The Common Theme in My Books
I’ve written several series – Modified, Enhanced, Connected, and now The Vampire Cure series. At a glance, the most obvious commonality is they all have some kind of superpower in them. And it’s true—I’m kind of a superpowers junkie. I’ve watched all the superhero movies and even have a Deadpool omnibus collection of comics. But superpowers aside, there’s another common theme: strong women with issues.
And sometimes those issues are HUGE. Take Kate, from my Modified series. She’s a textbook antihero, inspired by my love of Deadpool. She makes poor life choices and has even killed people. She doesn’t have all the answers and sometimes doubts herself, as she’s learning to live with a power that’s inherently evil. I’ve gotten criticisms about her, that she’s too broken. But honestly, that’s what I love about her. She’s no Captain America, but yet she still manages to save the day and protect the people she cares about. Her many flaws and her attitude problem resonate with me. It makes her seem more human and stronger because of them.
Even with my more “normal” characters, like Cass from A Fated Exception, have issues. Hers is simply being around other people. Highly introverted, she prefers the company of computers to people—her main power allows her to communicate with computers. But for Cass, it’s more than introversion, it’s more about trust. She acquired an ability to detect when a person was lying, and for me, that power seems like an awful one to have. I mean, how could you trust anyone when you know they’re lying? Cass found it refreshing to deal with something so straightforward—inputs and outputs, on or off. Computers don’t lie or attempt to deceive, they just work off the instruction set given. Introducing an android into her world that was both human in appearance and a computer, who could possibly deceive was a fun wrench to throw in.
I love writing flawed characters with real life issues, many of which I struggle with myself. It makes the character more believable, and the victory that much sweeter when she not only overcomes the villain, but also battles her own inner demons and wins.
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