Writing Complex Women: No Saints, No Stereotypes

When I set out to write The Alpha Flame: Discovery, I knew I didn’t want Maggie and Beth to be easy heroines. I didn’t want them to be perfect victims or flawless role models. I wanted them to be real. Because real women, especially women fighting to survive dark, painful situations, aren’t saints. They’re messy. They’re complicated. They’re sometimes hard to love, but impossible to forget.

I think fiction does a disservice when it gives us only two options for women: the helpless innocent or the hardened femme fatale. Those are stereotypes, not people. Maggie and Beth deserved better than that. They deserved honesty, even when it was uncomfortable. Especially then.

Maggie is smart-mouthed, loyal to a fault, and stubborn as hell. She’ll fight for you without thinking, but she’ll also hold a grudge. She’s quick to anger, quick to protect. She’s not always kind. She makes mistakes, sometimes big ones. But that’s what makes her real to me. She’s the kind of woman you want in your corner when the world goes dark.

Beth, on the other hand, is quieter, more cautious. But she’s not weak. She’s survived things that would break most people. She’s learned to hide pain behind silence, to do what she must to survive. Her choices aren’t always ones you can cheer for, but they make sense if you see the world through her eyes. She’s not there to make readers comfortable. She’s there to be understood.

That’s why I wrote them the way I did. Because women aren’t here to be symbols of purity or evil. They’re here to be people. Complex. Flawed. Worth fighting for, even when they don’t make it easy.

I hope readers see themselves in Maggie and Beth, not because they’ve lived the same story, but because they know what it’s like to be imperfect. To hurt someone you love. To make choices you regret. To hold on anyway.

I didn’t want to sanitise them. I didn’t want to make them easy to forgive. Because I think women deserve more in fiction than being perfect or ruined. They deserve to be complicated, human, layered. They deserve to make mistakes and get back up. They deserve to be seen in all their ugly, beautiful truth.

Writing complex female characters isn’t about ticking boxes or avoiding criticism. It’s about telling the truth. Maggie and Beth aren’t here to be your role models. They’re here to be your mirror. To show you loyalty that cuts both ways. Love that saves and hurts. Survival that leaves scars.

If you want a story with neat answers and tidy morality, The Alpha Flame isn’t it. But if you want a story about real women, women who fight, fail, forgive, and keep going, I hope you’ll give it a chance. Because the world doesn’t need more saints or stereotypes. It needs women who are impossible to forget.

• Complex, flawed female leads
• Gritty, honest storytelling
• A thriller that doesn’t flinch