I don't try and write strong female characters or strong male characters, I just try and write, hopefully, strong characters and sometimes they happen to be female.

I like strong female characters. I try to write them as role models for young girls.

I pride myself on making my own decisions, sir," she said. "I do not welcome gentlemen making them for me.

I was thinking about what I wanted to write next, after my first novel, and had decided that I wanted to write a story with a lot of strong female characters in it.

Strong female characters - even if they don't necessarily make the same decisions that we might - make such great narrative material, especially when there's an equally strong male character in the mix.

I may be in pain, but I am not weak.