Writing the “Other” or Writing “Us”

In Storytelling, Portraying Universal Human Experience is Superior to Emphasizing Identity Particulars

My first novel featured a female protagonist. Being that my then writing group consisted mainly of females, the critiques came down pretty hard — “A woman wouldn’t think like that!” they said, or “A woman wouldn’t act like that!” It was an eye-opening immersion into what novelists call “writing the other.”

“Writing the Other” is about walking in someone else’s shoes; it’s about getting into the skin of someone different than ourselves and accurately capturing the emotions, impressions, and experiences of said “other.” Writers must do this all the time. It is essential to good storytelling.

However, in the last decade, “Writing the Other” has splintered into a minutia of identity elements, grievances, and quota tallies. Now, one can find writerly discussions on

• Writing Deaf and Blind Characters
• Writing Fat Characters
• Writing Trans and Non-Binary Characters
• Writing Queer Appalachian Characters
• Writing Native American Characters
• Writing Asexual Characters
• Writing Black Characters
• Writing Autistic Characters

While it can, indeed, be helpful for a writer to explore the unique perspective of specific people groups, such attempts often present a minefield for novelists. For example, it is now common to ask whether white authors can write characters of color. The basic idea behind such a query is that “privileged” groups have great difficulty understanding the experiences and emotions of a marginalized people group. Such concerns inevitably spurred a hashtag movement called #OwnVoices which endorses “books about diverse characters that have been written by authors from that same diverse group.” So rather than straight, white, able-bodied writers writing about queer, BIPOC, disabled characters, it is more favorable to platform authors who actually embody their characters’ specific ethnicity, gender, or socio-economic spheres. More recently, controversy erupted surrounding the novel “American Dirt,” an Oprah Book Club selection, because the story about Mexican immigrants to America was written by a white woman. So while “writing the other” is encouraged, it is laden with cautions and caveats.

As a result, the publishing industry has drastically shifted. For one, the demand for “minority voices” has exploded. Now there are publishers who specifically champion people of color. Literary agents are now seeking out authors who comprise various identity groups and write representative characters, like “stories written by BIPOC authors,” “stories that embrace themes such as LGBTQ+ issues, mental health, interculturality, immigration, identity, belonging and race,” and “narratives centering Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), LGBTQ+, and neurodivergent persons.”

However, this shift has not been without negative affect. For example, I spoke to one novelist who developed a story around a minority protagonist. The author was white and hoped to connect with a more diverse audience. The character was conducive to the urban setting and respectful of the diversity guidelines in the industry. “Sensitivity readers” were employed by the author to insure that the character was portrayed true to life. Finally, the story was submitted. However, the editor made a request — the minority protagonist should be changed to the ethnicity of author. Why? Because white authors writing BIPOC is no longer tolerable. Yet the requested changes would require lengthy edits, which the author begrudgingly did. Ironically, upon re-submission, the book was rejected because of its lack of diversity (e.g., white protagonists nor writers were now being sought). Such testimonies, though often left unspoken, are now becoming commonplace in the industry.

This trend of parsing human identities did not originate in the arts. It is the result of a culmination of social, psychological, and academic ideas. On one hand, this thinking is the logical outcome of relativism. The assertion that there is no absolute truth but that individuals perceive and experience life in many different ways leads some to conclude that truth is relative to an individual’s experience. In academia, it’s led to something called “standpoint theory.” In their book Cynical Theories, Pluckrose and Lindsay define standpoint theory as “the idea that one’s identity and position in society influence how one comes to knowledge” (p. 117). As such, individuals’ experience, especially as it relates to minority and identity particulars like race, economic standing, and gender, become vital. Systems of knowledge are construed that position individuals in or outside of perceived power structures. Thus, elevating “minority knowledge” (meaning ‘truth’ as experienced by a minority class) flips the status quo. As Pluckrose and Lindsay note, “knowledge is inadequate unless it includes the experiential knowledge of minority groups” (p. 196). Not only does one’s individual experience determine what is “true,” but their identity particulars make that unique truth more important to the societal whole.

The publishing industry has assimilated this academic thesis, codifying “standpoint theory” into something of a literary blueprint. As a result, whites (specifically white males who are viewed as being the top of Western identity hierarchy) are ill-equipped to accurately portray marginalized characters, and do so at their own peril. Rather they should be replaced by marginalized voices. Likewise, libraries are said to need “de-colonized” — gutted of white, colonial, European, male, hetero-centric, cis-gendered authors and ideas. Why? Because doing so allegedly flips the script, empowering minority voices who bring heretofore unrealized new truths to the table. In this way, relativism compels us to deny a universal human experience in favor of atomized individual experiences and the particular ‘truths’ they engender.

As a Christian author, how should one view this move towards inclusion and diversity in publishing… especially as it seeks to “de-center whiteness” and center minority voices and experiences?

On the one hand, Scripture affirms the individuality, particular experience, and uniquenesses of all people. We are not automatons. We look different, make different choices, come from different backgrounds, possess different gifts and talents, and occupy different stations of life. The range of characters represented in the Bible is vast — from kings, to commoners, to shepherds, to prostitutes, to soldiers, to slaves, to queens, to rich and poor. The mention of different ethnic cultures is equally diverse — Egyptian, Babylonian, Hebrew, Grecian, Roman, Ethiopian, etc. Indeed, heaven itself is described as accommodating “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Rev. 7:9 NIV). Furthermore, one of the central teachings of Scripture involves loving others as ourselves (Mk. 12: 30-31) and opening our eyes and ears to the sufferings of the marginalized and outcast (Pr. 21:134). So in this sense, a biblical case could be made for celebrating diversity. In fact, the very description of the Church as the “Body of Christ” (I Cor. 12:12-14) captures the diverse nature of the people of God.

Nevertheless, a fundamental tenet of a biblical worldview is that human experience is foundationally the same. We are ALL created in God’s image. We are ALL sinners. We ALL yearn for relationship… with God and others. The most important characteristics of the human species are not what makes us different, but what makes us the same.

This is especially relevant as it pertain to storytelling.

In his helpful writing resource, The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop, Stephen Koch notes that one of the powers of good fiction is its ability to reflect universal types:

Certain novices feel so painfully afraid of letting any hint of ‘stereotype’ creep into their work that they stumble over one of the most basic truths of the art. Fiction and drama — all fiction, all drama — see and recognize individuals only through the prism of types. There is no individuality in fiction without the typical. A character’s type is the doorway through which she or he enters the reader’s imagination. If you are afraid to show how a character is typical, you will never be able to show anything special about her or him either. We are none of us sui generis. We are all typical of something; in fact, we are typical of many things. At the the same time, we are also absolute individuals: uniquely ourselves, facing our fate only while occupying some definable place in the world, and our individualism can articulate itself only through the lingua franca that comes with our role.” (italics in original, bold mine)

This idea of typicality, of a shared human experience, of basic types of people and knowledge, is crucial to both a biblical worldview and fictional storytelling. We can best recognize a person’s individuality by seeing them paradigmatically. Or as Koch puts it, we can “see and recognize individuals only through the prism of types.”

In this sense, shared humanity is more important than individual experiences. In fact, it’s our individual experiences that reflect our “sameness” more than our “otherness.” Our journeys and experiences differ wildly, but they always bring us back to core universal questions — questions about love, justice, self-worth, community, acceptance, morality, mortality, destiny, etc.

Of course, every human experience is unique. No one has experienced life exactly like you! Even people who share our gender, ethnicity, social class, geographical locale, and general upbringing can be incredibly different than us. Intrinsic similarities are no guarantee of homogeneity. All blacks do not think alike. All immigrants do not value the same things. All whites do not have “privileged” backgrounds. However, the Bible confirms that “all” people are the same in the most basic, yet important areas.

• We are all created in God’s image.
• We are all fallen in sin.
• We all have God’s Law imprinted in our heart and mind.
• We all yearn for hope, heaven, and spiritual wholeness.
• We are all loved by God.
• We are all in need of salvation.
• We must all come through Christ to the Father.
• We will all die.
• We will all stand judgment before God.

When the Bible says “The heart is deceitfully wicked” (Jer. 17:9), this isn’t an isolated claim. It’s not just an indictment of white cis-gendered males. It’s not true only of criminals or malcontents. All humanity, no matter what race, gender, or social class, share in this spiritual affliction. Both the immigrant and resident native are ruined by sin. Both the rich and the poor will face judgment. Males and females, the marginalized and the elites, all yearn for mercy, grace, hope, acceptance, and a sense of purpose.

While contemporary ideologies drive wedges between human experience, pitting oppressors against the oppressed, the more privileged against the less, the Bible appeals to our similarities. One’s personal “standpoint” does not exempt them from the truths of our universal human experience.

Likewise, the most powerful aspect of storytelling is not in highlighting identity particulars, but in tapping our shared human adventure — the suffering, the grief, the struggle, and the redemption. Human rights themselves are based on the assumption of a shared human experience. The refugee, the outcast, the enslaved, are our brothers and sisters. The goal of the author is to make our “neighbor” real and help us empathize with her plight. But it’s also to connect this individual struggle to a more universal one — the struggle to be everything God made us to be. Rather than highlighting the fragmented particulars of our individual identities, the author does well to tie those particulars into the universal, the typical; to appeal to our shared humanity.

Individual experiences inevitably drive us to universal truths. For it’s the universal truths that bring meaning to our individual experiences.