If you’ve read some of my other blog posts, you’ll know I talk a lot about casual representation. This is a type of inclusive writing where characters of various identities frolic through a plot that has little (or nothing) to do with their experiences of discrimination as those identities. Many writers aspire to this, especially for identities they don’t share. Those authors often share one common question: How do I get started?
Fear drives many authors’ reluctance to write identities they don’t share. This includes fear of messing up, fear of causing harm, and fear of being reprimanded, among others. Another contributor is a lack of guidance. While there is a wealth of information out there on different forms of representation, it can be hard to ask questions, or to know which questions to ask. Authors might feel like they’re expected to already know everything. If they’re not familiar with all the vocabulary yet, it might be difficult to parse or sensitively navigate the discourse around this topic. They might get overwhelmed or paralyzed, and opt to avoid the matter altogether because they don’t know where to start.
I am not an expert at this. This is not a comprehensive post. I will gladly take questions or feedback on it—just drop by my comments section below! However, I have been on both sides of the casual-rep conversation for many years now. I am a writer with many intersecting privileges who writes identities I don’t share, and I am a reader with many intersecting marginalizations that fall under the casual rep umbrella. Because of this, I often get questions from other authors about how I’ve gotten here. This post is my answer.
Without further ado, here are my 25 steps for you:
1. Check if Something is Your Story to Tell
This question is controversial, but unfortunately necessary. If you are writing a marginalized identity you don’t share, your plot should not revolve around that character’s experience of marginalization. That doesn’t mean you can’t give them that experience at all! This is a matter of scale and sensitivity. If you want to write a story about a quadriplegic person’s quality of life, the racism faced by Black maids, or the Mexican refugee experience in America and you yourself do not have those experiences, step back and take a breath. As a rule of thumb, stories where the primary plot centers on a character’s struggles with real-world marginalization are stories better told by people who share that experience and identity.
2. Set Your Intention
Why are you writing that particular identity? Who is your target audience? What do you plan to do with the book? If you are a privileged author, know that publishing houses might give you an unfair advantage over people writing ownvoices books that represent the same identities. Know too that you are not saving the writing industry or its marginalized readers from a lack of representation. Including the diversity of humanity in your work in a respectful and empowering manner is commendable. It’s also a bare minimum. And it will take work. If you don’t feel you have the time or capacity to do it right, don’t do it at all.
3. Research Histories of Oppression
Every identity’s treatment and depiction in our world has a historical precedent. Becoming informed on these systems and histories of oppression is a crucial part of learning to navigate their representation in the writing world. It is also necessary for becoming a better social citizen all around. This point applies even if you’re writing a genre like Fantasy, with different norms than ours. The impact on your readers remains the same.
4. Practice Listening
If you are new to any kind of representation, there’s a good chance you don’t yet know the right kinds of questions to ask. There’s also a good chance many of your questions can be answered just by listening. Put yourself in spaces where people talk about these things, either online or in person. Challenge yourself to sit there for fifteen minutes, an hour, three hours, without saying anything. You might be surprised how much you learn.
5. Ask Google First
Many common questions about different identities can be answered with a ten-minute internet search. This spares people of those identities from explaining the basics over and over. Take on as much learning work as possible on your own. Prioritize sources by people who share the identity you’re researching. Things like medical websites, mainstream news outlets, etc. should only be used as supplementary resources.
6. Research Stereotypes
Learning an identity’s stereotypes in media is a great place to start your writing-specific research. Common stereotypes are easily searchable, egregiously common, and often deeply, subconsciously ingrained. Many are also easy to spot and fix as soon as you’re aware of them. Check out TV Tropes if you haven’t already, or just search “Stereotypes about [identity] in fiction” to get started!
7. Read Ownvoices Materials
“Ownvoices” is a term that refers to books about characters from underrepresented or marginalized groups in which the author shares that same identity. The writing is inspired by the author’s own experiences and written from their own perspective. Find and read these. They’re not just great resources on the nuance of an identity you don’t share. Reading them is also a great way to support these authors.
8. Examine Your Own Privilege
All of us are human beings made up of a patchwork of identities. Some of those identities carry more privilege in their respective spheres than others. No single marginalized identity negates the need for awareness in other areas, just like no single privilege makes a person immune to marginalization. Take the time to sit and work through your relationship with your own identities, and how they position you in society.
9. Unpack Your Biases
All of us—even those who are ourselves marginalized—carry biases. Some of these are about other identities. Others are about our own. If you researched stereotypes about a particular identity, try to picture a character who’s the opposite of each stereotype. Chances are, your brain will put up some resistance! Examine the results it gives you. Ask yourself why you think it jumped to those conclusions. Link that to what society tells us about that identity. Biases don’t mean you’re a bad person. Just that you were raised in modern society like the rest of us.
10. Ask Permission to Ask Questions
If you know (or find) a real human who shares the identity you’re writing, great! Ask permission before you ask questions. Not everyone is open to answering. Nor are they obligated to educate you. If you don’t know a person, meanwhile, find somewhere online where similar discussions have taken place, or where people of the relevant identity gather. Practice point #4 on this list for a while. Then, if your question still hasn’t been addressed, post it where anyone can see it and answer. If they choose not to, that’s fine. Google it again yourself, or find a different place to try.
11. Just Do It!
At a certain point, you just have to learn by doing. Practice makes progress, and self-education only goes so far. Don’t wait for perfection or total knowledge; neither exists. Don’t let fear paralyze you completely. You WILL still be scared when you start writing, but that’s why this point is only halfway down this list!
12. Make Your Character A Person
I’ve written a whole post about this, but to summarize, get to know your character as a person, not as an identity. List ten things about them that aren’t their marginalization, or directly related to it. Then list ten more. Then add their identity back in and develop that whole list into a 3D human being.
13. You Will Make Mistakes
It is impossible to write another person’s identity flawlessly. In a world where so many internalized -isms exist, it can be hard to even write your own identity without bias or stereotypes. At the end of the day, casual rep is an exercise in fucking up and learning from it. If you’re doing it right, only a fraction of those fuckups will ever make it out into the world. But that doesn’t meant they don’t exist. I’ve made them. My friends have made them. You will make them. Get used to that, prepare to roll with the punches, and be ready to learn from your mistakes so you never make the same one twice.
14. Get Feedback Before Publishing
Even well-meaning fiction can still do harm. If possible, get feedback on your work before you release it into the world. Find sensitivity readers—people who share the identity in question and can screen a book for offensive content, misrepresentation, stereotypes, or bias. At minimum, get a second pair of eyes from someone more experienced than you. An ounce of prevention is worth several pounds of damage control.
15. Ask For Feedback, Not Permission
Ask your sensitivity and/or beta readers what you can do better, not whether you did well. There’s always a temptation to seek approval from people of the identity you’re writing, and to use that approval to deflect future criticism. If you ever find yourself responding to feedback with something along the lines of, “Well, my [identity] friend said it was okay,” stop yourself. Take a step back. Continue down this list.
16. Get Multiple Opinions
This isn’t always a possibility, but if it is, make use of it. No identity is a monolith. People within it will have different opinions, experiences, and sensitivities. Hearing from more than one makes space for more feedback diversity and raises the chances of catching anything egregious in your work. If more than one reader with the same identity has the same concern, you’ve probably got work to do.
17. Manage Your Own Defensiveness
Defensiveness is natural. When we get feedback, criticism, or are told (however gently) that we did something wrong, it is often our first instinct to defend ourselves and our choices. This can range from “I didn’t mean it that way” to “Well, my other reader said it was fine.” You will almost certainly feel this, and chances are, it will never fully go away. This doesn’t make you a bad person. Just human. It’s how you manage the feeling that counts.
18. Thank Your Critics
Make this a habit. It doesn’t matter how scathing or tentative, how major or minor, how much or how little you agree—if a reader who shares the identity you’re writing gives you feedback on your book, the first thing out of your mouth should be “thank you.” No matter how friendly you are, that reader took an enormous emotional risk to reach out to you, and gave freely of their emotional labor. That needs to be acknowledged.
19. Admit When You’re Wrong
If you fuck up, the next things out of your mouth should be “I fucked up” and “sorry.” If you deny or double down, you will lose the trust of your readership, together with all the valuable knowledge and experience and feedback they could bring to you and your books. On the flipside, admitting fault shows you’re truly open and willing to learn, and that you won’t attack readers who have the courage to approach you. This is the kind of author you want to be.
20. Build A Good Relationship With Your Audience
Both the points above fall into this category, but there’s more to relationship-building than thanks and humility. Show you’re open to feedback. Write it in your profile bio, on your author website, or even in your books themselves. Match the scope of any fuckup and apology—if one was public, the other should be, too. If you post online, be active in your comments section. Boost insightful ownvoices opinions before writing your own. Continue to learn and read and admit your faults and shortcomings. Over time, you will build rapport (and trust) with your readers, and both you and your books will be better for it.
21. Don’t Expect Praise
If you do things right, you might get lauded anyway, but your marginalized readers don’t owe you anything. They don’t owe you their praise, their reads, or even their attention. If you are writing with the expectation of love from these readers, revisit point #2 on this list above. If not, know that silence isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can mean you messed up badly, but if you’ve done your due diligence, it’s entirely possible your marginalized readers are silent because nobody has anything bad to say. And that’s a pretty good place to be, all things considered.
22. You’re Never The Expert
This will be uncomfortable. As authors, we like to feel that we have ultimate control over our writing. While technically true, there is a difference here when it comes to casual rep. If you write an identity you don’t share, you are no longer the expert on that facet of what you are writing. No amount of research will ever put you on par with someone who has lived that identity in real life. Sit with this discomfort. It will never go away, and that isn’t a bad thing.
23. Hold Everything Lightly
This point follows from the one above. If you wrote a story whose plot or setting is founded on something your sensitivity readers take issue with, sorry. You may need to revamp your book on a structural level. You may need to change worldbuilding foundations, character arcs, or the story you’re trying to tell. You may need to change your publishing goals or timelines. This is part of your responsibility as a casual rep writer: to be ready to abandon or rework an idea that proves harmful, above your current skill level, or not your story to tell.
24. Fear Is Not Your Enemy
It will never go away. I’ve been at this for years, and my heart still plunges into my stomach the moment I see same-identity readers touch my books with casual rep. This is not a problem. It’s not something for me to overcome. Fear is a powerful motivator to do better. It tells us we still care. If you’re so scared, that fear prevents you from even trying, you’ve got a problem. But if you’re writing casual rep and you’re not scared at least a little, you’ve got some introspection to do.
25. You’re Never Done
This is a learning journey, not a learning destination. Perfection is impossible, and so is expertise. Even if you hypothetically learned everything there is to know about a particular identity and its representation, norms change—in five years, half that knowledge could be out of date again. This, then, means the journey is the important part. Remain open to feedback on your books. Remain willing to edit or admit flaws. Maintain a positive relationship with your readers. And if you’ve done all of the above with one marginalized identity? Great! Now pick a different one and start again.
A big thank-you to all the readers, authors, and other people in my life who have helped me along this journey, and/or who helped me build the list above. I would not be where I am now without you, and I am forever grateful to you for that.