Referencing Disability in Literature

I've been blogging about literary writing.  One aspect of literary writing is tackling important and current issues.  One thing that sets literary works apart from their less literary counterparts is their ability to take a close and meaningful look at themes that are important to contemporary audiences, in particular, and to humanity, in general. 

Modern readers can open a window to various time periods by reading the literature of that time.  If one wants to know what issues concerned Shakespeare and his contemporaries, one need only to read his works.  He dealt with corruption, revenge, loyalty, royalty, ambition, love, madness, idealism, deceit, war, and so many more themes.  Many a reader has explored such themes to understand his world as well as human nature, in general.  Mark Twain explores themes of slavery vs. freedom, nature, and conscience.  If one wants to explore civil rights issues that concerned Harper Lee and others as she entered the sixties, one need only read works like To Kill a Mockingbird.  Orwell, in writings like 1984, Animal Farm, and others, helps readers explore contemporary fears of totalitarianism, technology, psychological manipulation, and other, similar themes.  These works continue in their meaning because they explore concerns with continued relevance. 

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In order to write in a literary fashion, a writer needs to explore meaningful themes within one's writing.  One modern theme to which some writers have turned is disability.  There was a time those with disabilities were mocked, derided, and destroyed within reality and in literature.  The mad woman in Rochester's attic within Jane Eyre was locked away then self-destructed.  A contemporary writer recreated her story in Wide Sargasso Sea, showing the same story through her eyes in a way that is eye-opening and much more subtle and complex.  Modern writers increasingly tackle disability as a reality for minor, major, and even main characters.  Disability is a major theme in law, in pop culture, and throughout society as more and more people step forward to share the challenges and joys faced by those with various disabilities in factual and fictional sources.  For instance, The Fault in our Stars tells the realistic love story of two youths dying of cancer. The novel was turned into a movie and gained a wider audience.  The Percy Jackson series is modern fantasy and shows youths dealing with ADHD and dyslexia.  Temple Grandin writes multiple factual books on her experience to help others understand.  Disability has becoming an increasingly common theme throughout modern literature and culture, in general. 

One caution is that anyone writing about a disability should do adequate research to do the disability justice.  Temple Grandin, herself, points out she originally assumed all people dealing with a similar kind of autism would experience things as she did, but she discovered hers was only one perspective on that disability.  Writers dealing in a shallow or unresearched way with disabilities will throw those who understand the disability out of the narrative.  It will be clear to experts in the field that they didn't do their homework. 

As with many other important themes, disability should be handled with respect and understanding.  When done right, it can increase value and meaning of your work for modern readers and beyond. 

The Three Styles Challenge

I've been blogging on how to write in a more literary fashion.  I've heard about an art challenge to imitate the artistic styles of those one admires.  It's a common challenge found on YouTube.  However this challenge has been around for a very long time in multiple fields.  In art classes, I practiced emulating artistic styles of some of the greats as many have done before me.  I've also had been assigned essentially the same challenge but with writing styles.  If you want to learn how to write like the greats, it helps to consciously practice imitating those styles.  Assess what you like about that or those literary styles and do what they do. 

In high school, my English teacher ran out of time to work through both our Greek myth unit and our writing styles unit.  So she had us select three writing styles and three Greek myths.  We were to rewrite the Greek myths in those specific writing styles.  For "Cupid and Psyche," a tale related to the familiar "Beauty and the Beast," I imitated a specific children's book.  I took note of the repetition of the style, its simplicity, and its manner of addressing the reader and did likewise.  "Who was taken away by a mysterious being to become his wife?  Psyche!"  I took the Perseus myth with the Minotaur and rewrote it in the fashion of Joan D. Vinge's Psion.  I used the rough, angry first person prose of the sci fi juvenile dystopia and employed those techniques in the tale.  I took the intensely descriptive, almost purple, style of the Shannara series by Terry Brooks then rewrote yet a third tale.  This was a most fascinating writing exercise anyone can do.  Rick Riordan has made a career of rewriting myths of various origins with the Percy Jackson series and other series except he's invented his own style. 

You can do likewise, if only as an exercise.  Find a writing style you admire.  Does Bronte's Jane Eyre excite you?  Then study her Gothic romantic prose.  What about Austen's Pride and Prejudice?  Study her use of adjectives, adverbs, and dialogue.  Look at the description of each country ball.  Look at how she writes romantic scenes or the rejections of proposals.  What makes her style work?  Do you love Dumas's Count of Monte Cristo?  Look at how he builds suspense, how he illustrates his action scenes, and how the "count" plots revenge against those who destroyed his life.

Once you have done a careful analysis of the style of a literary author who impresses you, use those techniques to rewrite a Greek myth, a fairy tale, or some other simple story you know.  Tell the story of your first day in college in the manner of Shakespeare's Hamlet.  Retell yesterday's shopping trip in the manner of Twain or Hemingway or your favorite poet.  Tell about your most traumatic childhood experience through the dark and brooding tones of Poe.  This exercise may help you come up with something new or learn techniques to rewrite something that feels old and stale.  You obviously can't become that author.  But they're remembered for a reason.  What makes them tick?  What makes them memorable and beloved?  Figure it out and use those techniques for yourself. 

Loss at the Center of Literature

I've been exploring the idea of making your work, any writing you do, more literary.  Have you noticed that much of literature is about loss?  So many storylines start with the memory of past loss.  Main characters flash back to losses of children, parents, spouses, etc.  Alexandre Dumas's Count of Monte Cristo begins with and centers on a plot by his friends to take everything from him, and the rest of the story deals with what he does as a reaction to loss.  Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre, Taran Wanderer and so many other stories start with an orphan who is forced to find his/her way in the world because of the death of both parents.  Most novels or series of novels, such as Harry Potter, based on Joseph Cambell's hero's journey pattern feature a father's (or father figure's) death as does Shakespeare's Hamlet.  To Kill a Mockingbird, Emma, "Cinderella," and other tales have a single father making mistakes as he tries to raise children alone.  The evil stepmother is such a common trope in fairy tales and other literature because loss of spouses has been such a common experience.

If literature doesn't start with loss, it often centers around characters trying to avoid loss of some sort, whether it be through death or some other means.  Shakespearean tragedies are built on the theme of impending loss.  Adventure stories have main characters grappling with the risk of death on a regular basis.  Pride and Prejudice centers on fear of loss of home and livelihood. Jane Eyre's central theme of loss extends not just to her loss of parents and childhood friend but also to her loss of home after home, hope for the future after hope for the future.   Loss is at the center of what makes literature powerful because loss is at the center of human experience.  Past loss can also make a character more understandable.  If a character cares about or has cared about someone and has experienced or experiences a broken heart, we often feel for that character because we, too, have been through loss.  We see some piece of ourselves in those characters.

So it's time to consider your own characters.  What loss have they experienced before your novel begins?  How does that make her/him more understandable and empathetic to readers?  Remember that any presentation of loss should feel like it could have happened.  It should feel real to the reader, whether they've experienced that kind of loss or not.  If you simply say a person has lost a child, but yet that character doesn't behave as would someone who has lost a child, those readers who have lost a child will not like your story or character at all.  It will feel wrong, contrived.  Loss should have an impact on the character and, thereby, on the story.  

Is your character in danger of loss?  What is at stake through the story?  How does that play into or echo loss they've already experienced?  If nothing feels like it's at stake for your character, why should the reader care?  Look at loss as it is handled in your favorite literary works.  How can you handle this theme likewise?   Best of luck.

Dive into Meaning

These last few blogs, I have addressed various literary devices that turn a decent piece of writing into something more meaningful than just a story.  I have been reading a manuscript written by someone who calls it "literary fiction."  I've had to inform him there is nothing literary about his fiction.  The story meanders without purpose or deeper meaning from event to event, drawing no conclusions and making no suggestion at anything deeper.

What makes literary fiction?  Literary fiction is a manner of describing events that shapes meaning through literary devices such as those I've described.  This genre of fiction exists not just to tell you once upon a time, something happened but that once upon a time, something happened for a reason or multiple reasons.  If you are not writing with purpose and theme, you are not writing in any way that could be called literary.  And any genre, if well handled, can become at least somewhat literary.

What is a theme?  Theme is simply meaning.  You can incorporate multiple meanings into one story, but if there is no theme at all above and beyond bare facts, why are you writing?  Why tell the story?

Obviously, there's much more to it than this, but all of these literary devices are meant for one purpose: to suggest something grander is going on than just simple events.  You can read To Kill a Mockingbird as a set of fictional events in a made-up child's life.  However, if you do, you miss much of what is going on beneath the surface.  You miss the grander themes of prejudice, child abuse, hatred, love, and so much more.  You can read Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet as depressing yarns in which a whole series of people die, but then you may as well read a cheap thriller.  Shakespeare's plays explore questions of love, loyalty, family, murder, revenge, and language, among other things.  Clearly, the authors built these tales as carriers of depth and meaning beyond just the events described.

So how do you explore themes with your works?  This depends on your writing process.  You could simply write the bare bones story and then decide on what meanings you find yourself exploring or you could decide in advance what meaning or meanings you wish to address through your writing.  I decided with my first manuscript to explore child loss as part of the tale because I'm working on healing from the loss of my baby almost seven years ago.  For more on this, look to another of my blogs, Alamanda's Place.  I consciously decided that was one of my themes before I ever started typing.  That was my starting place, why I wrote the story.  Other themes have grown organically out of the story as I've gone along.

 Harry Potter writer J.K. Rowling started writing her tale as the story of a child wizard, but as she went along, she consciously wove deeper themes into her novels such as death, resurrection, love, and friendship.  When she started to explore those deeper themes that spoke to the human condition, she began to write fantasy in a more literary fashion.  If you haven't done so already, go to your latest work in progress and brainstorm what themes you can find in your own work.  What greater statements about the human condition do you make?  If you can't find any, what themes do you WANT to explore?   You don't want to tack something on that feels tacked on, nor do you want the narrative to become preachy.  Either way, you're bound to turn readers off.  Look at your favorite books.  See how the authors have woven themes throughout their tales so you can see how they do it.