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Thu, Oct. 25th, 2012 04:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chordatesrock posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
access_fandomHello! I'm pleased to find that this place exists. I joined DW just to be able to post here, actually. It's awesome that I'm not the only one out there who cares about fandom AND disability. Nice to meet you all, I think we'll get along splendidly, although, alas, no one else here seems to like my ridiculously obscure current main fandom.
So, I was wondering if you have any advice to offer about something.
I was writing this fic that I may or may not ever get around to actually posting, in which a character has a disability xe doesn't have in canon. And as long as it's just for my own amusement, I can just write what would happen without worrying too much about what other people would get out of it, but in case I ever do post it, I'd rather it not fail, which it probably won't, but there's this one scene I was writing where xe's decided to try Doing Something Cool, but the Cool Something in question is one that real-life people with xyr extracanonical disability don't (at least where I live, I don't think it's legal and I'm pretty sure the necessary assistive tech isn't on the mass market yet), and someone is pointing out to xem that there's a reason for that and this is a really risky idea. But the character with the disability is canonically the sort of person who does risky things for fun all the time and (sometimes literally) drags the cautious character along, so xe's having none of this. Plus xe has access to assistance Doing Something Cool that real-life people with this disability don't, and is in a situation that's a little different from real life in that all of the risk is to the disabled character, the cautious character or a third person's property, whereas in real life the risk is to all of those things plus other people's lives. Also, in this canon, there don't happen to be applicable laws forbidding this, again unlike real life. And this particular Something Cool occupies a totally different position in the fictional culture from the one it occupies in the real-life one I live in. Among other things, the Something Cool is viewed as being really important to a person's ability to be a contributing member of society, to a greater extent than real life.
In terms of how I think the characters involved would act given the circumstances they're in, Extracanonically-Disabled Character is going to do this despite Cautious Character's protests. Xe's going to fail to mention a relevant disability to a character who would probably try to stop xem, and then Do Something Cool, and a couple of characters are going to be surprised afterward but they're not going to keep sputtering in denial or anything ever, they're just going to be surprised and move on. The character's going to be worse at Doing Something Cool than xe is in canon, because canonically at this point xe would have had several years of practice as opposed to just now learning.
But halfway through writing the scene I started thinking about how a CND audience might read it. And I started thinking that it's going to look like I'm being didactic and saying anyone can do anything absolutely regardless of any disability at all. I'm also worried that it's going to come off as questioning real-life people who (in obedience to the law, no less) don't Do Something Cool. Worse, I'm worried it could give the CNDs in the audience the idea that this is totally how it really works in real life, never mind the assistance the character is getting (which is a reasonable solution in their situation, but not in real life because not everything this canon has exists in real life), or that it could come off as a preachy lesson on how disability could never prevent anyone from doing anything, and only someone stupid and prejudiced would ever conceive of such a thing. Because the characters who are surprised are being reasonable (and I'm worried since neither of them are planned to be viewpoint characters in this scene, it's hard for the reader to tell the difference between "oh, I didn't think disabled people could do anything, OMG, I've Learned a Lesson that PWDs have value and can be capable" and "I didn't realize you could do that particular thing with this particular disability, but it looks like I guessed wrong") and the character saying this is a bad idea is acting pretty much like he does in canon about everything.
So, I'd love to know if anyone has any recommendations. If you were writing this, what would you do?
So, I was wondering if you have any advice to offer about something.
I was writing this fic that I may or may not ever get around to actually posting, in which a character has a disability xe doesn't have in canon. And as long as it's just for my own amusement, I can just write what would happen without worrying too much about what other people would get out of it, but in case I ever do post it, I'd rather it not fail, which it probably won't, but there's this one scene I was writing where xe's decided to try Doing Something Cool, but the Cool Something in question is one that real-life people with xyr extracanonical disability don't (at least where I live, I don't think it's legal and I'm pretty sure the necessary assistive tech isn't on the mass market yet), and someone is pointing out to xem that there's a reason for that and this is a really risky idea. But the character with the disability is canonically the sort of person who does risky things for fun all the time and (sometimes literally) drags the cautious character along, so xe's having none of this. Plus xe has access to assistance Doing Something Cool that real-life people with this disability don't, and is in a situation that's a little different from real life in that all of the risk is to the disabled character, the cautious character or a third person's property, whereas in real life the risk is to all of those things plus other people's lives. Also, in this canon, there don't happen to be applicable laws forbidding this, again unlike real life. And this particular Something Cool occupies a totally different position in the fictional culture from the one it occupies in the real-life one I live in. Among other things, the Something Cool is viewed as being really important to a person's ability to be a contributing member of society, to a greater extent than real life.
In terms of how I think the characters involved would act given the circumstances they're in, Extracanonically-Disabled Character is going to do this despite Cautious Character's protests. Xe's going to fail to mention a relevant disability to a character who would probably try to stop xem, and then Do Something Cool, and a couple of characters are going to be surprised afterward but they're not going to keep sputtering in denial or anything ever, they're just going to be surprised and move on. The character's going to be worse at Doing Something Cool than xe is in canon, because canonically at this point xe would have had several years of practice as opposed to just now learning.
But halfway through writing the scene I started thinking about how a CND audience might read it. And I started thinking that it's going to look like I'm being didactic and saying anyone can do anything absolutely regardless of any disability at all. I'm also worried that it's going to come off as questioning real-life people who (in obedience to the law, no less) don't Do Something Cool. Worse, I'm worried it could give the CNDs in the audience the idea that this is totally how it really works in real life, never mind the assistance the character is getting (which is a reasonable solution in their situation, but not in real life because not everything this canon has exists in real life), or that it could come off as a preachy lesson on how disability could never prevent anyone from doing anything, and only someone stupid and prejudiced would ever conceive of such a thing. Because the characters who are surprised are being reasonable (and I'm worried since neither of them are planned to be viewpoint characters in this scene, it's hard for the reader to tell the difference between "oh, I didn't think disabled people could do anything, OMG, I've Learned a Lesson that PWDs have value and can be capable" and "I didn't realize you could do that particular thing with this particular disability, but it looks like I guessed wrong") and the character saying this is a bad idea is acting pretty much like he does in canon about everything.
So, I'd love to know if anyone has any recommendations. If you were writing this, what would you do?
Hmm...
Date: 2012-10-26 09:28 am (UTC)work. Have I got some stories
that deal with disabilities in
very realistic ways, along the
typical limits of current
culture and technology? Yes. I also have some at considerably lower levels of technology.
Do I have some characters who respect their own limits and are fairly sensible people? Yes. I have some disabled characters who are quiet. I also have some who do things like fight sea monsters or alien robots.
So that leaves more leeway to explore how other cultures and other technologies might compensate for disabilities in different ways, and how characters with different personality traits might deal with limits.
If you've only handled a motif once, the risk of getting something wrong or looking like you're sending the wrong message is higher. If you've explored it in different aspects across multiple stories, poems, illustrations, or whatever you make then it's less likely to seem as though you're saying "this character = ALL PEOPLE with this disability." Plus if somebody doesn't like stories with unrealistic exceptions to disability, you can say, "My more realistic stuff is over here." It's kind of like having a warp drive and a plain old rocket ship in SF. Not everybody likes the same stuff.
Re: Hmm...
Date: 2012-10-27 03:31 am (UTC)Hey, wait a sec, how come characters who respect their own limits and are fairly sensible people can't fight sea monsters or alien robots? ;) (Joke.)
Thanks!
Re: Hmm...
Date: 2012-10-27 04:45 am (UTC)Precisely. The difference
between tokenism and icebreaking
is the difference between
singularity and plurality.
>>So what you're saying is, my wanting to write everything about disability all the time is actually a good idea, not something that makes me boring and repetitive? Cool!<<
As long as you're exploring a
diverse span of the topic, yes,
that's an asset. Different
disabilities, different ways
that people cope or try to cope
with them, different cultures
and roles for people with
disabilities, etc. -- it all
adds up to one of the things
you can become known for as a
writer.
Every writer has favorite topics.
Some of mine include unusual
sexes/genders, fish out of water,
and alien languages. But I've
also built up a lot of characters
with disabilities. You can see
several examples on my Serial
Poetry page including The
Clockwork War and P.I.E.
In the science fantasy shared
world Torn World, we have a theme
set for "Disability in Torn World."
>>Hey, wait a sec, how come characters who respect their own limits and are fairly sensible people can't fight sea monsters or alien robots? ;) (Joke.)<<
Of course they can; it's just
that the wilder type-A heroes
seem to get caught on camera
more often. *ponder* Okay,
Brenda in P.I.E. is pretty calm
and practical about the fighting
of villains and pests. But she
also still goes kayaking, even
though her legs barely work. I
haven't gotten to the kayak scenes
in the storyline yet, but have
ideas for them.