Ya gotta have Faith!

The Construction of a heroine...

Creating a heroine is tricky, and for a while I struggled with the heroine of In the Dark. It seems like there's a lot of pressure to produce a strong, fully capable woman. While I enjoy those type of characters, and have written several, dropping that kind of woman into my hero's life would not make him a better man in the end. So, who was she? The only vision I had of her was this perfectly normal woman with long, dark hair and a slinky black turtleneck. The two specific details did not make a heroine. She was still a mystery...as most woman are, right? I needed to know why she ended up in Paris and how she would react to the hero, and to being thrown into a city of vampires. To understand those intricacies of her thought process, I needed to know her name.
 

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Finding Faith

Names have meanings, social stigmas, expectations. A huge part of your personality is your name. You know those people that hate their names and choose another? They don't do it to disrespect their parents, but because their name doesn't fit them. When you hear the name Vivian  it portrays a vivacious woman. Can you picture Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind? True, not everyone fits the expectation, but it's that instant impression of a name that is so important when there is no physical person standing before you, only a description from a book floating around in your head. The heroine of In the Dark? She has no choice but to trust the hero, and because of their unique situation, he must also put a great deal of trust in her. Blind trust is having faith. The true heroine of In the Dark? Faith.

Faith is Everything

Faith is her hero's match, his other half. Sure, she has a stubborn streak and insists on wearing the turtleneck he hates, but her patience allows her to step back and process her circumstances realistically. She's been thrown into a unique culture, and because she has a perceptive understanding of the hero, she trusts him to guide her through what must now become her new life in an underground city of vampires. In return, the hero trusts Faith not to run away, as it could endanger the entire city.

Faith is not simply the heroine, she's the reader's window into this fantastic vampire city. If not for her human perspective, you might not easily acclimate to a society of vampires.

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