Writing Characters Outside of Your Personal Experience
"Writing Characters Outside of Your Personal Experience" is an investigation into crafting authentic, respectful, and compelling characters beyond our lived realities. As writers, we often venture into perspectives, cultures, and identities different from our own, but how do we do so with nuance and care? This OnDemand webinar will explore research methods, ethical considerations, and narrative techniques to avoid harmful stereotypes while embracing complexity. We’ll discuss the balance between imagination and responsibility and how to write with empathy rather than appropriation. Whether you’re tackling race, gender, class, or ability, this presentation will equip you with tools to create characters that resonate and ring true.
Instructor:
Nikki Payne
By day, Nikki Payne is a curious tech anthropologist asking the right questions to deliver better digital services. By night, she dreams of ways to subvert canon literature. She’s a member of Smut U, a premium feminist writing collective, and is a cat lady with no cats. Author of Pride and Protest, Sex, Lies and Sensibility, and The Princess and the P.I.
