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*content warning: sexual abuse, etc*

@h-jones I personally write about hard topics all the time. I’ve noticed a lot of my characters deal with sexual issues–abuse, bad choices–and mental disorders since those are two things I’m very passionate about (also prostitution–as in being trapped in prostitution because I’m very passionately anti-sex-slave-trafficking). I think my views on writing about this sort of thing tend to be different than most Christians–I don’t always have a happy ending. That’s not realistic. One of my characters tries to prosecute her rapist, and no one believes her. That may seem dark and depressing, but there are people who have gone through that, and they understand. They understand the victim blaming. They understand how difficult it is to be ignored and disrespected and accused when you’re the one who was victimized. My goal is more to show how victims are treated than to show a triumphant ending. I want there to be a change in the way people treat victims of rape. Maybe more people will speak up about their rapes, then. Life is full of suffering. When we suffer, we are united with Christ–He too suffered, much more than any of us ever will. And things don’t always turn out well. God doesn’t always heal or protect. There is darkness in the world–we shouldn’t ignore that. Sometimes Christians ignore that in their writing. We ignore the suffering and think everyone thinks like we do and goes through what we go through–but that’s simply not true. I think we should write about reality–where the good guys *don’t* always win, where people struggle and go through awful things. Anyway…not sure that’s where you wanted to go with it…but while I agree with C. S. Lewis, I think not every piece of writing needs to be like that. Some writing needs to call people to action. (I’m also more on the side of social justice, so there’s that.) As for your story, I think not showing her exact revenge on the man–at least not in killing him–would be powerful. She’s not following the way of the world in that. She is still bringing him to justice and protecting other children (and others) from him, but she isn’t compromising herself to do so. She has a deep wound, and because of it, she’s helping others. You can also do a lot with grief in that. <3 I hope that helps somehow. XP