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Chipped Up
I've written plenty of characters with disabilities before. Grace Kriske in Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep was different. Grace was a challenge, and challenged what I had been doing with disabled characters up until this story.
I think anyone who has read my work or talked about writing with me knows that I have a keen interest in exploring stories with disabled characters, be these disabilities visible or invisible. I am disabled (blindness) and want to explore characters who are as well. I also wanted to get away from the trope I see in so much speculative fiction where the disabled character is an Object to be Cured! By! Science! (or Magic!), or else they play The Wise Magical Disabled Mentor ™ who was once whole and a hero in their own right, but now can no longer adventure/fight/fly/whatever. Though gruff on the outside, they have a golden heart within and will guide THE HERO on his journey. Until they get killed by THE VILLIAN (in order to show just how Villainous the Villain is).
I try to write stories where disable people are just people trying to get through their lives--heroically or otherwise. I write stories where their presence in the narrative is not driven by the other characters need to "fix" them. I try to write stories where that disability is simply part of who they are, as opposed to being the focus, the identifying mark of that character. I think it's important to write disabled characters as the people they are, to show them living and working with, through, and around their disability. To show the reader all the joy, pathos, and the full range of emotions that makes any character (disabled or not) human.
Like I said earlier, Grace in Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep was different. While the disabled characters in my other stories had, more or less, come to terms with their disability and lives, Grace simply cannot. It isn't in her nature. She hates her broken body, blames herself for the accident that ended with her in a wheelchair. She wants to hate every one around her who is trying to help her in their own sometimes rough and bumbling ways, but cannot quite manage to hate them.
Grace lives in a world that is shattered, as shattered as she, and it doesn't have the resources to help her make a life that she wants. There is no strong central government, no Americans with Disabilities Act, no resources. The world she lives in and her own fear holds her back. She puts on a brave front, but underneath feels she is a burden and drain on her family's already strained resources. She is angry and exhausted, and in a moment of quite with her guard down admits that she doesn't know how much longer she can keep up her facade.
And I realized while writing this story, that Grace was never going to be like the dozen or so other disabled characters I had written. She was never going to be comfortable with what her life had become. She mourns for the life she lost, and the world around her has limited options for someone like Grace. She was the most internally angry character I had ever written, an anger designed to hide what Grace thought was her weakness, but she was much stronger than she knew. But Grace was never going to accept her disability and adjust to what her life had become. Grace needed to be reborn into something -- if not better, then at least different. And the world around her needed to be reborn as well. Grace needed a place in the world, and the world needed Grace.
As soon as I knew this about Grace, I knew Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep was going to be a descent and rebirth tale. I had to figure out how to write her journey, how bring her to that point, how to make it her choice to become something different.
I can only hope I did it right. I really feel like Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep is the best story I have ever written and the best example of where I am as a writer right now.
Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep can be purchased at Carina Press, Amazon, and B&N
I think anyone who has read my work or talked about writing with me knows that I have a keen interest in exploring stories with disabled characters, be these disabilities visible or invisible. I am disabled (blindness) and want to explore characters who are as well. I also wanted to get away from the trope I see in so much speculative fiction where the disabled character is an Object to be Cured! By! Science! (or Magic!), or else they play The Wise Magical Disabled Mentor ™ who was once whole and a hero in their own right, but now can no longer adventure/fight/fly/whatever. Though gruff on the outside, they have a golden heart within and will guide THE HERO on his journey. Until they get killed by THE VILLIAN (in order to show just how Villainous the Villain is).
I try to write stories where disable people are just people trying to get through their lives--heroically or otherwise. I write stories where their presence in the narrative is not driven by the other characters need to "fix" them. I try to write stories where that disability is simply part of who they are, as opposed to being the focus, the identifying mark of that character. I think it's important to write disabled characters as the people they are, to show them living and working with, through, and around their disability. To show the reader all the joy, pathos, and the full range of emotions that makes any character (disabled or not) human.
Like I said earlier, Grace in Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep was different. While the disabled characters in my other stories had, more or less, come to terms with their disability and lives, Grace simply cannot. It isn't in her nature. She hates her broken body, blames herself for the accident that ended with her in a wheelchair. She wants to hate every one around her who is trying to help her in their own sometimes rough and bumbling ways, but cannot quite manage to hate them.
Grace lives in a world that is shattered, as shattered as she, and it doesn't have the resources to help her make a life that she wants. There is no strong central government, no Americans with Disabilities Act, no resources. The world she lives in and her own fear holds her back. She puts on a brave front, but underneath feels she is a burden and drain on her family's already strained resources. She is angry and exhausted, and in a moment of quite with her guard down admits that she doesn't know how much longer she can keep up her facade.
And I realized while writing this story, that Grace was never going to be like the dozen or so other disabled characters I had written. She was never going to be comfortable with what her life had become. She mourns for the life she lost, and the world around her has limited options for someone like Grace. She was the most internally angry character I had ever written, an anger designed to hide what Grace thought was her weakness, but she was much stronger than she knew. But Grace was never going to accept her disability and adjust to what her life had become. Grace needed to be reborn into something -- if not better, then at least different. And the world around her needed to be reborn as well. Grace needed a place in the world, and the world needed Grace.
As soon as I knew this about Grace, I knew Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep was going to be a descent and rebirth tale. I had to figure out how to write her journey, how bring her to that point, how to make it her choice to become something different.
I can only hope I did it right. I really feel like Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep is the best story I have ever written and the best example of where I am as a writer right now.
Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep can be purchased at Carina Press, Amazon, and B&N
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