Workshop at S@H! Fringe Litfest: Empathy in fiction writing

As a part of the Stay at Home Fringe Litfest organised by the students in Glasgow Uni's Creative Writing department, I hosted a workshop called 'Watch Your Language', part-writing, part-sensitivity training in how to create responsible depiction of neurodivergence in fiction. Here are all the details:

Watch Your Language!

Workshop to discuss how stories can be sensitive in the language around ‘disability’

Brief description of event:

Mode: Zoom

The recording is available here: https://youtu.be/9wSlqDjqt0Y

The presentation is available online here or as a .pdf here:

Lived Experiences in Fiction

.pdf

Download PDF • 7.27MB

Here is the transcript of the audio, to make it accessible to all: Workshop Transcript

Concept Note: The description/depiction of mental illnesses/psychosocial disabilities, neurodiversity and physical disabilities in fiction is susceptible to being mired in insensitive imagery and language. The temptation to dramatize or sensationalise a traumatic event is always present: fiction and non-fiction alike, but when a writer chooses to broach this topic, it is up to them to handle it with empathy.

Workshop tools:

• Excerpts from fiction that do/don’t handle the theme sensitively

• Alternatives to plot points, words and phrases

• “Expert by Experience”: research

Ideas:

• Person-first versus identity-first language

• Stigmatizing language versus safer language

• Use of humour to ‘humanise’ a situation that has been robbed

• Research about such issues usually involves experts; it’s time to consider including people with lived experiences

Books mentioned in the workshop Memoirs:

• How to be alone by Lane Moore

• Maybe you should talk to someone by Lori Gottlieb

Fiction:

• Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

• Em and the Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto

• Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

• Twilight series (abusive relationship)

• 13 reasons why by Jay Asher (Problematic; readings: https://www.self.com/story/13-reasons-why-suicide-and-mental-health and https://www.weareteachers.com/problem-with-13-reasons-why/)

• Pretending by Holly Bourne

• Something Like Happy by Sasha Greene

Other resources to read:

• https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/books/book-review-reader-response-coronavirus.html

• Bojack Horseman (Netflix series)

• A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit

• Cultural power of a joke: punching up/down http://www.maskmagazine.com/the-joy-issue/life/stand-up-punch-down

• Person-first language over identity-first (recovery lens): https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/mental-pubs-n-recovpol-toc~mental-pubs-n-recovpol-ref#r78 https://www.mhfa.ca/sites/default/files/safer_language_reference_guide.pdf

• Statistics: https://www.madinamerica.com/2020/05/almost-everyone-meets-criteria-mental-illness/

• WHO Mental Health-related resources: https://www.who.int/mental_health/en/

• https://www.standoutbooks.com/writing-mental-illness/ (wonderful resources on empathetic writing on this blog)

Henry kindly agreed to let me use his illustrations in the presentation. Check him out on Instagram or Twitter.