Strong female characters are imperative in today’s fiction. Women are starting to make their mark in a world still dominated by men. With women showing up in all areas, law enforcement, military, even on a presidential ballot, it’s important to show women in a positive, but strong light. Women don’t have to be meek and demure anymore; we’re tough, we’re badass and we have the right to show that side too!
SD Hancock
When I was young and would read voraciously, I was always drawn to strong female characters. So when I write, I want my gender to be shown as being self-sufficient, smart, and sassy. At the same time, I want to prove that we women can be tough, but still love, marry, raise a family and do everything that men can do, and sometimes do it better!
Many of the characters I create have been through ordeals, and some of these instances are very personal for me. I’ve had things happen to me in the past that have shaped who I’ve become. I’ve had to do a lot of self-analysis and counseling to understand myself and my motivations, but doing that has made me a stronger person and finally found me the love of my life. In my books, I want to show that women can overcome their past, and that they can overcome traumas without being a victim for their entire lives. Women have this innate ability to get through anything. We can put our heads down and power through. We have the chance to be anything we want and why shouldn’t we? I want to portray that in my stories. I want to reach women on our level.
Of course I also want to entertain and bring people to new places they may never have been. I personally have learned a lot of things about the world around me through my research for my books. I worked clerical law enforcement for most of my career so I learned a lot that I’m able to share. I’ve learned more about the military with the magic of the many military websites, movies, blogs and Google! I do my best to keep my work accurate, but obviously I have to take some creative licenses.
When I was writing my very first book, Building Empires, I let one of the special agent pilots I worked with at the Department of Justice read it. His response to the book was priceless. He said, “Every time these officers go on a raid or a search warrant they get hurt or shot, that’s not how it really happens!” I laughed and replied, “It’s fiction, Jimmy, if I wrote it the way it really happens no one would want to read it because it would be boring!”
I figure, a girl’s gotta do, what a girl’s gotta do!
Author Bio
Sherryl D. Hancock lives in Sacramento, California, with her wife Tirzah, and has been writing since she was a teenager. Building Empires is the first book from her upcoming MidKnight Blue series and is due for release Friday 10th November. You can pre-order it on Amazon now!
