Welcome to fellow Juno imprint author, Laura Bickle, who regales us today how she learned to torture her protagonist.

Laura Bickle (a.k.a. Alayna Williams) has worked in the unholy trinity of politics, criminology, and technology for several years. She lives in the Midwestern U.S. with her chief muse, owned by four mostly-reformed feral cats. Writing as Laura Bickle, she's the author of EMBERS and SPARKS for Pocket – Juno Books. Writing as Alayna Williams, she's the author of DARK ORACLE and ROGUE ORACLE. More info on her urban fantasy and general nerdiness at her website.

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As writers, we're told to "murder our darlings." Don't get too attached to any part of the manuscript, and be willing to do the tough work of cutting things that we love that don't work. Be brutal.

A corollary of that rule is to be willing to torture your protagonist.

It's tough stuff. We lovingly craft a protagonist who speaks to us. We give her strengths and weapons. We want to see her succeed,. We want her to answer the call to adventure, follow the Hero's Journey, and return to the village with the elixir. We want the reader to root for her, just as much as we do.

But we can't be gentle with our heroines. We can't make it easy. It's all to tempting to create a protagonist with few flaws, who's virtuous and always makes the right decisions. If we really love our heroine, it's also tempting to lob softball dilemmas at her, easy choices with few ramifications. We want her to follow the path of all that's right and good, and we can fall into the trap of paving that road to the quest with golden bricks. We want to shelter her, make sure that her nicely-coiffed hair stays dry and her armor all spit-shiny.

A perfect heroine does not grow. Decisions and missions that are too easy will not challenge her. Or the reader.

To be certain, we want our protagonist to have the tools she needs to succeed: a power, a weapon, pluck, strength. But she needs to bear some flaws. Be human. Make mistakes. Learn from them. In Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, the hero is called to adventure. And the hero often refuses the call. The hero may fall into the arms of temptation. Atone for past sins.

And our protagonist must face monsters, inner conflicts and external obstacles. Campbell calls this the "Road of Trials." It's common in myth for the heroine to fail. And that's what can make writers uncomfortable.

Why would we want our protagonist to fail? Why would we want her to be weak, to suffer, to fall under the sway of temptation or to be ground under the heel of the enemy? Why knock her down? Why keep shoving her to the mud?

Because we want her to get back up. Because we want her to realize who she is…we want her to become something more than we imagined or created.

We want her to have a life of her own.

When a protagonist becomes autonomous in our heads, we know it. We lose control of her. She strides into situations, and we cannot predict the outcome. We can't tell her what to do, or expect her to conform to expectations. She may slay the dragon or shack up with it. She may take that shiny sword we gave her and use it to cut off the luxurious hair we gave her. She may tell Prince Charming to go screw himself and take up with his slightly dorky footman.

When this happens, our heroine has become a creation in her own right. She may be bedraggled, muddy, and pissed off. But she'll smile back at us, for giving her a fictional life of her own, to be ruled by her own choices…like a real person, who's been through trials. She's made mistakes.

But they are all her own.

And seeing her smile back at you, whole and multidimensional, is worth it.

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Thanks, Laura!!

Readers, what challenges do you like to see protagonists undergo? When does an author go too far? When it is not far enough? Comment below by Wednesday, August 24, 2011 to win a copy of Sparks, the 2nd book in Laura's great series!