Writing Beth: The Girl Who Was Never Allowed to Be a Child
She was exploited too young, but she was never weak. Writing her wasn’t easy, but it mattered.
Writing Beth: The Girl Who Was Never Allowed to Be a Child
Beth isn’t an easy character to write about. Or to read about. She’s messy, fragile, defensive, and clever in ways no teenage girl should have to be. But that’s the point. She was never given a chance to be soft. Never allowed to make safe mistakes. She grew up learning how to protect herself from people who should have protected her.
I’ve known girls like Beth. Girls who could laugh like they were fine but never quite met your eyes. Girls who were called “mature” when what they really were was scared. Beth is a blend of truth and fiction. She carries the wounds of a hundred real girls I’ve seen get overlooked, dismissed, or used.
When people ask why she’s so “difficult” in the book, I want to ask, how else would she be? She’s a girl who’s learned that survival means staying hard, staying alert, and trusting no one. And yet, she still reaches for hope. That’s what made her worth writing.
She Wasn’t Broken, Just Denied Safety
Beth isn’t weak. She’s exhausted. She’s fourteen going on forty. She’s funny, smart, emotionally bruised, but never passive. She keeps going, even when she’s been treated like a product, a problem, a burden. I couldn’t give her an easy path. That wouldn’t have been honest. But I gave her Maggie. I gave her someone who saw past the damage. And I gave her the right to fight.
Writing Beth meant walking a tightrope. I didn’t want to pity her. I didn’t want to turn her into a symbol. I wanted her to feel real. That meant giving her contradictions. Giving her moments of pride and self-loathing, kindness and cruelty. Letting her be angry, manipulative, vulnerable, funny. Letting her be fully human, even when the world around her refused to see that.
She’s the kind of girl too many people look past. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. She deserved to be seen.
Read more about The Alpha Flame: Discovery here and meet Beth for yourself. She’s not easy. But she matters.