Into the Fire

I want to thank Winter Austin for her guest appearance here at Into the Fire. She's an ace at writing tough heroines with touches of tenderness. Her romantic suspense is well done with plenty of action for these strong ladies. Her book covers are exceptional and her stories leave you waiting for her next work. This is an entertaining series for readers who enjoy female characters with real substance. Tomorrow look for my review of her Book 4 finale to the McIntire County Series.                     

Strong, take charge heroines have had a decidedly big influence on me and my writing for years. I can trace it back to my love at a young age of characters like She-Ra and her menagerie of female sidekicks and female baddies. To superheroines like Supergirl and Wonder Woman, eventually leading to Marvel’s great female ensemble of heroes. But the strongest factor in all of this would be the ultimate kick-butt, take no flack heroine, Princess Leia Organa. Over the years there have been new and exciting women, real and fictional, who have taken roles in the hero spot, but Leia would always be queen.

Enter my own dreams of creating women like this in my own books. Believe me, anything I wrote or daydreamed about, it was always the woman who came out on top. The Bible has plenty of female heroes, and we should never forget this.
My first heroine, Cody Lewis, was the jumping point. Over time she developed into more, but she wasn’t quite what I wanted to be writing. And thus I developed that particular heroine. She’s the eye-opener, the one my editor explained to me that showed her who I was as a person and an author. Ex-Marine Scout Sniper, Nicolette Rivers.

Nic’s personality is unique in that she was influenced by real life women in the military. Hard as it is to believe, military women are a breed apart. They are feminine and soft when needs be, but they can be just as crude and tough as their male counterparts they serve with. And women in the military fight the same type of battles men do. Nic has irritated some readers, and been lauded by most, even male readers, and its because she’s unique. I had to write tough and work hard to soften her edges, but she molded into the character I wanted.

After Nic I didn’t know how I was going to top my efforts with her. The three subsequent heroines were a test of my mettle, one, to not repeat Nic, and two, to make them unique in their own ways. And the work paid off. Even my newest heroine, Liza Bartholomew is a step outside my comfort zone, because I didn’t realize it when she made her first appearance in Born to Die that she was actually an African-American. And as a white author writing a character of color, I was dealing with a minefield. Thankfully, there were resources I found to help me use better descriptions and imagery to make her well-rounded.

How I actually design the characters is simple. I tend to look for a model of sorts, whether it be an actress or real life woman, and if they did something that fits with what I’m seeing for a particular character, I use them. Once I have that, next I find the heroine’s wound, the one thing that changed everything for them and build on it.

For Cody, it had been her mother’s tragic death. For Nic, it was seeing the massacre of a squad and then the suicide of her lover. For Cassy, it was her kidnapping at the hands of a mad man. For Jolie Murdoch, it was the imprisonment of her brother. And for Liza, it was the deaths of innocents by an evasive scam artist.

Once I had that foundation, I went from there. How would they react or how did they react? How does it effect their decisions now? What quirk effects them as a character? And how do they find a way to fight back?

I like characters that can hold their own physically and mentally, and you’ll never get a heroine with a “woe is me” complex from me. I want the males in the books to work with them, never underestimate them because of their gender, and be strong for them when the heroines want and need it. Let’s face it, we’re women, and we are supposed to be vulnerable. God created us that way so men would have a reason to fight for us, not against us. But Satan has twisted that and made it a thing of ugliness and contention, and I refuse to allow that into my character’s arcs.

A truly strong heroine is one who can admit that there are times when she needs help. A truly strong woman will not let it bother her either.

Do I want my heroines to come out on top and win the day? You betcha. But does it always end up being that way in my books? Hmm, it’s about half and half. ’Cause let’s face it; I still like a hero who is there to help, and not lord it over his other half.
And let’s not forget I’m an action junkie, whether it be in the books I read or movies I watch. It’s got to have big fight scene, and my characters always deliver with that. 😉

My process is truly simple. But the writing is where everything begins to gel and come together. Sometimes the characters take a bit to really let me know who they are, but once that last puzzle piece is revealed, it’s no holds barred.

Father, you know Winter's heart and soul. Minister to her body, soul, and spirit, and keep her writing the way you designed her to write. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.