Thank you Melissa for having me here today to discuss my kind of heroine.
I love to write strong women, but I also like to make them suffer through a few tragedies before they reach their happily ever after. Think of Scarlett O’Hara from Gone with the Wind and how much she had to struggle through during the ten long years of her story. However, unlike Scarlett O’Hara, my heroines overcome their challenges with their hearts still intact and become the kind of women Rhett Butler wouldn’t walk out on.
I have lots of ways to torture my heroines. Some of my favorite methods are poverty, dead parents, neglectful parents, dead husbands etc. You get the idea. Usually, it’s not just one tragedy they must deal with, but many spread out over their lifetime so that by the time they walk on stage in chapter one, they’re carrying a load a luggage, I’m talking Louis Vuitton steamer trunks.
No matter how I decide to torture my heroines, I always give them two things to help them deal with and overcome their troubles; heart and grit. For each leading lady, grit can be something different, from the courage to carry on after a nasty shock, to the sheer determination to succeed no matter what. My heroines aren’t the kind of women who sit down and give up when faced with disaster or setbacks. Instead, they figure out how to overcome them, and in the process, become stronger women.
