This is something that has bothered me for a long time, so I'm reposting from an earlier blog. Tell me what you think - would you like to see better fed heroines?
Now, maybe it’s just those few extra pounds on my rear, caused by too much computer time and too little exercise, so I could just be bitter about this, but have you ever noticed how little these usually over-active heroines ever eat?
It’s not unusual for them to have coffee for breakfast, be stalked, run off the road, shot at, sprint through miles of woodland, swim a lake, have wild sex with the hero, have a massive fight with the hero, rush home to run into the arms of a crazed kidnapper, be rescued or get themselves out of a scrape, and then remember that they’ve not eaten since coffee at breakfast the day before.
Yeah, really. I’d be chewing off my own foot, I’d be so hungry.
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| Lovely Food from My Daughter's Wedding Reception! |
How do they do it? Why do they do it?
Is it the wild sex that keeps them going? Or fear that interfers with normal digestive processes?
Sadly, I get really cranky if I miss a meal, so I guess I’m just not good heroine material. I’d be more likely to shoot the first person to annoy me, rather than solve the crime, save my skin, and bring everything to a happy ending.
So, what do you think? Should we start a campaign to provide a healthy breakfast and organic snacks for malnourished heroines?
Certainly, I’ve been reading some of the neat cozy detective series that are around, and a few more writers are making their heroines a bit more gastonomically realistic, so maybe there’s hope yet.
By way of protest, and to do my bit for starving heroines, I'm adding two yummy recipes to my upcoming release, Saving Maggie, from Crimson Romance. The recipes are for a chicken stir fry delux and some decadent byut healthy cookies. You just gotta see them!
Let me know what you think – should heroines have normal meals like the rest of us, or is starvation an important part of their diet? One lucky commenter will receive a pre-pub galley copy of Saving Maggie!
Glenys O’Connell admits to a love affair with food, and isn’t above a junk food meal when she’s pushed on deadline. Her heroines eat well, everything from home made macaroni tuna and cheese casserole in Judgement By Fire to an elegant three course meal at an expensive Dublin hotel, in Winters & Somers, while Maggie Kendall & Detective Josh Tyler make a wonderful chicken stir fry together in upcoming release Saving Maggie.(Crimson Romance, December 31, 2012)
7 comments:
What a great read. Food for thought, as it were. Wonderful post!
Lol - I really enjoyed this post - great fun.
However, like you, I make sure my heroines eat at least one (very) good meal in my novels - even if they have to cook the food themselves.
Good post.
Lynette
My heroines are always cooking (or being cooked for) and eating. In fact, they eat way more often than they have sex. LOL Hmm, I wonder what that says about me as a writer. Great post!
I think you're onto what gives a lot of genre fiction a bad name. It's not just food, it's a lack of believability in general. You're doing romance, I'm doing science fiction; you're feeding your heroines and I'm making my aliens learn English before they can speak it.
Great post! I think they do not get a chance to eat. To much romancing.
debby236 at gmail dot com
Haha, good point. Perhaps the day to day details tend to be glossed over so we can stick to the action. As for me, my characters are getting food :-) even imaginary friends gotta eat.
My heroines are often too thin (because I'm not, and I think I'd secretly like to be) so my heroes are constantly seeking inventive ways to get them to eat more. I mean food, like the other necessities of life, are often overlooked in novels for things like plot and conflict. But since I often add food as a source of conflict between my hero and heroine, you'll find food in most of my books.
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