Writing Diversity

PickPik

 In last month’s blog, I talked about the importance of diversity in what we read. How people need to see themselves: physically, neurologically and socially, in terms of life experiences or beliefs and attitudes.

That’s a hard challenge when it comes to writing, particularly in today’s climate. Because we are encouraged to include diversity but criticised if we write from the perspective of someone very different from ourselves. I hear more and more about sensitivity readers, the people who check that the what you’ve said or implied about the disabled person or the refugee character rings true to the life experience of those people. I’ve asked people of the same racial background as some of my characters to read my work and check I haven’t got things wrong.

 

That’s important. We don’t want to offend people, or write caricatures. Jane Eyre is one of my favourite books, but the character of Bertha Rochester is problematic to our modern eyes. You can probably think of other examples where historical books have relied on stereotypes.

If we’re truly to write about what we know, then we can’t write diverse characters because we don’t know what it’s like to be white (or black), rich (or poor), gay (or straight). But if we follow that argument through to its conclusion, we can only ever write about ourselves. Every person is different and we only really know ourselves. And sometimes I don’t think I know myself that well. I’m pleased God does (yet still loves me).

Writers have always used their imaginations, writing is a combination of imagination and the right word in the right place. Is being told I can’t write from the perspective of a Middle Eastern refugee implying that my imagination isn’t good enough to place myself in the mind of that person? Or is it that trying to do so is some form of appropriation? It’s his story to tell, not mine.

Of course, both might be true. It takes a lot of skill to put ourselves in the shoes of someone who has a completely different life and world-view to ourselves. And we need to have a good reason to do it.

But some of the most powerful novels I’ve read recently have included a cast of very diverse characters, for example Happiness by Aminatta Forna. One of the strengths of a novel like that is its diversity and the way Forna shows how people of very different backgrounds and beliefs can understand and value one another.

We all share a common humanity and we all have within us the image of God. I think that writing diversity means searching for the unique and the God-given, while treading sensitively round the experiences of others.

What do you think?