A practical guide to help authors authentically write and edit a character whose identity is different than their own.
Do you have the tools to authentically write and edit a character whose identity is different than your own? It’s not a subject that’s generally taught in creative writing programs and there are so few craft books and online resources on the subject. Even if you can take a seminar, class, or workshop, there’s nothing like having an easy-to-understand book on hand to provide guidance and insight every time you craft characters with historically marginalized identities.
In Writing an Identity Not Your Own, award-winning author Alex Temblador will discuss one of the most contentious topics in creative writing: crafting a character whose identity is historically marginalized. She’ll begin by explaining what she means by ‘identity’ and why it’s important to understand the state of diversity in publishing, before delving into how unconscious bias and bias blocks are the biggest obstacles to this writing approach. From there, you’ll learn about intersectional identities and specific things to consider when writing different races and ethnicities, sexual and romantic orientations, gender identities, disabilities, nationalities, and more. Through writing strategies, exercises, and literary excerpts, writers will gain a clearer understanding on how stereotypes, tropes, misrepresentations, and harmful portrayals can appear in storylines, dialogue, and characterization. There are even chapters that provide genre-specific advice, identity terms, and stereotypes and tropes related to various identities. Alex will guide writers through the pre-writing phase to the editing process so they can gain a full understanding of the complexities of writing other identities and why it’s important to get it right.
