Wicked Women Make the Best Characters

I’ve been writing a romance novel and I’m finding that the low-down-dirty-mean characters are so much easier to write than a heroine or hero. I don’t know what that says about my personal knowledge of the characteristics of these people. I’m sure it’s nothing my family should be concerned about.

Take my wicked female antagonist.

Tiffany Magloire. Doesn’t that name conjure up elite evil? Money and mayhem. The name reeks of it. You haven’t read about her and already you distrust her. She’s pencil thin, lives in a large gated mansion decorated with heavy drapes and art deco. She wears Prada like I wear a Target sale item—easily and without thinking about the price.

And she knows people. All the right people who jump at the snap of her fingers. I’m secretly envious of Tiffany for that. I wish I knew people of influence, or any person for that matter, who would jump when I snapped my fingers. I’ve tried and cannot, no matter how many times I’ve snapped or what snapping rhythm I use, get anyone to leave the ground at my request.

I haven’t decided whether to leave Ms. Magloire in the story or take her out. But don’t tell her that. She knows people. I might have to go into the Writer’s Protection Program. I’d have to change my name to Mehitable and wear ill-fitting housedresses. I’d only be allowed to write articles for Field and Stream magazine, but only on the condition that the words Love or Romance never appeared in any story.

Oh that Tiffany Magloire…she really is a mean one.