When Do I Need a Sensitivity Reader?
If you’re like many writers, you want to avoid harmful stereotypes in your work. You don’t want to harm anyone, and you worry about getting […]
Articles
Can You Write a Minority Main Character If You’re Not?
If your story has a lot of diverse characters, like an LGBTQ+ or Black-majority cast, that gives it automatic points in the eyes of certain […]
How to Write About Mental Health Conditions
The media today is riddled with harmful portrayals of people with mental health conditions. Whether a novel insinuates a character’s anxiety is their fault, or […]
How to Write About Autism
According to the CDC, 2.21% of US adults are autistic, meaning 5,701,800 people. That’s likely not even counting all the undiagnosed. Writing them well, then, […]
5 Harmful Mental Health Condition Stereotypes/Tropes in Fiction
Mental health conditions are far too often either vilified or romanticized in popular media. The characters with mental health conditions are either the crazed, bloodthirsty […]
6 Harmful Autism Stereotypes/Tropes in Fiction
Good autism representation not only makes people view autistic individuals more positively and realistically, but also helps autistic people have a character they can relate […]
9 Harmful Disability Stereotypes/Tropes in Fiction
We need more disability representation in fiction—disability representation that doesn’t use stereotypes, harmful messages, and untrue assumptions. Diversity is very important! When people read stories […]