There’s a certain difficulty inherent in being a strong female character. Their complexity leaves them vulnerable to criticism, and we all know that complex women bear the brunt of criticism more frequently than complex men. Strong female characters are not allowed to be too angry, too aggressive, too sexual, too anything, while the over-the-topness (yes, I just created a new word) of strong male characters (alphas, if you will) is overlooked or even praised.

But the complexity is worth the criticism, because most of us don’t like our characters one-dimensional (except villains… I’m actually okay with making them cartoonishly fiendish with no chance of redemption because you’ll have to sell me pretty damn hard on giving a villain a happy ending in a future installment of a series). And strength (in the cheapest sense of the word) can often be mistaken for other things.

When I was in college, I lost a very close friend in a car accident. I remember a number of people telling me afterward that I’d get through this, I’d handle my grief, because I was strong. I had no idea what that meant; in the throes of sorrow, words become more abstract and phrases lose all meaning. I soon discovered that I didn’t have strength. What I had wasn’t strength at all, it was the kind of reputation one acquires when one has never faced a true challenge (be it emotional or otherwise) before. A mirage. Pay no attention to that woman behind the curtain, because she had no idea what strength truly was. It took me years to fully process the ripple effects from that loss, and even these twenty-three odd years later, I still find new parts of it that tear at my heart.

I believe strength is multifaceted; a person who is truly strong also recognizes their vulnerabilities. Embraces them. Accepts them as part of who they are. A person’s real strength lies in their complexity. The same goes for fictional characters. Yeah, you can fight your way out of a barroom, or talk a good game with an opponent, but how do you react when the chips are down? Do you let yourself cry? Do you let yourself feel emotions or spend all your time repressing them? Can you admit when you’re wrong or does someone else have to continually point it out to you, all while you refuse to acknowledge your mistakes?

Strength means you can be abrasive, you can be funny, you don’t have to be generous and good and giving and wonderful all the time, you can simply exist. You can let your personality roam free without fear of embarrassment or ostracization.

Basically, I ended up coming to this realization over the course of my life, reaching my peak DGAF-ness once I morphed into my current 42-year-old crone form. It’s probably best for everyone if from now on all strong female characters only be above the age of forty. I don’t make the rules. Except I just did.

So, now that I’ve talked about strength, how do I write my characters? I spend a lot of time thinking about them. About their inner life, about their quirks, about the little things that make them them. I spent more than a few years pondering every little detail of the heroine in Songbird, Christine, as well as her best friend, Caroline (who’s the heroine in The Bellator Saga, from which Songbird is spun off). I put a little part of me in every character I create (I tend to give them a lot of my flaws!), which makes it much easier for me to picture them talking, moving, acting in my head.

Now, I don’t recommend spending years crafting your characters; most of us don’t have that luxury or don’t want to go into that level of detail. But picture yourself having a conversation with them. Imagine being friends with them in real life. If you could be your ‘ideal’ self, who would you be? I put a little bit of that into each of my female characters. I don’t need everyone to like them, but I want to like them. And that’s enough for me.

About the Book

On her to-do list – rebuild her relationship with her estranged daughter and invent the rest of her life. She has her best friend Caroline, her brand spanking new condo, and her ever frustrating Secret Service detail to keep her company. That should be enough for anyone, right?

Christine Sullivan isn’t an easy person to love. She knows how the world sees her – aloof, standoffish, cold…perhaps even bitchy. After a lifetime in politics, including a stint with an expat government in exile, President Sullivan has taken her share of body blows, but now she’s back in Philadelphia…a widow, a recovering Republican, a former public servant seeking a quiet, private existence.

Until Alexander Guardiola comes along… liberal, emotionally unguarded, younger. A lot younger. Everything Christine isn’t. And isn’t ready for.

But opposites attract, don’t they? And hearts and minds can always be changed…

About the Author

Cecilia London is the pen name of a native Illinoisan currently living in San Antonio, Texas. She’s filled several roles over the course of her adult life – licensed attorney, wrangler of small children, and obsessed baseball and footy fan, among others. An extroverted introvert with a serious social media addiction, she is the author of The Bellator Saga, an epic, genre-crossing romance series, and its spinoff, Songbird. You can most often find her causing trouble on Twitter or, less frequently, on Facebook.

Connect with Cecilia:

Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Amazon Author Page | BookBub Author Profile

Website | Jack McIntyre fan page | Spotify

Giveaway: Cecilia London is giving away 3 complete e-sets of the first 6 books of her Bellator Saga, Books 1 – 6, to celebrate her new release, SONGBIRD. You can enter below! Must be 18 to enter and win. Open Internationally.

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