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.
Cornelia, Comtesse de Vane, the heroine of my novel The Courtesan’s Book of Secrets
has suffered her share of tragedy by the time her story begins. Her father
neglected her as a child then tried to gamble away her virtue when she was a
teenager. Her mother died when she was young and she had to deal with a nasty
stepmother. As an adult, she married a man she thought was rich, and when he
died, she discovered he was poor. Yet through each difficulty, she has retained
her ability to love, as seen in her regard for her young step brother, and her
desire to acquire enough money to make sure he is secure and safe. It is her ability
to love, despite the cruel hits she suffers from life, which help her capture
the heart of the hero and get her happily ever after.
Sometimes it doesn’t seem right to torture my heroines so
much, but in the end it’s for their own good. Without suffering, they can’t
discover their inner strength, or become the kind of woman the hero needs to
help him deal with his troubles (don’t get me started on the ways in which I
torture my poor heroes). Through their trials, they learn about themselves and
what is most important to them and their lives. All Scarlett O’Hara got at the
end for her suffering was Tara and a possible divorce because she lost her
ability to love (did she ever really possess it in the first place?). My
heroines achieve their Tara and their Rhett after a lot of suffering because
heart and grit are the dominant characteristic of my kind of heroine.
If you love the idea of torturing your characters then check out my novels. I really stick it to my characters www.Georgie-Lee.com
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