I have a character, who is going to be my main character in my story. His name is Jaime Garza, he is Mexican, Bisexual, a poet… etc.
I am all of these things.
He is also deaf.
I am not.
He wasn't always, and he went through a period of depression and a whole bunch of other stuff while he learned to adapt to his new situation. The story isn't about that, it's just a part of his backstory. It's a part of his character.
The thing is, characters of certain demographics that are written by people not of that demographic tend to be horribly written, made into stereotypes, and butchered in so many ways.
And I'm really scared of falling into that trap. Should I even write this character at all?
I know, research research research, but I also don't want to fall into the trap of making his entire characterization his deafness.
Please help? What do I do?
Research. Reach out to a deaf person or a friend with a loved one who's deaf. It is 100% okay to write a character as something you're not. I mean, I'm an asexual biromantic white teenaged girl with depression, and I have characters who are different sexualities, races, ages, and/or genders than myself, I just research and reach out.
Dude, my MC is a Half-Dragon. I think you'll be okay as long as you get your facts right.
I have a lot of characters who are things that I'm not, so I've had to do a lot research and here are some tips that have helped me:
- Google "how to not write a deaf character" (you can sub out deaf for anything else as well). Often what I've found in doing this is that you get a lot of blog posts, forums, etc. of people who belong to x group just outlining inaccuracies, harmful stereotypes, and other things that they just don't want to see.
- If you don't know anyone irl that can help you, luckily the internet exists and there's lots of people who would be willing to answer any questions you may have. Tumblr is a great place for this, but there might even be some people here that could help as well.
- Read media that's been written by deaf people. Even if it's just fiction, no one is going to write a deaf person more accurately than an actual deaf person.
- Since you mentioned stereotypes, just straight up google "deaf stereotypes." Now you know what they are, and can hopefully avoid them in your writing.
- A lot of people in threads like this will tell you "just write them the same way you would write any other character." I think this is true to an extent- you want to give them a real personality, likes and dislikes, hobbies, quirks the same way you would with any other character. But a character who is deaf is going to have different experiences than someone who isn't, and that could affect all the aforementioned things. I can't really tell you where to go from there since I'm not deaf, and this really just circles back to everything that I've already said, but that's usually something that I keep in mind when I write characters who are things that I'm not.
