Remember in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when Toula talks about being Frump girl? And Ian tells her that he doesn’t remember Frump girl, but he remembered her. It’s a great part of the movie and I suspect it hit home with most of the women in the audience. Cause unless you look like Angelina Jolie, then you probably have plenty of days (years?) when you feel like Frump girl. Women have issues with their looks. I’m pretty sure it’s a documented, scientific fact. I know I do. There are days when I feel dowdy, frumpy and just plain unattractive – of course that could be because I’m on deadline and I haven’t put make-up on or fixed my hair in over a week.

Now I’ll never be the kind of person who says that all it takes is a man who thinks you’re pretty to solve your image issues. I don’t think that’s true for a moment. But I must confess it sure doesn’t hurt. Just like with Toula, seeing herself through Ian’s eyes opened allowed her to see her own beauty – she’d already seen her own worth and skill at that point, but he let her see how attractive she could be. The Professor does this for me. As far as he’s concerned I’m the most beautiful woman on earth. Really. He says it all the time and as ludicrous as it sounds, I totally believe him when he says it. He has a whole list of things he noticed about me right off the bat and I only get more beautiful to him as the days pass. My sister’s husband says it best, I think, he told her that the day he realized she was “the one” for him, she’d never looked more beautiful and she’s looked that way everyday since. Do we have great husbands or what?

But bragging about my sweet husband isn’t the point of this blog – although I should take time to point out to any singletons out there, hold out for that man who thinks you’re the most beautiful woman in the world – you so deserve that. No, what I want to talk about is my heroines and how most of them struggle with some image issues, whether they be physical or emotional, they’re wounded. I know I mentioned this a little when I wrote on underdogs a few weeks ago.

I think it’s important to create characters that have real issues, that struggle with the sorts of things that we all struggle with. Most of us can relate to a heroine who thinks she has a big butt or hates her hair and while that’s an oversimplification of an image issue, we still “get” it. What about those characters who struggle with feeling worthy of love, feeling like they deserve the attention of the hero or the one who is used to being in the background fixing everyone else’s life and hasn’t risked having one of her own. Chances are one of those resonates with you. And that’s where our hero comes in. He doesn’t ride in and just cause he’s a swell guy he solves our heroine’s problems – that’s far too easy. Instead he saunters in the room and gives her attention she’s never had, good or bad and makes her sit up and take notice of the state of her life and what she needs to do to change it. He makes her want to reach for that happy ending. So when he tells her she’s beautiful, she might not believe him at first, she might still feel like Frump girl, but eventually she’ll trust his words. Eventually she’ll know she’s beautiful to him even if she’s at home folding laundry still wearing her robe with her hair in a ponytail.

So how about you, do you like “frumpy” heroines or do you tend to stick with the beautiful ones?