Writing What You’re Not: Diverse Characters vs. Cultural Appropriation by Kris Tualla

Back in 2010, I decided to write a deaf private investigator ~ in the 1700s. I called him a “Discreet Gentleman of Discovery” and he turned into a five-book series published by Desert Breeze Publishing whose Editor-in-Chief had a severe hearing loss. DBP closed their doors last year, so when the rights reverted to me I re-edited and republished the series. And I decided to write a sixth book.

That book takes place twenty years later and is the story of the deaf foster son who takes over the discovery business along with his hearing brother. His heroine in the story is legally (not totally) blind. In the 1700s.

For the record, I have excellent hearing. I am quite nearsighted, but not to an extreme. I am writing “what I am not.”

Most discussions about diversity center on race, so my deaf characters flew under the radar until 2016 when I had the audacity to apply to speak at the Romance Writers of America national conference about writing differently-abled characters.

A month before the conference, when the speakers and their topics were published, I was publically and viciously attacked in a Twitter storm which had me pulled from the program within 12 hours. Loooong story shortened, after I did get to co-present alongside a very kind author with a hearing loss, she said to me:

“The real question here is why aren’t we talking about this? Why were you the one to stand up?”

Excellent question.

The world of “othered” people is clamoring for more books which represent them. I want to continue to write books that represent them. But many don’t think I should. Some call it “stealing our voice.” Others call it “appropriating my culture.”

What they do not take into consideration are:

1. Right now, the demand far outstrips the supply. Better get writing, and write fast, as the void is growing.

2. With all of us working together, then the “other” becomes mainstream. Someone might read my “discreet gentleman” because they love the rest of the Hansen series, and be so intrigued that they seek out other books with deaf characters. Win-win.

3. Will everyone get it “right”? No. And that is true across the entire spectrum of books about everything. But when we who are writing “what we are not” are silenced, then those of us who 1) research heavily, and 2) utilize those who know to proof our manuscripts, are made the enemy. Lose-lose.

So I forge on. My next book after the deaf/blind characters has a heroine with a trauma-induced stutter who passes herself off as a man ~ in the mid 1800s. Not sure what will come after that. What I do know is that I will continue to make my characters diverse.

In 2016 at the RWA conference, several people recognized my name when they saw my nametag. Most were very sorry that they were not able to hear what I had to say. One woman however, broke my heart when she said, “My nephew has cerebral palsy, I wanted to write a character with CP but now I’m afraid to.”

I hugged her and whispered, “Write the damn book.”

KRIS TUALLA

Kris Tualla, a dynamic award-winning and internationally published author of historical romance and suspense, has created a dynasty with The Hansen Series. A member of Romance Writers of America, the Historical Novel Society, and Sisters in Crime, she was a guest instructor at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. Two of her WWII novels have been optioned for a limited series.

All Feelings are Universal by Paty Jager

I'm Paty Jager, a generista who tends to write characters who are a different culture or way of life than I am, but who I empathize with and try to show the injustice.

It's hard to follow B.A. Binn's post from last Saturday on writing diversity. She had some excellent points and comments.

In grade school there was a classmate who used crutches. I stuck up for him when others were not so nice. I've always been the friend of the classmate who was picked on and as a writer I tend to have characters in my books that have suffered an injustice and I try to show they are no different and in some cases even more deserving of the reader's attention.

My first novel, which was a mystery, had a next door neighbor who was in a wheelchair. He was an integral secondary character. I didn't know anyone in a wheelchair, but I could empathize with how it would feel to not be able to do everything you wanted. That's how I tackle writing diverse characters.

While I may not have lived through what they have, I can read books by people who have or did live through historical experiences and put myself there-feeling, experiencing. The one thing I came away with from a one day conference last year on writing diversity was the comment, "All feelings are universal." By putting myself in the character and writing the emotions I feel, I hope I am capturing them well enough to show the reader not only the character but how they would respond given their upbringing.

But I know I can't rely on reading and my own emotions. I also have used "Sensitivity Readers" when I'm dealing with another culture. These are people of the culture or religion I write about that I don't know. They read my rough draft and give me tips on how to make the characters more authentic. They are a huge help.

As I said before, when I wrote my first book I had a wheelchair bound character, which I knew little about. Having had an elderly blind relative stay with us several summers, I watched her and listened to her complaints about being blind and then I wrote not only one hero, but two, who were blind. I felt, through her, I understood enough about being blind that I could portray a character with that disability.

I have several African American characters in my books. Some are historical and some are contemporary. While these are secondary characters and I used book research for the historical books and just my interactions with friends of that race, I am using a sensitivity reader for my current work in progress that has an African American heroine. I want to make sure, because she is a main character and I have to get into her internal thoughts that I make sure, I do it correctly.

My Spirit Trilogy that has 80% Native American characters, both main and secondary, I read a lot on the history and how they lived and personal accounts by some of the warriors and chiefs. Then I contacted a woman and a man of the same tribe and asked them questions to better portray the tribe and the people. While I had one person being rude when I was on a blog tour, I had the council for the tribe tell me they knew about my books and that they were a good portrayal.

Now, I have two Mystery series. One with a half Native American main character and a full Native American character in the other. I also have a friend who is married to a Native American and lives on a reservation who is my sensitivity reader. She helps me keep my characters real to the life that is on the reservation even though my characters only visit. And she helps me keep my characters grounded in their heritage.

I believe that while I would love to read more books written by writers of diversity, that those of us who don't make our books "white" should do all we can to make sure the characters we portray who are not like us, should be given more research to make sure we are giving an accurate accounting of their life.

I spent two years as the assistant to Myrlie Evers Williams. She is an African American who had gone through a lot of tragedy in her life , including the murder of her first husband in the South in the 60s to become the Chairwoman of the NAACP. We'd sit and talk nearly every day before I'd start working. One day we were talking about something that was happening in the news. She had told me some stories that many didn't know about political people she'd met. She shook her head and said, "There are good and bad people in all races."

I agree with this statement and that is why you will find good and bad people of all cultures in my books whether they are historical or contemporary, romance or mystery.

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 37 novels, 6 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

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WRITE AGAINST TYPE by Sarah Raplee

BLIND LONG-DISTANCE HIKER TREVOR THOMAS
AND TENILLE, COLORADO TRAIL  2015

Want to make your characters well-rounded and authentic? Write against ‘type.’

Oxford Dictionaries defines a stereotype as “A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.”

The following examples of stereotypes apply to different groups if people:

• Mexican-Americans speak with an accent.
  
• People with tattoos are weird.
• Deaf people can’t speak.
  
• White people are racists.
• Native Americans live on reservations.
• Millennials have a lousy work ethic.
• Jocks are dumb.
• Lesbians hate men.
• People who need handicapped placards must look handicapped.
• Women make the best caretakers.
• Criminals have no good qualities.

The list goes on and on…

When you create a character who belongs to a marginalized group, or a group you do not belong to, don’t assume you know everything about them from your limited personal experience. Every group includes individuals that break the stereotype. Just because your grandpa is wise doesn't mean every Grandpa gives good advice.

Nor should you assume what you’ve seen in movies and tv shows, or read in novels is true for all members of a group. Stereotypes run rampant in the entertainment industry.

Writing stereotypical characters is lazy writing. Do your research to identify common stereotypes of that particular group, especially as depicted in movies, tv shows, video games and fiction. Talk to people who belong to that group. Ask them what they wished people understood about them. Learn about their culture, or how they do the activities of daily life differently than other groups of people.

Find opportunities to write your character ‘against type.’ For example, the heroine in my novel, BLINDSIGHT, is a red-haired Latina with pale skin and green eyes. Her father was from Chile, her mother was from Idaho. She goes against the stereotype of the dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-skinned Latina. In fact, my research shows her looks, while not common in Chile, are not unheard of either. I also learned about some interesting Chilean cultural beliefs related to red hair which I touched on in my story. Going against type and including interesting cultural tidbits make her a more interesting, well-rounded character.

My heroine, Melisenda, is a blind wedding singer. I was friends with a blind wedding singer years ago when I lived in a different state and belonged to a support group for people with low vision. I had lost the sight in one eye from a medical condition and was at risk of losing the sight in my other eye. I spent a lot of time researching blindness and how blind people do things that sighted people take for granted. I also learned about some of the stereotypes that frustrate blind people. I decided to write Meli as a blind woman in order to refute some of those stereotypes.

Stereotype One: When a person loses their sight, they gain a ‘super sense’ in return.

This is a common theme in fiction, television shows and movies. A woman loses her sight in an accident and gains a psychic ability. A man loses his sight and becomes a superhero (The Daredevil). Blind people are forced to rely more and focus more on their other senses, but they don’t have “super” senses.

I write Paranormal Romantic Suspense. Meli does have a psychic Talent, but she was born with it. She lost her parents and her sight in a car accident when she was sixteen. The Universe did not reward her for her losses. Her “freak side” made adjusting to blindness that much harder.

Stereotype Two: Blindness equals helplessness.
Blind women, especially, are often portrayed as victims in fiction, television shows and movies. In reality, blind people tend to be quite resourceful and focused on their surroundings. In my story, Meli rescues the hero from a torture chamber. She knows she needs help to escape from the villain’s mansion into the wilderness, but she also knows she brings necessary skills to the table. She expects they will work as a team.

Stereotype Three: Blind people can’t camp, hike, rock climb, etc..

I knew from research this was not true. In fact, I was inspired to use a wilderness setting after reading about Blind Professional Long Distance Hiker Trevor Thomas. I revised Meli’s backstory so that her father was a forest ranger. She’d been camping and learning survival skills all her life, and her love of the outdoors drove her to learn how to navigate the outdoors without her sight. She learned to rock climb at the gym and later joined an outdoor climbing group.

The hero is from New Mexico and has little experience with the Pacific Northwestern wilderness, or with blind people. He comes to respect Meli’s skills and to realize his initial assessment of her as a necessary burden was wrong. She is an asset.

I strongly encourage you to use a sensitivity reader as described in C. Morgan Kennedy’s blog post, 5 Things You Need to Know About Sensitivity Readers. My sensitivity reader helped me to avoid some embarrassing mistakes. (We traded his read for my critique of his manuscript.)

I found a great resource for articles about racial, ethnic and sexual stereotypes on the ThoughtCo website, including Common Racial Stereotypes in Movies and Television.

What stereotypes many people have about you offend you? Please share in a comment.

~Sarah Raplee