For this month’s #AuthorToolboxBlogHop I’m going to talk about knowing your limitation as a writer.
I had a friend read a few chapters of my WIP and while she liked it, she was also kind of upset that my main character was a straight white girl. My cast of characters is pretty diverse. My main character lives with her aunt. Her aunt is married to a black woman who has a son from a previous marriage that the main character loves like a brother. None of those characters were just written that way, they evolved as I wrote them. She would like me to make the main character a bisexual woman of color.
I do not agree with her.
Not because I don’t think a bisexual woman of color deserves to have her story told, but because I am not the person to tell her story.
I am not bisexual, gay or questioning. I’m not a woman of color. I know that I write best from personal experience and that I wouldn’t be able to do her story any justice. I know I could research and I could interview people but I know my limitations as a writer.
Now, I am not saying that a writer can’t write outside of their experience. That would be stupid and dangerous. I mean, To Kill a Mockingbird would have never been written if Harper Lee didn’t feel capable.
What I am saying is that I don’t feel like I am the one to write that story, especially with the story I am working on.
Someday I might be able to write a story with a person of color who is questioning their sexuality at the center of it, but not now. I know I am not ready and I know I not the writer to write that story.
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