Guest Post: Writing Disability, Part II
Hello again! Katherine Duke here. In this second installment, I’ll give a few general suggestions for crafting believable and compelling characters with disabilities (CWDs):
1. Research the disability. Before you explicitly establish that a character has a particular real physiological or psychological condition, it’s just common sense to read up on the condition. Perhaps talk with people who have it. If you can write from your own personal experience, so much the better! Learn about the condition’s causes, symptoms, and treatments. Does it tend to coincide with other conditions? Does it have a genetic component, such that it might run in your CWD’s family? Does it get more or less severe with time? What assistive devices or services might be available—or just out of reach—for someone in your CWD’s historical and socioeconomic circumstances? Your CWD need not be a cut-and-dried textbook case, but if you want to take lots of liberties with the symptoms, you might be better off just making up a fictional condition.
2. Think carefully about when and how your CWD acquired the disability, and how this might affect the way he lives with it. If, say, a head injury or a magical spell suddenly robbed him of his sight just yesterday, he’ll probably be clumsy and frustrated—and scared that he’ll always be that way. If he’s lost his vision gradually over many years, he may now be quite skilled at hiding or compensating for the impairment. If he was born without vision, his blindness might be a fully integrated, comfortable part of his identity.3. Consider that disability is context-dependent. In one physical, social, or technological environment, a CWD’s condition might put her at a devastating disadvantage. But in another, the same condition might be no more than a minor inconvenience—it might even give the character an edge. The CWD will likely seek out and create environments wherein it’s easiest for her to get what she wants and needs. But you might want to crank up the struggle and suspense by occasionally leading the CWD into more difficult milieus. 4. Think about the options the disability opens up for the CWD, not just those it closes off. Maybe an unlucky camper can free himself from a bear trap by detaching his prosthetic leg (and his next challenge is to hop or crawl all the way through the forest to safety). Maybe a mischievous little girl can earn extra pocket money by charging her friends for rides in her electric wheelchair. Maybe two deaf characters can sign to one another without the hearing characters suspecting that they’re plotting something. In short: instead of regarding the disability solely as a hindrance or a lack, try sometimes thinking of it as a set of accessories that are potentially useful, to the character(s) and to you as the writer. There is, of course, no single character or story that can perfectly represent the entire phenomenon of disability. The best we can try for is an ever-wider variety of thoughtfully developed portrayals that continue to surprise our audiences.
1. Research the disability. Before you explicitly establish that a character has a particular real physiological or psychological condition, it’s just common sense to read up on the condition. Perhaps talk with people who have it. If you can write from your own personal experience, so much the better! Learn about the condition’s causes, symptoms, and treatments. Does it tend to coincide with other conditions? Does it have a genetic component, such that it might run in your CWD’s family? Does it get more or less severe with time? What assistive devices or services might be available—or just out of reach—for someone in your CWD’s historical and socioeconomic circumstances? Your CWD need not be a cut-and-dried textbook case, but if you want to take lots of liberties with the symptoms, you might be better off just making up a fictional condition.
2. Think carefully about when and how your CWD acquired the disability, and how this might affect the way he lives with it. If, say, a head injury or a magical spell suddenly robbed him of his sight just yesterday, he’ll probably be clumsy and frustrated—and scared that he’ll always be that way. If he’s lost his vision gradually over many years, he may now be quite skilled at hiding or compensating for the impairment. If he was born without vision, his blindness might be a fully integrated, comfortable part of his identity.3. Consider that disability is context-dependent. In one physical, social, or technological environment, a CWD’s condition might put her at a devastating disadvantage. But in another, the same condition might be no more than a minor inconvenience—it might even give the character an edge. The CWD will likely seek out and create environments wherein it’s easiest for her to get what she wants and needs. But you might want to crank up the struggle and suspense by occasionally leading the CWD into more difficult milieus. 4. Think about the options the disability opens up for the CWD, not just those it closes off. Maybe an unlucky camper can free himself from a bear trap by detaching his prosthetic leg (and his next challenge is to hop or crawl all the way through the forest to safety). Maybe a mischievous little girl can earn extra pocket money by charging her friends for rides in her electric wheelchair. Maybe two deaf characters can sign to one another without the hearing characters suspecting that they’re plotting something. In short: instead of regarding the disability solely as a hindrance or a lack, try sometimes thinking of it as a set of accessories that are potentially useful, to the character(s) and to you as the writer. There is, of course, no single character or story that can perfectly represent the entire phenomenon of disability. The best we can try for is an ever-wider variety of thoughtfully developed portrayals that continue to surprise our audiences.
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