Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Is there a difficulty in writing strong female horror characters in the wake of Buffy?

On the one hand, yes—because the strong female horror characters now are all expected to fall into the Buffy pattern. They’re supposed to be smart mouth and solitary, not to mention have a love interest and being the best in their field. So there’s this set of expectations you either have to flaunt or ascribe to. On the other hand, there’s so much more to work with now that these subjects —paranormal activity and female strength — have been opened up, so it’s tremendously liberating to have this playground, so to speak. You have various gadgets that are futuristic, or purport to be, within a contemporary setting. Is this a comment upon real life or was it trying to push the boundaries of genre. I just never thought psychic phenomena or powers would ever displace the march of technological progress. Fictional societies that are all hard high-tech or "magic-only" never really ring true to me — the human factor must be balanced with the technological factor. So I was forced to think about different aspects of technology, about the way the world seems to be tending, in order to express this vision of a society where psionic power and sorcery is just a technology like anything else. Plus, I’m married to a mechanical engineer. So I find out all sorts of interesting things about How Things Work, as well as having a golden opportunity to do research close to home, so to speak.