Book Log 9/2016 - Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward: Writing the Other

[jacey]

An interesting overview of writing diverse characters. As a writer you always worry that you're not doing it right. There are many traps for the unwary from racial stereotyping to cultural appropriation. I got to the end of this book with a sigh of relief. I don't seem to have fallen (horribly) into those traps yet.

The book began as an idea formed at a Clarion workshop. It's American, and to a certain extent reflects the experience of being black in America, but does expand to a much wider overview. Otherness can be defined in myriad ways. It covers race religion, gender, sexual orientation etc., but Shawl and Ward don't really cover  class, which is important in a lot of cultures across the globe, if not (arguably) in America.

There were writing exercises which I skimmed past, being part way through the first draft of another novel. Did I learn anything? There was certainly food for thought, but mostly I learned that characters are individual and that there's a certain amount of 'otherness' in most people, you just have to look for it. It's not always the obvious thing.