UNT alumna and self-published author, Madison Flores, has been writing for as long as she can remember, but finally committed herself to becoming a published author during her senior year of college at UNT. In February 2019, Madison began writing her first novel, which transformed into a two-part historical romance series titled, “Indivisible.” Nearly one year later, she has completed two, 600-page novels and self-published them through Amazon.
Madison infuses her historical romance novels with prominent social issues that have been relevant for centuries. She wants her audience to empathize with the struggles of her characters and feel compassion towards people who experience abuse, racism, prejudice and persecution.
“I want [readers] to feel angry and discontent with how the world is,” Madison said.
However, in addition to anger, she also wants her audience to feel hopeful for a chance that the world will get better.
Madison said she has taken a more realistic approach to the genre, unlike other traditional romance authors.
“I don’t want to write super sugary, fluffy romances where they take place in a perfect world and there’s a perfect happy-ending because that’s not realistic — that’s not how life is,” Madison said. “I want to make real stories that represent situations that have actually happened.”
Madison features sensitive subjects like racism, prejudice, poverty, trauma, abuse, healing and forgiveness in her stories. She refuses to shy away from these major social issues and instead brings them front and center. She credits her time at UNT for shedding light on these issues, as she studied anthropology, sociology and criminal justice.
Madison chose to address important social issues through her fiction.
“It’s an easier pill to swallow [through fiction], for lack of a better term, if you’re reading about them as a fictional story, rather than as something that you have to admit is actively happening,” Madison said.
Madison said she also wanted to infuse social issues into her character’s experience to let victims of abuse know that they are not alone.
“If they’ve experienced things like trauma or abuse, or they have been persecuted in one way or another, they know they aren’t alone,” Madison said. “It happened 200 years ago, it’s happening now, but that doesn’t mean it will happen forever. There is hope for change, we just have to believe that there are people who want to make those changes.”
Madison drives these issues into every aspect of her work, from character development to each character’s personal journey and throughout the plot. Her “Indivisible” series takes place during the American Revolution and features a romantic relationship between the daughter of a British aristocrat and the biracial son of a Native American woman.
“There’s a whole bunch of hurdles put in front of them that are trying to tear them apart, the war itself and being on two different sides of the war, along with the stigma that comes from two people of different races having a romantic relationship,” Madison said.
Moris Flores, Madison’s boyfriend and a reader of her novels, said he appreciated the thought and detail Madison put into crafting her characters.
“I feel like she has a great writing style and a way of setting a timeline within her stories, not to mention she does a great job developing characters where you can really see someone start as immature and rash, and as the story goes on you can see them grow by the experiences and challenges they face along the way,” Moris said.
Madison’s mother, Amy Dettmer, said she is proud of Madison’s work and the writing style she has adopted.
“Madison is a brilliant young author with an engaging writing style that immediately hooks the reader and makes you care about what happens to the characters,” Dettmer said.
Madison brought her dream to fruition by entering the world of self-publishing. While many young authors struggle to publish one book, Madison said she found it relatively easy to self-publish her two 600-page novels. The difficult part, she said, was creating every aspect of her two books independently, from the advertising, to cover art, to editing. The do-it-yourself process of self-publishing is one reason why she believes it is the future of book publishing.
“Anybody that dreams of becoming a published author, but is too intimidated to go into the traditional publishing route where you send your manuscripts to publishing houses, I would highly recommend you get your feet wet by trying self-publishing,” Madison said.
Above all, Madison said she wants to leave an impact on her audience in a way that will inspire them to change or validate their struggles.
“We shouldn’t be content with the current state of the world,” Madison said. “We should be uncomfortable with the level of suffering that there still is, and the level of hatred that still exists in the world. We should want to change and strive to be better people in our own communities and for people around the world that we’ve never even met.”
Madison’s debut series, “Indivisible,” is available now on Amazon. She is currently working on another book titled “Wildefire,” which is set be released in fall 2020.
Featured Image: Courtesy Madison Flores
Article Originally Published by on North Texas Daily
Source: North Texas Daily
