Strength of Character

My sister finally read Burden and tonight we had a lengthy conversation about it.  She is one of my fans, and one of the (growing) group of people who has read Butterflies. 

One of the things that she likes about my stories (and that I work hard on) is the quality of my female characters.  I respect a strong, self-reliant woman and there are many of them in my fiction.  Caetlyn and Rebekah (and even Mara) in Burden, most of the women of Butterflies; these ladies all share characteristics that I admire in many of my female friends and aim for in myself. 

Whitney (my sister – who is a strong female character herself) told me she can always pick out the female love interest in my stories because it is always the character who reminds her of me.  It’s not so much that the character looks or acts like me, so much as she’s the tomboy or the guard or the woman who wants a man to compliment instead of complete her.  (Hope I didn’t put too many words in Whitney’s mouth – our conversations often include a great deal of sisterly shared knowledge and incomplete sentences.  :))As she explained, it gives hope to the “everyday women” like her (or me) when someone like King Stefan ends up with someone like Caetlyn instead of a “froufrou” perfect girl. 

To me, it adds strength of character to my male protagonists, as well, when they choose the strong woman.  Would you like Stefan as much if he had proposed to a female who simpered and flounced?  Confident, powerful men can do one of two things: they can choose a weak woman who will always make them feel powerful (and eventually bored) or they can choose a woman who is also confident and independent, a woman who can give back as good as she gets.  The men who choose the second option only reinforce their strength when they go for the girl with strength of her own. 

At least they do in my stories.  🙂