This is a bit of personal ramble, so bear with
me.
The past few days have gotten me
thinking about the various female characters that I've written into
my stories. Results have been mixed, bordering on poorly thought out
and otherwise bland. This came out of a conversation with a fellow
writer in regards to a recent submission. The story is about a very
bad man doing very bad things for petty reasons [revenge].
Everyone's a victim in some manner during the story even the main
character, but the one strong woman in the story still didn't shine. After the talk, I began to look at her, the situation, and resolution, coming to
conclusion that she's just another victim as written. Not a
satisfying conclusion as I want to reuse her in later stories. There's some serious potential based on the events in the story. I
spent a good 2-3 hours rewriting her part in the story and making her
more active and less a victim. She's still a victim, but not one that
just rolls over, and she stands up the main character to call him on
his shit.
This leads me to my novella and the
main female character therein. One of my beta readers summed it up
nicely – she's just a generic love interest. Generic. Boring.
Bland. Nothing special. That's a big stumbling block and been the
source of more than a few thoughts on how to change it. The solution
is simple. She needs a more active role in the story. There's a few
scenes early on that I could use in and show why the main character
is attracted to her, other than the sex and pretty face. She needs to
kick ass just like the boys. She needs to be a full person, not just
a name & face or prize to be fought over. It requires a change in
my thought process, both in what I write and how I act.
There's still room for improvement.
Lucky for me, I've got seriously good beta readers to keep on the
path to being a better writer and a better person.
