A great heroine rivets the reader’s attention. - Family Heir: A Bigfoot Novel by Sara M. Drake

Description:

Kelley longed for a normal life – to go to college, to have normal friends, and to work a nice desk job. When an unknown predator starts a killing spree, she finds herself drug back into a world that includes vampires, werewolves, and her ex-husband. Kelley agrees to lead the small team to find the murderer – which consists of one uncommunicative ex-hubbie and an inexperienced federal agent. Only shots in the night prove that Kelley has become a target and her training as a Hunter does nothing to prepare her for being hunted.

GUEST POST

A Great Heroine 

A great heroine rivets the reader’s attention. With that in mind, every heroine should have a few key characteristics. One, she needs to be strong. A character who spends the whole book needing rescuing or having emotional fits is not a heroine (though she may be a main character). The heroine needs to be the one doing the action. Second, she must be multi-faceted. We want our heroes and heroines to be more than a stereotype. As readers, we want to feel like they could be a real person. 

So, how do you create a great heroine? I suspect every author uses a different process. I develop characters, plots, and worlds together. In the case of Family Heir, the idea for the main supporting character (Troy) came first. Kelley came next. I knew Kelley needed to be both protective and empathetic or she’d never be able to work with Troy. Those two character traits gave me a great place to start. From there, I worked on her backstory. 

Which leads me to one of the great difficulties with heroines—the backstory. Readers expect to learn why a person gets driven from the comfortable day-to-day into being a hero or a heroine. In the case of female heroes, they also want an idea of why this woman stepped out of the normal gender roles. Writers have used rape or brutal attack as an explanation so often it’s become cliché. It also ignores the realities of the 21st century. Women chose to become athletes, join the military, or just about anything else because they are interested in doing those things. I served on active duty with a number of women and we all joined for similar reasons to our male counterparts. In the case of Kelley, I gave her a family business that involved hunting down werewolves and vampires. 

The next element in developing the heroine comes from the plot and what her role will be. Great heroines don’t need to be the main character in the story to be amazing. Hermione in the Harry Potter series is a great example of that idea. They do need to a mover in the plot action, however. I intended to have my heroine be the main character. So, the plot needed to force Kelley into facing her weaknesses and be something that can be resolved by her (either through her strengths or weaknesses)—which is why I develop the plot and the characters together. For Family Heir, the plot forces Kelley to face the choices in her life and gets resolved when she comes to terms with what really motivates her. 

In the end, great heroines will always be the ones that leave readers rooting for their success and admiring their abilities.

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About the author:

Sara developed her book addiction as a young child. Her concerned parents attempted an intervention and cut off her supply. These desperate times called for desperate measures forcing her to write her own stories. Since a human being cannot live on books alone, she has worked as a stage hand, care giver, active duty Air Force, college instructor, mental health counselor, and civil servant on the theory that more pay equals more books. Outside of that, she spends time developing a reputation as a crazy cat lady and irritating introvert.

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