Are Ye Able

During vacation I spent time around lots of other people.  I should, I suppose, clarify.  Although writers need time alone, I really spend little of my working day, and what’s left of the day, among regular people.  There are the people at work, but they hardly count.

What stood out to me on vacation was just how many people have what used to be termed disabilities.  Spending a few days in a crowd, it become clear that many people have difficulty getting around, or are missing limbs, or have mental illnesses.  It occurred to me that it is difficult to write about people with disabilities.

I fully realize this is a personal bias, but when I think of characters, I tend to think of people from the perspective with which I’m familiar.  I do sometimes write from a female perspective, most of my characters are from my ethnic background and are, according to current views, not disabled.

The few times I’ve tried to incorporate different ethic backgrounds or disabled characters, I immediately become hyperconscious that what I’m writing might be construed as insensitive or racist.  I suppose that’s because no characters in my stories come off completely innocent.  It seems safer to scrutinize my own background, since then I can’t be blamed for making a white man look bad.

Since I like to write somewhat scary stories (at least that’s how I intend them) disability should be a natural trope.  Someone who can’t run has to face monsters in a different way than a protagonist who can scamper away.  But my self-loathing may make this character look bad.

I really have no desire to make anyone disadvantaged in any way look bad.  Life is hard.  It is hard for a “normal” white guy like myself, and I can’t imagine how much more difficult it would be if an obstacle like something physical and non-negotiable were part of the mix.  I guess I admire the disadvantaged too much to make them look bad.

I suspect that one reason most publishers don’t find my fiction to their liking is that there is a gentleness about it.  Some may die, but deaths are not graphically spelled out.  The conclusion is more intended to make the reader stop and think—something profound seems to have happened here.  I really don’t like to hurt people.

Some writers, it seems, can get away with this, the rest of us are at disadvantage.  Perhaps that is the lens I should use to view the world of fiction.