Writing Natalia and the Responsibility to Get It Right

Natalia was the character I approached with the most care.

Not because she's weak, she's not, but because I knew I was stepping into lived experiences I have not personally carried, and I did not want to get it wrong. I didn't want to reduce a survivor to a plot device, or write pain in a way that felt like it existed for the reader’s entertainment.

I wanted to create a woman who felt real on the page, and I wanted to do her justice.

Natalia's lived through domestic abuse. That's part of her history, and it matters, but it is not the whole of her. I wrote her first as Natalia, a mother, a business owner, a woman with routines, boundaries, flaws, humour, and a particular kind of steadiness. The trauma's there in the background, shaping how she moves through the world, but the story doesn't treat her as a lesson or a headline.

One of the things I kept coming back to while writing her is that people survive in different ways. There is no single way to rebuild. I don't think there's a universal pattern that makes someone “strong”. Some people become loud. Some go quiet. Some fall apart in private and function in public. Some learn to soothe others because they had to learn to soothe themselves. Some carry their scars in places no one can see.

So I did not try to write “a survivor”. I wrote Natalia, and then I stayed faithful to who she is.

Her strength, for me, is not performative. It's something she's built. It's the result of choices repeated over time, learning what keeps her safe, learning what keeps her daughter safe, learning how to hold calm in her hands even when the past is still capable of making her flinch. It's in her boundaries and her ability to read the emotional temperature of a room. In the way she de-escalates and the way she protects without controlling.

As a male author, that awareness never fully leaves you. It's there in the small decisions and what you show, what you leave off the page, what you imply and importantly what you refuse to sensationalise. I wasnt interested in recreating violence. I wasnt trying to shock. My focus was never the abuse itself, but what comes after, the long shadow it casts, and the courage it takes to build a life that is safe again.

I also know there will be readers who recognise something of their own story in Natalia, or recognise someone they love.

That thought sits heavily with you when writing. It forces you to slow down and question whether a scene is necessary, to ask if you're honouring the character, or merely using her.

I chose restraint wherever possible, because I believe it's often the most respectful choice.

If someone who's lived through domestic abuse reads my work, my hope is simple.

I hope they don't feel exploited.

I hope they don't feel pushed into reliving something they fought hard to survive.

I hope they feel seen in the quieter truths, the rebuilding, the coping, the day-by-day work of becoming steady again.

And more broadly, if someone's reading from a difficult place, whether that's surviving abuse, living with autism, ADHD, or any other weight that makes ordinary life harder than it should be, then I hope these books offer something small but meaningful.

A reminder that you're not alone. A reminder that survival doesn't have to look dramatic to be valid and a reminder that taking things one day at a time is enough.

That is the impact I hope my work can have, and it is why I take writing characters like Natalia, George, and Adel so seriously.