Popular media isn't up to providing realistic characters who are disabled, so how can you, as a writer of fiction, do any better? Simple. Just write them as people.
Writing realistic characters with disabilities in the several forms of popular fiction appears to be a challenge most writers cannot handle. If you take a look at just about any disabled character in recent movies, television shows or novels you will quickly come to the conclusion few authors have the desire or ability to make them match real life. The very preponderance of Academy award winning films concerning people with disabilities points to this. Since popular fiction seeks to emphasize drama and suspense or heart-warming stories, faithful depictions of people with disabilities simply don't make the grade.
How then can a writer of fiction resist the temptation to develop characters who are not either stereotypically saintly, creepy or wisecracking curmudgeons that people so many recent books, films and TV shows?
- Henry, the blind radio announcer in Stephen King's Black House whose superhuman hearing lets him locate a car door handle - some sort of sonar;
- Tom Hanks' high functioning mentally retarded Forrest Gump whose rather pleasant simplicity results in his being rewarded with opportunity rather than acting as a barrier to it;
- Hugh Laurie's brilliant Dr. Greg House on Fox with his cane, pain and bad attitude.
"People love to see these kinds of movies when the downtrodden overcome adversity and barriers," observes Steve Safran, a professor at Ohio University who conducted a 1998 study* of portrayals of people with disabilities in Academy award winner. "But most film critics will tell you there is very little reality basis in the film."
It is a simple fact that people with disabilities are just people. Disability neither by itself makes a person more angelic nor sinister. People who do not have disabilities tend to assume growing up with or experiencing some sort of physical, sensory, intellectual or psychiatric impairment utterly changes his basic character. Since being disabled is the one "minority group" anyone can join in the blink of an eye through illness or accident, it's good to know that a disability simply adds a factor to personality rather than defining it.
Exercise: Rethinking your Thinking
Try this writing exercise to learn not only how to write characters who have disabilities but also to uncover some assumptions you may not know you have.
- Write a brief story about a dinner party attended at a restaurant by eight friends.
- Name the characters, give them occupations and relationships, interests and experiences with no prejudice as to each person's likelihood of being disabled.
- Engage them in conversations just like you would have in a similar setting, about kids, politics, American Idol, and the price of gasoline. Though each character's contributions to the discussion reveal something about him or her: knowledge, interests, biases, fears.
- When you are finished and have created these well rounded and believable characters, write each one's name on a scrap of paper and put these in a paper bag.
- Draw just one slip of paper and note whose name is on it.
- That person, whom you already knew and presented, is now the one disabled person among the friends.
Now it's time to reflect. Think about whether you need to change anything in the story. Chances are, unless you choose a blind person who is an airplane pilot, you will not need any edits.
Why? Because the fact is people with disabilities are just like anyone else.
* Hollywood Increases Film Portrayals Of People With Disabilities, Dwight Woodward in Science Blog.
