Why I’ll Always Write Fiction With Hope

Making room for light in stories with teeth

Jun 10, 2025

It doesn’t take much to knock someone off balance these days. A medical bill, a job loss, a law passed by people you’ll never meet. Most of us are doing our best just to stay upright. Still, people keep going, and I'm glad we do.

I try to show that resilience, and hope, in my stories. Not by pretending everything works out neatly, but by showing that it’s important. A hopeful story doesn’t ignore pain. It says that pain isn’t the end.

Some of this comes from my own life. I spent my childhood wondering why I didn’t seem to fit in. I didn’t get an autism diagnosis until adulthood. Back then, kids weren’t taught to be kind to people who were different, and I had no idea why everything felt so hard. But, I never lost that sense that things could get better. I'm so happy with my life now. No, it's not perfect, but I know who I am, and I focus on the good while striving to make the difficult better.

The setting of my Bodacious Creed novels reflects that sort of tension. There’s injustice, danger, and loss. There’s also problem-solving, stubbornness, and a drive to improve life. That’s the kind of world I want to write: one where people might be knocked down, but they still stand up for each other.

Characters like James Creed and Anna Boyd get that. Their lives haven’t been easy, but they keep doing what's right. James still believes in justice. Anna uses her mind and resources to help people others overlook. They both choose to keep doing what they can, one action at a time.

When I write, while I do outline, I don’t map out when to give readers relief or when to let things hurt. I let the story breathe. There’s tension, there’s mess, but eventually, something cracks open. Maybe not everything gets fixed, but there’s movement.

Stephen King is a big influence on my writing, and frankly, my perspective on lif. His characters go through hell, but the good usually succeed, and the evil usually get what's coming to them.

I don’t try to make my stories “hopeful” or “dark.” I just write what feels honest. To me, honesty means acknowledging how bad things can get while still saying, “Okay. Let's make things better.”

If a reader finishes one of my books and feels like they care about the characters, like they want to see where the story goes next, I’ve done what I set out to do. And if they close the book with a little more belief that things can improve, even slowly, then I’ve really done something worthwhile.