My greatest fear is the reception of Ember’s heroine(s). I say heroines because, well, to be frank, my leading ladies tend to overshadow their male counterparts by a long-shot. I mean, the entire premise of the Raveni lines are women imbued with preternatural strength and the affinity to magic; And the Raveni line are unique with these endowments.
I wouldn’t be lying if I said that one of my major influences on the whole Raveni thing was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. “In every generation, there is a Chosen One”. It’s not a unique premise, of course. In almost every fantasy story there is a Chosen One. Some unfortunate teen or young adult bestowed with centuries worth of foreboding prophecies, warning them that they have to save the world against the Big Bad; and that their world is now made up of two worlds – the people they cannot under any circumstances tell their lineage or purpose to; and every other person under the sun who are more than aware of their Chosen-ness and who know more about them than they do (college major, hopes, aspirations, the number of sugars in their coffee).
And most of these characters have one thing in common. Reluctance. Initially. Until they grow into their roles and accept their fates, their willingness to harness their power or magic or chi or ki or force or whathaveyou; and their decision to use it to turn the tides of fate.
But that’s all pretty hum-drum isn’t it? The story’s been done to death. We’ve had reluctant heroes as there are stars in the sky. Reticent heroes (Katniss Everdeen, I’m looking at you) who are forced to take the limelight and change the world, whether they want to or not.
And you know what? It kind of sucks. Reading the same story. Seeing the same movie. The names and places are different, but the hero in The Hero’s Journey has no outstanding traits but the fact we’re told they’re the main character – they’re the hero – they’re the Chosen One.
The problem with this formula is the lack of actual character for our main character. Yes, yes, I know about every-man. We all want to be the heroes. We want some glaring lack of personality to force our own personalities onto (every silent protagonist in every Japanese role-playing game), to make these heroes more relatable.
But what makes a good hero, or character in general, are distinct personalities. Things that we have in common with them; their likes, dislikes; tiny nuances with their speech or how they react to things around them. The last thing we want; in actuality, is a lack of character.
And so, I daresay, that my top picks are all rather unique in their own way, and perhaps that’s what’s made them so adored.
I’m not going to go on a drawl about why these gals are stand-out, amazing heroines. But they’re key influences in shaping some of the main characters in my series.
I recently tried to watch Warrior Nun, but I couldn’t get past how boring the main character is. I like the premise, it’s all pretty good, but every character that bounced onto the screen was a screaming ball of clichés, in the most awful way possible. My partner in crime and I ultimately threw the series in the bin and haven’t thought about returning to it.
The same thing happened with Sabrina once we hit season three. There was a lot of eye-rolling and sighing, and we abandoned ship on that series, too, which sucks because a lot of these narratives have a lot of promise. The world building is sensational, but the characters we’re following make us want to tear our hair out and scream at the television screens for them to (in my particular instance) “JUST TALK TO YOUR COMRADES AND TELL THEM WHAT’S UP”, YOU COULD HAVE AVOIDED ALL OF THE UNNECESSARY CONFLICT OF THE LAST <Insert Number Here> EPISODES!”.
But I’ll be frank. Even though I start out with best intentions, my characters will, and do do what they want, and not necessarily what I want. That’s the throes of being a writer. I’m actually a tiny mouse robot dancing along a keyboard orchestrated by each and every single character I write about in my series (who are all very, very real, and I’m very, very hungry, please someone free me this is a cry for help), but I’m more than obvious to the fact of falling into tropes or cliches that will piss people off.
My poor partner-in-crime is always hearing me gripe and ask them about the book or the paragraph I just wrote, “Does this seem realistic to you? Is this annoying? Would you do this?”.
I want my readers to empathize with my characters. Hero, or villain or anything in between. I want them to enjoy reading them, not read against them. I don’t want any book throwing of any kind to occur (unless it’s because I’ve done something that you hate in the vein of George R. R. Martin, then book throwing is entirely endorsed so long as you pick it up again after crying for hours on end) because of some stupid shit my characters have done that is entirely left-field or done just for the sake of contriving conflict (I will never forgive the writers for Hell’s Bells by the way).
But, don’t for one second think I’m not aware of any tropes I might be fulfilling. I will joyously cry out in despair when I’ve done something bad (There is a particular one I won’t mention here that I may do in the first book… The acronym being KYG). And, I don’t mind if ya’ll start making memes (I’m actually waiting for it) on some of the stupid things that I do to my characters/or things that they do.
So, strap in, have fun, because Ember is only days away!
Lyana Lim Palmer | Dark Urban Fantasy Author 