Creating A Disabled Character

Can a Non-Disabled Person Create a Believable Disabled Character?

C.C.O Image Lisa Fotios, Pexels

So you have this brilliant idea for a new novel, perhaps it’s a Young Adult Novel, or a Romance, maybe a thriller, but you’re main character is disabled, perhaps a Spinal Cord Injury, Autism, Cerebral Palsy or Muscular Dystrophy, maybe they are an amputee, but you personally aren’t disabled, can you still write a believable character. I have good news for you, the answer is yes, but throw out all preconceived notions of what it might mean to have a disability and start getting to know your character.

And please do your research, you don’t even have to leave your house to do it. We have a world of information at our fingertips.

Find people who motivate you, and each out to them.

I think Ernest Hemingway said it well

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature. ― Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon

Every person with a disability is unique, your character is too, and forego the inspiration porn, if you’re character is disabled and holds down a job, you don’t need to place them on a pedestal, it’s not that unique. Now if that person is a double amputee running the Boston Marathon go ahead and explore that.