by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I have a small — but growing — library of books I’m supposed to be reading that I want to use to flesh out the characters in my novel. I’m trying to stabilize the first six chapters and finally reading all these books I’ve bought is a part of that.
One thing I really want to make sure I do is make my heroine as different from Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander as possible. While my heroine is greatly influenced by Salander, they’re very, very different in their backgrounds and goals in life.
And even if they were all that similar, my interpretation of the “Girl Who…” trope is so different from his and (and my writing just not as good as) that the two books are pretty much just in the same genre and that’s it.
Otherwise, they’re completely different.
The key issue is my heroine is meant to be far more accessible that Salander. My writing just isn’t as dark. Or, put another way: things may change pretty dramatically between the first and second draft — but for the time being, my novel is very much its own thing.
Anyway. I really need to do some reading.
