Female anger is a powerful thing. Think of all the social strictures that argue against it. Think of all the Facebook memes about it. Consider that there are actually expletives in English to describe an angry woman—shrew and bitch come immediately to mind. Given the wildly conflicting emotions female anger inspires, it’s an emotion that romance authors need to treat carefully but frequently don’t.

These observations were inspired by a recent read in which the hero and heroine were often at odds. They had a mutual quest, but they disagreed on the way to pursue it. At a certain point the hero insisted on carrying out a task alone despite the heroine’s demands that he take her with him. The heroine reacted by throwing a fit.

But here’s the thing—at that point in the story, the heroine had yet to demonstrate any competence in the tasks they’d undertaken. In fact, she’d had to be rescued a couple of times. The hero, in other words, was quite right to see her as more burden than help. The heroine’s hissy fit was a tantrum, and her anger was petulance. She hadn’t yet earned the right to be genuinely angry.

Now let me be very clear about my point here. I am not saying that women don’t have the right to be angry. Given the number of insults women have to endure regularly it would be a miracle if we weren’t. I am saying that all characters—both men and women—need to be angry for a good reason. Characters who get angry over trifles or who fly off the handle constantly are likely to be regarded as either unhinged or stupid. And you definitely don’t want a heroine being regarded as either. Heroines who become angry over justifiable things, however, can seem even stronger. They paid their dues, and they have a right to their fury.

Let’s put this in the context of the story I described above. Let’s say that instead of needing a rescue, the heroine rescued herself or—even better—rescued the hero. Or let’s say that while she began as unskilled and helpless, she quickly picked up skills as she went along and started to use those skills in ways that helped the couple in their quest. In either of these cases, the heroine would have a right to expect that she’d play a part in future adventures. And in either of these cases, the heroine would be fully justified in feeling honest anger at being excluded.

If the heroine earns her anger, readers will be fully on her side—right where you want them to be. And the hero will have to wise up if he expects to win her—and their—regard again. But when the heroine is just throwing a tantrum without adequate motive, the readers are likely to be more annoyed than sympathetic.

And annoyed readers are likely to do the worst thing an author can envision: close the book.