I’m writing a story that takes place in the County I grew up in. It has aliens and an antagonistic federal government. In my mind, if that were ever to happen, the local tribes would be the ones to defend an extraterrestrial from the feds. Especially if that alien provided technology for that defense. The alien provides both a reason and the technological resources.
But the aliens have a troubling history. A long time ago, some of them left behind parasitic ghosts that feed on humanity’s faith and thoughts. These are real beings that exist in humanity’s collective unconsciousness. They appropriate our gods and spirits and they have drastically different ambitions than we do. Through coercion and deceit they manipulate our characters into doing things against humanity’s collective interest.
As the writer, I have my own issues with appropriation, colonization, and toxic masculinity. When I first started writing, I tried very hard to keep these subjects out. My characters were frequently people of color and/or women and I didn’t think it was a bad thing to include indigenous imagery. To avoid offending anyone, I made up an entire fictional County so I didn’t have to refer to real tribes or peoples. I didn’t have the time or energy to really learn about the real indigenous customs to really do them justice, so I figured a fictional County would be more appropriate.
I thought I was being inclusive when I made my stories feature main characters that weren’t white, cis gendered men (me). But I’ve learned that this is not real inclusivity. Deep down, I gravitated towards this form of inclusivity because it meant I didn’t have to write about me, or my story. This was very attractive because attention makes me uncomfortable.
I want to write stories that take place in the place I grew up in, but I realize the land I grew up on has a history, and trying to include those people in the stories I want to tell is not as simple as picking up a pen. I happen to have more time and energy these days and I’d like to learn more about the place I grew up in so I tell my stories in a way that is respectful and in a way that is authentically mine, and not someone else’s story to tell.
And so far this has been a really positive experience for me. I’ve found changing main characters to someone that more closely resembles me allows me to enter the story on a more intimate level. It makes it more engaging and fun for me, which makes the entire creative process more enjoyable. The added benefit is that I know I’m not taking up the seat of someone who has been marginalized.
This is not over-edited story telling. It’s not inauthentic or too sensitive or too “politically correct”. I’m telling the story, and I am an imperfect vessel, and those imperfections will change the timbre of that story. Ignoring my imperfections to focus on someone else’s is not what I want to do.
But, the crux of the story still centers around the alien contact in a small rural community and how that would actually play out. So I need to do research on who those people really are. The fictional County was called River County. So far I don’t think I’ve written myself into too deep of a hole narratively. I think I refer to River County in the Algorithm Interviews Part II, and I think there’s a road sign in Enter Cedar that mentions River County.
So I’ll be taking a break to complete the following courses:
- “Writing the Other” workshop book by Nisi Shawl & Cynthia Ward
- The Great Courses: Native Peoples of North America
- Field trips to places like the Hibulb Cultural Center, the Duwamish Longhouse, and the Yakama Nation Cultural Center.
