From Cordelia Chase to Lucy Hart: A New Kind of Heroine

I'm a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. I mean, total loco, watch one-to-two episodes a day for the last tenyears fanatical.  I shiver when I see thename of one of the writers or producers from the show on new projects: Supernatural or the new Fright Night.  I started watching a sci-fi space western—Firefly. I even started reading comic books for a while—all because JossWhedon started writing an X-Mentitle.

I love the Buff-ster.  Joyce Summers is my favorite TV mom.  I had a huge crush on Xander…and for a shorttime Willow—I have a thing for redheads, don't ask.  And just saying the name Faith fills me withfiendish delight.And Spike…and Spike…

But my favorite character has to beCordelia Chase.  She's funny, straightforward…so politically incorrect.  Andout for number one…until she started fighting the good fight on Angel. It took half a dozen characters betweenthe two series to replace what her character pulled off with nothing more than asupporting role, boiling complex issues down to brutal one-liners.  Just look at episode Faith, Hope & Trickfrom Buffy season three.  "You mean how the only guy who ever liked herturned into a viscous killer and had to be put down like a dog?" 

Or on Angel, season one, in Five byFive, where she's talking to a prospective client: "No, it's not about themoney…Oh, it's about that muchmoney?  How soon can we meet?"  And then later in the next episode, sportinga ripe shiner, she lets Angel explain why he feels he needs to help Faithrehabilitate herself.  The whole whileshe's having him sign checks payable to her. She'd decided to take a paid vacation while Angel playedtwelve-step-program with the homicidal slayer."Like I'm going to stick around herewith psycho-case roaming around downstairs, with three tons of medievalweaponry?  Not!"

Fast forward to 2009.  I'd just got another rejection letter sayingthat my heroine was, yet again, too wimpy…but they just loved the bitchy bestfriend.  I get that a lot.  I can write a hell of a vicious, funny, man-eatingb-i-t-c-h.   

I'd recently read Jennifer Crusie's The Assassination of Cordelia Chase, agreat article that really limned Cordie's impact on both series.Halfway through a bartending shift at alocal resort, a young woman dragged her rather hot, broad shouldered boyfriendover to get a drink.  She was wearing thetightest, shortest plaid catholic school girl skirt you have ever seen.

To her detriment the thing looked likehell on her rather plump rump; a fact every woman and cocktail waitress grousedabout.  But me, I couldn't get onethought out of my head: I wondered what her super hot boyfriend would look likein that skirt…and nothing else?
Then I wondered what kind of girl couldget a guy to let her dress him up in school-girl drag?

And voila, I could see her, clear asday, the spitting image of Cordelia Chase…but not.No, this girl was the star of her ownstory.  And her name was Lucy Hart.

Right away I wanted Lucy to haveCordelia's best traits: a sense of style and entitlement, absolutely no tact, acool, calculating intelligence, and a rich daddy.  Then I made her lose everything in aspectacular fashion, and plopped her six months later flipping burgers at a McDonald's.  But I wanted her to pull herself up out of this poverty inducedfunk, and to do it in a ruthless, manipulative, utterly Cordelia-esque way. Ontop of all that, I wanted Lucy Hart to have her own superpowers, ones that wereall her own, not given to her later on. 

So I decided to give her necromancy—powerover the dead.  Just like Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter.  Iknew that would gross Lucy out completely.So I wrote Last Rites, a Lucy Hart Ritesnovel, and no one in publishing would give it the time of day.  They said it was nicely written, but that themain character just wasn't likeable enough. I didn't want Lucy Hart to be just some sweet, misunderstoodgoody-goody.  I wanted her to be in itfor herself, to be funny in an inappropriate, honest way, and to be possessedwith self-confidence.

So I moved on to write another book, andleft Lucy how she was.  I'd already wroteup a good outline for the next book, and about seven thousand words of text,but decided to write something more saleable to get my foot in the publishingworld door.  A couple months ago I read aboutKindle's self publishing program and simply couldn't resist publishing Lucy'sbook as I really wanted it.  I just knewsomehow, somewhere, there would be others out there that would understand mynew kind of heroine, and love her just as much as I do. 

Just the way she is.