"How Do I Talk To Teenagers?" You're Already Asking The Wrong Question

They said, "All teenagers scare the living shit out of me!!" - My Chemical Romance, "Teenagers"

I primarily write YA fiction. There's this misconception that writing for teenagers means you have to dumb your writing down. You know, pluck all the "big" words out of your prose because teenagers couldn't possibly understand them. Make sure your themes aren't too complicated, because those selfie-stick-toting high schoolers won't get it. Insert as many pop culture references as you can, because young adults can't relate to anything else.

Like that My Immortal story. That was popular with kids, right?

That paragraph might have been dripping with sarcasm, but even still, it felt gross to write. Mostly because a lot of people actually hold these patronizing viewpoints and often don't understand why they're a problem. Sometime during adulthood, they developed the unfortunate habit of perceiving teenagers as this alien demographic with their own indecipherable language and set of behaviors.

Hey, wow, maybe talk to teenagers like they're regular people. Because they are.

I think one reason a lot of people freeze up when it comes to talking to teenagers is because they don't remember being a teenager well enough. They see how far they've come emotionally and intellectually and, as a result, the people they were as teenagers seem juvenile, stupid, annoying, out-of-control, etc. in comparison. In other words, they don't give their teenage selves enough credit. It's easy enough to do--I only stopped being a teenager three years ago and I do it sometimes.

But when you start applying your critical attitude toward your teenage self to teenagers in general, you create a blind spot in your empathy. You stop listening to them. And a lot of people think they're justified in doing so, because they're "older" and have "more experience" and are "more mature." Only the first of those three is true every time.

Maybe I'm at a weird advantage because of my strangely vivid memory. I remember an astounding amount of detail about my 4th birthday party--not because someone repeated it to me later, but because I retained it. I remember the miniature train my parents rented for kids to ride on, and actors dressed as Prince Charming and Cinderella arriving at my house with an inexplicable pet ferret (which scratched me), and how embarrassed I felt when the teacup-patterned dress someone gifted me was too big. I also remember being 5 and thinking, after some adult had spoken condescendingly to me, "I will never forget what being five feels like."

"Mom, this is Freud's Interpretation of Dreams. Not that ego and id stuff, dumbass."

On top of that, my brain tends to categorize my memories according to age and year, an easy task since I was born in January (e.g. age 12 always = 2005, age 6 always = 1999, etc.). Ask me about pretty much any significant memory I have, as well as some insignificant ones, and I can name how old I was/the year. When did I get into Harry Potter? Age 8/2001. When was my first kiss? Age 14/2007. When did I get upset about leaving my friends' house and say the word "bam," which my dad misheard as "damn," leading to a heated conversation about where I'd heard that word until my dad realized I was quoting something Prince Eric said in The Little Mermaid? Age 5/1998.

For some reason, it took me a while to figure out everyone's memory doesn't work this way. I was floored when I heard a friend in his late teens say he "couldn't remember anything before age ten." I'm similarly surprised when people say things like, "The kid said he was like, 8, or 12. Same difference."

Uh no? Half the time, you'll say a 7-year-old is 7 and they'll be pissed you didn't specify that they're actually 7-and-three-quarters, thanks. You might roll your eyes at that or think it's cute, but honestly, that stuff matters to kids. The year between, say, ages 7 and 8 is enormous because 7 years has made up their entire life so far. It was especially important to me, since I've always looked younger than I am. And I knew that if someone mistook me for being 6 when I was actually 8, I wouldn't be taken as seriously (yes, kids pick up on that).

The real danger this creates is people misremembering how old they were when they were exposed to something, which leads to unnecessary censorship in the name of "saving the children." I'll ask people how old they were when they started swearing (or their peers started swearing), and they'll say, "I dunno. 14? 15?"

Unless you were unusually sheltered, you're a few years off the mark. I regularly heard peers swear around me at age 11 because, like a lot of people, I went to public middle school. If you grew up in a household where adults didn't worry too much about swearing around kids, you were exposed to it at an even younger age. So there's no need to freak out when the word "fuck" appears several times in a YA novel.

Same goes for sexual urges. They start early. People seem to forget that at the very beginning of puberty, your sexual urges aren't normally directed at anyone. They just kind of exist and you figure out why they're there, what to do about it, etc. But when a lot of people think "sex," they think "with someone else," something a child is definitely not ready for. They think that means young people need to be sheltered from even the idea of sex in a variety of ways, which is one reason sex in the media is more taboo than violence, and why that horribly ineffective thing called "abstinence-only education" exists.

Relax, people. I started having sexual urges at, again, age 11, but I wasn't on the hunt for a sexual partner. In fact, I felt no desire to do that for another six years. So when you're afraid to talk to a 13-year-old about sex because you're worried you'll "introduce something they're not ready for," you're flat-out wrong. They've felt these things already, and they'd benefit a lot more from respectful answers to their questions than being told they're not old enough to be feeling what they're feeling yet. Plus, there's the Internet. They've probably Googled it.

"I have no idea what a vagina is and it should stay that way" - a 16-yr-old according to abstinence-only educators, probably

With all this in mind, I'm always confused by people who treat YA literature like this lesser form of art meant for brains that can't handle anything too intellectual or mature. I once suggested to someone in a writing workshop that her novel read more like a YA story than an adult one. She said something like, "Oh, no, it's way too hardcore and bloody for teenagers." Really? Have you read The Hunger Games? Or, like, turned on a television? You know Spongebob regularly explodes into multiple pieces on his show aimed at little kids, right?

There's another element to this: too many people posit that having more life experience means that their experiences are more valid, better informed, superior to a teenager's, etc. In reality, there are millions of teenagers who have experienced something that you, hypothetical adult, have not.

Did you grow up with married, heterosexual, cisgender parents? Meet the kids who grew up in two households because their parents divorced, or who had one or more gender nonconforming parents, or who had two moms. Did you spend your adolescence in a suburb in Florida? Meet the kids who called NYC their playground, who went camping every weekend in Colorado, who went through grade school in Egypt, who bounced from place to place and never had a real hometown. Teens scroll through Facebook, go to Disneyland, start their own gardens, fight in wars, involve themselves with politics. Name any experience that isn't, I don't know, "turned 85," and some teenager, somewhere, has done it.

If you want to talk to teenagers, respect them as you would respect any human being. Don't assume they're inferior to you or brush off what they say because of their age. See what you can learn from them. They're not a mystery and they're certainly nothing to be scared of.

-Morgan

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Writer's Block Exists, But Not in the Way You Think

It's pretty common knowledge that writers (or any other type of artist) need a kick in the pants every so often, and usually that kick needs to come from themselves. Artists are great at getting themselves into creative ruts and flailing helplessly when they realize there's no easy way out. And it can be so tempting to stay in that rut, because while there, you have no artistic responsibilities and can just hang out.

I'll just be down here.

But if you stay in the rut for too long, you realize it's boring as hell. Not being expected to do anything can make you feel useless. If you're an artist who invests a lot of their identity in said art, it can also lead to a slight existential crisis à la, "Why am I even on this planet if I'm not doing [x]?"

This year, I've spent a lot more time in creative ruts than I usually do. I'm no stranger to these ruts, of course, and I don't think any artist is. But the ruts of 2015 proved a lot harder to get out of, and, thanks to a number of circumstances, my willpower was no match for how steep they were.

Why am I even calling these ruts? Why am I not calling it writer's block? Because I don't think writer's block exists, or at least, it doesn't exist in the way most people seem to understand it. When I hear people complain about writer's block, it often comes in the form of, "I can't think of anything to write about. I'm sitting there and nothing is coming out."

Oh, something could come out, all right. All you have to do is think of words and type them onto the page, or scribble them into your notebook or napkin or stone tablet or whatever you use. Your problem is that nothing good is coming out.

Well, duh. That's, like, 75% of writing a first draft. Like I've said before, writing involves wading through a lot of shit before you can get to the good stuff. It's about not judging yourself and trusting that you will be able to look at it with fresh eyes later, to clean up the language and cut out entire sections that aren't working. It's about not being afraid of your own failure because nobody gets it right the first time.

To me, writer's block is less about your creative abilities no longer working and more about some paralyzing fear holding you back from writing at all. It is incredibly hard to push through this, and sometimes, you have a lot working against you. A major event could disrupt your life, whether it's a positive or negative one; you could be battling mental illness; your living conditions might make it more difficult or outright impossible for you to work on your art. But there's a fine line between giving yourself a break because of an obstacle and not pushing yourself to work when you know enough pushing would get you where you need to be.

Clearly, I am still struggling to find this line.

As many of you know, I'm writing a YA fantasy series meant to be four books long. I've written books one, two, and three, but shortly after finishing the third, I took a step back. I didn't want to start book four until I was fairly satisfied with the first three. Book one was polished thanks to a significant rewrite I undertook with it after becoming more familiar with the publishing industry. I was happy with book three, since it was my most recent work and written by a much more mature author than the other two.

But book two was a total mess. So, last year,  I promised myself I would revise the thing before drafting the final book in the series.

I'd been avoiding revising book two for a while, and only recently did I start thinking about why that was. Drafting it had been a messy process. I'd stumbled through the first ten chapters with no idea how to organize it, the last section was plagued with overblown tangents, the main plot got lost in a tangle of subplots. But I also wrote that book during the most difficult emotional period of my life. As a result, the book includes some of my best writing, but also made me not want to look at it.

Re-reading the first several chapters, I had no patience for the miserable kid who'd written the original draft (the me of several years ago). I called her stupid and annoying, cursed her for the monstrosity she'd left me with, and laughed at all her amateur mistakes. Revising her prose proved exhausting, which made it easy to slip into a rut. At some point, I tumbled into the rut and stayed there.

To be fair to myself, I've been up against a lot this year. My last semester of college took a toll on me. I was dealing with a school newspaper fiasco that left me disillusioned with my university and with universities in general. My significant other was studying abroad, and the separation was, to put it mildly, hard. I was teaching a class and my mental health was suffering worse than it ever had during college. Throughout that last semester, I revised book two in small bursts, but not in any sustainable way.

Then I graduated and went to Europe for two months, as my Instagram account can attest to. It was understandable that I didn't revise during this period, since 1) I had no time and 2) I had nowhere to go. Most of my time in Europe was either spent at my significant other's flat in London, which housed like seven other people and not very many rooms, or in an AirBnB, which...is someone else's house. I wasn't about to demand a room I could revise in for two hours every night. Through all of this, I promised myself I would start revising as soon as I got home.

Guess what didn't happen.

We arrived home super jet lagged and not wanting to do anything but laze around the house. I could barely find the energy to move. It's fine, I told myself. The family trip to Alaska is soon. You'll start revising there. Then we got there for our two-week vacation and I found myself repeating the same process every day. I'd announce that I was "planning to edit" later, occupy myself with other, less demanding tasks, and become more and more anxious as the day's hours dwindled. The closer I got to midnight, the more excuses built up. I'll do it in an hour. Okay, half hour. Actually, I can't tonight. I need to spend more time with my siblings. Or I'll just finish this quest in this video game. Tonight isn't a good night because--

These weren't valid excuses anymore. I was stuck in the rut. I'd been there for so much longer than I was used to and couldn't figure out how to get myself out of it. Worse than that, I started to tear myself apart for continually succumbing to whatever was stopping me. I criticized myself every day for it. It didn't exactly do wonders for my self-esteem.

Then one day during our trip, we visited a rocky beach. I was climbing out to one of the larger rocks that was more difficult to reach, since it was further out in the water than the others. I made it there without a scratch, despite the slippery stones I had to step on and the incoming tide. Boy was I proud of myself for being a badass and succeeding in an outdoorsy activity that made me nervous. I was still celebrating on my way back to the beach when I slipped on the barnacle-encrusted rock. I landed right on my butt and earned a cut on my palm, which would later bruise.

Asshole barnacles.

It was a shallow cut that barely broke the skin. It wasn't even that big, and there wasn't much blood. But what did I do? I, a 22-year-old woman who has always had a low pain tolerance, started crying.

I didn't cry in front of anyone who wasn't understanding (just my significant other, who is very pro-feel-what-you-feel), but still, I felt humiliated. I'm not very patient with myself when it comes to having an emotional reaction I don't consider reasonable. If I'd had it my way, I would have jumped back up all Mercutio-like and said, "Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch!" But I cried, which definitely did not match the badass-outdoorsy-warrior mood I'd been indulging in a moment before. I felt ashamed.

This, of all things, made me remember why I was writing my YA fantasy in the first place.

My YA fantasy's main character has been thrust into a combat situation that doesn't match her personality at all. She, like me, is prone to crying for every reason under the sun, whether it be physical pain, interpersonal, frustration, anger, etc. Her best friend is a much more conventional warrior, and tears from her are pretty rare.

But there's a reason my main character has the spotlight instead of her friend. I want to show her fighting for her life through tears. I want her emotional outbursts to fuel her rather than indicate weakness. Through these books, I want to show people that emotion can lend us enormous strength though it may seem to hinder us. I am working against our culture's criticisms of "excessive" emotion and how it encourages people to suppress it. I especially want teenagers of all genders to read these books and feel validated when they cry. I want them to see crying as a source of power the way I couldn't as a teenager.

There is no way I'm gonna be able to do that unless I sit down and revise book two, damn it.

And you know what? When I got back to it, I thanked my younger self. Even though she didn't really know what she was doing, she'd fought through the muck to get words down during the hardest time of her life. Sure, it's a lot to revise. But without her, I wouldn't have anything to revise at all. She stayed out of her rut long enough to write this craptastic first draft. I am so proud of her.

So it took an assful of barnacles to get me out of my rut this time. Well, it didn't get me out on its own. It just threw down a rope. It still took me a few days to haul myself out of there and get down to business. Now, finally, I am revising again, and I feel much more comfortable with myself. I feel I'm doing good, important work that I hope will someday benefit other people.

Writer's block may be tough to deal with, but thinking about it in terms of fear instead of a short supply of creativity gives me a lot more control over how I handle it. I'm always better when I'm working on my craft, and I'm happy to be back on board.

If you have any methods for getting yourselves out of artistic ruts, let me know in the comments. I could sure use more ideas.

-Morgan

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No, I'm Not Embarrassed: Good Lit is Good Lit

When I woke up this morning, there was rage all over my Twitter feed. I couldn't find the source, but it seemed to have something to do with YA readers being shamed for, well, reading YA. What's new, right?

I went about my day normally. Later, a friend posted the link to the offending article, and I read it. It's called Against YA, with the tagline, "yes, adults should be embarrassed to read young adult books." It argues that by reading young adult literature, adults are missing out on more "important" literature, namely literary fiction. Such readers are apparently selling themselves short by choosing "escapism" over more complex, ambiguous works only found in the adult section of the bookstore.

This article reeeaaally got under my skin, for a number of reasons.

(Side note: I'm not entirely comfortable with posting the link to the article, since I know controversial articles love to generate more traffic, and I'm contributing to that by posting it. But it's not fair for me to present my argument without offering up the other side, so there it is).

If you follow this blog, you know I write YA fantasy. You might also know that I write YA contemporary, and adult contemporary, or what the writer of the article calls realistic fiction. I am interested in a variety of different perspectives and audiences, so I don't feel comfortable limiting myself to just one category or genre. Naturally, then, I don't limit myself as a reader, either.

I used to. You'll know from some of my past entries that I used to limit my reading to realistic, literary fiction, particularly classics (yet I was writing YA fantasy?? Yeah, I was still figuring out the whole read-the-genre-you-write thing...don't worry, I learned). I agreed with this woman, mostly because I considered most YA books to be carbon copies of Twilight, which I disliked. I looked down on these books because I thought people used them for escapism. I, too, thought YA limited itself to "instant gratification" and shirked the harsher realities my classics offered me.

There are so many problems here.

First off, there is nothing inherently wrong with escapism. The reason it used to give me pause is because I thought people who sought out escapism wanted to ignore the problems in their lives, and thus never deal with those problems. I thought if you wanted to escape, you were weak, and your real life would fall apart around you.

My prejudice against YA was probably wrapped up in this mindset. But how unfair is it to assume that someone who wants a little escape is going to let their world go to pieces? There's a difference between wanting to get away for a little and being seriously dysfunctional. Also, I'm a hypocrite--what the hell do I play video games for if not for the escapism? The graphics? It's definitely not the graphics.

Secondly, the generalizations about YA listed in this article make it clear that this woman has not read widely in the YA category, or at least not widely enough to appreciate its many nuances and opportunities for complexity. According to her, YA is full of hunky dory protagonists who never self reflect and always get a perfectly tied-up ending. YA is meant to be pleasurable, she says. It's fluff. It doesn't let you empathize with people who aren't like you. It's easy on the heart and satisfying.

Right. That's why The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which she mentions in the article, leaves us with a good feeling. Wait, never mind. It ends with the main character suffering a serious emotional breakdown thanks to a traumatic event from his past. The readers are left wondering how he will cope with this latest relapse, and we don't get to know. If Katsa had never self-reflected in Graceling, never confronted an upsetting emotional reality about herself, she would never have won my respect. Boy do I wish the end of The Amber Spyglass was "easy on the heart and satisfying," because then I could've avoided the overwhelming panic and indignation I felt when I realized what was going to happen (I kept flipping the pages back and forth as if that would change it). If we're counting Harry Potter, I managed to empathize with Severus Snape. Last I checked, I wasn't a bitter, thirty-something-year-old man with greasy hair and an unrequited crush he really should have let go of a long time ago (yes, I'm being critical of him here, but feeling empathy for someone does not eliminate your ability to criticize that person. I felt sad for Snape, but I could still see issues with his behavior).

Or, let's take the book I'm reading right now: Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein, which follows a girl in her late teens who is placed in a women's concentration camp during World War II. The narrator has a captivating voice. The characters are interesting and respond to trauma in their own unique ways. The author does not shy away from the gruesome realities of a concentration camp, nor does she give us closure about what happens to everyone (oh, look! Ambiguity!). It is frustrating and, at times, sickening to watch these characters endure what they have to endure. It is not "pleasurable"--the only "pleasure" I could think of getting out of this book is being glad I'm not the one in a concentration camp, but I wouldn't call that "pleasure." I am not reading it to feel better about life; I'm reading it because I want to see what happens to these girls.

But, Morgan, wouldn't you ultimately get more out of a piece of literary fiction? Doesn't this book pale in comparison to those classics you love? Aren't you an adult?

Ah, there you are, Ulysses by James Joyce, which I spent last month reading with a class. I knew you'd come in handy.

When it comes to literary fiction, Ulysses is about as literary as you can get. It contains made-up words, nonsensical sentences, literally hundreds of obscure references (many of which are crucial to the experience, so have fun looking them up!), confusing narrators (who the hell is talking in this paragraph?), and stream-of-consciousness prose that is sometimes impossible to follow. Also, every chapter is written in a different style. Every time you think you're used to how Ulysses operates, boom! It transforms into a different monster.

Many people who haven't studied it closely or approached it blind think the book is a load of nonsense and isn't worth it. But I loved the hell out of this book. If you have it, or next time you visit a bookstore, flip Ulysses open to chapter eleven, the music-themed chapter. The chapter has a freaking overture made out of language. What does that mean? It means it operates like a musical overture, which plays a collection of sounds that will later appear throughout different parts of the performance that is to follow. Except Ulysses does it with words. The overture is made up of of a page and a half of short phrases that, in some form or another, appear in the chapter. As you read, you find yourself playing "Where's Waldo"--"Ah, there's the reference to the first line of the overture! Look, that must refer to line twelve!" It's mind-blowing and exciting. It makes you re-think how we use language and how stories are formed.

I also love the hell out of Rose Under Fire so far. I feel a rush of anticipation every time I sit down to read it, just as I did with Ulysses. How is it possible for me to sincerely enjoy such different books, especially one on top of the other? Because I understand that these novels are aiming for different effects, and those effects are equally legitimate. Rose Under Fire places compelling characters in a terrifying situation. It wants me to feel their reality and stress over the characters' fates. Ulysses challenges my expectations as a reader and demands that I pay just as much attention to the language as I do to plot and character--probably even more attention. These are both great goals. They are both stimulating. They both make me feel something.

Of course, if the article angered me as a reader, it angered me as a writer, too. I took most issue with the writer's claim that "[YA readers] are asked to abandon the mature insights into [an emotional] perspective that they (supposedly) have acquired as adults."

If this is what YA is about, then evidently, I haven't been reading YA. I've seen plenty of observations and epiphanies in YA literature that some adults never even think about or achieve. I have stated that there is nothing wrong with escapism already, but as someone who does not personally read for escapism, I tend to write against it. The novels I write (about and for teenagers) depend on mature insights. They feed on them. They could not exist without them. The more you follow my main character, the higher and higher she reaches for these insights, though sometimes she'll flinch away from them, too, because they're painful and she's human.

To argue that YA forces you to do away with adult emotionality negates everything I've been writing for, and negates a sizable percentage of the feelings a teenager experiences. Because many of the things teenagers feel are very real, very adult feelings. That's part of why adolescence is so terrifying--emotions aren't simple anymore. The feelings are new, but that does not make them lesser. As for adults who think reading about these "first" experiences is a form of regression, well, most of the adults I know would benefit from revisiting the roots of these emotions. That "first" feeling laid a foundation, after all.

Are you a literary novel? Give me feelings. Are you a YA novel? Give me feelings. Grip me by the heart, book, and I will love you, because feelings are the whole damn reason I'm here.

-Morgan

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Top 15 Strongest Female Characters (According to Me)

A long long while back, I asked via Twitter if people would like it if I made up a list of who I consider the strongest women in fiction. I never got around to it because of some personal stuff in my life that kind of turned my whole routine upside down. And then I moved to Dublin. But here I am now, ready to present you with some kick-ass women who you should definitely acquaint yourselves with if you haven't already.

Below are fifteen female characters I have come across and loved, whether I found them in books, TV shows, movies, or video games. Are there other strong female characters out there? Of course, but if I haven't included them, I either haven't met them yet or I don't count them among my favorites. There were a few characters I considered putting on this list who I ultimately decided to leave off because I didn't connect enough with them personally. So, this list is quite biased and personal to me.

Also, this post may include spoilers. I'll try to leave out big spoilers if I can, though. I did my best to put these in ascending order, but as I get closer to #1, it may be more difficult for me to choose between heroines. Here goes!

#15

 KATSA

 (From Graceling by Kristin Cashore)

Katsa is wonderful, but there's a reason she's at the bottom of the list. It took me 200 pages to really love this character, which is interesting--usually, if I really dislike a character right off the bat (like I did with Katsa), it's hard for that character to win me over. In fact, while reading the beginning of Graceling, I was angry because Katsa exemplified the type of character I detest: the heroine whose "strength" comes from a callous toughness that is both physical and emotional. I thought, "Oh no, another protagonist trying to 'prove herself' by kicking ass but who is actually an unkind and unpleasant person." But Cashore did something interesting with it right around the time Katsa chops off all her hair, i.e. around the time Katsa stops taking orders from her uncle and becomes an autonomous person. Katsa was so unlikeable because her uncle's tyranny was preventing her from being who she really wanted to be; he was stunting her personality and her self-worth. On top of that, Katsa spends the rest of the novel exploring her emotional callousness, which emerges as a psychologically crippling problem for her. That is what saved Katsa for me, and that type of self-exploration is what made her worthy of this list.

#14

SABRINA

(From Sabrina)

Sabrina's one of those characters who is instantly relatable but also instantly off-putting. She's in love with a man who will never have her...but to the point where she locks herself in the family garage and tries to commit suicide over it. What a drama queen, right? But, like with Katsa, it's her emotional journey that makes Sabrina strong. She travels to Paris and does some growing up, but still has some maturing to do when she returns home two years later. The man she once loved suddenly develops feelings for her now that she's older and prettier, and she falls for that. Later, she uncovers more about the kind of person he is and realizes that if he really loved her, he would've loved her back when she was a dowdy chauffer's daughter, not just after her transformation. Sabrina instead sets her sights on another man, one who loves her for who she is and sees her worth as an individual.

#13

JANE EYRE

 (from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte)

A lot of people misunderstand what makes Jane Eyre such a strong character. I've seen people claim that her infatuation with Mr. Rochester makes her a weak character, which I emphatically disagree with. What impressed me about Jane Eyre this: she's head-over-heels in love with Mr. Rochester, she's thrilled he loves her back, she's all set to marry him, she finds out he's actually married to someone else and has been lying all along and...she leaves. She knows her self-worth, she knows he treated her badly, and so she leaves. That is not an easy thing to do, especially when she's been told how ugly and worthless she is all her life. Being lied to by someone you love doesn't make them instantly unattractive. How soul-crushing it must have been to have looked the man she still desperately loved in the eye and tell him she couldn't be with him. She returns to him in the end, but only after he's lost everything, learned a bitter lesson, and gained even more respect for her.

#12

TIANA

 (From The Princess and The Frog)

This girl's got an ambition, man, and she works her ass off to reach her goal. She has no money, no help from anyone, but she's still learned how to cook, researched potential buildings for her restaurant, and saved every penny she can because nobody is going to stop her if she can help it. Falling in love isn't her main concern, but she's open to it if that's how she ends up feeling. When she turns into a frog, her main complaint about it is that it gets in the way of her dream. Honestly, I'm fine with heroines falling in love, but we need more heroines like Tiana, who has a goal completely independent of a romantic partner and is determined to reach it whether she finds one or not. Also, her dad is dead, but she doesn't sit around moping about it. She misses him, of course, but he taught her that she needs to work for what she wants, and she's holding herself to that.

#11

LYRA BELACQUA/SILVERTONGUE

 

(From His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman)

Lyra is another one of those who starts out as a tough, no-one-can-mess-with-me type of heroine and transforms into a more emotionally complex young woman. She has a killer survival instinct that keeps her alive throughout the series and she has difficulty trusting people--but when she does trust someone, she loves that someone with all her heart. Seriously, she: escapes from her mother to join a band of gypsies, befriends a fully grown polar bear that should scare the crap out of any eleven-year-old, valiantly tries to protect her best friend Roger from death by her own father's hand and travels to the freaking underworld to visit him when she fails, finds the courage to leave her daemon on the opposite shore in the underworld even though it scares her to death, wanders through worlds she knows nothing about with mostly only her wits to guide her--I could go on for days. At the end of the series, Lyra is forever separated from someone she adores, but she accepts it. It devastates her, but she moves on. More heroines like Lyra, please.

#10

BLOSSOM

 

(From The Powerpuff Girls)

I would've put all three Powerpuff Girls here, but since that would fill three slots, I'm just putting my favorite. The Powerpuff Girls fight crime to protect their city of Townsville, but that only scratches the surface of what makes them strong. In the movie, all of Townsville turns against them because they see them as mutant, destructive freaks. When Townsville is overtaken by monkeys bent on taking over the world (I promise this show is good), what do the girls do? Tell those Townsville citizens to go to hell? No, they save everyone's asses, because they're good people. Several episodes showcase their integrity, determination, and dedication to justice as well. I'll use an example from the episode "Equal Fights": when a criminal convinces the girls that they should let her continue with her crime spree because she's an oppressed female, they point out (during an awesome speech about Susan B. Anthony) that if she wants both sexes to be treated equally, she should go to jail along with the male criminals. As for Blossom herself, she's the brains behind the team, always coming up with new strategies while managing to stay on top of her grades. True, she's in kindergarten...but it counts.

#9

VIOLET BAUDELAIRE

 (From A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket)

If your older sister is Violet Baudelaire, you can be sure you've got someone fighting for you, no matter what happens to you. Violet acts as a protective force for her brother and sister, but also as someone on their level, a member of their team. She gets the Baudelaires out of a multitude of messes by using her inventive mind--any time she ties up her hair to clear her thoughts, she can come up with some sort of homemade device that often saves the orphans' lives. Once, when her bookworm brother Klaus isn't around, she forces herself to take on his role, and reads a book she barely understands but that is the key to her family's survival. I love that she's an inventor. While I try to think of all skill sets and hobbies as gender neutral, society doesn't see it that way, and inventing/tinkering with machines is usually seen as a masculine pastime. Good for Violet for defying that stereotype and using it to keep herself, and her siblings, alive.

#8

VERITY

 (From Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein)

This is one where I refuse to give away very much, even the character's real name, because going in spoiler-free makes this reading experience infinitely better. Seriously, if you've read it, you know what I mean. Verity spends a portion of the novel as a prisoner of war in Nazi-occupied France. She's a tough, gutsy girl who fights for survival with everything she's got, even in the face of physical and psychological torture. You know those people who just seem alive with every fiber of their being, who express passion in their sense of humor, in their cheerfulness, in everything? Verity is like that, on top of being insanely clever and an affectionate, loyal friend. And then you get to the second half of the novel, and oh man, she gets so much better. Everything about the novel gets better. Just read it.

#7

 TOPH

 

(From Avatar: The Last Airbender)

On top of being physically and emotionally tough, Toph has a sensitive side. She doesn't like to show it much, but it's there. It's demonstrated in her moments when she's crushing on Sokka, and in an episode where a group of girls mock her when she has trouble expressing her femininity. In the latter case, she cries over it, but at the same time says, "I know who I am." Toph may be able to lift rocks and bend metal while simultaneously living with a disability (blindness), but it's this confidence in who she is that makes her strong to me. Besides, she's hilarious, has an infectious take-it-easy attitude, and stands up for what she believes in--which can be anything from protecting the people she loves to the right to have senseless fun. What more could you want not just in a female character, but in any character?

#6

KATARA

 

(From Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Katara gets a lot of hate, which I don't understand. She might be more high-strung and less outwardly tough than Toph, but she is also very human, very loving, and strong (physically and emotionally) in her own right. In fact, we see her overcome more adversity, both external and personal, than almost any other character in the series (just behind Aang and Zuko). She originally sucks at water bending, and it frustrates her easily, but she works on it and hones her skills. She refuses to comply with the Northern Water Tribe's insistence that a woman must not learn Water Bending for combat and resolves to take secret lessons. She fiercely defends the people she loves, but isn't afraid to call them out on their bullshit. What's more, she manages to forgive Zuko for the harm he caused her and her friends. Considering that she projects all her hate for the Fire Nation, whose troops killed her mother, onto Zuko, this is one of the hardest things for her to do emotionally. Let's not forget that she took on the maternal role in her family when her mother died. In my opinion, a maternal instinct shows great strength, whether the character is a biological mother or not. Speaking of which...

#5

MINERVA MCGONAGALL

 

(From the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling)

Also known as Professor McBadass. Look at this woman. She comes off as uptight and unfriendly at first, but then you get to know her throughout the series. She's extremely intelligent, enough to become an Animagus, which is difficult. She shows an incredible amount of loyalty to people who have earned her respect, including both Dumbledore and Harry. She's witty, such as when she basically tells Professor Umbridge to shut up while she's in her classroom in Order of the Phoenix--a bold and meaningful move, considering Umbridge is trying to take over the school at this point and McGonagall's sass acts as a form of rebellion. She's also got a surprising competitive streak, especially when it comes to the Quidditch Cup at Hogwarts--she gets all fired up if there's any chance Gryffindor might not win, which makes for some hilarious exchanges between her and Harry. In addition, she's maternal in her own way. She loves Harry and fights for his life, but her reasons differ from many others in the series. Several people love Harry because they loved his parents, or because he saved the world from Voldemort as a baby. I always got the impression that Harry had to work for McGonagall's love, and her affection for him grew because she witnessed his bravery, his love for his friends, and his modesty over seven years.

#4

MIDNA

 

(From The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess)

I'll admit it: I have a soft spot for characters who present a tough exterior but feel a lot of tenderness and vulnerability. When Link meets Midna in the game, she insults his intelligence and his competence right off the bat. She offers to help him, but she's clearly using him to meet her own goals. Subtly over the course of the game, her attitude starts to change. She still mocks Link constantly, but you can tell she's growing fond of him. She and Link transition into more of a team than a girl and her tool, and what started off as her own selfish quest turns into a journey taken by two friends helping each other. Midna is extremely humbled when Zelda sacrifices something enormous for her--that's about the point where Midna reconsiders the motives behind her choices, and takes on a nobler role. Then (spoilers), at the end, when she travels back into the Twilight, she destroys the link between the Twilight and the World of Light so that the Twilight can never harm anyone again--despite knowing it will cut her off from Link forever. She does it without telling him, too, because she knows he'd try to stop her. She'll miss him, but she does the right thing. And all this wonderful character development happens while Midna maintains her wise-cracking personality. It's not in your face, and I love that.

#3

SERAPHINA

 

(From Seraphina by Rachel Hartman)

Here's a fantastic example of a heroine who isn't physically tough but is exceptionally strong. I really connected with Seraphina's character. She's one of the most human protagonists I've read in YA fiction for a while (ironically, considering she's half-dragon). To protect her safety and reputation, she must conceal the fact that she is half-dragon, a burden she hates but accepts. She is far from perfect--she self-mutilates, she's shy, she's awkward in social situations. But she is also boundlessly loving, and a lot of her strength comes out of her art. She's a musician, and her fondness for music jumps off every page of the book in the way she listens to music at events, handles her musical instrument, and remembers her dead mother (also a musician). Seraphina straddles the line between lack of confidence in her place in society and a firm understanding of who she is personally. She places others before herself and struggles with an awful lot of heartache. The whole thing is just beautifully written. Go read it.

#2

MULAN

 

(From Mulan)

You guys. She saved China. She wanted to find herself, but her chief reason for joining the army was to prevent her father from having to go, which would have meant his certain death. Like, the moment she realizes she can dress up as a man and go, she just does without hesitation. She might die, but whatever, because this is the right thing to do. What I really love about her, though, is how flawed she is despite her heroism. When she reaches the training camp, she realizes she's way in over her head and has no idea what she's doing. Does she give up? Hell no! I literally get chills every time Mulan fights her way to the top of the wooden pole during the "Be A Man" sequence. She battles her own incompetence until she reaches her goal. Also, she saves everyone by burying the Huns beneath an avalanche, thanks to some quick thinking on her part. She rescues her general while badly injured. And then she saves everyone AGAIN while using strategy to steal the Emperor back from Shan Yu, who she then blows up. Mulan, feel free to my best friend.

#1

HERMIONE GRANGER

 

(From the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling)

Putting Hermione as number one might be surprising to some people, considering she possesses no more physical strength than the average person and she has many, many moments of weakness. But that is part of her appeal. I saw a tumblr post once that pointed out Hermione is both a rational logician and passionately emotional, traits that are rarely combined in a female character. That post is absolutely right. There is enormous strength in both qualities, and it shows through Hermione during the series. Her brains get her, Harry and Ron out of plenty of perilous situations--she figures out what's attacking the school in Chamber of Secrets, she helps Harry avoid getting scorched to death by a dragon in Goblet of Fire, she organizes Dumbledore's Army during Order of the Phoenix, and she's the reason she, Harry and Ron are able to survive in the woods for so long during Deathly Hallows. But her heart aids her just as much as her head does. Her affection for Harry is what drives her to help him on his Horcrux hunt, her love for Hagrid motivates her to spend hours in the library researching how to prevent Buckbeak's execution, her belief in House Elf rights eventually leads to her fighting for them when she reaches adulthood and starts working at the Ministry. Hermione has knowledge and knows how to use it, but she also loves, she cries, she obsesses. And as a fellow bookworm and perfectionist, I will always count her among my favorite characters.

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