Why Is the HPAC President a Black Woman From Africa?

Here’s a question some people might wonder after reading parts two and three of my Faerietales trilogy… Why in the world did I make the HPAC president a black, African woman instead of like my otherwise very white, Western-World male villains?

Great question, and I have an immediate answer: I have no clue.

The unnamed but very distinctive Madame President was never anything else in my mind. She came into being with the gender and skin color and origins that she did, and I never paused to dispute it.

I don’t plan out most of my characters. Yes, some are based off of specific people, whether friends or acquaintances or public figures. But for the most part, they just kinda come with the physical characteristics and personality traits that they do.

Deanda, for example, was supposed to be based off of my two best friends. Instead, she took on her own sense of self. And neither of the women I originally intended her to mirror have the long, dark, curly brown hair that she does. Or violet eyes. That’s simply the parameters she “was born” with.

Dr. Stewart? He was always a dark-haired, blue-eyed, self-satisfied and very intelligent creep.

And Kyla? I’ve got to admit that I’ve kinda come to associate at least her image with one of the characters from Disney’s Tinker Bell movies (Fawn, for anyone who cares). But she came part and parcel with her delicate frame and confident personality.

I don’t know anyone like her. Or Dr. Stewart, for that matter. The latter of which I’m very happy about.

The same goes for Madame President. I have to say that I’m really rather happy she popped into my head and onto my Microsoft Word doc that way, and not just because the Faerietales trilogy would have been a little too pasty otherwise.

I do like showing that there’s no perfect group out there. Anyone can be bad if they only choose to be. Black, white, male, female, intelligent, slow, North American, European, African… and yes, human or faerie (if faeries existed, which they don’t, of course. I know that. Really). We’ve all got it in us to behave pretty darn rotten when we want to.

Hence the reason why I pick on just about everyone I can in my writing, including both major American political parties (my own included) in my upcoming Dirty Politics series. (Then again, I also pick on both sides because I can’t stand most politicians, whatever letters come before or after their names. But that’s a topic for another blog post.)

So while it does delight me to have Stewart and Morrison kowtowing to a chick, I can’t take any real credit for that fact. Madame President is who she is; there’s nothing more to it than that.