{"id":32993,"date":"2014-01-29T09:00:16","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T14:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/?p=32993"},"modified":"2014-01-28T23:19:17","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T04:19:17","slug":"please-make-me-like-your-heroine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/2014\/01\/please-make-me-like-your-heroine\/","title":{"rendered":"Please… make me like your heroine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"writer\"<\/a>Not telling anybody the author or title so don’t ask. \u00a0It doesn’t really matter anyway.<\/p>\n

But recently I read a romance and I hated the heroine.<\/p>\n

She wasn’t bitchy. \u00a0Most of the heroines I’ve seen referred to as bitchy<\/em> I outright love–usually bitchy is just a woman who knows what she wants, isn’t afraid to go after it and she’s also capable of standing up for herself. \u00a0I see a woman like that when I look in the mirror. That’s the woman my mother raised me to be…so bring on the bitches!<\/p>\n

Noooo… this heroine was\u00a0shallow<\/em>. \u00a0(There were other issues with the book, but if I covered everything, I’d blog all day.)<\/p>\n

Let’s talk about the heroine. \u00a0Just the heroine.<\/p>\n

She was shallow.<\/p>\n

She was vapid.<\/p>\n

She was vain.<\/p>\n

She had several other female friends in the book and\u00a0naturally<\/em> she was the prettiest, but it wasn’t enough that she was the prettiest.<\/p>\n

She had these ongoing mental critiques of the flaws these other women had–one was overweight and talked a lot. \u00a0She was nice. She was kind. \u00a0But she was overweight and talked a lot and if only<\/i> she’d lose some weight, because she had such a pretty face.<\/p>\n

That<\/em> right there put my teeth on edge. \u00a0Maybe it’s because I’m overweight. \u00a0Now granted, I’m an overweight asthmatic with a bad knee who can run three miles. \u00a0I’m an overweight asthmatic who lifts weights at the gym. \u00a0I’m an overweight asthmatic who is actually in pretty decent shape when my lungs aren’t screwing things up for me.<\/p>\n

But there’s a hell of a lot more to a person than the number flashes up on the scale. \u00a0I mean…the woman was\u00a0nice<\/em>. \u00a0She was genuinely\u00a0kind<\/em>. \u00a0But of course, she was overweight and she talked a lot. \u00a0This was the heroine’s inner monologue, her observations-not intended to be mean or anything.<\/p>\n

The other friends? Yup. \u00a0Physical flaws. \u00a0Poor. \u00a0Didn’t dress well. \u00a0One didn’t ever show her teeth when she smiled and she didn’t\u00a0like<\/em> to talk.<\/p>\n

And oh, dear. \u00a0They were poor. \u00a0Didn’t she know how to dress<\/em>—<\/p>\n

(picturing me snarling & gnashing teeth.)<\/p>\n

Again, inner monologue. \u00a0Not said with intentional malice.<\/p>\n

Poor…in what world is being poor a character flaw? \u00a0One that deserves such heavy deliberation? \u00a0I didn’t have much growing up. \u00a0If that’s a flaw in somebody’s eyes, that says more about\u00a0that<\/em> person than it says about me…as it says more about this heroine. \u00a0These women met up because they were smart and they worked hard and achieved something.<\/p>\n

That clearly didn’t matter as much as their appearances, though, not to the heroine.<\/p>\n

She\u00a0<\/em>comes from a nice upper-class white family with plenty of money. \u00a0She doesn’t understand hardship, from what I could tell. \u00a0She has a few sad things happen in the book, but it’s almost like it’s done to get her some one on one time with the hero–it never really affects her on any level. \u00a0 Maybe it was done to make the reader feel for her? \u00a0I don’t know. \u00a0But it was empty because it was like these events never really touched her–caused no change inside her, in how she acted, felt, viewed the world.<\/p>\n

So our heroine has had a charmed existence, and don’t you just know it…she’s slim, trim and gorgeous and she just knows how to dress.<\/p>\n

All of this creates one simple picture, in my mind-and it’s the picture the writer drew for me.<\/p>\n

The heroine is a vapid, shallow creature who doesn’t bother to look beyond the surface and all she really cares about is shagging the hero.<\/p>\n

How\u00a0<\/em>can I care about this woman? \u00a0How can I be expected root for her?<\/p>\n

Throughout the book, she doesn’t ever give a real glimpse into what she<\/i> is like. Oh, I get that she’s panting for the hero.<\/p>\n

She makes benevolent gestures to these women who she has befriended, yet somehow, because of how she acted in the beginning, that friendship seemed…empty. \u00a0She never really acknowledged the fact that maybe there’s more to a person than what you see on the outside.<\/p>\n

I never got to know who she was and the more I read, the less I cared to know.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When we write books, we want the reader to connect to the heroine. \u00a0Heroines ideally\u00a0<\/em>should be\u00a0realistic, dynamic characters and we should remember our readers don’t fit any one set image.<\/p>\n

People<\/em> don’t fit any one set image. \u00a0We\u00a0are rich, poor, struggling to finish school and some never started. \u00a0Some of us passed every class with honors and flying colors.<\/p>\n

We are every race, every religion. Some are brilliant, some are of average intelligence and others struggle.<\/p>\n

Many of us have been poor–some live in poverty while others are blessed to have never known it.<\/p>\n

Some struggle with their weight–in both ways. \u00a0Some want to lose it while others battle to gain it and yes, that really is a fact.<\/p>\n

Some of us hide physical flaws and others don’t care if people see them. \u00a0Some of us might not be all that pretty. \u00a0Some of us are average and some might well belong on the cover of a magazine.<\/p>\n

There are so many things that make us different…and so many things that make us the same.<\/p>\n

Every single of us experience loneliness, moments of inadequacy, moments of joy, curiosity, hunger, exhaustion, moodiness, envy, boredom, grief, pleasure…and the list goes on. \u00a0These are human emotions.<\/p>\n

I imagine we all also have our moments of shallowness…I had more than a few moments when I was reading that book and I’ll have them when I see women at the gym. \u00a0It’s not their figures that make me all catty, though. \u00a0They work hard-harder than I do so good on them. \u00a0What makes me feel all small and petty is this…how can you spend an hour at the gym and not sweat?<\/em> I don’t think it’s natural. \u00a0There you go, one of my personal shallow moments. \u00a0And that’s not one of my bad ones.<\/p>\n

I’ve got some catty irritation threaded through this post and I know it and I’m torn between rewriting it…and letting it go. \u00a0I think I’m going to let it go because if I smooth it out, it’s going to lessen what I’m saying. \u00a0This book rubbed me wrong on so many levels.<\/p>\n

Shallowness<\/em> isn’t appealing. \u00a0A heavy focus on external things is selling the story and the reader short. It’s taking what could have been a relateable heroine and turning her into a caricature. \u00a0The story itself was just so…blah, but maybe it wouldn’t have been pure torture if I could have liked the heroine.<\/p>\n

Whether the heroine is a teacher, a doctor, an alien, some kind of paranormal investigator, a vampire slayer, a lawyer, a stay-at-home mom, an editor, an author, a movie star, a college student…whatever<\/em>…<\/p>\n

There are certain things a writer should be able to do make that character relateable, no matter who she is, what her life experiences have (or haven’t) been.<\/p>\n

Plenty of people have loved and watched Buffy and while none of us will ever be able to claim we were vampire slayers, (I don’t think)…<\/p>\n