How I approach topics that I don’t have knowledge of.
What do you do if you haven’t had an experience like homeless or PTSD as a writer? Your character is homeless; how do you describe their emotions, actions and thoughts? This is something that I have been thinking about ever since I started writing: being male, how would a woman react to a situation? Or what does it feel like to be a homeless person? Or how someone would deal with racism? I will review the steps for addressing this and other situations.
One of the things I deal with gender is asking someone of the opposite gender about how they would react to my proposed story. I start with the character being a person, not male/female/non-gendered, as the base personality is unique to every person, even more so if they are of a fantasy race. I then create a scene and express how this character would react. Then, I will reach out to a few people of the same gender and ask them how they would tell me. I would do that for any gender or race, as I will not make up something that isn’t a real emotion in my stories.
Next was a coincidence for my main character in ‘Journal of an Adventurer’, Lone Solo/Orphan. He had a huge drinking problem, borrowed money from loan sharks, got into fights, was arrested and had a destructive attitude. I just thought it was an exciting flaw of his, and his character would grow through the book and series.
A reader/author of mine, an ex-soldier, came to me and said he related to Lone, as he too has PTSD (and he wrote a book about it). He asked if I did do that on purpose. I did not; it was an accident, but I, too, had a traumatic past and reacted in the same way when I left that situation, drinking to excess and being cold with emotions. In this regard, I used my own experiences, by accident, to create a more whole character.
The new thing I am dealing with is homelessness and gangs in Savage Rebellion. I have seen movies and read fictional books about these topics, but I want to know how a realistic person deals with this. I have a few sources that I will ask for. Still, in this regard, I will have to research as it is vital to me to represent this situation with the utmost care, respect and knowledge. Going in half-cocked or making the topic into some fantastical idea.
It matters to care about using fundamental ideas and people’s experiences for my books, even though they are set in a fantasy world. Racism, sexism, war trauma and homelessness are real things that we humans deal with daily, and how can I ignore that in my books? As in the real world, I want to show that even the most broken soul can be a hero.