Greywalker's Harper Blaine

Kat Richardson Interview: She's Not A Man With Breasts

Jul 2, 2008

Kat Richardson talks about the focus and creation of Greywalker protagonist Harper Blaine.

You’ve stated elsewhere that you didn’t want to make Harper Blaine a “man with breasts”, but that she had to be able to stand her ground as a PI, and be believable in doing so. Can you tell us a little about how Harper evolved into the character she finally became?

Kat Richardson: Originally the character was male but I just didn't like writing him—he was a huge cliché. Clichés and stereotypes can be useful shorthand, but you shouldn't go too far with them. The cliché of the tough guy PI who storms in with guns blazing and never complains and never gets hurt and brushes off serious injuries as mere flesh wounds was one I just couldn't hang with.

Making the character female was some immediate relief, but it still had that “man with breasts” problem. The former military or spiritual martial artist trope has been done to death, too, so those were not options for developing the character and breaking her out of the cliché, so I considered the women I knew who were competent and physically tough and drew Harper based on them.

I let her go ahead and acknowledge her discomforts, but do the job anyhow—just like most of the women I know. I didn't do as good a job of breaking that mold in the first book as I wanted and some early reviewers felt Harper complained too much.

Luckily, Poltergeist gave me the opportunity to fix that issue and I had several bits of business in both books that allowed me to put the emphasis on Harper using her brain rather than her gun to solve problems—though she's certainly competent with a pistol.

That was another break in the cliché, but not enough. I needed a reason for her to be physically and mentally tough and competent that still gave room to her femininity and emotional messes. Former pro dancer seemed like a good balance of those since it's extremely demanding physically and mentally, but many dancers are a bit neurotic from the mixed signals any body-focussed profession has. And of course, female dancers are capable of projecting plenty of femininity when they need to—dancing is often seen as a feminine activity.

I spent a lot of time on Harper's backstory so I'd know what her strengths and weaknesses were and what events in her history had shaped her profoundly. I gave her a degree that led to her current profession, and I gave her reasons to be competent at the necessary skills for real world reasons. A lot of her history is still on tap, but it comes out in bits and pieces throughout the first five books. Although I didn't lay it all out in one big info dump, it's there and it keeps her from falling back into the old mold, without undermining her ability to do the job realistically.

Read in another interview Kat Richardson's ideas about death and the supernatural.

The copyright of the article Greywalker's Harper Blaine in Character Development is owned by Lynne Jamneck. Permission to republish Greywalker's Harper Blaine in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.