I just realized in my own writing that I have this tendency to be all right writing females — except for the lead role. I mean, maybe women writers in general tend to be somewhat weaker at writing their own sex than they are writing males (this, of course, is possibly just trying to justify myself).
Anyway, thinking back, I typically have a male lead. There was Nikkei in “Nikkei.” All but two of the characters were male in “Rebels,” and only one of those two females was important, and she wasn’t a “lead” enough for me to mess up. Also in “Redefining Evil,” I only have two females. I’d say both Ingrid and Lacy are authentic, but not necessarily likable. Then I hated Cirrus in “…Whispered the River,” and Cadence, Catherine, Ariell (at least I think that was her name), and Tyena were definitely not meant to be “loved.”
All right — I did like Sophie in “Farewell, Fairytale.” But that shouldn’t really count, because I based Sophie on myself and just used Ingrid’s appearance, which I already liked. “Catcher” had a male role, and I did like Phoebe, but I tried really hard to make her pleasant because that would be a lovely contradiction to her career as a prostitute (wow — and this was before seeing “Firefly!”)
And then comes Lucienne. I had this dreadful moment this last week when I suddenly realized how many wins I give her. I beat up like crazy on my male characters in this story, but any time Lucy gets hurt, I make sure she’s the victim. And this far outweighs the times when she overcomes the odds against her and comes out victorious. I mean, part of it is intentional because of the feminism vs. patriarchy theme I play with. Obviously I want feminism to win. That means in the case of Lucienne’s relationship to Levi that she sort of has to wear the pants. But I’m pretty sure there are instances where I overdo it.
This is why I decided that I’m going to wreak emotional havoc on her in the third book. 😀 Levi’s gonna occasionally get tired of tip-toeing around her sense of sexual independence (that sounds slightly perverse but…I don’t mean it that way xD).
Anyway, this problem has no real conclusion because I don’t really know how much of it has to do with the fact that I have been working with Lucienne for more than three consecutive weeks and how much of this has to do with a real concern.