I’m so excited to have author Adrian J. Smith guest posting for me today. We’ve worked together for a long time, and I’ve been privileged to be part of her editing team. If not for her support (including pitching my novel to her publisher), I wouldn’t be where I am today. I’m glad to be able to call her a friend.
How to train your protagonist…
by Adrian J. Smith
This topic was given to me by a fellow author of lesbian crime fiction. Along with this topic, by another LGBT author and the host of this blog, I was given the topic of what makes a female character strong. I’ve decided to sort of combine them, because in all honesty, how do you train a strong female character?
It’s no secret that I love strong female characters. It’s a huge part as to why I write lesbian fiction (the other big part is I find a lack of it in mainstream fiction, and I desperately want to read good lesbian fiction that isn’t all about the romance—though those are nice too on occasion). So strong female characters tend, at least to me, that they’re hard to train. It’s hard to train a person in general if you don’t have them from infancy, so training a character is just as hard.
Because they are like people. That’s right, I said it. Characters are like people. The characters in my novels become my best friends for the time I’m writing them and editing them, and it’s probably the best part about being a writer. I have such diverse friends. Sometimes they can even help with problems, mostly they help me relax. But I digress. Characters are like people.
If a person is hard to train, it’s next to impossible to train a character. They take on a mind of their own. They have their own personality. Strong women aren’t known for backing down when they disagree with someone else, they don’t just give in to the whims of everyone around. Sure, they’ll compromise (sometimes), but they don’t do it without letting you know their opinion on the matter at hand first.
These women can take almost anything that is thrown at them, and a lot gets thrown in their direction. It’s not a matter of working through the problems and situations that come up; it’s a matter of doing it with grace and with poise. The women in my novels do that—for the most part. There are some blips on the radar of poise and grace *cough* Grace Halling *cough*.
Training the protagonist to do what I want them to do might also not be the best to my advantage. I wouldn’t do half the stuff Grace and James do. No way, no how. I wouldn’t be sitting in the car shuddering from it all. But they do it. If I was in there, I would be yelling at them to stop, telling them they were stupid for doing what they were doing, and I would probably be pulling them back with a rope I’d secretly tied around their waists when they weren’t looking. Now that wouldn’t make for a very good story, would it?
So the answer to the question of how to train your protagonist, who just so happens to be a strong female character, is don’t. Don’t do it. Go with the flow and be flexible. There’s no reason to hold back on the story or the characters for the sanity and comfort of the author. If it fits the plot or if it fits the character, then go with it. They are what make the story, not the author.
Author Bio:
Adrian J. Smith, or “AJ” as she is often called, has a generous and soft heart. She loves to rescue stray cats and dogs, as well as those who just escape. Her hoard of animals currently includes two cats, a dog and a fish, but no children as of yet. She’s passionate about LGBT et al rights, women’s rights and children’s rights.
AJ loves to read and write lesbian fiction, simply for the fact that strong women make her swoon and when two are involved her knees turn to jelly and she falls head over heels in love. AJ travels around the United States, and sometimes the world, gathering up stories for her novels. Currently, she lives in the middle of nowhere of the middle of nowhere and is rather difficult to find except on the internet, where she spends a lot of her time.
Connect with her online:
@AdrianAJSmith
www.facebook.com/adrianjsmithbooks
adrianjsmith.wordpress.com
www.goodreads.com/adrianjsmith
Ashes Fall
Eleven years after the love of her life dies, James hopes everything would be normal and works to construct her reality as such. Her adopted daughter, Lily, finishes her sophomore year of high school with nothing other than good grades, a best friend for life, and goals for the future. James, after stepping back into the dating world, has a girlfriend with a steady, non-life-threatening job. Life is as peaceful as it can be. But a day at the waterpark with her daughter reveals the largest crack in the façade.
And nothing can stop chaos from ensuing.
Ashes Fall Buy Links:
Great post Adrian. It’s good to hear about your take on characters and how to deal (or not deal) with them. I’m like you in that I become close to my characters and they are people to me. Not sure a lot of non-writers get that!
It’s really interesting to hear about the type of female characters you like – I like strong women too, though things can get interesting when they show their vulnerable side now and then… 😉
I was reading this whole thing thinking of T’Pol, and how the bleep I could train that strong-willed Vulcan lady – and wondering, the whole time, why I’d want to…
And then I got to the end. And I grinned a very large, rather illogical, and wholly un-Vulcan grin.
Although my female characters are generally hetero (although one had no gender bias whatever in choosing her partners), I totally agree on the strong women thing.
One tiny little observation, though. Characters aren’t like people; they ARE people! It reminds me of something my daughter said, once, when we were talking about how many adults treat children, and how we ought instead to treat them like people. “No, Mommy, you need to treat us AS people, because we ARE people!”
I knew it, but not as deeply as I did after she blew my mind!