by Special Guest Toni McGee Causey
There are all sorts of women in this world, and stories about them, but I have to confess to a preference: I love to read about strong women. I want to see how other women handle problems and conflicts, whether it’s that smarmy ex, that irritating boss, that smuggler who’s kidnapped her brother, or that demon who’s got (pardon the pun) the hots for her. I’m relieved to see a trend in most genres, especially romance, where the woman isn’t waiting for someone to swoop in and solve her problems for her. (I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had the luxury of having Swooping Problem Solvers show up in the nick of time. I’ve never been fascinated with the damsel in distress or the Disney version of princesses who wait around for someone to kiss them and make it all better. Drives me a little batshit, actually, this notion of female-as-helpless. Even when I read historicals and am aware of the limitations on women at the time, I want to read about the woman who is an exception, who figures out how to get what she wants or what she needs within the confines of her society.)
Writing a strong woman, though, in a romance in particular, has its fair share of challenges. She can be seen as too strong, and therefore emasculating any man she encounters.
As an aside, I have been considered to be a pretty tough woman—I run a construction business with my husband and have for more years than I’d like to admit. True story: I had to make a big contractor adhere to his contract on a very large project. If I didn’t, it meant serious harm to us. It would mean us losing our business—it was that big of a deal. I was the trouble-shooter, and I dealt with the man. I never once raised my voice (other sub-contractors screamed at him), I never once uttered a single curse word (oh-dear-heavens, I learned new ones on that job, listening to the male subs), and I never once, in any way, said anything bitchy. I simply said, fairly quietly, that he was going to adhere to his contract. That he knew—and I knew he knew—that I was right and he was wrong and if he didn’t want to adhere to his contract, then I would put a lien on the job and we’d have to stop work until the issue was resolved. It would mean his entire project would have to pause. He hemmed and hawed and admitted that I was right, there were certain things he’d agreed to in the contract and now (miraculously), he would do them. This in and of itself is not a big deal. Happens every single day in businesses everywhere. What was interesting was that the man—the head of a major construction firm—called my husband and whined to him that I had been “mean” and that he didn’t want to have to work with me again. (He was in his mid-thirties. I was in my mid-twenties.) My husband said, “Well, Greg, that’s pretty tough for you, because from now on, she’s the only one you’ll be dealing with. I fully support whatever she says or does.”
Now (and yes, my husband is pretty damned phenomenal)… can you imagine him calling up one of the other subcontractors’ wives and saying, “I don’t want to work with your husband anymore, he’s too mean?”
I’m not exactly the most physically intimidating person. I stand a whopping 5’ 2 ½” (I am so freaking counting that ½ inch.) I was ten years younger than him and miles poorer and we had everything to lose.
I tell you this story not to illustrate any sort of “go me” bullshit, but to use a real life example of a strong moment. The set up (I hope, if I did my job) created an empathetic attitude: we needed them to adhere to their contract. It was necessary to our lives. It had to be done. Sure, compromises could have been made, but we’d have lost too much.
And yet, someone still will perceive that as bitchy. Mean. Emasculating.
Which illustrates part of the problem we deal with in fiction. While it can be fun at times to have an incredible kick-ass heroine, or to use Lynn Viehl’s term, a Tough Chick, focusing only on that aspect of character development creates a set of serious story and character arc problems:
* If she’s so strong that she emasculates every male, how do you create a male character who is her match, without over-emphasizing the alpha male stereotype?
* If she’s that strong, how do you create an antagonist who is enough of a challenge to drive the story forward?
* If she’s really phenomenally kick-ass, where can her character change and grow by the end of the story? What’s her story arc?
And finally, and probably the biggest potential problem:
* a character who is “kick ass” strong and confident and capable (or tenacious) can keep us at arm’s length, because we don’t relate to them. They have no vulnerability, and we have no way to see inside to who they are and what makes them the way they are. In short, they’re not empathetic and we have no reason to care.
Now, there are as many different ways to build a character as there are people who write. There is no one right way to write. Or, as Jenny Crusie says, “All roads lead to Oz.”
I’ve seen some very good advice about creating character flaws—real flaws, not just odd quirks or bad habits. It’s not enough to give them surface flaws or vulnerabilities (she’s shy, or bossy, or sarcastic), but we need to reach down inside the character and give her a reason why she is any of these things. And we need to show those things, instead of telling them.
Showing flaws in a character is doable fairly easy—in the moment, demonstrate the flaw. Don’t tell us she’s shy, show us hovering at the edge of a large party, inching toward the exit, trying to avoid eye contact lest she have to talk to someone. Etc. Those things aren’t so difficult to do. But when we’re creating reasons why a character is the way she is, we have a tendency to create huge back stories and pile on the bad stuff. The reasoning is, the more bad things that happened to the character in the past, the more we’ll empathize with her in the present when she comes out fighting for what she needs.
And, to a certain extent, this works—unless there is, what a friend of mine called, “too many cats” –where just one too many things make the list absurd and takes the reader right out of the story. Too many bad things happening to one character makes me sometimes wonder how that character isn’t in a psych ward already. How did that character function in society, get through school, and manage to fly under the radar of any normal adult, if so many horrible things happened to her? (That it’s true in reality doesn’t mean I’m going to buy it in fiction.)
One way I balance the back story effect is to use a simple exercise to figure out what choices the character made in her past that formed her. And most specifically, I use the shame exercise:
When I was in a screenwriting course, my teacher had us do an exercise which crystallized character for me in a way that I hadn’t experienced with any other exercise, and I use the concept to this day: what is your character ashamed of? Nothing quite gets to the core of a person like shame will, because it’ll tell several things: where they failed, what they valued, if they’re continuing to fail, what they learned, and if it broke them. True character=choices under pressure. The choice your character makes at their worst moment is who they are, really, even if they manage to lie to themselves most of the rest of the time.
Our assignment was to write two pages which showed the shameful action, showed how the character both chose that action and felt about it… without explaining that they were ashamed. No telling, just showing. It was probably the most difficult two pages I ever wrote, but I learned more about showing character in that one exercise than in the rest of the entire degree coursework
The benefit of knowing this sort of choice for the character is that it humanizes her. As a writer, you may never show that specific detail to your reader, you may never illuminate it in the back story, but it’s there. It’s a part of who she is, because it’s a choice she made under pressure… and that kind of decision sticks with us. It can define us; we can either acknowledge it and try to do better, or it can eat at us while we do more of the same, or we can try to be in denial about it, but whatever it is, if it’s truly something we’re ashamed of, it sticks and it’s in the back of our minds with each decision we make afterward, particularly in decisions that require moral judgment.
It’s a great place to start as we’re developing these tough, strong women we’re writing about. Because any woman that can make mistakes that she’s ashamed of comes alive on the page. We can empathize with that. And it’s not the number of weapons she yields that makes her strong and makes us root for her—it’s what she’s done with her life. The choices she makes. The lessons she’s learned. That’s strength. And that’s a character I want to read about.
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Unfortunately, the Kick-Butt Heroine has become a stereotype, a cookie-cutter character in the Romance genre.
While strong women characters appeal to me, I’ve given up seeking them out. I rarely read Paranormal Romance anymore and I only read my favorite subgenre, Science Fiction Romance, if the book is written by authors I know I can trust to deliver original protagonists.
It seems like authors and/or publishers decided this is what sells and they’ll just keep cranking that out.
Borrrrring.
Here’s the big issues I see which have, sadly, stereotyped the Strong Woman character and made her utterly unappealing because I cannot relate-
1) In Real Life, NO ONE is born Perfect and Powerful. We all have to grow into it. You touched on this issue.
2) In Real Life, there are *many* kinds of power because each real strong woman is strong in her own way, according to her own unique personality. In fiction, they’re all ‘Dark & Sexy.’
3) In Real Life, most of the Kick-Butt Heroines I know are also Mommies, but there are hardly any in fiction.
4) In Real Life, there are as many kinds of romance as there are couples. In fiction, it’s all graphic nookie, fast and furious.
I know I’m a reader who prefers a buffet, but c’mon…
If anyone can recommend books in which the Heroine is otherwise, please list them in your comments!
I’ve got two KAH’s, and my third Heroine won’t be. She’ll be more of a master negotiator, and therefore drive the hero nuts.
But my first two are products of the planet and culture I created. That said, I don’t think they are a stereotype of that character type.
My first one is frightened, a lot, and admits it often to herself. She’s vulnerable, she knows the role she has to play doesn’t fit who she is as a person, but she needs to do what she feels is right to protect the weak and innocent, because no one was there to protect her, or save her. More than anything, she loves, even though she’s not supposed to, her heart gives. That’s what I like about her.
My second heroine has to discover who she is in the course of the book, because who she is was trampled under the pressure from her parents and peers to be the best. She learns to let go, live, laugh, and love, and comes out of it discovering her core strength of conviction. She becomes noble and regal through the course of the book, and it suits her. I also love that her hero is not only her match physically and intellectually, but her greatest antagonist. Those two were too much fun to write.
I think you can have a KAH, but the key to making them lovable is to make them warm. In some aspect, their heart has to be warm, and that has nothing to do with sex.
I had the challenge of creating a strong heroine who knew what she wanted, and putting her in a stomacher and robe a l’Anglaise and having her live in the 18th Century. I then gave her a hero who was strong-minded himself. Lord Darkefell is no one’s pushover, but the secret is, he’s kind of a beta hero hiding in an alpha package.
And he has a secret; he despises weak women, and that has kept him from ever considering marriage. When Lady Anne won’t back down in a confrontation with him, he recognizes his true equal, and he falls… hard.
But as a strong woman of her time, Anne realizes that marriage will mean putting herself completely at his mercy, legally and in every other sense. ‘Will she or won’t she’ is the driving plot force behind my trilogy, because I just couldn’t see her resolving all of her doubts in one book!
Lady Anne is strong, and some people think she’s bitchy, but she is merely assertive and knows herself. She almost married badly at a young age, and she now knows how close a call she had; she will never make that mistake again.
I think the key to my kick-butt heroine (if she can be called that) is that she meets a man who can appreciate her strength and recognizes that he would destroy a weaker woman.
Great article. I liked the one about covers the other day, too. The “shame excersize” is one I’ve never heard of, but I see the value in it immediately. We’re always told to show not tell, but rarely given a new and interesting way to achieve this. So, thanks!
I listened to you speak at RWA and feel as though I can hear your twang in these articles! : )
Will put your books on my TBB.
Oops. That should be “exercise.”
I think that many people overlook the fact that strength (like beauty) comes in all shapes and sizes. As you point out here, sometimes, strength is simply the willingness to quietly stick to your guns.
Sometimes, it’s the strength to endure.
Sometimes, it’s the strength to support someone else.
A KAH doesn’t have to literally kick ass, and most of the heroines I encounter in romance novels these days (of all flavors and subgenres) have strength. They may take on a 14-year-old in the middle of adolescent angst instead of a demon villain from hell, but they’re equally strong, equally KA, and in ways that not only inspire empathy, but that inspire us to dig down deep and find similar similar strength and fortitude as we battle our own real-life demons.
I’ll never forget when they re-released Snow White after I’d grown up. Took the kids to see it and I was appalled at how milquetoast and ineffectual she was. Give me the “Ever After” version of a damsel in distress–where Cinderella whips out a sword and wins her own freedom before Prince Charming even gets there.
LOL Lisa, have you read Jim Hines’ Stepsister Scheme? Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty as Charlie’s Angels with swords.
I’m not particularly fond of the Kick Ass character. If they can do it all, where’s the challenge?
I prefer making them (or watching them, if I’m the reader) dig deep to find ways to kick the proverbial ass because all of a sudden they’re in a situation where they need to find the skill set required — and it’s so much more interesting if it’s a mental skill set.
Will the heroine who’s all about making sure everyone around her is happy be able to point a gun at a terrorist?
Will the claustrophobic hero go into the dark cave to rescue a buddy? Does he get in the elevator and ride up 42 floors to tell the heroine he loves her?
I agree, except I’m getting tired of the historical heroines who are ALL rebels… and 99% of the time the reason given is she was raised by her father, who treated her like a son.
I hope to see more creativity in creating strong historical women.
As for how to get a male protag who’ll live up to her, I think Heyer was great at matching her men and women. A tough chick with a tough man (Faro’s Daughter); a foppish man would have a sweet dimtwit who thinks he’s wooonderful (His Girl Friday or Cotillion); the Grand Sophy had stubborn Charles; and the World Weary Bored Aristocrat would have his life invaded by an exuberant, compassionate woman with too many siblings and a messy dog (Frederica).
Great post, Toni. I loved your story about standing up for your company and your husband’s overwhelming support. To me that kind of strength is sexier in a hero than any of his physical attributes. Also a great point about shame and figuring out what your heroine is ashamed of. That’s very applicable to my WIP, so thanks for the insightful info.
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I have one character who I would define as a KAH. But I broke her. The whole point of the book was to break this character because she’s such a ball buster (she’s an army MP Captain and is the heroine of my 4th novel in my war’s darkest trilogy) I wanted to know what it would take to break her.
She’s tough. She likes the adrenaline rush she gets from patrolling outside the wire in Iraq. She’s good in combat. She’s one of the guys. But she’s not. Because she’s good and she’s not apologetic about it, she doesn’t get away with things her male counterparts do and she gets relieved from her command: because she assaulted a reporter. While a guy might have been relieved for the same issue, Claire takes it personally and it starts to weigh on her. So she tries to still hold her head up but she feels like everyone is watching her and knew she screwed up.
The story goes down from there about the rest of the way I break her but at the end of the day, that first decision results in shame about her choices. She then has to make a subsequent choice under the shadow of that first choice and someone dies. And it devastates her. The story question. Can she pick herself back up?
I like strong characters. I like flawed characters but we as writers have to balance the ball busters with the female aspect, a lot like female soldiers have to balance being one of the guys but still being a female. I just wrote a blog post about sexual harassment in Iraq (it is meant to be sarcastic) but for every KAH soldier over here who wants to do their job, there are two who just want to find some big strong man to take care of them. That’s what we fight in the romance genre, too. And we have to keep our KAHs from being stereotypes, too, which is also a challenge.
I like the character=choice under pressure. I’m definitely taking notes from that one. Thanks for a great post!
Jess Scott
http://www.jessicascott.net
I have one character who I would define as a KAH. But I broke her. The whole point of the book was to break this character because she’s such a ball buster (she’s an army MP Captain and is the heroine of my 4th novel in my war’s darkest trilogy) I wanted to know what it would take to break her.
She’s tough. She likes the adrenaline rush she gets from patrolling outside the wire in Iraq. She’s good in combat. She’s one of the guys. But she’s not. Because she’s good and she’s not apologetic about it, she doesn’t get away with things her male counterparts do and she gets relieved from her command: because she assaulted a reporter. While a guy might have been relieved for the same issue, Claire takes it personally and it starts to weigh on her. So she tries to still hold her head up but she feels like everyone is watching her and knew she screwed up.
The story goes down from there about the rest of the way I break her but at the end of the day, that first decision results in shame about her choices. She then has to make a subsequent choice under the shadow of that first choice and someone dies. And it devastates her. The story question. Can she pick herself back up?
I like strong characters. I like flawed characters but we as writers have to balance the ball busters with the female aspect, a lot like female soldiers have to balance being one of the guys but still being a female. I just wrote a blog post about sexual harassment in Iraq (it is meant to be sarcastic) but for every KAH soldier over here who wants to do their job, there are two who just want to find some big strong man to take care of them. That’s what we fight in the romance genre, too. And we have to keep our KAHs from being stereotypes, too, which is also a challenge.
I like the character=choice under pressure. I’m definitely taking notes from that one. Thanks for a great post!
Jess Scott
I don’t write a lot of het. But my women tend to be at least strong-minded if not kick-ass.
Anything from independent lawyers climbing the ladder to disgraced victorian girls who carve out a second chance for happiness.
There is one who decides to live as a man because she doesn’t like her options as a woman. And one medieval lady who hides behind a mask of absolute simplicity while eavesdropping and learning all the politics of the realm.
There is nothing wrong with “I’ll put on my stompin boots” types of heroines. But I like women who are buckwheat. They bend and spring back up.
Good essay.
I have yet to successfully market a romance ms; all of my publishing credits are in science fiction. Primarily military science fiction. This is not normally a field for women characters in lead roles, or even major roles. But somehow I have developed a reputation for writing strong women characters. I know this because a reviewer said so — I didn’t figure it out on my own. In point of fact, with two exceptions I never set out to write strong women characters. (The two to my mind are Anastasia Kerensky, an established character I inherited in the novel Wolf Hunters, and my own Lex Atreus whose Hornblower-esque career I am chronicling in a series of serials for BattleCorps.) But while I never set out to write strong characters of any gender, I always set out to write interesting characters. Or perhaps I only write about characters who interest me. And some of them (about half, when you take my work as a whole) are women.
I think the kick-ass female character is as much a caricature as the hyper-alpha-male.
Interesting people who make choices about what they stand for and how they conduct themselves are what makes a story both believable and satisfying.
And I spent a few minutes on YouTube finding this Joss Whedon account of why he writes strong women characters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYaczoJMRhs