Writing Progress: Strong Female Leads

Word count as of today is: 5,656.

Today was a tough writing day.  I have recently hit a wall with the storyline, but last night something magical happened to spur me on.

I was invited by a good friend to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens one more time.

This was my third time viewing the film.  I saw it on opening weekend, then saw it again in 3D on the following Monday.  I had thought about the aspect of the character of Rey and why she is so interesting to me for some  time now, but last night it hit me that I needed a little of the magic of Rey in my own novel.

I am introducing a female lead into my sequel, but I wanted her to be special, and after much consideration I decided that she needed to be more than the usual “girl who needs saving”.

Spoilers ahead.

The character of Rey is interesting in that she represents a welcome trend in film, a trend toward female leads who do not need a man to save them, who are strong on their own without the need for romance to make them complete.  She is angered when Finn takes her hand to pull her along with him when he attempts to save her from the tie fighter attack, even though she is quite capable of saving herself.  She is able to fix the Millennium Falcon and save all of them from certain doom.

In short, I wanted a character like that.

I feel that in the passage I wrote today where I introduce her I did so in a way that is mysterious enough to not let the reader know she is human, but at the same time gave her an air of authority that will resonate later in the piece.  I’m sure in re-writes I will shape her even more, but now that I’ve written her backstory down (an important and necessary step for ALL characters we write) I feel that she will be able to achieve the magic that Rey had for me in The Force Awakens without really being a copy of Rey.

She’s her own person, thank you very much.

Tomorrow I will tackle a difficult scene as well.  Wish me luck.