Build Us Your Ideal Story with Cassandra Dean

 

Build Us Your Ideal Story with Cassandra Dean

Thank you for having me and for inviting me to build a story. I do love to craft the nifty little things.

First up, I’ll spend $5 and take a Relatable, likeable female lead, please and thank you. A relatable, likeable heroine is an important ingredient in any story. It’s our job as authors to make our heroine’s point of view understood, to have her struggles towards a defined goal be something a reader roots for. Whether she’s seeking to become the first woman on Mars or, as in my next novel SILK & SCHOLAR, to open a law school for women amidst great opposition, her journey should be something we can relate to our own lives and our own struggles.

 

Next, I think it will be $3 for Conflict that forces personal growth
Growth is essential in any character in a story. A writing tutor of mine said the hero of the story is always the one who learns or grows the most, but all characters need growth. The best way to promote growth is to introduce conflict. If your heroine hates flying, then make it so she has to board a plane. Or, if your heroine is mightily annoyed by the hero since the time they were young, as Etta is by Christopher in SILK & SCHOLAR, make it so they have to interact and Etta learns perhaps Christopher is not as bad as she thinks and might actually be the one person she can’t live without.

 

And for the win, I’ll have A take-charge hero for $2
A hero who is confident, secure in his skin, and able to take charge of a situation—to be a leader and someone the heroine can rely upon—sounds ideal to me. This is a hero who sees his heroine is exhausted and draws her a bath, a hero who offers to shoulder the burden when the heroine can’t face it, and one who will place a hand on the heroine’s back in support when she falters so she can gather herself and go once more into the fray. In SILK & SCHOLAR, this is Etta’s Christopher, the man who will stand beside her while she fights for her school and the right to be counted equal to any man.

Thank you for having me, and I hope you agree my $10 is well spent!

 

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