In my WIP, my heroine has a sidekick in the person of an important, but secondary, character. Or maybe the secondary character has a sidekick who is also my heroine. I dunno. It’s getting pretty blurry.
Early on in my little 18th century world, Amelia (heroine) was a do-gooder minister’s daughter, too educated and too plain, a sort of activist firebrand who wearies everyone with her constant “meddling” in social issues. Always pestering people with subscriptions to charities or engaging in political debates which are “unseemly” for women. She’s mostly seen as an annoying crackpot. But she puts her shoulder to the plot and gets it moving.
As the story developed, however, I began to wonder if Amelia wouldn’t make a better secondary character while still advancing the plot with her actions. Enter Georgianna, a well-to-do merchant’s daughter, and grand-daughter to a Lady Someone-or-Other, as the new heroine. Sheltered, naïve, an only child suffocated by her overbearing father, she won’t say boo to a goose. Amelia is her best friend and brings Georgianna out of her small world by involving her in charity work. Georgianna meets the hero, Jack, through Amelia’s latest crusade and soon finds herself in over her head. At which point she comes into her own.
Now I’m looking at the entire story and seeing where Amelia would be the one more likely to go off on a crazy tangent with the hero. Especially as her politics are somewhat radical and she sees Jack as a romantic hero while her society sees him as a criminal. I like the idea that she’s “plain” because the exquisitely lovely heroine has been done to death. (I hate romances where the hero falls for the heroine because she’s indescribably lovely and bosomy, and she falls for him because he has nice eyes and washboard abs. Ugh.)
In short, Amelia looks to be staging a hostile takeover. I’m worried that Georgianna is too bland in comparison, and that logically, the reader would wonder why Amelia isn’t center stage. I like Georgianna as the heroine for many reasons, including how much she grows through her experiences, and how she goes from being a namby-pamby to a spirited woman. But Amelia could have an interesting track, too. Like being starry-eyed that this guy she thinks is so great could actually love a “plain” girl like her, to being humiliated at his betrayal, and learning to love herself regardless. Then bagging the prize when all seems lost!
But Georgianna’s perfect as the trusting heroine who’s bullied by her obnoxious father, threatened with an arranged marriage, and gets played by the manipulative hero, but wins out in the end. Lot of good challenges there. And not for nothing, the chick gets to wear elaborate Georgian gowns and stay in “the Chinese bedroom” at her grandmother’s manor house. You can’t beat that!
I can see Jack going for someone ballsy like Amelia, so I feel like I’m stumbling into the trap of having him falling "in love” with Georgianna just because she’s pretty. Her personality is so quiet and passive at the start, it's difficult to see what he sees in her. I’m even contemplating melding the two characters. Which would punch some biggish holes in the plot. Eeesh!
Has anyone had a subordinate character with more personality totally take over? Did it work out for the best? Or did you have to write a whole new book to accommodate him/her?
Early on in my little 18th century world, Amelia (heroine) was a do-gooder minister’s daughter, too educated and too plain, a sort of activist firebrand who wearies everyone with her constant “meddling” in social issues. Always pestering people with subscriptions to charities or engaging in political debates which are “unseemly” for women. She’s mostly seen as an annoying crackpot. But she puts her shoulder to the plot and gets it moving.
As the story developed, however, I began to wonder if Amelia wouldn’t make a better secondary character while still advancing the plot with her actions. Enter Georgianna, a well-to-do merchant’s daughter, and grand-daughter to a Lady Someone-or-Other, as the new heroine. Sheltered, naïve, an only child suffocated by her overbearing father, she won’t say boo to a goose. Amelia is her best friend and brings Georgianna out of her small world by involving her in charity work. Georgianna meets the hero, Jack, through Amelia’s latest crusade and soon finds herself in over her head. At which point she comes into her own.
Now I’m looking at the entire story and seeing where Amelia would be the one more likely to go off on a crazy tangent with the hero. Especially as her politics are somewhat radical and she sees Jack as a romantic hero while her society sees him as a criminal. I like the idea that she’s “plain” because the exquisitely lovely heroine has been done to death. (I hate romances where the hero falls for the heroine because she’s indescribably lovely and bosomy, and she falls for him because he has nice eyes and washboard abs. Ugh.)
In short, Amelia looks to be staging a hostile takeover. I’m worried that Georgianna is too bland in comparison, and that logically, the reader would wonder why Amelia isn’t center stage. I like Georgianna as the heroine for many reasons, including how much she grows through her experiences, and how she goes from being a namby-pamby to a spirited woman. But Amelia could have an interesting track, too. Like being starry-eyed that this guy she thinks is so great could actually love a “plain” girl like her, to being humiliated at his betrayal, and learning to love herself regardless. Then bagging the prize when all seems lost!
But Georgianna’s perfect as the trusting heroine who’s bullied by her obnoxious father, threatened with an arranged marriage, and gets played by the manipulative hero, but wins out in the end. Lot of good challenges there. And not for nothing, the chick gets to wear elaborate Georgian gowns and stay in “the Chinese bedroom” at her grandmother’s manor house. You can’t beat that!
I can see Jack going for someone ballsy like Amelia, so I feel like I’m stumbling into the trap of having him falling "in love” with Georgianna just because she’s pretty. Her personality is so quiet and passive at the start, it's difficult to see what he sees in her. I’m even contemplating melding the two characters. Which would punch some biggish holes in the plot. Eeesh!
Has anyone had a subordinate character with more personality totally take over? Did it work out for the best? Or did you have to write a whole new book to accommodate him/her?