Girl Killers – More Than a Sum of Her Parts

by E.F. Schraeder

Dead ‘girls’ have historically been fairly common starting places for stories, but increasingly across many genres (thanks to persisters, resistors, and other rabble-rousers), that’s a dynamically changing trend. I wrote As Fast as She Can with these changes in mind. I wanted to write a young female-identified character who was the opposite of a victim, who was more than the sum of the horrible things that have been done to her. Even though Ginger didn’t set out to become a monster, I didn’t want that (tragic) backstory to be the main thing driving her. In place of bodily damage and a hole in Ginger’s heart, I imagined anger. I imagined her as powerful.  First and foremost, I imagined Ginger as a monster.

Why? My interest in female monsters is basically a lifelong preoccupation. I’ve craved them like…