Writing Disabled Characters in My 20's

1,246 words

10 minute read

Childhood / Teen / 20s / Early-Mid 30s / Late 30s

Today's post is a post I'm feeling slightly better about.  Because even though my disability attitudes were far from evolved - by my 20's - at least my disabled characters stopped dying by the end of the stories.  They were also growing older.

MOVING SLOWLY AWAY FROM ABLEISM:

I think the primary reason for this shift was due to my own.  In the summer of 2003, Tara and I moved in with our aunt and uncle.  By early 2006, we moved into our own accessible apartment and had our own space.

Moving away from ableism helped my mindset tremendously.  While my writing was far from perfect (trust me, sometimes it was still downright gross), it was growing slowly toward something better than disabled characters exclusively hating themselves and their lives all the time.

My characters grew older because I was also growing older.  As I tended to write characters that were largely my own age or younger, there was a trend for my disabled characters to get a little older, too.  It's also something I attribute to the tide slowly shifting in regards to disability representation in the media.

JOAN OF ARCADIA:

For a couple years in my early 20's, I became a fan of the CBS show Joan of Arcadia, where Jason Ritter (yes, nondisabled) portrayed a disabled character, Kevin Girardi, who was nineteen years old.  But Jason, at least, did his research.  He learned about ableism, and as much as possible, absorbed what it could feel like to be disabled.

This, coupled with the way the writers portrayed him and his family (at least in the first season) was a revelation.  Kevin's mother, Helen, blew my mind when Kevin misunderstood a question she asked about early on in his recovery.  Hurt, Kevin rattles off that he remembers all the personal-care things his mom helped him with.  Helen says, "That's just mother stuff.  You don't owe me anything for that.  Not even thank you."

Seeing moments like these on TV made it possible for me to start exploring disability on a different level - and - exploring how isolated and alienated I often felt in church...all I needed was an outlet.

NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH:

I discovered National Novel Writing Month on October 29, 2004.  It began on November 1st, leaving me with only two days to come up with characters, backstories and a plot.  I was 23.  Writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days sounded like a fun challenge.  I had no idea if I'd be able to do it, but I was game to try.

Little did I know that getting involved in this writing adventure would lead to the imagination and creation of so many more disabled characters.  The first three (Alex, Elise and Jared) you can read about - if you dare - in my 2004 NaNo novel: Belief.

First Series:

Alex:

The first character I ended up delving into in my very first novel was Alex.  (Different from the previous Alex, thank goodness.)  This Alex was female, 20 or so and super fun.  But she quickly discovers that she may have something going on medically.

Elise:

The second character I delved into was Elise.  She'd survived a recent head-injury due to abuse.  At seventeen, she deals with a lot of Post-Traumatic Stress, not to mention, TBI-related symptoms.  Her struggle to fit in to a college-age Bible study as a high school senior dealing with so much is heartbreaking.

Jared:

Jared was the character I unashamedly based around Kevin Girardi.  Somewhat newly injured, Jared is the antithesis of the stereotypical, feel-good, disabled character who is happy all the time.  He's cynical.  He's skeptical (which makes him an interesting fit among all of the Christian kids) and he deals with quite a few of the real, actual situations I dealt with in church and / or Bible study myself as a wheelchair-user.

Ryan:

In 2005, I continued to explore these characters in Mercy, where I introduced a few new ones to the mix.  First was Ryan, a recovering addict, who finds solace in the church late at night when no one else is around. I loved writing Ryan - not like that, I am asexual - but he was super complex, and interesting.  I enjoyed writing him so much.

Josh:

The second newbie to be added was Josh, a fourteen-year-old who 'had  a stroke in utero.'  (So, basically, he has CP, but it's never explicitly stated.)  Josh was a bit more of a stereotypical 'kid-in-a-wheelchair' where he was super smart, super sweet and just all around adorable.  A very 'palatable' disabled kid.

Belle:

And in the last of the books that explored this particular cast of characters, Faith took the reader on a painful journey.  Belle (one of the original characters, who was previously very happy and smiling) slowly begins unraveling and dealing with mental health issues after putting the pieces together about her own past trauma.  (TW: domestic abuse and suicide attempt.)

Second Series:

By 2007 (age 26) I had moved away from church and my writing reflected that. I wanted a new set of characters to explore.  I found them in some college roommates that all meet each other via the on-campus Bible study (which one of the characters lovingly calls, "BS.")

Fall Rising was written in 2008, but sets the scene for my 2007 novel, once I realized I wanted to find out what the characters were like before a massive trauma hit all of them at once.

Jess:

Young single mother to a four-year-old son, Jess must first survive her injuries and then figure out how to adjust to living with a brain injury.

This is because 2007's Community Watch (TWs for gun violence, sexual assault, gay slurs, just a lot of terrible things.  Read with caution) told the story of this group of college kids being targeted in a mass shooting.  The disability representation in this one is actually pretty despicable, as the person responsible for the violence is able to get close to the college kids by long-conning them into believing he is disabled when he actually is not.

Regardless, this is the story where nearly the entire college Bible study is collectively traumatized, and one comes away with lifelong disability.

Morgan:

2009's Smoke & Mirrors takes us through my favorite character, Morgan's downward spiral following her own sexual assault in Community Watch.  She is rightfully traumatized, struggling and without adequate support.  She ends up in the grip of addiction with only her friends there to help.

Libby:

Finally, in 2010's Stowaway, Libby deals with some hardcore domestic violence (serious TW for that) as the friends deal with one of their own going public with their struggle.  (If you read, you'll notice Liam cropping up again here.  Same physical features as in the stories I wrote at nineteen, but an entirely different character here.)

[Image: Me with Dudley, the famous lab-beagle mix at Christimas, 2010, a month after writing Stowaway.  Dudley makes appearances in so many of my upcoming novels - 2015 and 2017 - 2019]

In all honesty, my writing at this point still had major issues.  How I wrote about disabled people was problematic, but also just...bad...was my writing of characters of color in this decade.

So apologies for that.

There are definitely aspects of these stories and characters I enjoy, and writing was still a much-needed outlet for me.

Tune in next week for Writing Disabled Characters in My Early-Mid 30s.

***

Don't forget to connect on Facebook / Twitter / Instagram