The Evolution of a Super Heroine from Colleen Halverson

When I started Through the Veil, I knew my heroine Elizabeth would have super powers, but I wasn’t sure what form they would possess. As a perpetual outsider her powers needed to resemble the kind of boundary pushing that she enacts within her own character arc. I think this is the first step in creating super powers. Abilities are often a reflection of a character’s inner strengths and values, and they are also a reflection of their personal struggles. At one point in Through the Veil, a powerful character reminds Elizabeth that she should “know her place” and “stay where she belongs.” She responds, “I was raised in the military…I never belonged anywhere.” This sense of “not belonging” is a blessing and weakness. It’s a blessing because it allows this character to move in and out of spaces with ease, both in the literal and magical sense. It’s a curse because, of course, one can get lost in that sort of power.

Hiro Nakamura from the since-canceled NBC show Heroes is a great example of losing one’s way upon the path, and his journey really inspired me as a writer. I wish they would have given Hiro his own show! I found the story of a cubicle drone dying to break free from the monotony of his corporate existence so compelling. Before Hiro’s powers manifested, though, we already saw him as someone who had the ability to enter a magical fantasy world through comic books. While he may have played the subservient pencil pusher, in his mind, he was free. His powers reflected his innate ability of being able to imagine limitless possibilities, and it’s no wonder that his power to manipulate space and time became his signature.

Yet, there is one incredible moment in the show where we see Hiro, after trying relentlessly to manipulate the past to create a more positive outcome, standing in a warehouse, literally lost in his own fruitless decisions. Strings crisscross around him, representations of his futile attempts to trace past events in order to change the present he somehow created. Hiro’s journey reveals to us how our greatest desires can control us in subconscious ways and how our strengths can easily become our weaknesses.

Another key influence of Elizabeth’s powers derives from Irish poetry and music. Elizabeth is an aisling (pronounced ASH-ling), which in Irish means “dream” or “vision.” The source of her abilities comes from eighteenth-century Irish Aisling poems. These poems are often written from the perspective of a man, who, while walking the fields of Ireland, has a vision of a beautiful, supernatural woman.  This woman inspires the man to rebel against foreign invaders before fading back into the mysterious world from which she came. Irish music is also filled with these sort of spectral visitors.

The song “Spancil Hill” features a person who flies across the Atlantic Ocean to reunite with his companions during an annual fair. One of my favorite traditional songs is “She Moved Through the Fair,” which focuses on a similar ghost-like wanderer. Because of oppressive property laws in Ireland, many young people could not afford to marry, so they either emigrated or lived lives of lonely despair. This song describes the incredible ache of a young man who longs to be reunited with his true love. At the end of the song, he says,

Last night she came to me
My young love came in
So softly she entered
That her feet made no din

And she came close beside me
And this she did say
It will not be long love
Till our wedding day

Even more contemporary examples of Irish music reveal similar themes, such as the lyrics in living-legend Tommy Sands’ song “County Down.” In this song, the singer imagines traveling along the wind from Ireland to London to call his child back home. He cries, “Can you hear me? Oh, can you hear me? As you walk through lonely London town…” It’s the otherworldly quality of these songs I wanted to insert into my heroine. While spectral visions and traveling on the astral plane aren’t necessarily particularly “Irish” phenomenon, these songs and poems served as a great source of inspiration for crafting my modern-day heroine. Irish mythology and folklore, and indeed any oral tradition, are rich with individuals who possess an ability to break through the boundaries oppressing them.

I think, in part, our current cultural obsession for superheroes and superpowers derives from a deep, human desire to retell these ancient stories. Think of Thor of the Avengers, for example, as a retelling of some of the core stories of Norse mythology. And really, aren’t a lot of super heroes and heroines not just modern day versions of Hercules, Athena, Achilles? And just like Achilles, their stories have lessons to tell us about our strengths, but also our weaknesses. Creating a superhero or superheroine, to me, is not just a random exercise, but something that has to reflect a character’s core being. Flashy powers might draw us in as readers, but in order for us to stick around, these abilities have to reflect a deeper inner conflict.

Through the Veil Blurb:

Elizabeth Tanner is no Tinkerbell, and her life is no fairy tale. Broke and drowning in student loans, the one thing she wants more than anything is a scholarship from the Trinity Foundation. But after the ancient Irish text she’s studying turns out to be more than just a book, she becomes their prisoner instead. And when Trinity reveals Elizabeth is half-Fae, she finds herself at the center of a plot to save the magical races of Ireland from a brutal civil war.

As Commander of Trinity’s elite warriors, Finn O’Connell isn’t used to having his authority challenged. He doesn’t know whether to punish or protect the infuriating young woman in his custody. When he discovers the Dark Fae want to use Elizabeth’s abilities to control the source of all power in the universe, he’ll risk everything to help her.

At the mercy of Trinity and enslaved to the Dark Fae, Elizabeth finds herself alone on the wrong side of an Irish myth thousands of years in the making. Refusing to be a pawn in their game, Elizabeth has to fight her way back to the man she loves, but to do so, she must wage her own war against the magic that binds her.

Available for pre-order now at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, Amazon UK, and Amazon Canada.



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As a child, Colleen Halverson used to play in the woods imagining worlds and telling stories to herself. Growing up on military bases, she found solace in her local library and later decided to make a living sharing the wonders of literature to poor, unsuspecting college freshmen. After backpacking through Ireland and singing in a traditional Irish music band, she earned a PhD in English with a specialization in Irish literature. When she’s not making up stories or teaching, she can be found hiking the rolling hills of the Driftless area of Wisconsin with her husband and two children.

Connect with Colleen at www.colleenhalverson.com, on facebook, twitter, and Goodreads! 

Making Your Main Character Likable

So at the beginning of your novel, your main character is a bitch or a bastard, is selfish or whiny, is bratty or works at an immoral job, or is just plain mean. Maybe they're an antihero, maybe they have a character arc to fulfill before they can join the human race. How do you keep readers from turning away in the first chapters? Some tricks can  help you build a connection between your readers and your character and build sympathy. A few tweaks can get people to keep reading. 

Here are the ideas that occur to me or that I've used myself:

1. Love something passionately Your character is selfish. They don't have any friends or very few. They're bitter and closed off. Give them something they do love and care about. A famous example of this is Katniss Everdeen from the opening of The Hunger Games. Deep down you know she's not a very sympathetic person. She thinks about her and her family and nobody else. But she loves her sister and so do you. Who couldn't love her after the duck thing with Prim's shirttail. Just make sure the audience also loves this person or pet. Yep, pets are great for this.

I've used this myself in Kindar's Cure. Kindar can't get along with her hateful family. She argues and speaks unkindly to her younger sister. To protect herself she must stay closed off and not reveal her feelings. But she loves her royal staff and does what she can to shield them from her mother's wrath. And she is also fond of her older sister.

2. Act of kindness Your character is a jerk. They're not very thoughtful. Like the shirttail episode between Katniss and Prim, have your character do an unnecessary act of kindness. They're awful to anyone and everyone, but they hold the door open for an old lady. They stop a kid from running into the road. They give up their seat on a bus to a handicapped person. They pick up some litter or do the dishes at home. They do something that makes a reader consider this character may be redeemable after all.

I've used this also. After a fight with her family, I have a character do the dishes as a goodwill gesture. Small sure. But maybe just enough when combined with the other tricks listed here.

3. Experience doubt/remorse  Your character argues constantly with their parents or your character does has an immoral job- assassin, spy, thief. Have them experience some doubts about their choice of action. Put some question into their thoughts. "Am I doing the right thing?" Have them feel bad about fighting or being disrespectful--at least in their own thoughts--even if not voiced aloud. Maybe they still believe they are in the right, but they don't feel happy about their actions. 

What could be more human than to have doubt and remorse. We all do it and can connect with it. Even as she fights, I had the character in number two feeling bad about the arguing. She stands by her belief that she's right, but she's not happy to have hurt her family.

4. Make them interesting If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Your character is evil brought to Earth and has no good qualities. So make them fascinating. They do the unexpected. They keep the reader guessing. They have a compelling and attractive voice that stands out in a crowd. They'd make the cover of Time with their sheer unpredictability and gotta see what they do next.

5. Make everything else interesting In the vein of the last idea, your main character is a putz that nobody is going to like, but your world and plot is going to keep people reading. You make your world building so new and unique that nobody gives a crap that they hate your character. Or your plot is so nonstop that there's no time to pause in reading to consider if they like your protagonist.

Give readers something always new and fast paced and hope that's enough for them.

6. Paint them in a corner Your main character is no Mother Teresa, but you put them in such danger or into such a tight place that readers are instantly rooting for them. Get readers hoping your character makes it out alive and you've won half the battle.

I also did this in Kindar's Cure. I hit Kindar with one terrible thing after another in the opening chapters until she was literally forced to flee her home. 

7. They ain't the worst Hand and hand with number six, goes this tip. Your character is unsympathetic but all the other character are even more distasteful. Your character looks good by comparison. I've seen this done a lot in darker stories. I'm guessing this is a GRRM tactic.  


Many of my main characters seem to start out as not the most reader friendly. So there are the ideas that rattle around in my noggin or that I've employed without even thinking about it. Consider using one or a combination of these for your own characters.

Or maybe you have your own tricks and tips. What have you used or noticed being used to make a character likable?

Valuable Links: Naming Characters

So you need to come up with a name that means sunshine and has African origins. One of the hardest tasks in writing a book can be creating enough names, especially if you have an epic fantasy or a historical fiction on your hands. As the number of side characters goes up, so does the difficulty. 

And as writers we are perfectionists. We want not just any name, but the perfect fit of a name. Many times I will have a first letter I want to use but I need a place to go to generate names to go with that letter.

Try this baby name generator. Baby Names World has lists of things like cowboy names, Yiddish names, Harry Potter names, sports names and so much more. You can search by gender and country. The last time I used it, you could search by meaning of names.  It's fantastic!

So give yourself a helping hand and generate a name.

Valuable Links- Mary Sue Test

One of the things I've been warned about along my writing journey is Mary Sue characters. Avoid a Mary Sue character.

Well, what is a Mary Sue?

A Mary Sue is a character that is too perfect to be realistic. And usually too flawless to be likable to a reader. Sly or insinuating people might say that a Mary Sue character is what the author wishes they were, but can never attain.

The problem with a Mary Sue is they often end up inspiring hatred instead of devotion. No one is perfect. In appearance or personality. And no reader likes to compare themselves to a fiction character who is.

A fun game to play is taking the Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test to find out if your character is a Mary Sue. The questions are hilarious! Really, don't miss it.  

Confession: My first ms was loaded with Mary Sue characters. I answered yes to so many of these questions that it was embarrassing.