A writer can’t live in a vacuum.
They need to interact with the outside world, otherwise their characters run the
risk of being two dimensional entities. They may end up being variations of the
author, or what they might think are variations. I was very lucky because
throughout my career, I worked in several different places, interacting with a
variety of people ranging from cleaners, delivery people, to scientists, office
workers – and the list goes on. Even in day to day life, I’d always felt lucky
that I interacted with a wonderful cross-section of people.
Some of my characters were born from
these people – as a compilation of several, or I merely borrowed a single character
trait to help fill out a character. Others provided a little background colour.
A few have had the dubious privilege of starring in one of my stories as a murder
victim.
I found that the best living
breathing characters were the ones taken from several sources.
So why should creating an other-abled
character be any different?
When I was first diagnosed with MS,
I made sure that it didn’t creep into my fiction. Then a few years later while
I was unsuccessfully marketing a novel, I realized that maybe I should rethink
my approach. Why not have a protagonist with MS? Someone who went from an active
lifestyle to being mobility impaired.
It was an interesting challenge.
The unpredictable nature of MS, and
its symptoms, offers a wide variety of possibilities. A simplified explanation
of MS, is that the myelin sheath protecting the nerves becomes scarred. The
location of the scarring (sclerosis) interrupts the nerve conduction and the
location of the lesions determines what can be affected such as mobility,
memory, or vision, to name a few.
Where to start.
I did draw on my own feelings and
emotions. But using a single POV I ran the risk of sounding whiny. With such a
variety of possible symptoms, my experience wouldn’t be like someone else’s.
The opening scene of my novel has my protagonist suffer a major MS attack after
which she’s completely paralyzed, including her vocal cords. A close friend had
described the fear she’d felt, trapped in her bed, unable to call for help. In
her case she recovered in a few hours. This was never something I’d experienced
but her description had stayed with me.
Personal experience is not the only
route to research. To get the voice right, or even the terminology, visiting
blog sites where you read about personal experiences is quite valuable. When
creating a disabled character, don’t forget the interactions with people around
them. Friends and family may become overprotective or clingy. They may also be
more demanding, insisting that nothing is really wrong with the person and that
they’re just being lazy.
Whatever method a writer uses to
research their disabled characters, if they keep one thing in mind – they can’t
go wrong.
Treat them like any other character.
About Madona Skaff-Koren:
With a degree in biology, Madona Skaff-Koren somehow ended up in mining research. Her scientific background always finds a way into her stories. She is the author of Journey of a Thousand Steps (from Renaissance Press), a mystery novel about a marathon runner disabled by MS who turns sleuth in order to find her missing friend. Madona has published several mystery and science fiction short stories including the Arthur Ellis Award finalist “First Impressions”, which appeared in The Whole She-Bang 2. She lives in Ottawa, Canada, where she now writes full time.
Visit Madona at www.madonaskaff.com or ‘friend’ her on Facebook.
