Please welcome a guest post from Georgiana Derwent...
I currently sing in a choir. Most of the
time, we sing serious, classical stuff, but in the summer we put on a lighter
concert. This year, the theme is “songs from tv and films.” We’re singing lots
of fun things, but my favourite by far is Nobody Does it Better, the theme song
from the James Bond Film The Spy Who
Loved Me.
The chorus goes, “Nobody does it better. Makes me feel bad for the rest. Nobody does it
half as good as you. Baby you’re the best.”
Anyone who’s ever seen a James Bond film
would probably agree that’s a fairly good description of their lead character -
always looking good, seducing every woman he meets, defeating enemies with ease
and a snappy line.
In other words, if the James Bond books
were being newly released today, he’d probably be vilified by half the
reviewers as a Mary Sue. He’s not the only one either. At the moment, adverts
for the film adaptation of The Great Gatsby are everywhere. When you read the
book, you quickly realise that Gatsby himself is good-looking, rich and
popular, with a mysterious past. Daisy is beautiful and rich and seemingly
every man who meets her falls in love with her.
What I’m getting at is that characters who
are unrealistically perfect aren’t necessarily a bad thing. The concept of the
dreaded Mary-Sue originated in relation to fanfiction - the original character
who is written into an existing series and is better than the existing
characters at everything and is loved
by the romantic lead (and everyone else)
much more than his official love interest . I’d be the first person to agree
that that’s annoying, but I’m not convinced that it’s a concept that translates
well into original fiction.
When I’m reading a novel, I have a soft
spot for the perfect characters. I tend to feel that there are enough dull,
average people in everyday life. The majority of the things I read are quite
detached from real life - paranormal, fantasy, historical - and I tend to want
my heroes and heroines to be as extraordinary as their settings.
In romance novels in particular, readers
tend to fall into two camps: those who want average heroines they can identify
with and those who want extraordinary heroines they can daydream about being
like. Whether I’m reading or writing, I’m firmly with group two. Give me a
heroine who is beautiful, confident and talented over one whose only unusual
feature is the fact that she’s caught the attention of an improbably attractive
man.
One of my favourite reads recently was Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and its
sequel, Days of Blood and Starlight.
The heroine has blue hair, speaks 26 languages fluently, draws brilliantly, can
fly and has both intensely loyal friends and a large number of admirers. She
should have been infuriating, but she was one of the things that made the book
great. A mousy talentless lead would have been far duller and, let’s be honest
here, would have made the romance with an angel plot a lot less feasible.
Because this is the other problem. There
may be some readers who like to read about really normal heroes - average
looks, average intelligence, average income, everyday life - but most seem to
want their fictional men to at the very least be very good-looking and ideally
to be extraordinary in other ways too. And I find it far harder to believe that
a perfect man is in love with an ordinary woman than to believe in a remarkable
heroine. To be clear, this isn’t just about looks - a hero falling for a woman
less physically attractive than him can be great, just as long as there’s
something about her to justify and explain his feelings - her intelligence,
bravery, special powers or charm. But
some heroines I’ve come across recently have been so utterly dull that I
struggle to imagine anyone obsessing about them, never mind the godlike
specimen of manhood that the book chooses to match them with.
The worst thing of all though is when
authors go for the middle ground - the heroine who is utterly wonderful, but is
either deliberately self-deprecating or
is presented (despite their supposed intelligence) as utterly blind to the fact
that they are beautiful and adored by everyone.
If there’s one thing that makes me want to
throw a book across a room, it’s lines like: “Sally
looked at her gigantic breasts and wished she could fit into a little strappy
top like all her friends. She brushed
her riot of waist-length curls, cursing the fact that she could never make her
hair be straight and sleek. What man would want to go out with someone who
looked like her?”
Ideally, give me a heroine who is both
extraordinary and oozing confidence but doesn’t go on about her charms. Failing
that, give me one who is average, but accepts that fact and makes the best of
things anyway. Nothing is less fun to read about than false modesty/fishing for
compliments or self-esteem issues. It doesn’t make an otherwise perfect heroine
more relatable, it makes her irritating in a whole new way.
So
what about anyone else? Do you come down on the side of the average heroine or
the extraordinary one? What about supporting characters - does everyone being
as perfect as the heroine make the situation worse or better? And perhaps most
interestingly, is there anyone who prefers their romantic heroes to be average
guys?
Now for her current release :)
Screaming Spires
The Cavaliers #2
A Tale of the
Posh, the Privileged and the Paranormal...
The Cavaliers
are the most elite society at Oxford
University
In her first
year at Oxford University Oxford
Screaming Spires continues the story of an ancient vampire
conspiracy and the ordinary girl caught in its web begun in Oxford Blood.
Excerpt:
“Dance with me,” someone said suddenly, taking hold of her
hands in a way that left no room for argument.
With a sinking feeling, Harriet recognised George’s voice. She
forced herself to stay calm as she looked up at him, pristine in his tailcoat
and Cavalier bowtie.
“Dance with you? Are you insane? You killed my cousin. You kept
my necklace hidden for weeks. You mesmerised me whilst they drained Caroline.
If I had the strength, I’d kill you.”
George smiled and shook his head. “No you wouldn’t,” he said
firmly, leading her onto the dancefloor.
Before Harriet had a chance to take stock of the situation, they
were in the middle of the marquee. She moved to the music as though she had no
control over her body, allowing herself to be alternately spun around by George
and pulled into him.
“So don’t I get a thank you then?” he whispered after a
particularly vigorous twirl.
“I don’t know how you have the nerve even to speak to me, never
mind to ask for my thanks.”
“I gave you what you wanted,” he said, pulling her closer. “I
gave you your best friend back. If I’d asked you beforehand, what would you
have said? Let her die or change her?”
Harriet was finding it difficult to concentrate on the
conversation. The marquee was hot and full of people; the music was loud; the
dancing was too vigorous. She needed to sit somewhere cool by herself and get
her thoughts in order. Instead, George’s deep green eyes were boring into her,
his cool hands were gripping hers, and it was becoming harder by the minute to
remember all the terrible things he’d done. Harder still to push him away.
About the Author:
Georgiana
Derwent read History at Oxford
University
Cavaliers Series is an exaggerated but fairly accurate
portrayal of her time there. She now works in London
Georgiana
fell in love with vampire novels after reading The Vampire Diaries back in
2000. At the time it was a struggle to find any similar paranormal romances, a
situation that it’s fair to say seems to have been rectified in the last few
years. She now loves paranormal series, fantasy novels, and modern literary
works in roughly equal measure.
Ever since
her teens, she wanted to write a vampire series. Ever since going to Oxford
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