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Strong Female Characters

When I attended the International Thriller Writers' Conference in New York City during the Summer of 2009, those who registered for the AgentFest portion of the event were allowed to pitch themselves and their work one-on-one, face-to-face with literary agents.

As I courageously pitched my current fiction manuscript, Wiggle Room, to a beautiful female Manhattan agent, she asked, "Do you have any strong female characters in your manuscript?"

Suddenly, I was struck by what many agents, publishers, and readers are seeking ... strong female characters. I answered the agent truthfully, "No, but I can fix that!"

Luckily, I was recently able to pose my own question to freelance editor and author Helen Ginger on The Blood-Red Pencil blog . I asked Can you define a strong female character?

Ginger's detailed answer and the comments to follow have been enlightening. I invite you to the link:

http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/ The specific blog post written by Helen Ginger is reprinted below:


Tuesday, February 16, 2010 Ask the Editor: Strong Female Characters

Darden North, MD, sent in this question:

It seems that some agents and publishers are looking for fictional works that feature strong female characters. Can you define a strong female character?

Hi Darden.

Not only are publishers looking for strong female leads, readers (both women and men) are as well. Readers today tend to want characters they can relate to and who are realistic. Of course, we’re not talking fantasy, erotica, or other genres where characters, both female and male are intentionally “over the top.”

A “strong female character” can be different things. There are many characteristics, but no one character would have them all. If you want your female lead or supporting character to be “strong,” then see if you can incorporate some of these (in no particular order):

Intelligent
Quick witted
Sense of self
Decision maker
Not perfect, has flaws
Strong in her femininity
Not rigid
Doesn’t do stupid things
Doesn’t belittle others
Spunky
Multi-dimensional
Can have a tragic weakness
Not black or white, but shadows of gray
Can change and grow
May or may not be in a committed relationship
Will most likely have women friends
Has a backbone
Look around at the women in your life - at home, at work, your neighbors, in your extended family - and decide what it is about each one that you like. Find a woman whose judgment you trust and ask her to look at the women in her life and tell you what she admires or respects about each.

Keep in mind that situations you put your characters in can change the way she behaves. Let’s say, your female character is asleep. She’s awakened by a strange noise. Her heart quickens. She eases down the hallway until she locates the source of the noise - the basement. Easing open the door, she reaches for the light switch, but it doesn’t work.

What does a woman do?

If she’s in the movies, she tiptoes down the stairs and gets clobbered over the head by an axe toting serial killer.

If she’s a strong, realistic, female character, she may whip out her cell and call the police. She may divert to the kitchen for a flashlight, especially since she’s probably already tried to turn on lights and thus knows the electricity is out. Or she may hesitate, pondering her options, hear the voice of her four-year-old crying, “Help me, Mommy,” and she forgets all caution and thunders down into the darkness.

Being a strong female doesn’t mean she free of weaknesses. Just like any character, to be believable she must have a flaw or two.

The strength of a female character seldom comes via muscles. It comes from within.

Thank you, Darden, for your question.

Darden North writes medical thrillers and murder mysteries. To date, he has authored and published three novels, which have been awarded nationally. In his third and current novel, Fresh Frozen (October 2008, hardcover), someone wants to steal a movie star’s embryos as the boundary between good and evil medicine blurs and reality replaces science fiction. Under the eye of an Internet voyeur, a policeman and his tormented wife discover that human reproductive tissue can lead to murder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Helen Ginger is an author and freelance editor. You can visit her website and blog, "Straight From Hel," follow her on Twitter, or subscribe to her free newsletter, "Doing It Write," now in its eleventh year of publication.

Darden North

www.dardennorth.com


Also, many thanks to Morgan Mandel.

Darden North's "Points of Origin"-January's feature on Booktown Giveaway

The featured novel on the Booktown Contest Giveaway for January 2010 is Points of Origin by Darden North, MD. The winner of the autographed 377 page hardbound novel will be named Februaruy 1, 2010, on the Book Town Myspace page.


http://booktown.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

Points of Origin was awarded in Southern Fiction by the Independent Book Publishers Awards (IPPY).



In Points of Origin Sher Foxworth, the wayward son of a plastic surgeon, recounts his father’s destruction by attorney Cordell Pixler as the result of a medical malpractice case. Losing his parents when his father crashes their private plane, Foxworth is left to the whims of his still wealthy grandfather, who resents his grandson’s failure to become a doctor almost as much as he does the actions of the conniving attorney.

Nevertheless, there are others remaining in the small, affluent town of Larkspur, Mississippi, who seek the attorney’s ruin. The litigious family of the teenage girl who dies at the hand of the plastic surgeon believes that Pixler has swindled them out of their share of the medical malpractice judgment. The attorney’s sensual, social-climbing, third wife suspects correctly that her husband is having an affair even as Pixler jilts his current lover. Furthermore, the attorney’s obsessive-compulsive, personal architect believes his own career is jeopardized by the lawyer’s gaudy mockery of his design work. However, an arsonist, hired by Cordell’s jilted lover, plans the ultimate revenge during an elaborate gala at the Pixler mansion … only to lose the race to someone else.

2009 Southern Independent Book Association - Darden North signs with other authors

Excerpt from the SIBA Blog (http://www.wanda.sibaweb.com/?p=858):

"Authors went on the auction block Saturday night (September 26, 2009) to raise buckets of money for the local Greenville charity Loaves & Fishes. Authors “Tweeted” their answers to questions in an attempt to whet the appetite of bookstore owners who “bought” them for the evening to have dinner and chat at local restaurants. The brave authors featured were those whose books were nominated for 2009 SIBA Book of the Year Award.

Brave authors ( and their novels) who participated:

Gigi Amateau Chauncy of the Maury River

Raymond Atkins The Front Porch Prophet

Gene Fehler Beanball

Susan Gregg Gilmore Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen

Alan Gratz Something Wicked

Patricia Harman The Blue Cotton Gown: A Midwife’s Memoir

N. M. Kelby Murder at the Bad Girl’s Bar and Grill

Howard Lee The Courage to Lead

Ed Madden Signals

William McKinney Holy Smoke: The Big book of North Carolina Barbecue

Mary Alice Monroe Time is a River

Darden North Fresh Frozen

Kate Salley Palmer Almost Invisible: Black Patriots of the American Revolution

Gin Phillips The Well and the Mine

Ron Rash Serena

Nicole Seitz One Hundred Years of Happiness

John Thompson Armaggedon Conspiracy

Shellie Tomlinson Suck Your Stomach in and Put Some Color On

Beth Webb Hart The Wedding Machine

Karen White The House on Tradd Street

Allan Wolf More Than Friends: Poems from Him and Her

Darden North to sign at the Sisters-In-Crime/SE Chapter of Mystery Writers of America Booth at the Southern Independent Book Association Trade Show

Date: Saturday, 9/26/2009 Time: 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. Location: Booth W42 - Carolina Center - Greenville, SC Southern Independent Book Association Trade Show Mystery and medical thriller author Darden North to be featured at the book signing booth co-sponsored by Sisters-In-Crime and the Southeast Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, scheduled in conjunction with the 2009 Southern Independent Book Association Trade Show. For more info: http://www.sibaweb.com/trade-show

Author Darden North interviewed on ijustfinished.com

Interview of mystery, suspense, and medical thriller author Darden North, MD, posted 08/10/2009 on ijustfinished.com .

FRESH FROZEN Receives First Honors for Cover Design in National Book Award Contest