Writing the Other

Hey, fellow white people who write stories! Pull up a chair. I’d like to have a talk about allyship and writing the other. (Everyone else, go make popcorn. We’ll wait.)

This past weekend, comic books had one of its regularly-scheduled dumpster fire moments. There’s this glorified-D&D-campaign comic book which has received a lot of ally cookies for starring mostly female characters. The white male author took the popular female artist off his book to replace her with his original collaborator, an unrepentant male domestic abuser. Word got out, and then things got really fun on twitter dot com. Best was when the author’s wife popped up to do drive-by mudslinging at other women. Comics!

I think a lot of women involved in the comic book industry weren’t too surprised how this went down. Many of us are suspicious of so-called allies, because this is a story that repeats itself over and over again. An ally writes a fictional female character well, but treats real-life women terribly. Or an ally stumbles and mishandles, say, a trans character, and then they have a little meltdown about how everyone is so cruel to them on the interwebs. Cry it out, white boy.

My concern, however, is that the actions of a few shitlords out there make some other white writers genuinely afraid of centering characters of different races / sexualities / genders in their stories. This happens. But you know what? Writing is always hard, if you’re doing it correctly. Put on your big girl pants and write brown people as the wealthy scientist or the epic fantasy heroine, and/or LGBTQ people as the badass mercenary loner. Or strong female characters™ who never throw a punch or fire a gun. It’s called writing. If you’re not interested in writing the other, that’s fine too. But if you are, please get over your fears and just try.

In order to write, you have to listen. You probably wouldn’t write a book about the CIA in the 1950s, or about American soldiers in Afghanistan, without doing your research, yes? So if you’re thinking about writing a character different from yourself, you’d do your research too, yes? And as any good historian knows, primary sources are the best. Those sources can be anything: blogs, overheard conversations on the subways or in coffee shops, autobio, twitter exchanges, whatever. There is an uncomfortable element to this, that there is in all writing: a great writer is a liar, a thief, and a vivisectionist, and that’s the nature of our disreputable occupation. All I can say is try not to be an asshole about it. Steal does not mean wholesale; steal means mosaic theory of information to create something completely new and unique. Listen does not mean interrogate. Don’t treat PoC and/or LGBTQIA people on social media as your google. If you want people to read over a draft and act as a sounding board, for the love of God, pay them. Even if they’re friends. Even if you’re broke and it has to be just a token: $50. Dinner. You’re profiting off their lived experience; they should, too. Remember that the people you are writing about owe you nothing. Not even the time of day.

(Here is an example why research is great. Author Hillary Monahan discusses the use of sexual assault in fiction from a survivor’s point of view, and why you may want to reconsider using it as a shortcut to show that your villain is nasty or why your strong female character™ is so badass.)

In order to write, you have to get things wrong. Most professional writers have long since made their peace with the fact that their stories won’t appeal to everyone (if they did, it’s not writing; it’s pandering). And every so often you’re really going to come a buster and land on your face in front of the whole damn stadium. So what then? You get up, dust yourself off, bow gracefully to the people laughing at you and try harder / fail better next time. Again, most professional writers of long standing realise that writing is an incredibly psychoanalytical exercise. You learn way too much about your own subconscious, your own prejudices, your own shortcomings. Sometimes you learn these things as you write. Sometimes you learn them only as the work is being received. But here’s the thing: we all should be continuing to grow as human beings. If you fail, listen. It is not the aggrieved minority’s job to make you a better white person, but it is your job as a writer to listen and learn. And apologise. None of this “I’m sorry if my story was misinterpreted” fauxpology bullshit. There is no such thing as misinterpretation. Just, “I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

I’ve messed up in the past. (Like, I have said shit like “I don’t see colour” in a forum post. Trust me, if I could go back a decade and smack myself? I would.) I am going to mess up again. Keep watching; I’ll not let you down in screwing up. So maybe you try, too?

And please, please, don’t think of yourself as an ally. We shouldn’t need a special term for “white person who acts like a decent human being”. If you seek attention for yourself as an ally, rather than letting your work speak, you will simply engender suspicion with the very people you are seeking to get pats on the head from. Social justice is actually a pretty crap motivation for choosing ethnicities and orientations of characters. The other really does not need you, white person, stepping in as their great literary saviour. Especially if you are not making conscious choices to work with the very people you write about, eg asking for them as artists, choosing them as co-writers, etc. Ultimately, you can tell the truth of an “ally” by following the dollar. If it all goes to them and people who look like them? Yeah, time to spit in the batter of their next batch of ally cookies.

I know this is touchy ground for a lot of people. I’m interested in your thoughts on this, from writers and readers of any background. I don’t have answers; I just have opinions.