WIMPY HEROINE

Usually I have problems with my heroes. But in this latest, my heroine isn't coming across very well and I'm not sure what to do about it.

One suggestion was to make her more decisive, to get her to stop wrestling with what people expect and forge out on her own. I'm not quite sure how this will work but I'm game. However, I suspect the problem lies in two areas: her personality and the era.

The era is the early sixties, when women were still expected to be nurses and not doctors, teachers and not principals. And if a woman didn't marry after high school, or at least by the time she finished college, she was regarded as -- alas it's true -- an old maid.

So my heroine is toddling along in her career, uneasy because she's over thirty and not married, but unenthusiastic about committing to any man.

So now I have to figure out a way to make her attractive to today's readers.

Sigh. Can it be done?