(pt.2)- in particular how much emphasis on her going through experiences posted here should show up. I would like her to be a living breathing character in our world, and pretending things like this wouldn’t happen to her is just irresponsible on a writer’s part but I know how inundating something can make things seem exaggerated. do any of the wonderful moderators here have any advice for how to write about fat characters in a way that shows their experiences without perceived exaggeration?
This one’s write up my alley (boo! bad pun!).
For a little background: I’m currently a writer-on-the-side, not-yet-author. I’ve spent the last four years or so writing two books of literary speculative fiction. Spec fic is a great tool for learning how to write out of your experience because a lot that happens in spec fic is out of anyone’sexperience…hence the genre name “speculative.”
In my spec fic books a lot of what I write about is based on patterns in human history — religious and economic movements, for instance — but the niceties of social groups, their histories, and the world is made up. For an example of how spec fic can reflect the real world while not being explicitly about it, note that Ursula K. Le Guin’s THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST was purportedly a response to the Vietnam war.
Okay. So, why bring up the spec fic stuff? Because what you do when you write realistic fiction out of your experience is similar to what I do with spec fic. In your case, instead of researching for general knowledge and carefully building a coherent speculative world, you’re going to be researching for specific knowledge and carefully build a realistic framework in which your character operates.
Okay. So you probably know that! However, this is the tricky part: What to keep and what to throw away when doing research? Like you mentioned, this blog has a bunch of different stories on it from a bunch of different people. You don’t want to just grab a handful and stitch them together — that would be sloppy (read: incoherent) and ultimately wouldn’t construct a believable framework out of which your character must operate.
What’s the answer, in my opinion? Read, read, read, read as many of these stories as you can. Try to hear the voices of the story. Ask yourself, if I were to make up a character for each story, who would that character be? Sometimes stories detail the speaker, sometimes they don’t. Fill in the gaps. Get a sense for the people who speak here. Then you have your character — let’s call her Roxanne (Roxy).
Who is Roxy? She’s there, standing with the other characters. Is Roxy angry, or is she sad when she hears the stories everyone else tells about their fat experience? Does she nod vigorously — “Oh my god, I thought I was the only one…”, or does she deny these experiences — “That’s not me,” she says. “I’m not a victim. I’m NOT a victim. I’m NOT!” Or maybe she’s triggered and doesn’t want to read, it’s too close to her.
Then ask, why would she respond in these ways? And so, start building her background. Was it her parents? School? Friends? Lovers? Several of those or just one or two? Or maybe she had a great childhood and just got a double degree in english and communications, and has always wanted to intern on a women’s magazine. However, she keeps losing position after position to skinnier applicants, even though she knows she’s as qualified as they are, and that’s her introduction to fat stigma.
What I’m trying to say is that there’s really no way to pick out a handful of experiences and sew them into a character without having to do any additional work to make that character seem real. That goes for anyone writing out of their experience. You need to read, read, read as many experiences of people in that group (in the context in which you want to write them) as you can.
If you’re afraid of copying one experience then that means you haven’t read enough. You don’t “grok” what it is to be that kind of person, yet. You can. It just takes time. It’s worth it, because once you grok it you have the ability to write characters from that perspective again and again without sounding incoherent (or offensive) — though note that you’ll never know what that other person’s going through, and might make assumptions and fuck up even when you think you’re doing it right. Which is why you want to have beta readers or people in your circle from those groups to bounce stuff off of. Of course, groups aren’t monoliths, so beware of equating the experience of one person in a group to the experience of everyone in that group.
Do it right. Writing isn’t supposed to be easy. If you feel overwhelmed or blocked that just means you haven’t done enough research yet. Listen to the voices that speak to you while you’re absorbing the experiences of other people. They should get clearer, make more sense, the more you read, and start informing you about your own character. Let your subconscious work for you. The subconscious is a writer’s best tool, imho.
And yes, asking someone from that group to go over your characterization before you start letting your character walk and talk is a great idea. But there’s another important thing to remember: for all the intersections of social experiences that frame a character’s existence, there’s a commonality of human spirit that is present no matter who you’re characterizing. Shyness is shyness, pride is pride, anger is anger, love is love. Remembering the commonality of the human spirit will help you to avoid stereotyping, and give your character a Frankensteinian jolt of realism.
Anyway, I hope this helped. Happy writing!
-ArteToLife
(made rebloggable by request)
