this is less of a writing blog and more of a question for everyone. How do you write what could be a negative (but important to the character) without being utterly offensive. Yes, I know you can't avoid offending everyone but on the other hand you CAN offend the many if you do things wrong.
What brought this up is this book i'm reading The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths. Someone recced this mystery to me (Can't remember if it was here or elsewhere) and while I like the mystery part, Ruth, the main character absolutely has me THIS close to quitting the book. (which will suck since it fits one of my popsugar prompts and I paid full price for this thing)
I'm overweight, by a lot. I do not like this about myself. On the other hand I'm not always thinking about this. I dress however I please for myself. Would I change this? Yes I'm working on it (and yes there are a subset of overweight people who find that alone offensive. I've run into that).
Anyhow Ruth in chapter 1 is talking about wearing only black because she's fat. Okay in the 90s and early 00s (this was pubbed in 09) that WAS the rec for overweight women. Wear black it's slimming. Uh huh. In ch 2, she is paranoid about getting into the car with the detective because what if the seatbelt won't go around her (I have never had this fear, in an airplane, yes, car no), images a siren blurting out from the seat giving away how fat she is. in ch 3, the detective is thinking about how fat she is, how she can barely do her job because she can't walk to the site (she's a field archaeologist) and how horrified his wife would be at how fat she is. ch 4 has her being picked up in a police car and she images it's for the crime of being single and fat. Thankfully the next few chapters don't mention her weight but....
So how fat is she? 12 stone. For the Americans of the group that's 168 pounds. Let that sink in. This woman is barely 30 pounds overweight. I thought she was going to be the size of someone who might have a weight-based show on TLC, my 600 pound life or something. I was put in mind of my friend at work and her struggles (she is in that weight range). ALL THIS FUSS and she's 30 pounds overweight. I'm literally 100 pounds more than here and I can still hike a few yards without breathing hard. Never have I worried I'm too fat for a car seat.
It made me a) want to not read this book b) wonder how to make a character unhappy with their physical appearance without being horrendously fatphobic or ableist etc etc
How do/would you handle it? I think in some ways I do a decent job of it (points to story in yesterday's post) For example while it's not really in the canon, it is in Viv's notes and is a huge part of fanon. Angel Dust hates his feet. I'd like to think I did a decent job of depicting that without being obnoxious or insulting.
There has to be a happy medium, right?
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