Frail but tough women and nosy but loving neighbors: my favorite character archetypes

Now that I’ve been writing for awhile, I can see patterns in my own work: I love to include music (and wish it were less expensive to include song lyrics), I’m a sucker for a good revenge story, I write about sexual assault a lot, and I tend to gravitate toward two favorite character archetypes: frail but strong women and nosy but loving neighbors. I’ll talk about those character archetypes today.

But first: This post is part of the Insecure Writers Support Group (IWSG) blog hop. On the first Wednesday of every month, we IWSG-ers share our doubts, fears, struggles, and triumphs. Our awesome co-hosts this month are Kate Larkinsdale, SE White, JS Pailly, Olga Godim, and Natalie Aguirre. Please stop by and leave them some comment love. Each month our fearless leader (Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh) gives us an optional question to answer. This month’s question is, Do you have a favorite character archetype you tend to gravitate toward in your writing?

Favorite character archetype 1: frail but tough women

The main character in my first novel, Vanishing, Inc. (which I still need to revise and resubmit to the 2 agents who expressed interest) is Alex Collins, a woman in her mid-20s who’s hiding from a psychopathic ex-husband in a small Arizona mountain town. When I first started writing Vanishing, Inc. I knew I wanted to write about a woman with wounds and scars, but Alex didn’t take shape for me physically till a Saturday afternoon at the Arizona Highland Celtic Festival. I was volunteering to staff a booth for the local greyhound rescue group when a woman walked by. She was thin and corpse pale, with lovely rich red hair. She looked like she belonged in a vampire romance–as the vampire. I said, “That’s Alex,” and I probably said it out loud because I’m awkward like that. So Alex is thin and corpse-pale, and at the beginning of the book she’s scarred and scared and committed to spending the rest of her life on the run.

We play by Reddit rules around here, so since I alluded to the fact we had greyhounds, I have to pay the greyhound tax. This is Fritz in 2018, a couple of years before he passed:

RIP, Fritzie. You were the best boy.

Dawn Douglas, the main character in Delta Dawn (which I’m happy to report I’ve been working diligently to revise), had leukemia just as she started puberty, and the chemo messed up her growth spurt. As a result, she’s tiny and built mostly like a child. She’s also scarred (from her illness and her abusive father) and scared (that she’ll never be able to put her past–and her father–fully behind her). Oh, and a serial killer is after her. Because of course a serial killer is after her. Lesson one: A Janet Alcorn story almost always contains a psychopath.

I suspect I write these kinds of female characters as a sort-of self-insert. I’ve always been mostly healthy, but I was never strong, never athletic. I like to live vicariously through characters who are weak on the outside but tougher on the inside than they ever realized.

Favorite character archetype 2: the nosy but loving neighbor

In Vanishing, Alex rents a cottage from an elderly woman named Sofie Bowman, who’s everything Alex isn’t: tough, strong, no-nonsense, and comfortable in her weathered skin. She becomes a source of strength, wisdom, and encouragement for Alex. In Delta Dawn, the neighbor is Edie Jakes, a retired reporter who knows everything about everyone. She was a second mother to Dawn when Dawn was growing up and is now a source of support and friendship when Dawn is dealing with her abusive, dying father.

I know exactly where this archetype comes from: my mom and my lack of extended family. My mom and I were very close, but she was the only family member I was close to. Apparently writer-me is still looking for mother figures. Also, there’s something magical about older women. Our give-a-shit gland must live in our ovaries, because once we hit menopause, we are done worrying about other people’s opinions. Every young woman needs a smart-mouthed older woman in her life to keep her grounded. If you’re under 40, get out there and find yourself a Crone Mentor.

Hmm, maybe I should start a business matching younger women with crone mentors. I’ll call it OnlyCrones.

Writing updates

The most important writing update is that I’m writing. Regularly. Just about every day. Also, it’s fun again. Yay!

I’m a member of the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime (Guppies is a nickname for the Great Unpublished). Every year they do something called Fantasy Agent. Unpublished members can send a synopsis and the first 30 pages of their manuscript, and a traditionally-published author will review it as though they were an agent and provide feedback. I submitted Vanishing a few years ago and got some helpful feedback, so this year I submitted Delta Dawn. Which means I’ve spent the last 3 or so weeks re-polishing my first 30 pages and shrinking an old, 3-page synopsis down to a single page.

My next big task is to tackle another revision of Vanishing and get the revised version to the 2 agents who expressed interest in seeing a rewrite.

Life updates

Not a lot to report this month. The big news is old news: we’re taking a 16-day cruise to Hawaii to celebrate our 35th anniversary. We leave in a little over 2 weeks, and I’m in full on panic mode trying to get everything done that has to be done before we go. I’m never more productive than I am in the month before a long vacation.

The Memery

It’s a mishmash of memes this month, mostly stuff that’s been lurking in my archive for a bit (yes, I do have an actual meme archive). Here we go:

First up, it’s that time of year again:

I haven’t done much gardening this year, but last year I had my neighbors and co-workers cowering in terror at the zucchini hoard.

Also the steam from draining pasta. Sigh.

What that one lacks in financial logic it makes up for in human logic.

And finally:

If I ever don’t want tacos, skip the ER and haul me straight to the morgue.

That’s it for me this time. I’m in the unfortunate stage of my crone era in which I still have to work a day job, so I’m off to work. If you write, are there characters you tend to write over and over? If you read, what character archetypes do you like most? If you don’t write or read, what’s your favorite taco? (And you should totally write and read, so you can be like the rest of us weirdos.)