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WANTED: Strong Female Characters

Monday, March 12, 2012 15:37

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A Writer’s Journey

Sarah Connor: strongest woman ever

Back when I was researching agents to query, I read about an agent who was interested in “strong female characters.” I was thrilled because Sacred Fire has a strong female character, so that meant she would like my book.

Then I got to thinking; is Tuccia actually strong? She’s insecure. She shrinks from being a Vestal Virgin because she feels inadequate. She blames the goddess Vesta for her best friend’s death but is too faithful to let herself be angry. When she faces her own execution, she decides her life was a string of doubts and regrets. She’s kind of weak.

Yet as the author, I can feel the strength of her convictions, her integrity, and her refusal to be anything less than perfect. Her determination to rise to her calling causes her pain, but ultimately drives her to become the most famous Vestal Virgin who ever lived. If that isn’t strength, I don’t know what is.

I realized I don’t know what qualifies as “strong.”

This has been a personal dilemma for ages. As a teenager, I believed a woman was only strong if she could do everything a man could do. Sarah Connor from The Terminator was my hero; in fact, during a brief lapse in judgment I considered joining the army so I could be as cool as her. I even gave my name to a recruiter. My dad had a heck of a time getting him to quit calling us.

This mentality quickly became disappointing and exhausting. Men are biologically stronger than women, and I have no desire to lift enough weights to rectify that. They have a different types of aggression, energy, and skill sets than we do. I can’t be a man, and frankly, I don’t want to be.

I decided strength means having the willpower to always get what you want. A strong woman has a don’t-talk-back-to-me, I-don’t-care-what-nobody-thinks-of-me, get-it-done-yesterday attitude. When I got married, I discovered another definition of that behavior: selfish. Sometimes strength is not getting what you want and letting it be.

My next idea was that strength is not having flaws. Being perfect would certainly require strength, but it makes for a lousy main character. Surely that’s not what the agent meant.

Then I thought strength is the ability to conquer flaws and challenges, though having flaws and challenges in the first place negates the concept of strength.

I eventually decided never to separate my characters into “strong” and “weak.” Everyone has strengths, and everyone does strong things. They also give into their weaknesses.

When we think a person is either one or the other – whether in fictional or real-life – it means there’s another side to that person we haven’t discovered yet.

From now on if anyone asks me if my female characters are strong or weak, I’m going to say, “Yes.”

On A Writers Journey, aspiring novelist Teralyn Rose Pilgrim talks about the excitements and disappointments that go along with her budding career. Currently agents are looking at her historical fiction about Rome’s Vestal Virgins.
teralynpilgrimm.blogspot.com

Read more at A Writer’s Journey

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