On Writing Strong Female Characters
One of the reasons I’m so drawn to writing strong female characters is that it’s all too easy to absorb messages from the world around us that say we’d be happier if we gave up our power, or that we’re overreacting to treatment that everyone experiences, or that other women have always suffered from misogyny so what makes us so special that we should be allowed to escape it?
A character who doesn’t put up with that, or who learns to push it aside in the course of a story, says to readers that you are not alone, and that you can do something about your situation – even if it is merely naming the behavior.
In fact, naming the behavior is one of the most powerful things you can do. It was one of the first things I learned when I began training in martial arts and self-defense, to be able to say “This is wrong. This is abuse. This is bullying. This is rape.”
If something I write encourages a woman to be able to speak words like that out loud, then it has been worth all the effort.
