When I started writing, I didn’t set out to write ethically ambiguous lead characters. Growing up, I loved a great book about good versus evil. So what happened? I didn’t exactly know myself.
When I started writing The Keepers, the more I wrote, the worse it got. Don’t get me wrong, I’d never meant to make them saints, but as I uncovered their pasts, they just got worse and worse and the bad deeds kept piling up. Even as I continue writing now, I’m a little taken aback myself at the things these people are willing to do.
And then I realized that as I’ve gotten older, I view everything a bit more cynically, and it’s bleeding into my creative side. Gone are the rose colored glasses of my youth and all the pedestals have been long since destroyed. This new world view is not as bad as it might seem though at first glance. I’ve found that I enjoy people’s flaws. I’ve learned to forgive much more easily than I ever did. And although the flaws might be more exaggerated in my novels, the characters are a hell of a lot fun to write.
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