The results of last week’s poll are in: Charlie Fox, creation of UK author Zöe Sharp, won hands down. Her unexpected win is no doubt the result of Ms. Sharp’s high-energy, e-personality. She is a social media star and a funny lady who has been writing the Charlie Fox series for a decade. Charlie is a self-defense instructor turned-heroine who solves mysteries with cleverness and a bit of violence. Congratulations Zöe!
Runner up was Katniss Everdeen. I would have figured the Hunger Games star for the win, with movies in progress and all that. While there is something unique about a character based in a dystopian world, there is something limiting about an ended series. Apparently fans are not investing their emotions in Katniss going forward. Or, maybe my site doesn’t attract enough teenagers. (Accident or intention? You decide.)
Another surprise was the strong showing by independent author Joanna Penn’s heroine Morgan Sierra. She came in ahead of Tempe Brennan and Kay Scarpetta. If you don’t know Ms. Penn, she is a respected and accomplished contributor to the Independent author’s movement. Her writing is filled with refreshing enthusiasm. For a fun read, I highly recommend her work.
Biggest surprise of the exercise was the third place finish for “Still Looking for a Great Heroine”. What does that say about the state of women in fiction today? After so many glass ceilings have been broken, we still don’t have a great thriller heroine? What is missing? What do we want to see beyond Charlie Fox and Katniss Everdeen? This question led me to post a survey asking just that, Design Your Own Thriller Heroine. Give it a try! Fill it out (chance to win an autographed edition of XO by Jeffery Deaver). I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas. Pass it along, tell your friends, post it on Facebook, Google+, Tweet it to your heart’s content.
The results for Design Your Own are still trickling in. At this writing, the majority is asking for an ordinary looking woman who does the right thing and kicks anyone who gets in the way. OK, you called that. But would you have called tall and athletic over beautiful/sexy? How about her socio-economic background: working class like Jack Reacher and Kinsey Milhone or ultra-wealthy like Batman and Pendergast? Intelligent or clever? I’d give you the answers except that they change every hour. I’ll get a few more weeks of data before drawing any permanent conclusions.
The poll result may point to some parallel conclusions I came to in my short-story efforts: people are looking for a woman leader. A unique aspect of the Katniss character was her reluctant but natural leadership skills. Several years ago, I began developing the Pia Sabel character in short story forums. When I put her in charge of a company, her popularity soared. From that experience, I learned a few things about heroines in fiction:
1) Women do not like men writing a female lead character. (Did that stop me? Ha.) JK Rowling is fine, but the pendulum better not swing the other way. SJ Watson, of Before I Go To Sleep, kept his identity a secret as long as possible. When I submitted short stories in forums, I sometimes re-entered them as “Janet”. The approval rating from women readers went up 60%. (Insert your jokes/ideas about why in the comments section.)
2) Men do not like to read first person, female lead stories. Men just don’t want to be inside a woman’s head. I mean, c’mon, is it that scary? (Insert your jokes/ideas about why in the comments section.) I submitted several stories in both first and third person. Third person beat out first by 60% every time.
3) No one likes to read about women being beaten up. No one seems to mind when a woman beats the crap out of a man, especially if he deserved it. Women like to see a man who hurts a woman—die. They don’t like to see him arrested, beaten, broken, or anything else. They want to see him die. If rape is involved, they like to see him die instantly and repeatedly. Gunshot in the head, his carcass run over by a bus, then eaten by crows who are in turn eaten by wolves. Men are no more forgiving of violent male characters; they want to see him pay for his crimes in some gruesome fashion, but just short of death. (You never know, he might have been falsely accused?)
4) People are looking for a female leader. I believe this is the major reason “Still Looking” came in ahead of several popular characters. Maybe America is not ready for a woman in the White House, but they are ready for one in their fiction. And very few exist. Katniss was a reluctant leader, but I believe her leadership was key to her popularity.
Peace, Seeley James
