I’ve always loved Earnest Hemingway’s short stories for their precision of language and clear plotting. There’s a quote that he’s famous for:
“The world breaks everyone and afterward, many are strong in the broken places.”
What a lot of people don’t know is there’s a second bit to that quote, which is,
“But those it will not break it kills.”
To me, that last part is the most interesting, because he’s saying that people need to break. Anyone who’s read my books knows that I’m no stranger to breaking characters down. Over the last ten years, I’ve written about some trying times for Sara Linton and Lena Adams. To me, these two women are a study in opposites. I think that Sara has become stronger for all that has happened to her and in many ways, Lena has become weaker. Before working on BROKEN, I went back and read the opening Lena chapter in Blindsighted, my first novel. While Lena has changed a lot since then, in some ways, she’s become more scared of taking chances. That might seem like an odd statement to make about such a reckless character, but ten years on, she’s lost her certainty. She’s gotten older, but not wiser. Sara, on the other hand, has adapted and in many ways recreated herself. As a writer, it’s a pleasure to work back and forth between light and dark, and I think in these two characters I’ve managed to create complex, believable women who show that life is a series of choices that either kill us or make us strong.
