The Mosaic Artist
In The Mosaic Artist, a book about a sister and brother coming to terms with their fractured relationship with an estranged father. The father remarries and his new wife, the stepmother, posed problems for her grown stepchildren: because they were fairly close in age to her, and because she and their father became their own little world together, something that he didn’t have with their mother, and something that excluded his children.
I was surprised when she transcended the “evil stepmother” trope and became humanized by her very real love for her husband, even though that love drove a wedge in the relationship with his kids. It’s easy to write one-dimensional characters, harder to make the problem ones likeable - or at least sympathetic.
In the same book, I went back and added a character as a foil for the grown daughter when I thought she was getting too goody-goody and noble/martyrish. That character came out of nowhere, and even though I wouldn’t recommend adding a character to a finished work ever, he ended up being the person who turned the whole story more truthful.
— Jane Ward