? Meaning, what if their rolls were reversed? Suddenly the book became much more interesting and the one on my Kindle seem kind of status quo. Sure, some of the other plot points would be different if SHE was a HE, but it would also raise new, more intriguing plot obstacles. In an historical book, it might be hard to switch rolls. If you were writing about the Alamo, it would be hard to have a man spying on General Santa Anna since the spy was a female prostitute. But, what if you took an historical event, like […]
Read the RestTag Archives | Heroines
But I’m so broken inside…
Yesterday, we talked out the PLOT or EXTERNAL Obstacles (Why Nots) that keep our characters apart. The point of a great romance is for love to overcome the obstacles and triumph! So, without obstacles….well, there’s no story. I’ll say it again. YOU MUST HAVE EXTERNAL OBSTACLES! (Yes, that was shouting). Now that we have that settled…let’s turn to the Internal Reasons why we (and our characters) run from love. This is the easy part. We can all come up with a long list of the reasons why we are unloveable. Our sins, our flaws, or fears, our idiosyncrasies….you name it. It’s a wonder we don’t all live in an igloo. The problem with finding internal obstacles is often authors either; 1. Pick too many or… 2. Focus […]
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 Rest
