If you’ve never been through it...

To my knowledge nobody has ever been a wizard, vampire or any other such fantastical beast and people write about them all the time.

in terms of real life i reckon people get offended by characters in books that are overly stereotypical of a subculture or minority group etc. (overly so in my opinion, but i do understand it too).

I really think this depends on exactly what kind of experience you're talking about, and how intrinsic it is to the plot.

I write people of different ethnicities than I am. But I write SF, so I get to dictate the ways in which characters' individual differences do and do not affect their lives. I don't write about (for example) what it's like to experience racism in the US in the 21st century.

I write men all the time, but once again: SF. The society I'm building doesn't have a hierarchy based on male supremacy. (Additionally, I don't think it's as difficult writing a fully-realized character who's got more privilege than the writer as it is writing one with less.)

And I don't have to be the one to write every single thing. I've got an idea for a novel that I will never write, because the MC's not-me-ness is too important to the plot for me to have a prayer of giving it sufficient depth and nuance. It's quite simply not my tale to tell, although I will read it when someone else writes it (or if someone already has).

That said, I'm not going to tell any writer to not write something. But I do think, in the case where we're talking about an otherness that exists in the real world (i.e. not monsters), the author would do themselves a huge favor by finding beta readers with the appropriate backgrounds, and hiring a sensitivity reader if at all possible. With all the stuff that can doom a book, I wouldn't want to add "totally didn't do her research" to the list.

celticroots said:

A sensitivity reader? What do they do? I won’t be hiring one until I have a few drafts under my belt.

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A sensitivity reader is someone with direct life experience in a specific category (or categories). More information here.

For example: I'm a woman, so I wouldn't bother hiring a sensitivity reader to vet my representation of women. However, if I were to write a paraplegic, I'd potentially want a sensitivity reader with experience going through life with that level of handicap.

These people provide a professional service, and they do charge, so it's not going to be a tool everyone's going to be able to use. Betas with the proper experience are another good avenue, if you can find them.

i suppose the key would be proper depth of research and straying away from trying to give an autobigraphical feel to a story one has no direct experience of, though i have no issue with people writing a dramatised version of life and its events for a character who has different ethnicity/disabilities/culture so long as the former condition s met.

I always considered it fine to write using any type of person (or other beings), situation, place, event as long as you research properly and don't attempt to make it sound autobiographical. ie Do not write "the plight of a modern alien" if you are not actually an alien (insert actual real "type" here)

Motley's pretty much nailed the advice I've heard. If you're not disabled, write disabled characters anyway, but don't write about the struggles of BEING disabled. Write diverse characters, but don't write about the challenges of their diversity.

celticroots said:

I still don’t really understand.

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Have you ever read a book with a character that just doesn't quite ring true? As an example: I can't count the number of books by men I've read where the female characters are cardboard nonsense. Most of those writers weren't lazy or dismissive of their characters. It was their own implicit biases that screwed up their work.

This is exactly the same thing. We all have different implicit biases, and when we're writing outside of our own experience, it doesn't hurt to ask for help.

I also highly recommend Writing The Other, which was recommended to me here on AW a while back. The authors are much better at explaining this stuff than I am.

lizmonster said:

Have you ever read a book with a character that just doesn't quite ring true? As an example: I can't count the number of books by men I've read where the female characters are cardboard nonsense. Most of those writers weren't lazy or dismissive of their characters. It was their own implicit biases that screwed up their work.

This is exactly the same thing. We all have different implicit biases, and when we're writing outside of our own experience, it doesn't hurt to ask for help.

I also highly recommend Writing The Other, which was recommended to me here on AW a while back. The authors are much better at explaining this stuff than I am.

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For what it's worth I've had the same experience with female writers writing male characters.

I think that we should just do our best by observing people around us, then writing with sensitivity, and finally get as many alpha / beta readers of that particular persuasion to look it over and give input. I'll definitely pick up the book you recommended.

<soapbox>
A very close friend of mine had to deal with infidelity in his marriage, and I supported him throughout his dealing with the betrayal and the reconciliation of his relationship. It was tough. Definitely NOT romantic, and really not funny. And yet, from what I can see on the television and the few 'romantic' movies I've been drug to, whoever is writing that stuff really doesn't get it, or do much research. I wish they would. Affairs are abuse - both physical and mental. Saying that though - I admit that books / movies / tv shows about infidelity are NOT something I seek out, and I could be missing a wide array of stories in various media that treats the subject the way it actually is.
</soapbox>

Nisi Shawl and Tempest Bradford also run Writing the Other workshops, which are excellent.

I guess that would be a strike against J.K. Rowling.

celticroots said:

If you can’t hire a sensitive writer what is the next best option? For research I’ve been in support forums for amputees and read their threads. I’ve also interviewed an archer who lost his arm and shoots the way my MC does about his experience.

Ive also interviewed other people who have lost their arms about their experience.

I’ve also read a lot about prosthetics and am considering contacting a prosthetist.

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TBH it sounds like you're doing exactly the right things here - you're listening to people with real-world experience and doing your homework.

I think whether or not a particular sensitivity reader would be willing to tackle a first draft is something you could ask. And if you can't find one that covers what you need...like I said, I think you're doing all the right homework. When you get to the point of betas, you might ask here on AW if there's anyone with personal experience who could read for you.

I'd suggest, if you want to empathetically write a disabled character, read what it's like to have a disability from disabled authors. Read what it's like to be LGBT from LGBT authors. Read what it's like to be a woman from female authors, etc. etc.

Basically, if you want to write characters from a different background to yourself, which is fine, show solidarity by supporting authors of different backgrounds.

Sounds like you're taking all the right steps. Reading material from the individuals impacted by what you're writing about is most important. It's a mixed bag in terms of authors getting it right or not. I'm gay, and have read an equal amount of novels that get it right or don't. But just because something doesn't gel for me absolutely doesn't mean it won't gel for someone with an entirely different experience. The books that give me pause almost always use tropes, which are easy to look up and avoid on the websites people have mentioned above.

For sensitivity readers I would also recommend the Writing in the Margins database. Readers charge about $250 on average so it comes at a high cost. Most recommend final or close-to-final drafts only. You also want to make sure you're getting feedback on the material that's most likely to stay in the draft, rather than be edited out due to other reasons. It's not as much use for someone to comment on a section of the story that you end up removing. I would recommend getting betas first and if you still feel the need for a sensitivity reader by a later draft, then I'm sure you can find one or two people that fit with the expertise you're looking for.

Its not a bad idea to write about someone who is different.
I've got to be honest, you can go on all the forums and read all the books you like, what you really need to do is meet someone who is disabled, spend time with them, understand how they view life and how other people react to them.
In the end its all about emphasizing with the person and realizing that while there struggles are more pronounced they are going to deal with them in the same way as anyone else.
Problem with empathy is its all about your past experiences, the more trauma you have suffered the more likely it is that you will be able to emphasize with others and to write a realistic character.

I am guessing we are all going to notice things that feel a bit off or stereotyped (not to mention insulting) when they relate to our own group. I'm a woman, and I've known quite a few in my life, so I pick up on it when every woman seems to be a stereotype I've struggled against, or when none of them are anything like me or women I've known in my life, or when every woman is simply an object of gratification for male characters (and readers).

I sometimes pick up on male characters who seem off too, as in none of them seem at all like most of the guys I've known in my life. I know a female writer--used to swap crits with her--who writes her guys as macho, completely un introspective types who punch people who annoy them. She complains that my guys are too deep and conflicted--guys aren't like that, she says. They tend to only think of one thing at a time and don't agonize over whether the things they do are right or wrong or spend much time worrying about whether they are good people and so on. They just act and deal with the consequences. I'd call her guys the male equivalent of those cardboard women some men write (and bordering on sociopathic), but eh, not all guys are alike. Some probably are like the ones she writes. I'm just not interested in hanging out with or telling the stories of the ones who are, even as antagonists. Even if the men in my books are unusually deep and conflicted, those are the kinds of guys I find most interesting in my own life and in literature.

Maybe we've just known very different men in our lives and read very different books by and about men.

However, it can be easier to miss things that are off or stereotyped about members of groups that are not only not us, but that we have had little intimate contact with in our lives. This is especially true for groups who aren't well represented as writers or as characters in literature (women, at least, have plenty of books written by and for men to pore over to see the diversity of male perspectives, and the same goes for men writing women, though a surprising number seem to have read or remembered very few books by women, at least the ones on many of the SFF boards I frequent).

Empathy is good, but it only takes one so far. For example, putting myself in the place of someone who has lost their sight or become paralyzed, I think I'd be depressed and angry that this has happened. I could certainly write those feelings from my own experiences of being depressed and angry and motivated to find a cure, and I could research the changes in mobility etc..

However, I've been told that plots where a person with a disability is cured, or is seeking a cure, or who feel bad about their disability for the disability's sake (as opposed to simply being resentful of a world that doesn't accommodate it), are insulting and patronizing, written by able-bodied people who don't get it. I have a really hard time understanding this, so I'd not write a story with a disabled person where the disability and their feelings about it, are central to the plot. I haven't even had any close friends or family members who are blind or paraplegic, for instance, and I haven't read many books written from the viewpoint of a character who is written by someone who is.

This doesn't mean I'd never include people with disabilities in my books. The world isn't 100% able bodied. But I wouldn't feel comfortable writing a book that focuses specifically on that experience or journey.

And also, the advice not to write a book that is supposed to focus on the experience of someone from a different group is a good one. I have no problem writing male characters. I like stepping into a male skin sometimes and being a sort of male alter ego. I am also comfortable writing books where different notions of masculinity and femininity are important themes. I don't think I could write a book that is specifically about male bonding, or about the Father-son dyad, or about what it means to be male--at least not from the perspective of a man living in the modern world. At best I'd be copying books that have already been written by men (and probably bringing nothing new or unique to the table), and at worse I'd be a bit "off."

I was going to say somethign similar to celticroots but they've said it much better.

Sometimes, distance can be a good thing. There are things I will never, ever draw upon as experiences, no matter how poignant or powerful or life-shaping they were. I'm just not going to go there. And I'm fine with other people, who don't have those experiences, going there for me, writing-wise. As long as they don't handle it in a dumb way.

I'm not going to hire a sensitivity reader for my current WIP; I am just going to rely on beta readers whose personal experiences are (in this case at least) perfectly valid for assessing tone and so forth. If you have no betas who are suitable then it's a different story but in this case, I do.

Interesting discussion. One of the main characters in my first book is an amputee. I'm not one, I don't know any, and I never hired one to read through the story. The disability isn't the center of the story anyway, it's just a fact of who the character is, and he deals with it in a very matter-of-fact way. I researched his condition and prosthetics, and I watched a bunch of Youtube videos where amputees talked about stuff or showed things like how they put on their leg prosthesis. We're really in the golden age of research, and depending on how much you need, it's all at our fingertips. There's always going to be some little thing we might miss, but if we worry about that, we'll never get the writing done.

So I'm all for writing about whatever and whoever you want as long as you're comfortable and even compelled to do it. There's always going to be someone who says X shouldn't write about Y because (fill in blank). It's like The Help, or any other book where authors branch out and write a diverse cast of characters. I love it when writers do that. I do that myself. I write characters of different nationalities, which is natural for me since I live in an international environment with lots of contact over the years with people from different countries (and I travel a lot). That doesn't mean I try to find a beta reader from each country. The important ones matter, the main characters, or the ones I'm more iffy about. The rest I write based on research and creating characters as human beings, not stereotypes or cardboard. That usually does it.