When I go to the page to start a story, I’m always thinking about how can I make this character nuanced and layered, and how can she surprise the reader? So if she starts off one way, I’m always thinking about turning the moment at some point in the story where if she’s such a goody, goody girl, we see her mess up or we see her have to kind of falter and figure something out. And vice versa, if she’s kind of a mess in the beginning, we see moments where she is strong and is figuring out who she is. So I just think that that’s good writing because it’s also who we really are as humans. So when I’m writing, I’m trying to just reflect reality on the page. And reality is we are messy and complicated, and sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we really, really don’t.
And we’re full of questions and we think we know the answer. We think we know what we want. And sometimes that changes. So I’m always asking my character, what do you want? And what’s in the way of what you want? Who loves you? Who do you love back? Who do you miss? When is the last time you cried? And by asking my character these questions, I get to know her and I get to create obstacles for her that get in the way of what she wants, or we realize maybe you don’t really want what you thought you wanted and that’s the journey. So I think that is why my characters feel real and feel like friends or people that, because I am trying to just replicate the amazing, brilliant, complicated, messy women and girls that I know in real life, and I think those are the best stories where I can actually relate to what’s happening on the page.
Yes, I want to write characters that young people can aspire to, but I think that there’s a danger in writing the perfect character and someone who always gets it right and never makes a mistake. And I also think there’s a danger in writing the character that is so flawed that there’s never a moment where we really see their humanity and see them as a person who can change. So I want a young person to read a book and feel if they are the person who maybe is really flawed and having a lot of challenges, that there is a chance for them to be better and do better. And when they see that that character has that moment, I think that speaks to them. And for the characters who are the people who are perfectionists and always aiming and striving to do things just right, I want them to see that there’s grace for mistakes and that there is forgiveness and that you can get up and try again. So I’m trying to create nuanced, layered characters because I think that we are nuanced people.