Here are reasons why I have an issue with the general portrayal of disabled people in romance novels:
- Some authors make a long-term disability the central part of all aspects of the character’s life.
- Some authors have used disability for shock value or to create conflict. Yes, having a disability can create conflict, but it shouldn’t be the only conflict in the story. As for using disability for shock value? How cheap.
- Some authors make a long-term disability the hero or heroine’s only personality or defining character trait.
It’s easy to see how these authors imagine having a long-term disability. When they imagine, they see vulnerability, emotional struggle, courage, shame, alienation, etc. The problem is these are usually associated with those who recently become disabled or – for those grew up with their long-term disabilities – with teenage years. So, when they try to imagine, they don’t usually see the person with that disability. Instead they see the disability. Sometimes that’s all they see. And it shows in their romance novels.
Do you wear glasses? If so, do you think about your long- or short-sightedness on a daily basis? I think it’s safe to assume that you don’t. [Well, I'm sure you did during your teens! 
]
What if the author makes short-sightedness the heroine’s only personality trait? The source of all her thoughts and emotions? The main reason why other characters view her in sympathetic light, deeming her heroic, noble and brave? The only conflict of the story?
I think the most common misconception is people with disabilities have nothing else. That their whole life, personality, and all their thoughts revolve around their long-term disabilities. [Of course there are some that do, but they are exceptions to the rule.]
Many make their long-term disabilities part of their lives, so much that they rarely think about them. They only ‘notice’ when practical problems crop up. A woman is reminded that she’s a small person when she can’t reach the numeric panel in a lift. A young man is reminded that he’s deaf when TV subtitles don’t work. A young woman is reminded that she’s on crutches when the dance floor is wet with spilt drinks. And, of course, these strangers’ reactions – from blatant discrimination to choir-singing sympathy – to remind them all.
When those reminders don’t get in their way, they usually live their lives, dealing with same issues that affect “normal” people: there are bills to pay, dirty dishes to do, doctors to see, taxes to dread, children to feed, events to attend, etc. How they deal with all these very much depends on their personalities. The rest – their beliefs, attitude, behaviour and general outlook – are based on who they are, not what they are.
When a hero or heroine in a romance has a long-term disability, I believe it’s important to show that there is more to their characterisation than just their disability.
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Yeah, I’m with you on this issue. I’m working on a book right now in which one of the major characters has a crippled hand. As far as I’m concerned in my portrayal of Chayim Abaynesh (officer for Israel’s Shin Bet), this disability is just one of those things: he does his job well, operates with confidence in his profession, and otherwise just gets on with life. I could make a big deal out of his hand, but why?
Maili, you are so right. My friend Annie Windsor is a neuropsychologist and she has ranted about the same thing.
I believe that each character must be fully fleshed out no matter what the “disability” may be. The characters need to be flesh and blood, real human beings who have many facets to their personality. Being disabled in any way shouldn’t rule their lives in the story. It’s just a part of their daily lives.
A very dear friend is disabled. In a wheelchair. And she cracks me up, she never thinks of herself as disabled until she wants a close parking spot. If I ever wrote a disabled character in my books, I’d want to write her, a woman who thinks of herself like everyone else — with great parking spots.
Thanks for a great post. It’s hard to see something like this and think “cardboard character” but that’s essentially all it is. I had the misfortune/fortune to be in a wheelchair for a month and a half while working. It gave me a great perspective on the daily things a wheelchair-bound person has to face and was very frustrating. (Imagine the women’s bathroom with not one but two fire doors spaced just the size of a wheelchair and without latches so nothing to push against. Luckily, I COULD get out of the chair, just shouldn’t.) Still, by the end of the time, I’d adopted coping behaviors, learned to go to the restroom with a buddy or ram through the doors at speed, got really handy with opening a folding wheelchair with one hand, that sort of thing. The stuff that should be changed, like the bathroom and the fact that I was excused from a jury pool because the jury box wasn’t handicap accessible, I noticed every time. The little stuff necessary to live, I didn’t notice at all after a while. It became part of my routine in even such a short time. Now I know I was different in that I knew it was a short time as opposed to life, but it still provides fodder for my understanding of the world.
Very illuminating post – very helpful. I have an old partial manuscript where the heroine was permanently disabled (her leg) in an accident and the story begins as she’s trying to adjust to a new way of life and re-learn independence. So it’s a major part of who she. Your post reminds me to keep in mind who my character was before her accident – she’s still that person with those personality traits.
Thanks for this!
Very good post, Maili. I agree. The disability shouldn’t be the whole make up of the character or the conflict. The character will definitely be one dimensional if that’s the case. It’s good to remember things like that when writing. The disability can add to the conflict, but there has to be more. And man, that conflict stuff can be darn hard to write!
Hey, a writer who latches onto any single feature to define her characters isn’t going to end up with real people. The heroine who’s A Virgin (ooo mrsgiggles defines this best). The hero who’s an ex-SEAL. If that’s all they are, then the book’s not going to be much.
Maili,
I haven’t thought much about this topic, and your discussion of it is quite interesting. Now that I think about it, I have read about disabled characters depicted in both ways–some where the disability seems to be who they are, and others where it’s simply part of that character. Like you, I prefer the latter. Thanks for the interesting read.
Alyssa
Great post, Maili. I’ve read several books that the disability is used as the characters only defining trait. Very frustrating.
Oh, many thanks for these responses! I admit I didn’t expect any responses because the topic is quite complex. When it’s too PC and when it’s too offensive? I regret that I didn’t put in a note that people who have most unPC attitudes toward disabilities are disabled people themselves. I mean, as we know, “crip” is considered an unPC word, but I know a few guys who refer themselves as “crips”. Deaf people truly detest ‘hearing impaired’ or ‘people with hearing impairments’, preferring ‘deaf’.
OK, I’ll shut up.
It’s how we view disabilities, social-based [it's the society that is disabling disabled people] or medical-based [something that needs to be corrected or cured]. I think many romances [and indeed in other forms of literature] tend to go with medical-based perspective.
I just think it’s a pity that authors are not taking advantage of the potential of using disabled characters – e.g. … let me think … the bad-boy blind music composer hero having fun around Victorian London. He may not see well, but he certainly can, with his fingers, feel his way up the heroine’s naked arm.
Many thanks for responding.
I have a weakness for heroes in wheelchairs(or some variant of one). But you’ve brought up a valid point. But when you think about it, in real life we define others based on certain parts of their personality; like when you ask someone what they do for a living, instead of asking them about what things interest them; or when you see a stunning woman walking down the street and assume that they think they are all that. It’s human nature to define others by tiny parts of them. Thankfully in books, we have the opportunity to explore every aspect of a character–if we choose to do so.
I had another author once “correct” me when I referred to my daughter as an asthmatic rather than as a child suffering from asthma. ::eyes rolling:: I figured, her doctor used the term; it was good enough for me!
LOL, Alison! I was deeply amused when a Personnel Officer struggled to “PCise” my two disabilities [dyscalculia and progressive deafness] to my line manager:
“Ms. Ryan is … ah, uh … uh … numeric challenged. And, er .. a person with an advancing hearing disorder.”
Again, many thanks.