Q I’m currently working on my novel, which features a number of characters whose lived experiences are radically different from my own. How do I express and honour this without falling into insensitive tropes?
A We’re often told, as fiction writers, to write what you know – and while there is some truth to this, it is also the writer’s creed to imagine things beyond their own life. That is, after all, what fiction is all about. Today, writing thoughtfully and sensitively about different experiences than your own has come to the forefront of the conversation.