Jaycee Woods

I think that I have a solution to my Valerie problem.

Independent film maker Brett Mauser has a reoccurring archetype character named “Smokey,” who is the informant with the critical piece of information needed by the investigator. As Mike tells Diane in the first episode of the Innocence Saga, “There is always a guy named Smokey.” However, in the Ponderous Universe, every Smokey is a different guy.

In my draft stories, there is Valerie, an executive secretary to a successful businessman. She is hypercompetent, rational, essential, and respected. However, she also frequently has a disparaging attitude towards other women in her boss’ life, including giving them nicknames like “Girlfriend Barbie” or something more PG13 with a Barbie reference. Chad is the only successful businessman character in my drafts without a Valerie as if he had one then he wouldn’t need to go on the blind dates Mary arranges. Formatting my “Journalist” draft story, I was happily surprised when Dylan had a Valerie.

My previous plan was to rename all the Valerie’s under the rule of making each important character’s name unique across all my stories, so only one Valerie…the original one. However, I don’t want to!! I need a loophole as to me each of those characters is a different Valerie with shared characteristics. My cheat? Different last names and different physical appearances for each Valerie. 🙂