There’s always one character in a book who feels different on the page. Not easier, exactly—but more alive.
For me, in My Daughter Knows, that character was Ruby.
She arrived with a voice that didn’t need forcing. From her first lines, she knew exactly how she wanted to speak—quick, sharp, and just a little bit dangerous. She doesn’t wait for permission in a scene. She takes it over. That kind of character is a gift because it turns every interaction into something active. You’re not trying to make the scene work. You’re trying to keep up with her.
A lot of that comes from contrast. Ruby sits opposite a world that values control, discipline, and careful messaging. She’s none of those things. She says what she thinks, often before she’s fully processed it, and that creates friction in the best possible way. Every conversation has an edge. Every exchange feels like it could tip into something more.
She’s also funny. Not in a scripted way, but in the way people actually are when they’re trying to deflect, provoke, or just get a reaction. Some of my favourite lines in the book came from letting her push a moment too far, then watching the fallout. Humour becomes part of how she navigates the world, and part of how she keeps people at a distance.
At the same time, there’s something more going on beneath that surface. Ruby doesn’t present herself as vulnerable, but it’s there in the gaps—in what she avoids, in how she shifts a conversation, in the moments where the humour drops for just a second. Writing that balance between confidence and uncertainty made her feel real to me. She’s not one thing. She’s several, often at once.
What I enjoyed most was how she changes the temperature of a scene. Put her in a quiet moment and it won’t stay quiet for long. Put her in a tense one and she’ll either sharpen it or cut straight through it. She brings movement. Even when she’s sitting still, there’s a sense that something is about to happen.
She also reflects a different kind of world to the one I’ve written in before. Ruby understands attention—how it works, how it shifts, how quickly it can grow. She’s comfortable being seen in a way that other characters might resist. That perspective let me approach familiar themes from a new angle, without changing the tone of the story.
And if I’m honest, she surprised me more than any other character I’ve written in this genre. There were moments where I’d expect a scene to go one way, and she’d take it somewhere else entirely. Not for the sake of it, but because that’s who she is. She doesn’t behave to serve the plot. The plot has to adjust around her.
That’s why she stayed with me while I was writing—and why she’s lingered after. Characters like Ruby don’t just fill a role in a story. They push against it.
