/A short blog today because it has been a week/
There’s a pretty common thread that pops up in writing groups and on reddit.
“I want to write ____ but I’m not _____. Can I still write something like it?”
And my head hurts every time due to some responses. For the most part, many writers will tell you “write what you want”, and there will be others that go “no, you can’t.”
The logic behind “no, you can’t” stems from several ideas such as cultural appropriation, gender problems, skewed interpretations, lack of true knowledge to do it justice, etc. etc.. Which are all very valid, so you get the idea. And it isn’t coming from a gatekeeping sense all the time. Sometimes it is someone genuinely concerned.
However, most problems I see with that line of thinking can stem from gatekeeping. The people who are rigidly telling people what to write (while often not writing much of anything themselves) would prefer a sense of segregated writing, with everyone in their sandboxes. Now I run in fantasy circles and there is a marked effort in many writers to avoid racist and sexist tropes that exist within that. Same as romance which is starting to really see pushback against racist and homophobic gatekeepers. The rigidity can go both ways and really mess with writers’ heads in restrictions and confusion.
I have this thing that I think and there are other writers who think it as well, that so long as your story and your subject can blend together and what you need to support it is what you need. If that is a racist character who learns their lesson and realizes that there is more to the world than them, or a communist character slaughtering her capitalist captors because she believes so earnestly in her cause, then that is what it needs.
I have never liked restrictions on writing. I don’t like being told that I can’t research something to use its elements in a story with respect.
But that is the key. Respect. Every character, every scenario, and every subject must be treated with absolute respect for what they mean to others. That involves research, wide reading, talking to people, and not being stuck in the mire of your own beliefs. Even if you are simply writing a cozy mystery, you should look beyond the mystery and into the world around you.
Or you risk being blinded by what you didn’t see in your narrowed vision.
What’s a subject you’d love to write but haven’t yet? Why not?